The Scotsman.
How mistaken English has become norm
JONATHAN LESSWARE
CENTURIES-OLD words and phrases in the English language are at risk of being changed forever due to misspelling on the internet and television, according to dictionary experts.
Lexicographers compiling the Oxford English Corpus - a billion-word database of how English is written and spoken - have come up with a dozen popular phrases which, more often than not, are written or spoken incorrectly.
They include the saying "strait-laced" which is misspelled as "straight-laced" 85 per cent of the time. The word strait means narrow and the phrase was originally used to describe a tightly laced corset.
Another common mistake is changing the correct spelling of "free rein" to "free reign". The original refers to letting a horse go loose, but many assume it refers to royalty.
The word-bank, compiled by Oxford Dictionaries, also records the phrase "just desserts", which is used 58 per cent of the time, instead of the correct spelling, "just deserts".
The Corpus is compiled from monitoring books, TV, radio, newspapers, online sites and "blogs". The researchers believe the errors are partly due to the internet, where wrong spellings appear unchecked, with blogs (weblogs) the biggest culprits.
They found 59 per cent of all written examples of "fount of knowledge" were written incorrectly as "font".
The Oxford English Dictionaries' lexicographer Catherine Soanes said: "Our Corpus has around 150 million words from the web and the way words are written often has to do with familiarity.
"For instance, 35 per cent of people say "a shoe-in" when actually it should be "a shoo-in".
"We have to accept spelling is not fixed and can change over the years. You only have to look back 100 years when the word rhyme was spelled 'rime'. But we adopted 'rhyme' because it is more like the Greek word from which it originally came."
A play on words
THESE are the most commonly misspelled words and phrases - with the correct then incorrect versions:
Strait-laced; straight-laced.
Fount of knowledge; font of knowledge.
Just deserts; just desserts.
Buck naked; butt naked.
Chaise longue; chaise lounge.
Free rein; free reign.
Bated breath; baited breath.
A shoo-in; a shoe-in.
To home in on; to hone in on.
Fazed by; phased by.
Sleight of hand; slight of hand
scotsman.com
How mistaken English has become norm
JONATHAN LESSWARE
CENTURIES-OLD words and phrases in the English language are at risk of being changed forever due to misspelling on the internet and television, according to dictionary experts.
Lexicographers compiling the Oxford English Corpus - a billion-word database of how English is written and spoken - have come up with a dozen popular phrases which, more often than not, are written or spoken incorrectly.
They include the saying "strait-laced" which is misspelled as "straight-laced" 85 per cent of the time. The word strait means narrow and the phrase was originally used to describe a tightly laced corset.
Another common mistake is changing the correct spelling of "free rein" to "free reign". The original refers to letting a horse go loose, but many assume it refers to royalty.
The word-bank, compiled by Oxford Dictionaries, also records the phrase "just desserts", which is used 58 per cent of the time, instead of the correct spelling, "just deserts".
The Corpus is compiled from monitoring books, TV, radio, newspapers, online sites and "blogs". The researchers believe the errors are partly due to the internet, where wrong spellings appear unchecked, with blogs (weblogs) the biggest culprits.
They found 59 per cent of all written examples of "fount of knowledge" were written incorrectly as "font".
The Oxford English Dictionaries' lexicographer Catherine Soanes said: "Our Corpus has around 150 million words from the web and the way words are written often has to do with familiarity.
"For instance, 35 per cent of people say "a shoe-in" when actually it should be "a shoo-in".
"We have to accept spelling is not fixed and can change over the years. You only have to look back 100 years when the word rhyme was spelled 'rime'. But we adopted 'rhyme' because it is more like the Greek word from which it originally came."
A play on words
THESE are the most commonly misspelled words and phrases - with the correct then incorrect versions:
Strait-laced; straight-laced.
Fount of knowledge; font of knowledge.
Just deserts; just desserts.
Buck naked; butt naked.
Chaise longue; chaise lounge.
Free rein; free reign.
Bated breath; baited breath.
A shoo-in; a shoe-in.
To home in on; to hone in on.
Fazed by; phased by.
Sleight of hand; slight of hand
scotsman.com