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World Citi Colleges

Caloocan City Campus

Commonly Misspelled words

(In the working place)

A Thesis

Submitted by:

Kathleen Ann Damian

Sakira Denisse Terencio
Eilliene Jane Lomuntad
Jianen Lorca
Marhen Gerriko Cruz
Paulo Carzon

Submitted to:

Mr. Edeson Xyviel Beredo

English II professor

March, 2011
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Background of the

study………………………………………..2

II. Statement of the

problem………………………………………3

III. Hypothesis………………………………………………………

.3

IV. Definition of terms……………………………………...….

…….4

V. Review of related literature…………………………….…..

…..5

VI. Respondents…………………………………………………….

VII. Analysis of

data………………………………………………….8

VIII. Conclusion and

recommendations………………….............11

IX. Appendices……………………………………………..

……...12
I. Background of the study

Spelling is an important educational skill. Misspelling words not only

prevent clear communication but also unpleasant effect on others judgment

of one’s intelligence.

Some words admit multiple spellings, some spellings are not

considered standards, and thus, labeled as misspellings. Misspelled words

can be a series of letters that represents no correctly spelled word of the

same language at all, such as; liek for like or the correct spelling of the word

such as knot when one means not.

Misspelling may be due to typing error or lack of knowledge of the

correct spelling. Misspelling may also be a matter of opinion where other

spellings are accepted by some and not by others. One example of this is the

word “merchandise” to “merchandize” where in both spelling were actually

accepted but the spelling that ends with –ise is the one commonly used and

according some of my researches, the one ends with –ize is the less common

one. In this case, only the word ‘merchandise’ is considered as grammatically

correct when spelled.

According to my research also, many applicants often submit resumes

with some words misspelled. Some people writing business letters also

misspelled words they commonly used. Words which have many double

letters in their spelling often cause people to misspell it. One example of this

was the word “accommodate”, some people misspell this word into

“acommodate” or sometimes “accomodate”.

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II. Statement of the Problem

This study’s aimed to find out the familiarity of the students from

World Citi Colleges to some business related words. The study wanted to

answer the following questions stated below:

1. What are some of the commonly used business related words

that World citi colleges’ students misspell?

2. Are they familiar with how the words pronounce correctly

according to the dictionary?

III. Hypothesis

Students often misspell words which have double letters on their

spellings. Sometimes, they caught themselves in the middle of a situation

where they think they misspell a word though it is correctly spelled. One

example of this was the word “misspell” it looks wrong but it’s actually

spelled correctly. Some may think that the correct spelling of this word’s

“mispell” but obviously it’s the wrong one. There are a lot of business related

words which confuses the students. Some examples are: accommodation,

committee, preferred, necessity, and many more.

Students must make themselves familiar with words that are often

used in the working place especially its spelling for someday when they’re

writing their resumes, or any business related papers they can do it perfectly.

Students of World Citi Colleges are very busy so they don’t have enough time

to read other books such as dictionary. And as I can see, they are not familiar
 with the correct pronunciation of some words. Students often adopt the

pronunciation

of the words base on how people around them pronounce it or sometimes

just base on its spelling.

IV. Definition of terms

o Spelling > is the writing of one or

more words with letters and diacritics. In addition, the term often, but

not always, means an accepted standard spelling or the process of

naming the letters.

• Supersede [soo-per-seed] > to place in power, authority,

effectiveness, acceptance, use, etc., as by another person or thing.

• Perseverance [pur-suh-veer-uhns] > steady persistence in a

course of action, a purpose, a state, etc., especially in spite of

difficulties, obstacles, or discouragements.

• Preferred [pri-furd] > to set or hold before or above another

persons or things in estimation; like better; choose rather than

• Privilege [priv-uh-lij] > a right, immunity, or benefit enjoyed only

by the person beyond the advantages of most.

• Enterprise [en-ter-prahyz] > .a project undertaken or to be

undertaken, especially one that is important or difficult or that

requires boldness or energy.

• Consensus [Kuhn-sen-suhs] > majority of opinion.

• Niche market > a demand for a very specialized product or

commodity.
 • Expenditures [iks-pen-di-chers] > the act of expending

something, especially funds; disbursement; consumption.

• Criteria [krahy-tee-ree-uh] > a standard of judgment or

criticism; a rule of principle for evaluating or testing something.

• Prestigious [pre-stij-uhs] > indicative of or conferring prestige.

• Proprietor [pruh-prahy-i-ter] > the owner of the business

establishment, a hotel, etc.

• Consignment [Kuhn-sahyn-muhnt] > something that is

consigned.

