Avoiding further spelling accidents.

Education, educational, edition.

The elementary words education and educational seem to pose a special challenge to writers of Thai English. They often appear as eduction and eductional. In these examples, leaving out the letter a is a major problem. Sounding out the word before typing it, to verify how important the letter a is, may prevent this unfortunate omission. Likewise, when edition is spelled wrongly as edtion, it suggests that the writer is typing too fast to be accurate. One way to improve the percentage of correctly spelled words would be to type slowly enough to get things right. Another way would be to say the words as you type them, which might serve as a warning that a vowel is missing, whether the letter a or i.

Electronic

When we see this word written as eletronic instead of the correct electronic, it may be because of mistaken pronunciation in Thai English. The first letter c in the word electronic is always heard clearly when the word is said correctly. That makes it clear that electronic belongs to the same family of words as electric and electron. Leaving out one of the letter c’s in the word might bring it closer to pronunciation in Thai English, but it is better to try to get closer to standard English spelling and pronunciation.

Official

The familiar word official is sometimes spelled wrong as oficial or offical. These two incorrect spellings are motivated by different causes. The person writing Thai English who spells the word official wrong as oficial is forgetting how many times the letter f appears in the word. This problem is easy to solve if we consider the meaning of the word official. It has something to do with an office or a position of authority, as in official duties. If someone is an official, then that person holds an office of some kind, usually in a government or other organization. So the word official should remind us of the word office. Few people would spell the word office wrong as office. If we keep this in mind, it is less likely that the word official will be spelled wrong as oficial in future. The situation of people who spell the word official wrong as offical is less easy to resolve. The writer may know the correct spelling and just be in too much of a hurry to include all the necessary letters. Or it may be a case of not sounding out the word off-i-ci-al as a reminder of all its vowels and consonants. We should recognize that -cial is a familiar ending for words in English – just as -tial is – and it is pronounced to sound something like shul. Among these words is social, special, financial, commercial, crucial, judicial, artificial, provincial, racial, and many others. Clearly official belongs to this group of words, providing another reason to remember the second letter i in it.

International, introduction.

In one of the odder examples of Thai English, sometimes when writers mean to write the words international or introduction, they use internation instead, which is not a word in English. The standard bad habit in Thai English of leaving out key syllables when we think of a word may explain why international becomes internation, even if it is incorrect. Yet substituting internation for the elementary word introduction is not as easily understood, even though both of these errors occur repeatedly. It may be that the word introduction and the nonsense word internation resemble each other somewhat. Both begin with the letters int- and they have the same number of syllables. Yet there are so many differences between these two alternatives that it should be easy to avoid this kind of mistake, if we take a little extra time and care when spelling English words.

Information

This essential word is sometimes spelled wrong as infromation and also as infomation. Wrong pronunciation of Thai English may be the cause of these mistakes. Or they may be examples of typing too fast and leaving out an important letter, in this case the letter r. To avoid putting the letter r in the wrong place or forgetting about it entirely, try to remember the basic meaning of the word information. It is a noun related to the verb to inform. This originally meant to teach or instruct, or form someone’s mind. If we inform people, we help to form their minds. So in the word information, the smaller word form is of high importance. That part of the larger word should not be spelled from or fom. If we manage to recall this meaning, it is less likely that this type of error will occur.

Los Angeles

The city of Los Angeles is spelled wrong on occasion as Los Angles. It is always respectful to spell the names of places and people correctly, especially if they are are being quoted in a thesis or academic article. Ajarns are always happy when their works are cited by other researchers, but sometimes they feel less joyous when these researchers do not take the trouble to spell their names right. This is also true of place names. There is no special trick to spelling names and places right. No one is born knowing how to do so. In Thai English there is the further problem of many different alternative spellings for names of places and even people in Thailand. The only solution is to Google each name to be sure you are using an acceptable variant. Do not rely on your own instinct of how the names of your ajarn and anyone else should be spelled, based on your own ideas of how they should be pronounced. This approach rarely results in correctly spelled names. Check to see how the ajarns spelled their names in English-language publications or official faculty websites. These will provide you with the necessary authoritative spellings. As for place names, Google them as well. There is no shame in not knowing to spell a faraway place. After all, farang tourists probably have no idea how to spell Prachuap Khiri Khan in English. Even Thai people may not be sure of the standard or most common way way of spelling Prachuap Khiri Khan in English. Check a reliable website or publication – the Nation newspaper is one possibility – to find a solution.

Japanese

Any English word ending with the letters –ese usually means it is related to a place, a region, or country. It may refer to people who live there or their language. Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Taiwanese are well-known examples. Japanese should not be spelled as Japanes, although this mistake occurs repeatedly. The word ending –ese does not apply to every nationality and language, for example Korean. There seems to be no universal rule or explanation for why some such words end in –ese and others do not. There are also such words as Swedish and Irish, as examples of a different kind of ending. All you need to remember is that Japanese is a case where the –ese ending is appropriate, and it is less probable that you will try to spell the word Japanes.

Protocol.

This word has only the letter o as a vowel, repeated three times. It should not be written as protocal, even though this mistake does occur. Today, the word protocol is generally used to indicate official rules or guidelines for high-level government workers. Diplomatic procotol is a kind of etiquette that tells people in the world of diplomacy how to behave. More generally, protocol can mean widely accepted rules of conduct. In the computer world a protocol is a set of rules about data exchange, while for doctors, a protocol informs the medical world how a patient should be treated. Remember the letters otoco in the middle of the word protocol, and it is less probable that you will want to spell it protocal.

Psychology, psychological.

These words can sometimes appear spelled wrongly as psycology or pyschology and pyschological. As we know psychology is the study of the mind, and the word can be easily divided into psycho and logy. Happily there is Psycho, the famous horror movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock, to remind us how to spell the first part of the word psychology. You cannot have psychology without psycho. Try not to be too worried about the fact that these words begin with the letters –psy. If it helps, try to think of the successful South Korean rapper Park Jae-sang who performs under the name Psy, or PSY. Even if you are not a fan of Psy’s mega-hit “Gangnam Style,” his name can remind us of how to spell some important words in English. For the rest of the word, logy or ology always means an area of study or an academic discipline, as in sociology, anthropology, theology, philology, and criminology.

Assistant, assistance.

It may again be because of the pronunciation in Thai English that people spell these two words wrong as assitant and assitance. Keep in mind that they refer to the word assist, or help. We ask for assistance from an assistant, saying: “Will you please assist us?” Try not to forget about all three instances of the letter s in these words.

(all images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)