the buzz log
Letter Imperfect: Common Misspelled Searches
Elegiacal. Vivisepulture. Appoggiatura. Yeah, those seem tough to spell. But what about Susan Boyle, the name of our president, and the trademark of a U.S. train system?
Elementary school kids the world over are gathering this week for the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Thanks to documentaries, plays, movies, and the sheer spectacle of kids dismantling words bigger than the average person's entire vocabulary, the Bee even gets coverage by the likes of Sports Illustrated. Plus, lots of online attention: "spelling bee" terms have seen a collective 3,304% increase on Yahoo! Search, with a heartening chunk fueled by kids under 12.
All we have to say to the competitors, besides good luck, is: Wait until you grow up, when you'll have to deal with hundreds and thousands of new names and concepts every day. Forget spelling the name of the late Sri Lankan rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran: In the Search box, misspellers have savaged the first and last name of our own U.S. president ("barack oboma," "barak obama"), mangled the identity of radio show host Rush Limbaugh ("rush limba," "rush limbaug"), and abused the names of most of the "American Idol" contestants ("adam lamberg" for Adam Lambert). Good thing "Idol" voters just had to text numbers.
Hope—and good intentions—are not lost: Always spiking are searches for "spelling games," "spell check," "spell check technology," and oodles of dictionaries, both English and other. Below is a roundup of words, both recent and perennial, that can pose a struggle, and links to their proper spelling.
Recent Orthographic Abuses of the English Language on Yahoo!, Past 30 Days
- Swan Flu (for Swine Flu)
- Susan Boil (for "Britain's Got Talent" contender Susan Boyle)
- Brack Obama (for U.S. President Barack Obama)
- Sonia Sotomeyer (for Supreme Court justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor)
- Rachel Ray (for Food Network host Rachael Ray)
- Paperview boxing (for cable programming pay-per-view boxing)
- Amtrack (for train system Amtrak)
- Wallmart (for retailer Wal-Mart)
- Farrah Faucet (for actress Farrah Fawcett)
- Rod Steward (for singer Rod Stewart)
- Arlene Specter (for Senator Arlen Specter)
- “Dancing With the Starts” (for ABC reality competition Dancing With the Stars)
- Bea Author” (for the late comedian Bea Arthur)
- Brittany Spears (for singer Britney Spears)
- Chris Allen (for “American Idol” winner Kris Allen)
- Configure worm (for computer virus Conficker worm)
- Mysapce (for MySpace)
Scrabble Scramble
Philologists, rejoice. Wordsmiths worked themselves up in a lexical lather after Merriam-Webster recently added more than 100 new words. Now their wordly obsessions can reach a new level with Scrabble's new online game.
Or will they? Hold your Qs and Js... isn't there already a fabulous, albeit contentious, version made popular by Facebook? After all, Scrabulous probably spurred the leap in "scrabble dictionary" searches, about double what they were compared to this same time last year.
Some observers thinks the official Scrabble version is too North American-centric and comes too late. Will words fail them, or could this version drag high-stakes, tile-loving spellers into social networking? Either way, wordiness wins.
Filed under: Words, Wordplay, Games, Spelling, Dictionaries
The Most Misspelled
Everyone has certain words they struggle to spell correctly. When it comes to spelling, we're not perfect—you can count on us to occasionally botch recieve (sic), accomodations (sic), and relavant (sic). With the Scripps National Spelling Bee on the horizon, we figured it was a perfect time to come clean about our erroneous ways.
The superb spellers at the Bee will rake in even more Buzz this year with the finals being televised in prime time on ABC. Searches on "spelling bee" have doubled over the last week and we've seen related search spikes on "national spelling bee," "spelling words," and "commonly misspelled words."
What are the common words that vex our searchers? We applied our best spell checking skills to the data and came up with this list of the top 20 misspelled words in Search...
- Wallmart (Wal-Mart)
- Rachel Ray (Rachael Ray)
- Amtrack (Amtrak)
- Hillary Duff (Hilary Duff)
- Katherine McPhee (Katharine McPhee)
- Britany Spears (Britney Spears)
- Geneology (Genealogy)
- Jaime Pressley (Jaime Pressly)
- Volkswagon (Volkswagen)
- Wikepedia (Wikipedia)
- William Sonoma (Williams-Sonoma)
- Tatoo (Tattoo)
- Travelosity (Travelocity)
- Elliot Yamin (Elliott Yamin)
- Kiera Knightley (Keira Knightley)
- Kelly Pickler (Kellie Pickler)
- Brittney Spears (Britney Spears)
- Avril Lavinge (Avril Lavigne)
- Rianna (Rihanna)
- Jordan Sparks (Jordin Sparks)
What words give you the most trouble? We'd love to know. Leave us a coment beelow...
How Do You Spell TV?