• Synchronize [sing-kruh-nahyz] > to cause to indicate the same

time, as one timepiece with another.

• Curriculum [kuh-rik-yuh-luhm] > all the courses of study offered

by an educational institution.

• Concatenation > the act of concatenating; connection.

• Homophones > is a word that is pronounced the same as another

word but differs in meaning.

• Phonetics > is a branch of linguistics that compromises the study

of the sounds of human speech.

• Mnemonics (mnemonic device) > any learning techniques that

aids the memory.

V. Review of Related Literature

This chapter discusses related literature and studies, concepts and

findings that sustained the purpose of this study.

SPELLING
 Spelling correctly is perhaps one of the most valued yet difficult skills in

written communication. Spelling requires matching the sounds of language with

the appropriate letters in order to accurately and reliably conveys messages. A

student's ability to spell words correctly shows a sophisticated knowledge of

letters, sounds, and syllable patterns (Bear & Templeton, 1998).

Commonly misspelled words

The term "commonly misspelled words” (or rarely, “common

misspelled words”) refers to the practice of often misspelling some common

words, in general writing (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).

Common causes of misspelling words

• Mispronunciation

Mispronunciation is known to be one of the most common causes of

misspellings.

• Typing errors

Some spelling errors are introduced because people's typing is not

perfect, such as;

• letters are doubled, or more frequently double letters tripled, such

as "betwween" and "betweeen"

• letters are singled, such as "betwen"

• Keys are transposed, so "because" becomes "becuase".

These misspellings rarely happen in handwritten text.

• Homophones
Two differently spelt words with different meanings may be homophones,

with the same pronunciations; e.g., right, rite, Wright, and write. Spelling

checkers do not, of course, detect incorrect use of homophones.

• Personal names

Personal names and surnames may be pronounced like a Standard English

word, but with different spelling. Personal names do of course generally

start with a capital letter.

• Strange misspellings

Sometimes words are misspelled so strangely that one would never guess.

These misspellings are often one-off typographical errors, for example:

"sucseessor" for "successor".

• Concatenation

While "albeit" is a correct concatenation of "all be it", "upto" is not yet a

recognized concatenation of "up to". "Alright" is often accepted for "all

right".

• Apostrophes
 There can be confusion over a plural possessive form. If the singular is

"book's title" and the plural "books' titles", the latter can appear as

"book's", or even "books's". The plural can be written with an erroneous

apostrophe ("grocer's apostrophe" in Britain): "apple's and pear's". Elision

can lead to misspelling: "doesn't", where the apostrophe represents the

elided "o", can be misspelled "does'nt".

The English language is a complicated animal with so many words that are

spelled in ways far from how they sound phonetically. Often times, you misspell a

word because you are thrown off by its pronunciation. Other times, you may

intentionally add some letters for emphasis (How to avoid common misspelled

words by Robin Jessie-Green).

VI. Respondents

The freshmen BS business administration students, BS hotel and

restaurant management students, and BS tourism management students

who are enrolled in the current year at the World Citi Colleges are the target

respondents for this research. The total population of the students surveyed

is 77 students of World Citi Colleges.

VII. Analysis of data

This chapter shows the analysis and interpretations of the result of the

survey gathered among the chosen students of World Citi Colleges.

A. BS Tourism management students

 A total of 26 students from BS tourism management were tested.

Excellent.
0%

Failed. 15% Satisfactory.

23% Excellent
Satisfactory
Good
Good. 15% Passing
Passing. 47%
Failed

The figure above shows that no one got excellent

ranking among all of the tourism students who were tried to

answer the test. 23% got satisfactory, 15% got good scores,

47% got passed, and 15% of them failed the spelling test.

B. BS Business Administration Students

A total of 26 students from BSBA were surveyed.

Excellent.
8%
Failed. 12%
Excellent
Satisfactory
Satisfactory.
Passing. 34% 34% Good
Passing

Good. 12% Failed

The figure shows that there are 8% out of 26 BSBA

students got the excellent rank in spelling some work related

words. 34% of them got satisfactory, 12% good, 43% passed,

and 12% failed the test.

 C. BS Hotel and Restaurant Management

A total of 25 BSHRM students surveyed.

Excellent. Satisfactory.
0% 12%

Excellent
Good. 4%
Failed. 40% Satisfactory
Good
Passing
Passing. 44% Failed

This figure shows that no one BSHRM student got an excellent

score after answering the spelling test. But, 12% of them got

satisfactory, 4% got good results, 44% passed, and 40% out of 25

BSHRM students failed the test.

