Definitely cause for concern
Poor old technology – it always gets the blame! Our busy lives mean we’re always looking for shortcuts and texting has enabled us to shorten our words creating a whole language which you only understand if you text.
Interestingly enough though ‘definitely’ wasn’t the hardest word to spell in the list of most popular misspelled words which includes ‘sacrilegious’ and ‘manoeuvre’ in the top ten.
That got me thinking about some of the words that get added to the English Dictionary as our culture and language changes and develops. If a word is misspelt so often, would they add it to the dictionary?
Cracked talks about 15 words you won’t believe they’ve added to the English Dictionary and tells us to fear for our future as ‘grrrl ‘ translated as ‘a young women regarded as independent and strong or aggressive’ makes it onto that list. Others included ‘blamestorming’ and ‘gaydar’. If a word with no vowels in it can be added, could it mean our commonly misspelled ‘definitely’ could make it?
Whilst technology is said to be the cause of our misspelling problem, maybe technology can also be the solution? If you go to Ask Oxford it goes through the commonly misspelt words in our language and gives you guidance notes on how to make sure you spell them correctly.
Whatever happened to the good old dictionary on your desk? Mind you with new words being added all the time, it’s out of date by the time it’s printed!