Avoiding spelling disasters.
Management.
It is a mystery why some words prove more challenging to spell in Thai English than others. One word spelled wrong often is the common word management. Since management is an important word in academic studies, it often appears in the titles of books and other library items. On occasion it is misspelled as mangement, but there are also many instances where it is spelled wrong as managment. These two wrong spellings seem to be caused by two different reasons. Thai people who spell management wrong as mangement may have just typed too quickly, and left out the letter a where it is needed. Even so, it is odd that this single letter should be omitted so very often. The incorrect spelling managment is more easily explained, since some people may think that the word sounds like managment, and does not need the essential extra letter e. Fortunately, it is easy to remember the right spelling for management, since the word can be easily divided into two parts, manage and ment.
The letters ment are often found at the end of English words. By placing ment after the verb manage, the letters mean a process or action is happening. Ment can also mean a state or condition when placed after a verb, such as entertainment or abridgment. The word abridgment can mean the act or state of abridging, or shortening a text. The Thammasat University Libraries own many abridgments of famous literary works in English, intended for the use of students of English as a foreign language. In a similar way, the process or action of management, as it is taught at the Thammasat Business School and elsewhere, studies how people manage to achieve goals by using resources in the best way. As a social science, the field of management studies social organization, but in the business world it involves planning, organizing, staffing, and leading organizations. Any writer of Thai English who remembers manage and ment is not likely to make one of the two major mistakes in spelling this important word.
Malcolm.
Malcolm is a common name in English-speaking countries, so it can be found listed as authors’ names and also subjects, such as the civil rights leader Malcolm X or the American TV show Malcolm in the Middle. Malcolm is a character in William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, and there is successful journalist and author in the USA named Malcolm Gladwell. Yet the name Malcolm is sometimes spelled wrong as Malcom. This is a tricky problem, since the second letter l in the name Malcolm is silent, and so it is easy to forget. If you pronounce the name Malcolm, it sounds closer to Malcom than Malcolm. Even so, it is important to remember that second letter l. Otherwise we are spelling someone’s name wrong, which is generally considered a form of disrespect. If we do not even take the trouble to spell someone’s name right, it can be interpreted that we do not value the person. To avoid this rudeness, when spelling the names of farang authors, it is best never to take for granted that we know how to spell them. Even if we feel almost certain of how a name is spelled, it only takes a second to Google the name to verify that what we suspected was the spelling is in fact correct. If our idea was not correct, we are saved from making a potentially awkward mistake. Apart from being polite and showing good manners, spelling people’s names correctly gives them a good impression of us, since generally in other countries when names are spelled wrong, it is by people who are not literate. Most countries have fixed systems of spelling names, unlike the Romanization of Thai words in English, which is varied and chaotic. Thai people may be accustomed to seeing three or four different spellings of their names in English, and not be surprised or offended when this happens. Even the name of Puey Ungpakorn, the celebrated ajarn and former rector of the university, is spelled differently on signs around the TU campuses, sometimes as Ungpakorn and other times as Ungphakorn. Since Aj. Puey wrote fluently in English, had an English wife, and spent the final years of his life living in England, it may be assumed that he accepted the most common and simplest spelling in English of his name, Ungpakorn. This spelling appears in his books in English. Even so, the variant spelling Ungphakorn is often seen, because of the Thai style of accepting different spellings of the same name. Most other countries have a single current approved spelling of their citizens’ names in English or Roman letters.
American.
Although the word American is only rarely spelled wrong as Amercian, since it is an important word, it may be worth looking at how to avoid this mistake. Obviously all Thai writers of English know that the word is American and not Amercian. It may be that in office work, or writing term papers, theses, and academic articles, the pressure of getting lots of work done means typing faster than we can be accurate, especially in a foreign language. As you may remember if you ever took a class in typing, results are graded not just by how many words are typed per minute, but also by how many errors are made. If you sense, by Googling from time to time to see about standard spellings of words you are using, that you might be getting things wrong, then it is more productive to slow down your typing speed. You may type fewer words per minute but at least more of them will be correctly spelled.
