b-r-e-v-i-t-y

[BrianShaw]

One less minor irritant with my morning coffee....

Thank God life is offering only MINOR irritants these days! It could be (and probably has been, and will be) worse!

[Bobf]

I feel your pain. One can't do it on this forum but on another I have often put a thread on ignore simply because I could not bear seeing its misspelt title appear in the "New Posts" listing any more. Of course, I never make such mishtakes...

[Annie M.]

incorrect...

i-t-'-s not i-t-s

[Ole Tjugen]

incorrect...

i-t-'-s not i-t-s

If you are referring to the post immediately above yours, you're wrong: It's correctly spelled its in that case. It's an abbreviation for "it is", where the apostrophe replaces the missing i.

[Annie M.]

i's wrong... it's true!

[BrianShaw]

We all know that 'mishtakes' was a joke, but for the grammarians amongst us (or is that 'among' us)... is 'misspelt' possibly 'misspelled'?

[Jim Ewins]

No, it's the book the priest reads all the time

[clay harmon]

MissPelt was the Neanderthal hot Euro babe of the year of 75,000 BCE. She likes any fresh fruit and loves to cuddle. Her saber toothed kitten is named Blinky. She's a Pisces and loves long walks in the woods looking for fresh animal kills.

[Bobf]

We all know that 'mishtakes' was a joke, but for the grammarians amongst us (or is that 'among' us)... is 'misspelt' possibly 'misspelled'?

From the OED:

misspelt

Badly or incorrectly spelt.
a1762 LADY M. W. MONTAGU in R. Dodsley Coll. Poems (1763) I. 98 And lines mis-spelt record my lover's flame. 1838 N. HAWTHORNE Chippings in Twice-told Tales, Some [of the monuments] were inscribed with misspelt prose or rhyme. 1864 W. LEWINS Her Majesty's Mails 204 The ‘blind Letter Office’ is the receptacle for all illegible, misspelt, and misdirected or insufficiently addressed letters or packets. 1959 P. LARKIN Let. 19 Jan. in Sel. Lett. (1992) 298 A tiresome & uneducated girl I was slightly acquainted with in 1944 has sent an envelope full of tripey misspelt poems. 1990 K. CONLON Distant Relations 132 A run-down suburb: shops boarded-up, mis-spelt graffiti everywhere.

British English seems to prefer "misspelt" to "misspelled" although both are considered valid. For me, "misspelt" trips easier off the tongue (and fingers) than "misspelled", which sounds a little cumbersome - but that's just a question of which version one is used to (or rather: "the version to which one is used"; can't have prepositions hanging out there at the end of a sentence! ) .

Oh, BTW, the OED has this to say on among/amongst:

amongst

Forms: 3-4 amanges, (amongus), 4-6 amonges, 5 -is, -ys, 5-7 amongs, 6 amongest(e, 6- amongst, 'mongst. Northern 3-6 amanges, 5-7 amangs, 7 amangst. Also 5 emanges, -ez, emongis, 6 emonges, emongs, emongest(e. [f. AMONG (amang, emong) with adverbial genitive -es, as in besides, betimes, in 16th c. corrupted to -st, by form-assoc. with superlatives, cf. agains(t, amids(t.]

Less usual in the primary local sense than among, and, when so used, generally implying dispersion, intermixture, or shifting position.

(Guess whose local Library card number gives him free access to the on-line version of the OED? )

[Rodney Polden]

"the version to which one is used"; can't have prepositions hanging out there at the end of a sentence! ) .

)

I believe Winston Churchill put it best when he fulminated against "prepositions hanging out there at the end of a sentence", and thundered "That is the kind of language up with which I will not put!"

Oh yeah, while we're (sort of) on the subject, what exactly is "British English"? Is that the same thing that we used to call English....