America's Most Misspelled Words
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[This is a guest post by Rasmus Okasmets]
Analysis of Google search data for 2025 reveals the most misspelled words for each U.S. state and America.
National Spelling Bee begins at the end of May. The research is well timed.
America's most misspelled words:
- Definitely – 33 500 searches.
- Separate – 30 000 searches.
- Necessary – 29 000 searches.
- Believe – 28 500 searches.
- Through – 28 000 searches.
- Gorgeous – 27 000 searches.
- Neighbor – 25 500 searches.
- Business – 24 200 searches.
- Favorite – 23 000 searches.
- Restaurant – 22 500 searches.
America's most misspelled words by state:
- Alabama – Different
- Alaska – Tomorrow
- Arizona – People
- Arkansas – Quesadilla
- California – Appreciation
- Colorado – Sergeant
- Connecticut – Schedule
- Delaware – Beautiful
- Florida – Compliment
- Georgia – Necessary
- Hawaii – Luau
- Idaho – Definitely
- Illinois – Congratulations
- Indiana – Taught
- Iowa – Through
- Kansas – Different
- Kentucky – People
- Louisiana – Through
- Maine – Pneumonia
- Maryland – Character
- Massachusetts – Beautiful
- Michigan – Scratch
- Minnesota – Successful
- Mississippi – Beautiful
- Missouri – Temperature
- Montana – Appreciate
- Nebraska – Beautiful
- Nevada – School
- New Hampshire – Protective
- New Jersey – Congratulations
- New Mexico – Appreciate
- New York – Different
- North Carolina – Secret
- North Dakota – Daughter
- Ohio – Crochet
- Oklahoma – Patience
- Oregon – Business
- Pennsylvania – Scissors
- Rhode Island – Cancelled
- South Carolina – People
- South Dakota – Beautiful
- Tennessee – Broccoli
- Texas – Protect
- Utah – Definitely
- Vermont – Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
- Virginia – People
- Washington – Appreciation
- West Virginia – Beautiful
- Wisconsin – Different
- Wyoming – Beautiful
A spokesperson for WordUnscrambler.pro commented on the findings: "This year's most misspelled words violate many phonics rules, contain silent letters, contain double letters, originate from other languages and use tricky suffixes. Words that contain silent letters: scissors, through, pneumonia, character, daughter. Words with irregular vowel sounds: different, people, through, character, daughter. Words that use tricky suffixes like -ture, -ate, -ence: temperature, character, appreciate, patience, compliment, protective. Words that contain difficult consonant blends: scratch, school, schedule, cancelled. Availability of autocorrect in all devices results in misspelling common words like 'beautiful' or 'necessary'. Studies suggest heavy reliance on autocorrect weakens spelling skills over time. Some researchers call it digital amnesia. We simply forget things that we delegate to technology. Misspellings might be on the rise not because we know less, but because we need to know less."
Research was conducted by word unscrambling experts at WordUnscrambler.pro.
We analyzed Jan 1, 2025 – May 19, 2025 search data from Google Trends for "How do you spell" and "How to spell".
Methodology: We used Google Trends to discover the most misspelled words and Ahrefs to find the number of searches. Americas most misspelled words can be discovered in Google Trends by searching for "How do you spell" and "How to spell". Ahrefs shows many variations of misspelling searches like 'spell beautiful' or 'how do I spell beautiful '. We added up 120 search variations of top spelling searches.
jin defang said,
May 27, 2025 @ 2:28 pm
for Florida, I'd bet the most misspelled are "your" as in "your welcome" and it's, as in "the gift came in it's own package."
FM said,
May 27, 2025 @ 3:38 pm
Among other bizarre arguments, I fail to see what’s irregular about the vowels of ‘different’ or ‘character’… surely the authors of that study are aware of the perfectly regular effects of word stress on vowel quality? Or do they expect every ‘a’ to be pronounced [eɪ]?
Regardless, I feel that the only way in which this could begin to show some usefulness is if it contained even an embryo of reflection on the absolute mess that is the spelling of English. When ‘definite’ is spelt like ‘finite’ but pronounced like ‘delicate’, I can think of much more immediate reasons for misspellings than autocorrect and digital amnesia. That doesn’t seem to be the point here however.
Norman Smith said,
May 27, 2025 @ 3:42 pm
Kudos to Vermonters!
Allen W. Thrasher said,
May 27, 2025 @ 4:05 pm
Has anyone investigated whether there might be a connection between the pronunciation of the most-mispronounced words and the word’s pronunciation in the accent or accents prevalent in the state?
Jeff P said,
May 27, 2025 @ 4:35 pm
This seems more like the words people are most unsure about how to spell, since it's based on queries about how to spell words. But "most misspelled" words would surely include words that people don't know they're misspelling.