Anniversary.
This word is spelled wrong as aniversary by people who forget that it has something to do with the word annual. Both words with two n’s refer to years, and indeed an anniversary occurs on a given number of years after something happened. It may be a marriage or historic event of some kind. The reason that there are two n’s in anniversary is because of the origin of the word. In general, it is best not to worry about etymologies because they involve unfamiliar foreign languages such as Latin and Greek, and learning English is already complicated enough without extra time and confusion devoted to even more languages. Still, any Thai reader who has seen the letters A.D. after a year will have some idea of the etymology of anniversary. When we write 100 A.D. this measures the number of years after Jesus Christ was born, according to the Christian calendar. Christians set that year as zero, and anything that happened after it is in the Year of our Lord, or in Latin, A.D. (Anno Domini). Although such terms as anno domini are not often used in English, sometimes high level speakers will throw in a little Latin phrase such as this, when it adds dignity and formality to an occasion. So, in an official speech in 1992, Queen Elizabeth II of England famously referred to that year as an annus horribilis or horrible year. What should have otherwise been a happy occasion of celebrating the 40th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation was troubled by the separation of Prince Charles from his wife Lady Diana, other marital problems in England’s Royal Family, and a devastating fire in Windsor Castle, which has been used by members of the British Royal Family for almost 1000 years. All of these bad events added up to an annus horribilis for Queen Elizabeth. If you keep in mind the Queen of England’s unfortunate horrible year, and also words such as annual, it is more probable that you will recall that the letter n occurs two times in the word anniversary.
Anthropology.
This field of study should not be spelled wrong as anthropolgy or antropology. Anthropologists study human beings to better understand them. They may focus on cultural anthropology, or how societies function, or biological anthropology, about how the human organism develops. The two wrong spellings of the word in Thai English are due to separate misunderstandings. People who write anthropolgy instead of the correct anthropology are mistakenly trying to reproduce the word as they say it, or as it is pronounced in Thai English. The letters ending the word, ology, should be familiar as meaning a subject of study or field of knowledge. Such words as futurology, gastroenterology, geology, gerontology, and gynecology should be known to Thai readers of English at a university level. So, words that end in ology should obviously not be spelled as if they ended in olgy. This is a simple mistake. A more complex error is spelling anthropology wrong as antropology, since it involves getting the root meaning of the word wrong as well. Again, it is probably best not to spend too much time with etymologies, since learning English can be difficult enough without them. Still, as a matter of general culture, it can be good to know that the Ancient Greek word ánthrōpos refers to man, mankind, human, and humanity. Even if you do not know any other ancient Greek word, the word anthropos is a basic one to know. So the study of man is naturally anthrop-ology. If you prefer to forget about Greek, but like science fiction, there is another way to help you remember the correct spelling of anthropology. Fans of these books and films are often interested in anthros and anthropomorphs, otherwise known as furries. Some even attend conventions dressed up in fur suits. This is particularly popular among students in Japan. One online dictionary of current English slang defines an anthro as
an animal with human-like characteristics. A human with animal-like characteristics can also be called an anthro, but technically they are not. An anthro is, technically, an animal that can: a) walk upright, b) talk, or talk somewhat (AKA has human vocal chords), c) has human features (i.e. a centaur, half human, half horse), d) has the bone structure of a human, with some of its animal counterpart (i.e. a cat-anthro that although looks like a human, can jump like a cat). These characteristics separate anthros from humans with cat ears and tail (or something like that).
An example from science fiction writing is also given:
Jeremy was an anthro wolf. His nails were abnormally long, and his hair was scruffy like a wolf’s hide.
The same dictionary explains that in science fiction, an anthropomorph is
a non-human object that has been given human characteristics, such as a upright walking cat, a cloud with a smiley face, or a talking spoon.
Any fan of science fiction who is aware of the anthro and anthropomorph craze will have no problem in spelling the first part of the word anthropology, and will never make the mistake of writing it antropology, leaving out the essential letter h.
(all images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)