M-A-P

Scott Hardie | June 5, 2017
Google got a lot of attention recently for its map of America's most misspelled words. Do you have any thoughts on the map?

My primary thought is that the map has its own errors. "Ninety" is misspelled in Maryland. "Tomorrow" in Colorado and "diarrhea" in New Hampshire do not have 11-19 letters but get colored blue. Hell, "Tomorrow" is even shown in two colors, purple in Arizona and blue in Colorado. XKCD mocked the map for its pretense that random fluctuations were meaningful, but I have yet to see anyone mocking the map for making errors of its own while pointing out other people's errors.

Steve West | June 6, 2017
For we anal retentive folks, "Ninety" is misspelled in Washington DC, not Maryland. We apparently misspell "Special" - don't ask me how. Speckle? Speshal? Especial? Specail?

Scott Hardie | June 9, 2017
Ha! You're right of course; I didn't even see that. I have to appreciate the fact that I made a mistake while pointing out that Google made mistakes while pointing out that other people made mistakes. :-)

As a Floridian of 15 years now, I guess I can understand receipt, which is not an easy word. I don't misspell receipt, but for years I used to write "recepient" until I noticed that it was recipient, and to this day I still struggle to remember which vowel is correct; I usually have to think of which one sounds right in my head and then choose the other one.

People have been mocking the residents of Wisconsin for not knowing how to spell "Wisconsin," but that's far from the most embarrassing word on the map. "Liar," Rhode Island? Really? Tiny state, tiny word, I guess.