And my first thought about people asking how to spell "compliment" would be that it has a homophone with only one letter's difference, not that "-ment" is a tricky suffix[citation needed]. And isn't "canceled" the usual US spelling?
Jerry Packard said,
May 27, 2025 @ 4:57 pm
I think Jeff P hit the nail on the head; and Jin Defeng is surely correct about ‘your’ and ‘it’s’, though it seems those are less about spelling per se and more about grammar.
Chester Draws said,
May 27, 2025 @ 5:18 pm
If I lived in the US, then I presume my spellings of "favourite" and "neighbour" would be considered wrong. It wouldn't stop me spelling them that way though, since I would still be writing largely for non-US readers, so would continue with my non-US spellings.
How much does that affect those words?
Jonathan Smith said,
May 27, 2025 @ 5:48 pm
If results say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is the "most misspelled word" in Vermont, then something is off. Unless this means "word most misspelled on one single occasion" or sth. And FWIW Wikipedia has supercaliflawjalisticeexpialadoshus from Oxford English Dictionary (1931) and super-cadja-flawjalistic-espealedojus from the Sherman Brothers' own recollections.
David L said,
May 27, 2025 @ 7:50 pm
I moved to Maine a little over 3 years ago, and discovered that it's demographically the oldest state in the union. That may explain why my fellow Mainers frequently ask Google how to spell 'pneumonia.'
martin schwartz said,
May 27, 2025 @ 8:26 pm
I take the opportunity of "restaurant" as the 10th most misspelled
word to point out that more and more do I hear "restauranteur"
for what I still say, "restaurateur". I ma ybe one of the last. Originally the restaurant is the restorative (place), and restaurateur as the restorer.
Andreas Johansson said,
May 28, 2025 @ 1:47 am
What's irregular about the vowels in "daughter"? (The word doesn't strike me as one one commonly sees misspelled anyway.)
And yes, clearly something is wonky about Vermont.
Philip Taylor said,
May 28, 2025 @ 1:50 am
Fear not, Martin, there are at least two people alive who still say/write "restaurateur". But thank you for the etymology — I was completely unaware of that.
JMGN said,
May 28, 2025 @ 2:27 am
These are they're pronunciations
Definitely – Defenly
Separate – Seprat
Necessary – Nesary
Believe – Bliev
Etc.
America’s Most Misspelled Words | Namely JT said,
May 28, 2025 @ 5:12 am
[…] Over on Language Log there’s a post on America's Most Misspelled Words. […]
Victor Mair said,
May 28, 2025 @ 5:30 am
their
poftim said,
May 28, 2025 @ 5:44 am
Jonathan Smith,
Yes, something is clearly very off with the state-by-state results as a whole:
1. An implausibly high number of different winners
2. Only three appearances of the national top three in the whole list
3. A lot of words that don't seem to be misspelled that often (scratch? daughter? people? protect? secret? school?)
4. Bizarre stuff like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
5. Cancelled is spelled with single L in AmE, as Jeff P said.
By the way, I don't think I ever say or write either version of restaura(n)teur.
Victor Mair said,
May 28, 2025 @ 6:11 am
"Daughter of Holy Cow" (11/18/20) — with 17 cogent comments by prominent Indo-Europeanists
"More on Persian kinship terms; 'daughter' and the laryngeals" (3/18/20)
Robert Coren said,
May 28, 2025 @ 9:24 am
I had an English teacher in 11th grade who, at the start of the semester, handed out a list of "The 335* most frequently misspelled words in the English language", and announced that any paper in which one or more of these words was misspelled would be downgraded one step (A to A-, B+ to B, etc.) for each such misspelling. I don't remember anything much about the list except that one of the words was "its".
*It's possible that it was 355, although I don't think so, but more than 60 years have passed, so I can't be sure.
JMGN said,
May 28, 2025 @ 9:49 am
Lets do it
https://www.spellingsociety.org/
David Marjanović said,
May 28, 2025 @ 10:26 am
The middle one is hardly ever pronounced, is it?
Looking at the list, I can't find any signs of the pen-pin merger (which surprises me actually). Maybe daughter is a cot-caught merger thing…?
Philip Taylor said,
May 28, 2025 @ 10:42 am
It certainly is in my idiolect, David, but then I suspect that you already knew that …
S. Norman said,
May 28, 2025 @ 12:11 pm
I'm surprised pregnant didn't make the list:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EShUeudtaFg&t=3s
tsts said,
May 28, 2025 @ 12:16 pm
@poftim is correct, there is something off about the per-state words. I suspect what they are showing is not the most frequently misspelled word in each state, but words that are much more often misspelled in that state as compared to the US in general.