25 Commonly Misspelled Words That Make You Look Bad

There are way more than 25 misspelled words that make you look bad. But these are just a few of the common ones.

Accommodate

Words with double letters are a little confusing sometimes. You’ve probably seen ‘acommadate’ or ‘accomodate’ a few times.

Acknowledgment

There’s a lot of talk about how words work and how grammar makes everything fall into line. But trust me on this, there is no e between the g and m in acknowledgment.

Acquire

Words that combine the sounds of c and q are easy to misspell. After all, a lot of q words tend to use the k or ck sound, and that can create a lot of misspelled words.

Apparent

As one of the most overused and misspelled words around, apparent is one of those that confuses a lot of people. In an era when oversimplification of words is so prevalent though, thinking of the term app should make this simple.

Calendar

Seriously, do people misspell this word? It either speaks to the lack of educational precision or something just as dire if folks are still fumbling with words such as this.

Colleague

It’s fair to think that some folks misspell this word when thinking of catalog or something that might look similar. But if you can think of league and add a few simple letters to the beginning…well, that might work.

Conscientious

Okay, this one is easy to understand as one of the most misspelled words. It’s a bit tough to know where the s, the c, and the t’s go when it’s all said and done.

Consensus

C words are prone to being mixed up in a big way since c can sound like s quite often. It does pay to be patient when learning these, but at some point, one should be able to spell a word with confidence and the awareness of which letter is needed and when.

Entrepreneur

Even veteran writers feel the mental record skip on words such as this if they don’t use them that often. The fact that it’s a French word is an easy excuse to use, but memorize the word, use it often, and you’re good.

Experience

This is a rather ironic word, honestly. If you’ve written the word enough, gained enough of it, and learned from it, then experience should have long ago become an easy word to spell.

Fulfill

If you’re a salesman then you’ve likely used this word a lot. As one of the more misspelled words, this one isn’t a critical mistake, but it gets made when one moves too quickly.

Indispensable

With all the rules that were laid down so long ago when it comes to spelling, English is by far one of the hardest languages to learn. But this is one of those words that confuses a lot of people when it comes to the able and ible ending.

Led

The fact that this word sounds the same despite a different spelling to lead is easy to forgive. But apart from that, it’s a matter of how educated a person really is when it comes to the spelling of this word.

Laid Off

It’s a wonder how people misspell some of these words so easily. At one point the education system appears to have tapered off and left all of the acquired knowledge of years past behind.

Liaison

It’s fair to state that some words taken from other languages are going to stand out as tough to spell. Liaison is one of those that’s easy to say, most of the time, but remembering that it has an a sandwiched by two i’s is a little tough.

License

The biggest argument with this word, in recent times, comes from the difference between the American and English spellings. Not only that, but when it’s used as a noun or a verb it can get a little confusing.

Maintenance

Considering how people pronounce this word it’s not tough at all to think of how some see the spelling in their heads. Instead of getting insufferably technical with it though, one can easily think that if a person works in, around, or with maintenance at any point in their lives, this word should come up enough that it’s easy to spell.

Necessary

Even skilled and veteran writers confuse this one sometimes since the idea of using a double c as well as the double s is, somehow, enticing. But if one breaks the word down and sees why it’s spelled the way it is, things make a little more sense.

Occasion

Considering that this word sees so much use in one context or another, it’s tough to see why it’s misspelled so often. But then again, a lot of people appear to have issues with double c words.

Occurred

Any word with double letters that occur in rapid succession is tough to spell at times. Of course, if only one r is used then the word becomes something entirely different to the eye.

Pastime

It’s easy to guess that one would need two t’s to complete this word since past and time are easy to combine. But the fact remains that this compound word drops one of the t’s to make something a little different than either word.

Privilege

Getting away from the implications of this word, the spelling is difficult for some since it’s tempting to add a second e after the v. How a word sounds and how people spell it gets a little confusing at times.

Publicly

It sounds like it needs a k after the c, right? Some people are even tempted to use the -ally ending, which would needlessly complicate this word’s sound.

Receive

Remember the old lesson, i before e except after c. You see that c there, right?

Recommend

If you start with the word commend and remember that re is a prefix, then you’re good. But as one of the most commonly misspelled words, it’s fair to state that this one trips a lot of people up, even writers.