Is Wisconsin Really That Hard to Spell?

In Wisconsin, residents most frequently searched for how to spell “Wisconsin.” (In fairness to the people of the Badger State, if you stare at the name long enough, you’ll convince yourself it’s not spelled right.)

I don't buy the Department of Tourism's 'Indian tribes' excuse. I would venture that certain spell-check programs flag the word as wrong when it's in fact spelled correctly, but Wisconsinites (fastidious as they are) double check with Google for some reassurence. The state's name thus disqualified, that would make 'C-O-W' our most commonly misspelled werd.





Personal favorite: South Dakota, 'C-O-L-L-E-G-E',

although couldn't it be just as possible that they were actually trying to write the trickier 'colleague' in at least some of those searches?



What's your state's (country's, tribal nation's) excuse?

(As an aside, I have a college from another Midwestern state who regularly asks me how to spell fairly common words even when he's sitting at his computer with Google and other spell-check-enabled software right at his fingertips. )

I don't buy the Department of Tourism's 'Indian tribes' excuse. I would venture that certain spell-check programs flag the word as wrong when it's in fact spelled correctly, but Wisconsinites (fastidious as they are) double check with Google for some reassurence. The state's name thus disqualified, that would make 'C-O-W' our most commonly misspelled werd.

Another theory: Wisconsinites themselves have no trouble spelling it, but Google doesn't discriminate whether the person doing the searching is a native, or a visitor/newcomer to the state. Maybe there are just a lot of people popping by for a conference or whatever who need a little help with their spelling.

lool "banana"

I had a friend in high school who we asked to spell "banana" and he replied
"b-a-n-n-a-h"

Never let him live that down.

In all fairness I can't spell great either. I uno about other countries/provinces but we stopped having spelling tests in grade 6 when I was a kid. And the words we had on tests were pretty common. after that it was more "write an essay and we'll correct your writing" but auto correct was around so it caught most words. I blame auto correct and my lack of motivation for why I can't spell no goodly or does da grammer no mo.

you should all of studied harder

Is that supposed to be ironic?

lool "banana"

I had a friend in high school who we asked to spell "banana" and he replied
"b-a-n-n-a-h"

Another false conclusion from this study. Eric Banah is just really big in Arizona.

In Canada, it's theatre, I guarantee it.

And yet, the misspelling persists. 

Years ago I read that the most frequent spelling mistake in the English language is the word: "sep_rate" WITH THE MISSING LETTER most often the wrong one.

I saw this the other day and pretty judgmental about Alabama not being able to spell nanny.

That might tell you as much about the lack of reliable child-care in Alabama Mississippi as it does the the state of education there.

Years ago I read that the most frequent spelling mistake in the English language is the word: "sep_rate" WITH THE MISSING LETTER most often the wrong one.

I've probably been guilty of that on more than one occassion before, therefore it's completely forgivable. I've found it's best to avoid the word altogether and just say 'detached'.

@SaintsCanada
I corrected my error.

I saw this the other day and pretty judgmental about Alabama not being able to spell nanny.

Might want to hold off on the judgment because you are mistaking Mississippi for Alabama


I think at least some of these might be affected by regional accents. As for the South, in the case of Georgia and 'Gray', there is a legitimate difference there. It should also be noted that in spite of the reputation of the South and Appalachia as 'dumb', that 3 Southern states have 5 letter misspellings (not counting Georgia and gray) and two northern ones do as well. Also, North Carolina and 'Angel' might have something to do with the fact that the play-by-play announcer for the University of North Carolina football and basketball teams (UNC is one of the premier basketball programs in the U.S.) is a man named Jones Angell. In the case of Mississippi, it appears that 'Nannie' was at one point a somewhat common name in the South for women.

 Two blue states- Oregon and Rhode Island also had the 5 letters or less spelling distinction. Also, with Louisiana and 'giraffe', this might be due to its Cajun/Creole roots.

Interestingly, ethnic origins seem to be at play with Pennsylvania and 'sauerkraut', though in this case the German and English spellings are the same, but German heritage and Pennsylvania are often linked.

