News corner﹕STRUGGLE WITH SPELLING

【明報專訊】Can you spell restaurant, rhythm and guarantee correctly? The three have been listed among the words Britons have difficulty spelling. A piece of research commissioned by a UK television channel found that 40% of people confessed that they relied on autocorrect technology to monitor their spelling.

The researchers surveyed 2,000 adults. They found more than a half of them had problems spelling common words, which include accommodate, questionnaire and necessary. Conscience and occurrence have also proved tricky.

More than 20% of the respondents would panic if they had to rely on their own knowledge rather than any autocorrect or spell-check technology. Over a fifth of them said they tended to google a word to check its spelling. Nearly 50% of them admitted they judged others by their spelling.

(source: Ming Pao, The Telegraph)

■Quiz

The following are some of the words Britons struggle to spell. Circle the correct spellings.

1. Ａ) lisense

Ｂ) lisinse

Ｃ) license

2. Ａ) embarrassment

Ｂ) embarassment

Ｃ) embarrasment

3. Ａ) necessory

Ｂ) neccesary

Ｃ) necessary

4. Ａ) governnment

Ｂ) government

Ｃ) goverment

5. Ａ) belive

Ｂ) believe

Ｃ) bealive

■Glossary

Britons (n) 英國人

commission (v) 委託

tricky (adj) 困難的

panic (v) 感到驚慌

■Words

spell 用字母拼

autocorrect 自動改錯

adult 成人

respondent 答覆者