‘Diarrhoea’ has emerged as the word in the English language which journalists would most like to get changed in a survey carried out in conjunction with HoldtheFrontPage.

Last month, we asked HTFP readers to take part in an online spelling test organised by the Spelling Society pressure group.

A total of 414 journalists completed the test, 256 of whom classed themselves as part of the regional press.

The results show that while regional journalists are often better spellers than their national counterparts, many hacks still struggle with relatively common words.

Among the key findings were:

The word journalists would most like to see spelt differently is ‘diarrhoea’

More than eight out of ten journalists would respect a person less if they mispelled a word in an email.

Only two out of ten journalists would refuse to date someone who couldn’t spell

More than 60pc of journalists refuse to use simplified spelling even in text-messaging.

The survey asked respondents to spell ten everyday words ranging from ’embarrassed’ to ‘friend.’

The results achieved by the journalists compared favourably with those achieved by the general public in an earlier identical survey carried out by the Society.

However none of the words was spelt correctly by 100pc of those taking part, with 25pc mispelling ’embarrassed,’ for example.

Spelling Society spokesperson Vikki Rimmer said: “As the data was analysed it became clear that despite performing far better than the average Briton in the test, the respondents in this survey still struggled with everyday spellings.”

The survey threw up some interesting variations between different cagetories of journalists who took part.

For instance, 27.7pc of the national journalists who took part in the survey misspelt ’embarrassed’ compared with 22.6pc of the regional journalists.

On the whole subs fared better than reporters, with 20.4pc misspelling ’embarrassed’ compared to 28.9pc of reporters.

Asked who was to blame for poor spelling, 79pc of journalists said it was the fault of schools, 12pc blamed the parents, while 3pc blamed the government.

Results in full

The percentage of journalists who misspelt each of the ten words was as follows (figure for national population in brackets.)

Embarrassed: 25pc (54pc)
Millennium: 16pc (43pc)
Accidentally: 16pc (26pc)
Liaison: 12pc (46pc)
Separate: 11pc (25pc)
Accommodation: 10pc (36pc)
Definitely: 7pc (37pc)
Attempted: 1pc (8pc)
Appeared: 0.5pc (6pc)
Friend 0.2pc (3pc)

Comments

Observer (19/04/2010 08:45:48)
I would have though Atex or redundancy would have been among he list of words to dump.

davy gravy (19/04/2010 09:25:40)
Let me be the first to say it – this is a sh*t story.
Sorry

Old hackandproud (19/04/2010 09:28:33)
Perhaps those at fault should ‘of’ learned how to spell. But let’s not go into that, either!!!

JP Worker (19/04/2010 09:58:58)
How about the word “content” frequently banded out about my managing directors who thinks a sub is a sandwich from the High Street.

hackette (19/04/2010 10:27:59)
Its a lot more basic than that.
A lot of reporters including those on the national papers and radio and tv still can’t tell singular from plural.
I am sick of reading and hearing the Government ARE
the council ARE.
And stuff like the “the car which hit the tree” still drives me mad.

Kev core (19/04/2010 10:31:27)
Help is at hand. Just say the sentence “Dash In A Real Rush, Hurry Or Else Accident” and you’re there. God I’m sad.

septic (19/04/2010 10:34:43)
spot on hackette.
A lot of radio and tv reporters are gabbling oral illiterates or use snob phrases like “thus far” instead of speaking decent plain English.

Onlooker (19/04/2010 11:17:32)
I once saw the word ‘millennium’ spelt ‘millenium’ in an American dictionary so what we consider a mispelling here is acceptable there. This probably explains why it is so often spelt ‘millenium’ in this country, too.

Pedant (19/04/2010 11:54:01)
Two points: 1) Pity the author of this piece couldn’t decide on the spelling of ‘misspelled’. 2) A collective noun can be either singular or plural. What’s important is to remain consistent throughout the piece. This was the opinion of a learned committee at the BBC, chaired by the editor of the OED.

Onlooker (19/04/2010 14:12:14)
Every paper I’ve worked on has had it in the style book that sport use the plural and news the singular. Why?

oldhackandproud (19/04/2010 14:34:05)
West Ham IS away to Liverpool tonight…

Mr_Osato (20/04/2010 09:04:47)
The point is that they AREN’T collective nouns – it’s a single business, a single council, a single school and they should be referred to in the singular – this is why so many bricks go through the TV in the Osato bunker when the BBC is on. As for sport, a sports team, in this country but not the USA, is considered to be a collection of individuals – when a football club does something any other business would do, such as going into administration or extending its facilities, it should be in the singular, although with the general contempt for newspaper style in the brave new ‘multimeejah wii dont kneed now subs’ world this is widely ignored.

Vikki Rimmer (20/04/2010 09:35:59)
While the findings of the survey may appear on the surface to be amusing, there is a serious point to be made. 23% of UK school leavers are functionally illiterate. The results from the above survey showed that 97% thought that poor spelling on an application form was unacceptable. Does this condemn the 23% to the scrap heap? A life of crime (it’s no coincidence that 60% of prison inmates are illiterate)or a life of unemployment?
If we were to judge intelligence on spelling and correct use of the English language then Winston Churchill and Albert Einstein would be relegated to the scrap heap too.
Does anyone have a sensible suggestion on how to help the 23%? Or do you think they are undeserving of help?

ExEx (20/04/2010 09:51:07)
The elephant in the room here is the nonsensical variations in English spelling, usually justified in the name of showing where the words came from. It’s little wonder that people spell things wrongly, or that textspelling (how r u?) has taken off. One task I would cheerfully see the government undertake is to simplify and standardise English spelling.

hilary (20/04/2010 11:13:27)
Never mind the spelling. Those words have been classics for bad spelling for hundreds of years, and spellchecks take care of them (although they shouldn’t be necessary).
The real problem is sloppy grammar and the emerging tendency to write as you speak – “could of” for instance, and “your” instead of “you’re” as an abbreviation for “you are”; “sat” when the word should be “sitting” as in “he was sat next to her”; the dangerous “may” instead of “might”, which can change the meaning of a sentence. This seems to be because few people think carefully about what they are writing; they type the first thing that comes into their heads and then hit the send button, whether they’re writing to a mate or an article in a newspaper.
Moreover, it’s two generations since grammar was taught in schools, so that even if they start again modern teachers don’t know how.
ExEx is right – text spelling is different again. It’s not sloppy, it’s a new language. Nowt wrong with that, as long as it’s confined to txt msgs!

Fearfulforfuture (20/04/2010 13:36:08)
I agree with Hilary that grammar and the misuse of words is endemic. Try “meet with” instead of ”
meet”, “less” when “fewer” is the correct word, “he was injured after he was attacked by a gang” when “when” should replace “after”. I could go on for ever.

willwriteforfood (20/04/2010 15:18:26)
I don’t care.