Like many of you, we watch too much TV. But unlike many of you, we know how to spell. Week after week, we're amused and saddened by the ways in which searchers misspell their beloved shows. Here are a few of our favorites...
"American Idle" is the search that really stands out. We often wonder what such a program would be like if it were real. A reality show about Americans watching a reality show? We can't believe it hasn't been made yet.
Clumsy typists seeking the latest on their favorite mob drama can usually be counted on for nice bump in "sapranos" queries.
Another good one is "Dancing with the Starts." It doesn't even make sense, but it's always there.
"Dog the bountry hunter" is searched for a depressing number of times as is "dog the bountee hunter." Strangely, no "Dawg the bounty hunter."
Other "special" searches include "the bachlor," "desparate housewives," and "America's Next Top Modle." Just as soon as someone finds a way to misspell "The O.C." or "24," the coming apocalypse will be confirmed.
My Name is Barba
When a name reaches critical mass in Search, the rules of spelling take wing and fly out the window. This phenomenon manifests itself in transposed letters, odd homophones, and other off-the-wall variations. We've seen the heightened margin of error-plagued searches on everyone from Britney Spears to Nostradamus. "American Idol" contestant and digital camera aficionado Antonella Barba is just the latest victim of massive spelling slipups.
Her first name has been a struggle, give or take an "l." People have tried Antonelli (the masculine form?), Atonell, Anatella, Antella, and Antinella. We can't decide which is our favorite—Antonia, with its shades of Willa Cather—or the Royal-flavored "american idol antoinette."
"Barba" has also tripped up many an eager searcher. The most common—and understandable—misspelling has been "Barbara" or "Barbra." Other surname incarnations have been more evocative than the scandal itself.
How do you (mis)spell Barba? Let us count the ways...
- Antonella Barb
- Antonella Barbera
- Antonella Barbo
- Antonella Barber
- Antonella Babra
- American Idol Barbie
- Antonella Bar
- Antonella Barbaro
Filed under: American Idol, Spelling, Antonella Barba
Sic, Sic, Sic
We'll be the first to admit we've yet to master the English language. Any time we slip up, you're there to remind us of our gaffes in a not-so-gentle way. But we do believe we have a gift for spelling words correctly. However, never let it be said that we are haters of the spelling-challenged.
We know some of our searchers aren't dexterous when it matters most. Misspelling your query in the Search box used to lead to disastrous results. But thanks to our advanced computerized technology, we can catch most of your mistakes and provide you with the correct result.
For folks whose spelling skills leave something to be desired, we provide this list of our top 20 misspelled searches. Study it and learn from the errors of your fellow searchers ways...
- Rachel Ray (Rachael Ray)
- Tatoos (Tattoos)
- Scarlett Johanson (Scarlett Johansson)
- Wierd Al Yankovic (Weird Al Yankovic)
- Evanesence (Evanescence)
- Soduku (Sudoku)
- Barbara Streisand (Barbra Streisand)
- Louis Vitton (Louis Vuitton)
- Jamie Presley (Jaime Pressly)
- Jimmy Buffet (Jimmy Buffett)
- Brittany Spears (Britney Spears)
- Brittney Spears (ibid)
- Anna Nichole Smith (Anna Nicole Smith)
- Eva Mendez (Eva Mendes)
- Jessica Beil (Jessica Biel)
- The Biggest Looser (The Biggest Loser)
- Jennifer Anniston (Jennifer Aniston)
- Marie Antionette (Marie Antoinette)
- Mercedez Benz (Mercedes Benz)
- Micheal Jordan (Michael Jordan)
top movers
| Rank | Subject | 1-Day Move |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ford 400 | Breakout! |
| 2 | Indonesia Ferry | Breakout! |
| 3 | Jordan Chandler | 3481% |
| 4 | Evan Chandler | 2322% |
| 5 | American Music Awards | 1841% |
| 6 | John F. Kennedy | 1529% |
| 7 | Turkey Stuffing Recipes | 1361% |
| 8 | Liam Hemsworth | 1172% |
| 9 | Lou Dobbs | 1142% |
| 10 | Hendrick Motorsports | 888% |
top leaders
| Rank | Subject | Move | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Black Friday | +340 | 1290 |
| 2 | NFL | +489 | 670 |
| 3 | Jennifer Lopez | +451 | 515 |
| 4 | New Moon | -67 | 250 |
| 5 | American Music Awards | +236 | 249 |
| 6 | UFC | -36 | 239 |
| 7 | Miley Cyrus | +66 | 169 |
| 8 | Hulu | -11 | 154 |
what's the buzz?
A subject's buzz score is the percentage of Yahoo! users searching for that subject on a given day, multiplied by a constant to make the number easier to read. Weekly leaders are the subjects with the greatest average buzz score for a given week.
For more detailed information, visit our FAQ.