why do many people misspell the word..?

Question

definitely!!!!
I've seen different spellings like definatly, definetly, defentely, diffantly,definitly. I noticed that both native and non native English speakers tend to spell it incorrectly. I used to spell it wrong myself till I learned the trick. the word definitely comes from being definite, it does not come from define..so just add an ly to the end "definite-ly". so how did u used to spell it till u saw this topic? :D

Answer 1

Definitely a great number of persons, but I think I can say that no definitive answer can be given as to the definite number of people that cannot spell the word.

Answer 2

I have sometimes mistakenly written down definitly but as soon as I have I know it looks wrong and correct it. I like your memory trick. I think that as well as the other responses we have all become a bit lazy and rely on spell check too much. It isn't always right. British and American spellings of some words are often different and Australians tend to use both which is really confusing. Even newspapers seem to let errors slip through these days. Only tonight I saw a television ad for "refridgerators"

Answer 3

i spelled it "definitely" even before i read this topic. The reason why native and non native English speakers tend to spell this word incorrect is in their pronunciation.

For non native speakers: Native speakers have a certain accent that non native speakers tend to copy to seem native. And thus, when they say the word and try to spell it, they spell it incorrect.

For native speakers: I recently studied in my linguistics class that language evolves and we have different word-formation processes. We say words that are produced or articulated easily. Although, the words are not in the dictionary, native speakers are able to understand each other. This is prominent in my native language which is tagalog. (eg. pangbata= pambata, panglaro=panlaro)

Answer 4

I never had a problem with the word "definitely." But the so-called "rules" of English are so messed up, it's a wonder anyone gets them right. Forget the rules--I just memorized the correct spellings of the English words!

(For years, I spelled "water" with 2 t's according to the so-called "rules"! ....... )

Answer 5

I definitely get so many spelling mistakes that I just use the check spelling and voila it is corrected. Perhaps it has to do with something with my brain as I read many books and would have learned by now.

Answer 6

Definitely. Did I spell it correct? Now I need to go back and look at the question again and see. lol

Answer 7

It should be so easy but it isn't. People have little trouble with finite and infinite. Definite should just follow.

Answer 8

you can cut the word and after that learn that spelling

Answer 9

definatly. tx for the correction

Answer 10

great i got a master degree and now i gotta go back to high school