Which modern spellings do you refuse to adopt?

[extendedforecast]

I refuse to spell catsup the way it sounds (ket-chup).

 

I refuse to spell night the shorter way.

 

I cringe when I see the words Drive Thru.

 

I always spell okay with four letters.

 

Don't get me started on texting abbreviations that are slowly crossing over. I realize that I am being petty, but I was wondering if there were others like me.

So, if you have time to kill, which word spellings do you refuse to adopt? I'm sure I have others I can't remember.

 

 

Cindy

[Slartibartfast]

Well I am from Oklahoma so I say "Ok"

 

:lol:

[Snickerdoodle]

I don't like any of them, but have been known to use them occasionally.

[extendedforecast]

Well I am from Oklahoma so I say "Ok"

 

:lol:

 

:tongue_smilie: Well, golly, then you are excused.

:lol:

[Annie]

Thru drives me insane. How in the world did that even start?

[snickelfritz]

Kwik

 

A popular chain of gas station around here is "Kum 'n Go" BLECK!

 

 

I will admit that I abbreviate in texting.

[stripe]

I don't like "catsup," so I'm not with you there, I'm afraid.

 

I can't stand things like 2 and 4, or B, like "UR 2 gud 2 B 4gotten," though (not "tho").

 

A lot of these started because of branding. You can't trademark a regular name, but you can a weirdly spelled one (Kampgrounds of America, anyone?).

[BikeBookBread]

Kwik

 

A popular chain of gas station around here is "Kum 'n Go" BLECK!

 

 

I will admit that I abbreviate in texting.

 

I HATE THAT ONE, TOO! It was in North Dakota.

 

I don't like "thru".

[extendedforecast]

Thru drives me insane. How in the world did that even start?

 

I have two theories for this one:

 

1. They couldn't fit THROUGH on the sign, so they shortened it to thru. (unlikely)

 

2. Perhaps the first chain restaurant that started this trend decided that half of their customers wouldn't be able to decode the correct spelling and thus decided to make up a word everyone could read.

 

Cindy

[extendedforecast]

I don't like "catsup," so I'm not with you there, I'm afraid.

 

A lot of these started because of branding. You can't trademark a regular name, but you can a weirdly spelled one (Kampgrounds of America, anyone?).

 

That makes sense, the branding, that is. I guess people just learn how to spell from signs?

 

As for catsup, I don't mind reading it the way you prefer to spell it, I just can't get myself to write it that way, because that was the way I learned it.

 

 

 

Cindy

[Crimson Wife]

Dropping the -ugh at the ends of town names. It's Marlborough, Boxborough, Foxborough, etc. not Marlboro, Boxboro, Foxboro, etc. :D

[joannqn]

Kewl and womyn drive me nuts.

[extendedforecast]

Kewl and womyn drive me nuts.

 

I've never seen those two. Is womyn supposed to be singular or plural? I guess it doesn't matter; I've seen people use women as singular and woman as plural.

[Impish]

Womyn is the militant feminist way of spelling woman/women. Takes the whole 'man'/'men' thing out of the equation. *insert giant eye roll here*

 

For me, I refuse to spell things the American way. Its 'colour', 'theatre', 'mould', 'cheque' no matter what the spell check says. :tongue_smilie:

[tonya in sc]

I am fine with all those presented by the OP. However, there are some things that are just WRONG:

alright

alot

In fact, it is bothering me that spell check recognizes "alright" above, but put the dreaded red zigzag underline beneath "alot."

 

Text spelling drives me nuts. My children hate it, too. They insist on using proper spelling, punctuation, and capitalization in all their texts.

Don't get me started on apostrophes to pluralize. I am with Mrs. Mungo.

[RanchGirl]

I don't care for cancelled. It just looks wrong to me. Canceled is the only way to spell it IMO.

[nmoira]

donut

thru

nite

4

u

letters numbers intermingled (with the exception of the occasional acronym)

[nmoira]

I don't care for cancelled. It just looks wrong to me. Canceled is the only way to spell it IMO.

The former is the British spelling, the latter the American spelling.

 

cancelled

marvellous

counsellor

dialling

but enrol and instalment

fuelling

jewellery

labelled

modelled

etc.

[Suzanne in ABQ]

I refuse to spell catsup the way it sounds (ket-chup).

 

Cindy

 

 

Now, see, to *me*, "catsup" is wrong. I was raised with Heinz Ketchup. That other stuff (made by Hunt's is it?) is just a cheap imitation. It doesn't taste as good. It's runny. I don't buy it. I don't like the sound of the word "catsup". Ketchup is ketchup. Period. :lol:

 

 

 

ETA: I did a google search, and discovered this interesting article. The question was asked by someone named "Suzanne", but it wasn't me. I just happened across the article tonight. Here's the text of the article. If you want to see the original, click here.

