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

[Sea Ray]

Originally Posted by OldRightHander

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.

[Roy Tucker]

Originally Posted by Sea Ray

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)

[Dom Heffner]

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.

[Spitball]

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.

[Johnny Footstool]

Originally Posted by Dom Heffner

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.

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

[Dom Heffner]

Miss Livengood would be proud Johnny!!!!

[lidspinner]

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.

[RichRed]

Originally Posted by Dom Heffner

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.

[OldRightHander]

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.

[texasdave]

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.

[RichRed]

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.”

[wolfboy]

I've always spelled it "dilemna"

[RedFanAlways1966]

Originally Posted by texasdave

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.

[traderumor]

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.