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Thread: On the horns of a......how is that spelled again?

  1. #16
    Member Sea Ray's Avatar
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    Re: On the horns of a......how is that spelled again?

    Quote Originally Posted by OldRightHander View Post
    I was taught to spell the word dilemna, spelled it that way all the way through grade school, high school, and college, and never was corrected by a teacher or professor. Now every time I type it I get the dreaded red underline.

    Finally today I decided to check on this and I find out that there's a rather intense debate in some circles about the proper spelling of this word. People my age and older seem to have been taught dilemna and now there are a lot of people insisting that the proper spelling is dilemma, which of course doesn't produce the red line on the computer. What's the consensus here? I learned grammar in the 70s and I'm a bit of a curmudgeon. I still won't use they as a singular pronoun even though it's becoming more common.
    Was it outside of this country? This comes from Wiki:

    The incorrect spelling dilemna is often seen in common usage. It appears to have been taught in many areas of the United States and all over the world, including (but not limited to) France, England, Jamaica and Australia.[1][2][3] There is no prima facie reason for this substitution error and there is no erroneous parallel to be found with the word lemma, from which dilemma derives.


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  3. #17
    Be the ball Roy Tucker's Avatar
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    Re: On the horns of a......how is that spelled again?

    Quote Originally Posted by Sea Ray View Post
    I've never heard of it with an "n".

    I have a story of my own regarding the word "donut". I missed that on a spelling test in 7th grade and after I complained to the teacher she said that the correct spelling was "doughnut". Nowadays I do not get the red line under the word donut so when did that change? Apparently after 7 th grade or else I want my grade adjusted accordingly!
    I have a 7th grade doughnut story too...

    On the chalkboard menu ouside the cafeteria, they had "doughnuts" hand-written on the list. Some adolescent genius took his finger and erased the "u" and "h" from the word. Took the principal about 20 minutes to find out the semi-naughty word.

    I know its a stupid story, but it was quite hilarious at the time to us geeky nerds.

    (and yes, it was a real slate chalkboard written on with chalk, I am from the stone age)
    She used to wake me up with coffee ever morning

  4. #18
    Potential Lunch Winner Dom Heffner's Avatar
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    Re: On the horns of a......how is that spelled again?

    I did not realize forehead could be pronounced "for-ed." Had a teacher tell me that was the only way to pronounce it. Last time I looked, the dictionary allowed for both...but have never, ever heard anyone say it that way.

  5. #19
    Member Spitball's Avatar
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    Re: On the horns of a......how is that spelled again?

    I have seen dilemna but believe dilemma is far more common and universally accepted.

    What about alright and all right? I see alright all the time, but it is not really a word.
    Last edited by Spitball; 02-28-2012 at 10:30 PM.
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  6. #20
    Churlish Johnny Footstool's Avatar
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    Re: On the horns of a......how is that spelled again?

    Quote Originally Posted by Dom Heffner View Post
    I did not realize forehead could be pronounced "for-ed." Had a teacher tell me that was the only way to pronounce it. Last time I looked, the dictionary allowed for both...but have never, ever heard anyone say it that way.
    Code:
    There Was a Little Girl
         
    There was a little girl,
    Who had a little curl,
    Right in the middle of her forehead.
    When she was good,
    She was very good indeed,
    But when she was bad she was horrid.
    
         -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
    "I prefer books and movies where the conflict isn't of the extreme cannibal apocalypse variety I guess." Redsfaithful

  7. #21
    Potential Lunch Winner Dom Heffner's Avatar
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    Re: On the horns of a......how is that spelled again?

    Miss Livengood would be proud Johnny!!!!

  8. #22
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    Re: On the horns of a......how is that spelled again?

    I am stupid is all I will say....I grew up in the late 70s-80s and I keep getting caught up in my kids grammar circle of errors....I constantly want to spell words they way they sound instead of the way they are supposed to be spelled....the texting lingo is what I am referring to.....I was sending a email to a guy at work and my dumb but was typing stuff like

    Gonna
    ppl
    lol
    call u back
    txt me ltr
    I was up 2 L8 last nite

    I vomit at times when I proof read my emails and my writings....I am being pulled into this vortex of crap and I cannot stop it at times. there will be a day when schools will teach kids texting lingo....you watch...I wish there was a way to teach us parents the texting lingo...I grabbed my daughters phone and her text messages seemed like they were in a foreign langauge.....and the sad part was I almost could understand it, well some of it.

  9. #23
    My clutch is broken RichRed's Avatar
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    Re: On the horns of a......how is that spelled again?

    Quote Originally Posted by Dom Heffner View Post
    I did not realize forehead could be pronounced "for-ed." Had a teacher tell me that was the only way to pronounce it. Last time I looked, the dictionary allowed for both...but have never, ever heard anyone say it that way.
    My parents always pronounced it "for-ed." Maybe they were big Longfellow fans.

    My 6th grade English teacher said the word "kept" could be pronounced either "kept" or "kep." "Kep" never seemed right to me.
    "I can make all the stadiums rock."
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  10. #24
    Resident optimist OldRightHander's Avatar
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    Re: On the horns of a......how is that spelled again?

    I'm being kind of stubborn with all the new lingo and refusing to give in and use it. I find myself almost rebelling against it in a way. It's almost my new personal crusade to use proper spelling and punctuation and not give in to certain grammatical changes that I see as being done out of political correctness. (they being used as a singular pronoun to avoid any gender reference, etc.) That's why it's been ticking me off with this whole issue of how to spell dilemna. I have a very black and white view of grammar and I don't handle grey areas too well.
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  11. #25
    Member texasdave's Avatar
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    Re: On the horns of a......how is that spelled again?

    An expression that bothers me is when people say, "You've got another thing coming."
    That doesn't even make sense in the context that the expression is normally used. If you think something then, 'You have another think coming'. Because what you are thinking is obviously incorrect.

  12. #26
    My clutch is broken RichRed's Avatar
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    Re: On the horns of a......how is that spelled again?

    Click this link for hours of exciting English usage geekdom.

    http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html

    Here's what it says about the "dilemma" dilemma:

    “Dilemna” is a common misspelling of “dilemma.”
    "I can make all the stadiums rock."
    -Air Supply

  13. #27
    On the brink wolfboy's Avatar
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    Re: On the horns of a......how is that spelled again?

    I've always spelled it "dilemna"
    How do we know he's not Mel Torme?

  14. #28
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    Re: On the horns of a......how is that spelled again?

    Quote Originally Posted by texasdave View Post
    An expression that bothers me is when people say, "You've got another thing coming."
    Heavy metal rockers Judas Priest might call it "Breaking the Law".... in a grammatical sense. They might also call it a money maker.

  15. #29
    Member traderumor's Avatar
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    Re: On the horns of a......how is that spelled again?

    It took the internet for me to learn that there were people who thought "mute point" and "moot point" were the same thing.

    My doughnut story is from a foreign Stats professor I had at OSU. He said when he was learning English, he called doughnuts "duff-nuts" because of the phonetics of "rough" and "tough" I still jokingly call them that today.
    "Rounding 3rd and heading for home, good night everybody"


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