challenge

[rone]

Via Google, find a typo or misspelling that is more common that the correctly spelled word.

Comments

[glitter-ninja.livejournal.com]

"A lot" versus "alot":

Results 1 - 10 of about 14,800,000 for "a lot"

Results 1 - 10 of about 46,700,000 for "alot"

I tried "mischievous" and various flavors of "misspell" before finding a winnah.

[merde.livejournal.com]

*sob*

that's so sad. but i shall hold out hope until Webster's gives in and adds "alot" to the dictionary.

i tried "desiccate" but was pleased to discover that only about a third of websites that use that word misspell it. then i couldn't think of anything else to try.

[kodi]

Web Results 1 - 10 of about 458,000 for wares [definition]. (0.30 seconds)

Did you mean: warez

Results 1 - 10 of about 1,880,000 for warez [definition]. (0.11 seconds)

[glitter-ninja.livejournal.com]

I think it's brave of them to try such an advanced word as "dessicate", so they get props for that.

Or maybe I'm just bitter.

[waider.livejournal.com]

See, this is fine except that "loose" isn't a misspelling unless it's in the context of what you did with your keys, at which point I start wailing on the author with a nail-studded baseball bat.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

That one doesn't count, as they don't mean the same thing.

[kodi]

Bah. I don't even get any points for Google implying that I've misspelled "wares"?

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Oh, sure. Have a shiny Brownie Point.

[damienw]

Results 1 - 10 of about 87,900,000 for color
Results 1 - 10 of about 69,100,000 for colour

[kodi]

Psy. Next you're going to tell me that "Albuquerque" isn't a misspelling.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

You're going to gaol, mate.

[wisn.livejournal.com]

That's going to be rough, since I'm guessing most online typos and misspellings are homonymous, courtesy of electronic spellcheckers. "They're" and "their", for example.

I took a stab at this for a while, using Wikipedia's common list of misspellings (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_common_misspellings) as a reference, but got tired. Most misspellings were, at best, one tenth as popular as their correct spellings. Only supersede and variants got close; about one fourth as popular.

[zadcat.livejournal.com]

chaise lounge 85,900
chaise longue 49,900

Somehow this occurred to me when I looked up "tounge" (very popular but not outnumbering the correct spelling).

Curses, you beat me to it.

[sambushell.livejournal.com]

This is exactly what I was going to post.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Ding! We have a winnah!

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I had no idea it was even meant to be 'longue'. Nice job.

[littleamerica.livejournal.com]

Do you have a particular one in mind?

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Naw, else i'd've posted it. Do my dirty work!