Carrion Luggage

The State of Spelling

A blatantly US-centric thing from Mental Floss. I don't see anything about when it was published. Maybe my script blocker keeps me from seeing that. So I have no way of knowing how current the data is; add that to my usual distrust of how accurate the data is on that site. Still, I found ways to be amused.

    The Most Commonly Misspelled Word in Each State  
From ‘beautiful’ to ‘supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,’ find out which words America struggles to spell the most, broken down by state.

The English language is complicated.

Com... pli... how do you spell that?

In addition to its complex grammar rules and commonly confused terms, many words are straight up impossible to spell if you’re not familiar with them already.

Technically, all words are impossible to spell if you're not familiar with them already.

Even prominent authors like Jane Austen, Agatha Christie, and F. Scott Fitzgerald were known to struggle with spelling.

This is why editors exist. Or, you know. Used to.

WordUnscrambler found the most commonly misspelled word in each state using search data from Google Trends. Researchers looked at inquiries like “how do you spell,” “how do I spell,” and “how to spell,” considering up to 120 variations of top spelling searches.

That method, to but it bluntly, sucks. It won't give you the most commonly misspelled words. It's just one window into how people try to figure out the spelling of something. Like, if I'm not sure how to spell something (usually someone's name), I don't ask Google how to spell it; I just start typing into the search bar. No "how to spell" or "spelling of" or putting "spelling" at the end.

That's okay, though. Like I said, this is just for fun and funnies.

Many states—West Virginia, Wyoming, and five others—struggle with the word beautiful.

At the risk of plucking the low-hanging fruit: I suspect West Virginia struggles with all kinds of spelling.

Vermont’s obsession with Mary Poppins (1964) is evident, as the state is most curious about how to spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, according to the data.

That's not evidence of obsession. That's evidence that the word (yes, it's made-up, but all words are made-up) isn't in spell checkers, and Vermont has figured out most of the other words.

You can find the complete list of each state’s most misspelled word below:

Obviously, I'm not going to comment on all of them. Many of them are repeated, anyway.

Alabama - Different

Thus reflecting that state's deep distrust of anything different. Y'all ain't from 'round here, are ya?

Alaska - Tomorrow

In the northern parts of Alaska, "tomorrow" can be months away. If you go by sunset/sunrise, anyway.

Arkansas - Quesadilla

Just spitballing here, but I'm betting they struggle with its pronunciation, too.

Florida - Compliment

Of all the associations on this list, this one surprises me the least. Still. Are we sure they weren't trying to spell "complement?"

Hawaii - Luau

OH COME ON.

Indiana - Taught

See my comment above for Florida. This one comes in a close second. Except maybe they were trying to spell "taut."

Iowa - Through

Because almost no one goes to Iowa, except to go through it.

Nevada - School

I'm dying of appropriateness over here.

Utah - Definitely

Considering how many times I've seen people spell this "defiantly," the only surprise is that it's only on this list once.

Virginia - People

I'm only including this because it'd be unfair to make the West Virginia joke up there without calling out my own state. Besides, we spell it "peepul" here.

To be serious for a moment, really, it's okay to not know how to spell something. Last I heard, English has more than a million words. While some fall out of favor, others are added almost daily: those shamelessly stolen from other languages, or ones that are made up out of someone's head and later catch on. Only the most dedicated nerds could possibly know how to spell all of them, and even then, everyone makes mistakes. There's probably one in this very entry.

Looking up the spelling of something doesn't make you stupid. It indicates you're conscientious (I didn't have to look that up) and trying to improve. And I'm not going to rag on anyone for doing that; on the contrary, I praise their efforts to learn something. So, I'm going to go ahead and assume that those Hawaiian searches for "luau" were from the many tourists infesting that archipelago.