Texas and Missouri, not exactly bastions of Yankee intellect, have some of the longest words and the longest searches are held by West Virginia (often considered one of the 'dumbest' states) and Connecticut, the home of Yale.

Quote from: HaLo3 on June 01, 2017, 06:24:06 PM

I saw this the other day and pretty judgmental about Alabama not being able to spell nanny.

Might want to hold off on the judgment because you are mistaking Mississippi for Alabama


I think at least some of these might be affected by regional accents. As for the South, in the case of Georgia and 'Gray', there is a legitimate difference there. It should also be noted that in spite of the reputation of the South and Appalachia as 'dumb', that 3 Southern states have 5 letter misspellings (not counting Georgia and gray) and two northern ones do as well. Also, North Carolina and 'Angel' might have something to do with the fact that the play-by-play announcer for the University of North Carolina football and basketball teams (UNC is one of the premier basketball programs in the U.S.) is a man named Jones Angell. In the case of Mississippi, it appears that 'Nannie' was at one point a somewhat common name in the South for women.

 Two blue states- Oregon and Rhode Island also had the 5 letters or less spelling distinction. Also, with Louisiana and 'giraffe', this might be due to its Cajun/Creole roots.

Interestingly, ethnic origins seem to be at play with Pennsylvania and 'sauerkraut', though in this case the German and English spellings are the same, but German heritage and Pennsylvania are often linked.

Texas and Missouri, not exactly bastions of Yankee intellect, have some of the longest words and the longest searches are held by West Virginia (often considered one of the 'dumbest' states) and Connecticut, the home of Yale.

With "gray" it's a bit of a "grey-zone" (pun intended) because you can use 'e' or 'a' and both are right depending on where you're from. 'A' is used more commonly in the US but 'e' is used in the UK and Canada. There are a decent amount of words with different spellings. There are a lot of ways to correctly write "My favourite colour is grey."

Quote from: kriztee on June 02, 2017, 12:31:13 PM

Quote from: Mr.DeMartino on June 02, 2017, 01:57:33 AM

Quote from: HaLo3 on June 01, 2017, 06:24:06 PM

I saw this the other day and pretty judgmental about Alabama not being able to spell nanny.

Might want to hold off on the judgment because you are mistaking Mississippi for Alabama


I think at least some of these might be affected by regional accents. As for the South, in the case of Georgia and 'Gray', there is a legitimate difference there. It should also be noted that in spite of the reputation of the South and Appalachia as 'dumb', that 3 Southern states have 5 letter misspellings (not counting Georgia and gray) and two northern ones do as well. Also, North Carolina and 'Angel' might have something to do with the fact that the play-by-play announcer for the University of North Carolina football and basketball teams (UNC is one of the premier basketball programs in the U.S.) is a man named Jones Angell. In the case of Mississippi, it appears that 'Nannie' was at one point a somewhat common name in the South for women.

 Two blue states- Oregon and Rhode Island also had the 5 letters or less spelling distinction. Also, with Louisiana and 'giraffe', this might be due to its Cajun/Creole roots.

Interestingly, ethnic origins seem to be at play with Pennsylvania and 'sauerkraut', though in this case the German and English spellings are the same, but German heritage and Pennsylvania are often linked.

Texas and Missouri, not exactly bastions of Yankee intellect, have some of the longest words and the longest searches are held by West Virginia (often considered one of the 'dumbest' states) and Connecticut, the home of Yale.

With "gray" it's a bit of a "grey-zone" (pun intended) because you can use 'e' or 'a' and both are right depending on where you're from. 'A' is used more commonly in the US but 'e' is used in the UK and Canada. There are a decent amount of words with different spellings. There are a lot of ways to correctly write "My favourite colour is grey."

To add... "grey" and "gray," were also both pretty equally used historically then naturally over time one spelling became more common over the other in different countries. Some goes for a other words that have different, yet correct, spelling.

Just thought of another one, spelled and spelt. There are a lot of words like that where spelling one way was more popular but the other spellings aren't exactly wrong. There are so many dialects of English that some words being "misspelled" are forgivable. Not all words tho... E.g. Cofveve...