Summary of Percentage and wrong answers per item

Item BST BSB BSHR Over Common misspellings

no. M A M All
1. 23% 15% 12% 17% Coorporate
2. 4% 8% 4% 5% Retrement
3. 15% 3% 24% 14% Merchandize, murchandize
4. 19% 31% 28% 26% Necesity, nescessity,
5. 88% 100 92% 94% Superceed
%
6. 69% 69% 76% 71% Occurance, ocurrence, occurence
7. 27% 35% 32% 31% Comittee, commitee
8. 54% 54% 36% 48% Acommodate,
9. 15% 31% 36% 27% Acknowlegment
10. 19% 12% 16% 16% Opurtunity, oppurtunity
11. 15% 23% 16% 18% perseverence
12. 27% 4% 40% 23% recieve
13. 27% 27% 52% 35% noticable
14. 8% 19% 8% 12% Maintenence
15. 46% 46% 60% 51% Preffered, prefferred
16. 88% 77% 76% 81% Occassion, ocassion
17. 65% 77% 72% 71% Priveledge, previlege
18. 42% 38% 40% 40% Enterprize
19. 42% 35% 48% 42% Exsistance, existance
20. 73% 65% 64% 68% Concensus, conscensus
21. 100 100 100% 100% Night market, nice market
% %
22. 35% 12% 28% 25% sustanable
23. 23% 15% 48% 29% Consumuble
24. 46% 38% 48% 44% Pitchers, pictures
25. 65% 19% 52% 45% Expinditures, spenditures
26. 38% 27% 32% 32% Critiria
27. 73% 81% 80% 78% Franchize
28. 58% 65% 60% 61% Prestigous
29. 30% 35% 68% 44% Commisioner
30. 62% 58% 88% 69% Proprioter
31. 62% 42% 64% 56% Consciment
32. 35% 12% 32% 26% asociation
33. 30% 15% 44% 30% Afordable
34. 35% 12% 84% 44% Synkronize, syncronize
35. 23% 12% 48% 28% Eqittable
36. 31% 12% 40% 56% Proffitable, profittable
37. 19% 12% 60% 30% Authourize
38. 8% 15% 24% 16% -
39. 15% 15% 40% 23% Corriculume, curiculum
40. 19% 31% 48% 33% Irelevant, errelevant

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The table shows the percentage of the class who got the wrong answer

in each item number. The columns are the different courses, over all, and

wrong entries and the rows are the item number on the spelling

questionnaire.

The column of ‘the common misspellings’ are the wrong answers that

the respondents wrote on the questionnaires.

From item no.1 up to 20 is multiple choices. Then, from item no.21 up

to 40 is pronunciation spelling. As you can see in the table above, item no.21

has 100% in all of the columns. The pronunciation given in the question no.21

is [nich mahr-kit], some students chose not to answer it because the word
 isn’t familiar to them, while some of them wrote night market or nice market

which is also wrong. The correct answer in item no.12 is ‘niche market’.

The word ‘merchandise’ is sometimes spelled as ‘merchandize’.

Though ‘merchandize’ was used by others sometimes, it is still not accepted

and written in the dictionary. And so, it is considered as misspelled.

VIII. Conclusion and recommendations

Summary of findings:

After gathering the appropriate spelling tests to the

respondents, the following findings arrived:

1. No one got the excellent score from BS tourism management

course and BS hotel and restaurant management course. While,

there are only two (2) from BS business administration course

who got the excellent scores.

2. Respondents find it difficult to answer the second page of the

questionnaire.

3. 94% of all the respondents misspelled the word ‘supersede’ to

‘superceed’. .81% misspelled the word ‘occasion’ to ‘occasion’,

and 71% misspelled ‘occurrence’ to ‘occurance’ and ‘privilege’

to ‘priveledge’.

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Conclusions

After summarizing the findings, the following conclusions

were drawn:

1. All of the students from the three (3) courses are not familiar

with the words ‘niche market’.

 2. Most of them are not familiar with the correct pronunciation of

the common words they use according to the dictionary.

3. There are a lot of students who are still confused with the

spelling of the common business related words they use,

especially the words with double letters in their spellings.

Recommendations

Students find it difficult to memorize all the spelling laws of the

English language. Base on the findings and conclusions, the following

recommendations were made:

1. Regular activity which involves the use of the dictionary

will encourage them to read it and discover new words.

2. Play games like; hangman, boggle, scrabble, Shannon’s

game.

3. The use of mnemonic device will help too. And;

4. Ofcourse, spare time reading.

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IX. Appendices

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