 

 

KETCHUP VERSUS CATSUP

 

[Q] From Suzanne: Why is ketchup also called catsup?

[A] Ketchup was one of the earliest names given to this condiment, so spelled in Charles Lockyer’s book of 1711, An Account of the Trade in India: “Soy comes in Tubbs from Jappan, and the best Ketchup from Tonquin; yet good of both sorts are made and sold very cheap in China”. Nobody seems quite sure where it comes from, and I won’t bore you with a long disquisition concerning the scholarly debate on the matter, which is reflected in the varied origins given in major dictionaries. It’s likely to be from a Chinese dialect, imported into English through Malay. The original was a kind of fish sauce, though the modern Malay and Indonesian version, with the closely related name kecap, is a soy sauce.

 

Like their Eastern forerunners, Western ketchups were dipping sauces. I’m told the first ketchup recipe appeared in Elizabeth Smith’s book The Compleat Housewife of 1727 and that it included anchovies, shallots, vinegar, white wine, sweet spices (cloves, ginger, mace, nutmeg), pepper and lemon peel. Not a tomato in sight, you will note — tomato ketchup was not introduced until about a century later, in the US, and caught on only slowly. It was more usual to base the condiment on mushrooms, or sometimes walnuts.

 

The confusion about names started even before Charles Lockyer wrote about it, since there is an entry dated 1690 in the Dictionary of the Canting Crew which gives it as catchup, which is another Anglicisation of the original Eastern term. Catchup was used much more in North America than in Britain: it was still common in the middle years of the nineteenth century, as in a story in Scribner’s Magazine in 1859: “I do not object to take a few slices of cold boiled ham ... with a little mushroom catchup, some Worcester sauce, and a pickle or so”. Indeed, catchup continued to appear in American works for some decades and is still to be found on occasion.

 

There were lots of other spellings, too, of which catsup is the best known, a modification of catchup. You can blame Jonathan Swift for it if you like, since he used it first in 1730: “And, for our home-bred British cheer, Botargo, catsup, and caveer”. [Caveer is caviar; botargo is a fish-based relish made of the roe of the mullet or tunny.] That form was also once common in the US but is much less so these days, at least on bottle labels: all the big US manufacturers now call their product ketchup.

 

Simple question: complicated answer!

Edited March 20, 2010 by Suzanne in ABQ
Additional information

[Jenny Piaaree]

The one that makes me batty is "snuck." :ack2: Somehow it has sneaked - that's SNEAKED - into common usage, even in lots of kids' books. Ugh.

[TengoFive]

It seems like I read an article recently by Ruth Beechick that mentions all right and alright and when to use each, so I assume alright is actually a word its just used inappropriately most of the time. I'll have to look it up to be certain though. Never mind, it was already versus all ready, not all right.

 

Back to the original poster though, most of the text spellings that are crossing over irritate me to no end. Things like "kewl" I just don't understand. It takes just as long to type that as "cool." I pretty much refuse to abbreviate even in texting because it annoys me so much.

I am fine with all those presented by the OP. However, there are some things that are just WRONG:

alright

alot

In fact, it is bothering me that spell check recognizes "alright" above, but put the dreaded red zigzag underline beneath "alot."

 

Text spelling drives me nuts. My children hate it, too. They insist on using proper spelling, punctuation, and capitalization in all their texts.

Don't get me started on apostrophes to pluralize. I am with Mrs. Mungo.

Edited March 20, 2010 by TengoFive

[LaissezFaire]

Doughnut as donut! I HATE THAT. I will never eat at Dunkin' Donuts just because of the spelling. I also abhor text lingo. I am always so proud of my older kids for using proper syntax in their facebook status updates. It makes me grin. Who would want to appear like an uneducated person?

 

The words listed with the double L, I always single L those words.

 

A lot should NEVER be spelled alot.

 

I can't stand to see theatre as theater.

[Ellie]

I've never seen those two. Is womyn supposed to be singular or plural? I guess it doesn't matter; I've seen people use women as singular and woman as plural.

I write "kewl" when I'm on the Internet.:D

 

"womyn" is the feminist's way of writing "women/woman" without using "man/men," because apparently those are sexist.:001_rolleyes::glare:

[stripe]

Now, see, to *me*, "catsup" is wrong. I was raised with Heinz Ketchup. That other stuff (made by Hunt's is it?) is just a cheap imitation. It doesn't taste as good. It's runny. I don't buy it. I don't like the sound of the word "catsup". Ketchup is ketchup. Period. :lol:

 

Okay, now, I thought the same thing...and then I read a review from Cook's Illustrated that said Hunt's was better. (And they too spell it ketchup; their website is http://www.huntsketchup.com !) So I tried it and -- lo and behold! -- it really does taste way, way better. Heinz tastes like tomato paste in comparison.

