Miss Spelling

by **bnjtokyo** » Tue May 17, 2005 5:24 am

Has anyone noticed that Ms Spelling's Quiz includes "medieval" twice?

Cheers, BNJTokyo

by **Brazilian dude** » Tue May 17, 2005 10:12 am

I haven't the faintest idea what that is (I mean Mis Spelling).

Brazilian dude

by **bnjtokyo** » Tue May 17, 2005 9:53 pm

Click here
It's a feature on the Alpha Dictionary site

Cheers,

by **Stargzer** » Tue May 17, 2005 10:18 pm

Maybe it's twice as hard to spell as the others . . . :wink:

by **Brazilian dude** » Wed May 18, 2005 12:35 pm

Very entertinaing. I scored 93% (not bad for a Brazilian dude), but I still think a while can be spelled a while or awhile, depending on whether you see it as a noun or an adverb. I think the answer there was biased. People with minimum spelling skills had a 50% chance to get it right. Licence and license aren't good examples either, I think it depends on what side of the Atlantic you are.

Brazilian dude

by **bnjtokyo** » Fri May 20, 2005 12:28 am

I agree.
According to my Cobuild Dictionary, "a while"/"awhile" also depends on location. In the UK, the former rules while in the US the latter is correct. But according to my American Heritage Dictionary (AHD), both "a while" and "awhile" are used in American English. The former is an article plus a noun while the latter is an adverb. The AHD warns us that "Stay for a while" and "Stay awhile" are both correct, but that "Stay for awhile" is not.

"licence"/"license" is partly geography and partly usage. The US uses only the latter, while in the UK, the correct choice depends on usage (the former is a noun while the latter is a verb.)

by **dmhosea** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 6:29 pm

Not a bad test! Medieval was on twice. Was 'imitate' on there twice as well?

by **gailr** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 9:59 pm

Good quiz! I learned American English spelling from Dominicans; the ever-present threat of centuries in ... [s]purgitory[/s] ... [s]pergatory[/s] ... purgatory ... for spelling errors ensured that the lessons stuck!

I see one of the items: "alot" used..a lot...in casual writing, and it's one of my petty peeves.
-gailr

by **Andrew Dalby** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 8:55 am

bnjtokyo wrote:I agree.
According to my Cobuild Dictionary, "a while"/"awhile" also depends on location. In the UK, the former rules while in the US the latter is correct. But according to my American Heritage Dictionary (AHD), both "a while" and "awhile" are used in American English. The former is an article plus a noun while the latter is an adverb. The AHD warns us that "Stay for a while" and "Stay awhile" are both correct, but that "Stay for awhile" is not.

I learned to spell in the UK, and I agree with the AHD (and with BD, as I nearly always do!) For me it's 'a while' if you are treating it as a noun, 'awhile' as an adverb; both can be correct.

by **sluggo** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 1:36 am

I didn't get a double medieval but I did get precede. At the end I thought I saw one or two words -can't be sure- that were not on my test, so maybe it generates a random order every time and slips here and there.

Yes, a good quiz, though to add to the multiple-choice ambiguities already mentioned: I got pigeon and pidgin as two choices for the same word.

by **skinem** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 10:09 am

Thanks, tokyo! I thought I'd been everywhere on this site!

I got rhythm twice...
Brain freeze on coolly--first thing I thought of was coulee and then coolie...not coolly! Duh...

by **anders** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 10:56 am

92. Must be some errors there, even excluding my not having encountered any bellwethers.

by **sluggo** » Sun Jul 23, 2006 5:36 pm

update: they seem to have fixed the license/licence dilemna. Licence is no longer an option.

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