[Paz]

I feel like my entire spelling issues have been turned upside down. I used to be a spelling snob. My dd is dyslexic and after working with her for all these years and seeing so many different and "creative" ways to spell various words :lol: I am no longer sure how to spell much of anything. I have to keep asking my dh how to spells things.

 

***Not saying that this post is about spelling snobs, don't want to offend anyone*** LOL!

Edited March 20, 2010 by Paz
disclaimer

[babysparkler]

I think the misuse of "their, there, they're" bothers me the most. :glare:

[LibraryLover]

Fwiw, catsup is not a modern spelling.

 

Standarized spelling is relatively recent. If one reads original documents from past eras, you'll see that people spelled words any which way. I find old letters especially interesting.

 

Standarized spelling is a modern convience, really. The past saw little of it. :001_smile:

 

EDT: I see Suzanne in AB already tackled the catusp issue. lol I can rest. :)

Edited March 21, 2010 by LibraryLover

[LauraGB]

I'm a ketchup girl, myself :tongue_smilie:.

 

 

Kwik

 

A popular chain of gas station around here is "Kum 'n Go" BLECK!

 

 

I will admit that I abbreviate in texting.

 

No kidding about the kwik. The kids were in the car with dh and his friend (35 years old?) one day. The friend was searching something on google on his iphone. He looked up, confused, and said "How do you spell quick? It's kwik, right?" :001_huh: (I won't even share the field day my kids had with that one)

 

There is a difference between text speak (which I absolutely detest) and just not knowing because you've seen things misspelled so much, like Kwik Trip and Drive-Thru and donut. Text speak is going to ruin the ability to spell for generations to come.

[Beebalm]

Daily I see incorrect usage of your and you're. Drives me buggy. It seems that your is the only spelling used around here anymore. I see it scrolling across the bottom of the television screen, in local newspapers, church bulletins.....'Your invited to the meeting tonight at 6 p.m. Bring your deposit of $25. We need your input; your valuable to us.' *sigh*

[SquirrellyMama]

I don't like "catsup," so I'm not with you there, I'm afraid.

 

I can't stand things like 2 and 4, or B, like "UR 2 gud 2 B 4gotten," though (not "tho").

 

A lot of these started because of branding. You can't trademark a regular name, but you can a weirdly spelled one (Kampgrounds of America, anyone?).

 

:iagree:

 

I've never liked catsup either. We always called it cat soup. Bad visual for me :001_smile:

[LaissezFaire]

Okay, now, I thought the same thing...and then I read a review from Cook's Illustrated that said Hunt's was better. (And they too spell it ketchup; their website is http://www.huntsketchup.com !) So I tried it and -- lo and behold! -- it really does taste way, way better. Heinz tastes like tomato paste in comparison.

 

My mom always bought Heinz and I was not a fan, when I grew up I started buying Hunt's and YUM! Heinz is way too sweet.

[lcelmer]

Possessive, singular/plural errors, Their vs there confusion and apostrophe abuse. (your, you're etc)

 

English vs. American spelling really messes with my brain. I read a lot, and remember the way the word is spelled by reading it, so I get pretty confused when I read both versions, and then I can't decide which is the right way when I am spelling...

 

Colour vs Color throws me for a loop each time... Mold and Mould..... Akkkkkkk how to choose?????.... :D:D:D:D

[DarlaS]

I don't like "catsup," so I'm not with you there, I'm afraid.

 

 

Me neither--probably has something to do with one of my kids spotting the old spelling on a bottle and asking me (in an alarmed kind of way) what it was made of. :tongue_smilie:

[BearWallowSchool]

Daily I see incorrect usage of your and you're. Drives me buggy. It seems that your is the only spelling used around here anymore. I see it scrolling across the bottom of the television screen, in local newspapers, church bulletins.....'Your invited to the meeting tonight at 6 p.m. Bring your deposit of $25. We need your input; your valuable to us.' *sigh*

 

 

This drives me nuts. It screams at me when I see it!

[Renai]

:iagree:

 

I've never liked catsup either. We always called it cat soup. Bad visual for me :001_smile:

 

This is how my husband pronounces it as well (and many others in our area), as English is his second language. Yes, bad visual, but a nice laugh (almost every time?? :tongue_smilie:).

[Lolly]

I refuse to use home school. I homeschool.