Avoiding spelling mistakes.

It may seem like obvious advice, but all Thammasat University students should take a moment to be sure they are spelling correctly in English the name of their major field of study. Some names of faculties are easier to write in English than others. For example, students at the TU Faculty of Law are lucky because the word law is easy to remember how to spell. Students at the TU Faculty of Engineering may have a bigger challenge. In Thai English, the noun engineering is sometimes seen spelled wrong as enginerring or engineeering or enginering. It is likely that if we are studying engineering, we will need to write the word engineering more times than people who are not studying engineering. We may have to write the word on theses or other academic research papers. The main risk is that we may think we are so familiar with the word that is our major field of study that we no longer have to pay attention when we write it. That is one reason why writers of Thai English might make the error of writing the word engineering as enginerring or engineeering or enginering. They are too confident that they know how to spell it, and are not careful. If they write too fast, the mistake occurs.

The problem is that it cannot make a good impression on our readers if we spell the name of our main field of study wrong. Readers in another country or other faculty may realize that it was a simple case of carelessness, but it is never good to appear careless, especially in a thesis or academic research paper where we are trying to impress our readers with the thoroughness of our work and preparation. A few readers may even think that we never learned how to spell the name of our major field of study, and have no idea at all about it. For this reason, it is worth taking special care to be sure we are spelling such an important word in the right way. Because the word engineering is a challenge to some writers of Thai English, if we look at why the mistakes are made, perhaps this will prevent them from happening. Engineering is a relatively long word, and when we start to write it, it is possible that we hope the word will continue as it begins. So engineering begins with a single letter e and then later we have two letter e’s. If, as we write the word engineering, our brains mistakenly would like it to have two single letter e’s, then we may produce the wrong spelling enginerring. One way to prevent this error would be to think of how the word is pronounced and what it means.

As we know, the noun engineering refers to using science and mathematics to create, design, construct, operate and maintain structures, machines, materials, devices, systems, processes, and organizations. There are many specific kinds of engineering, such as chemical engineering, civil engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and others. The origin of the word engineering is found in Latin terms meaning cleverness and dreaming up. So an engineer was originally someone who had lots of clever creative ideas.

If we look at words that are written similarly, then it may be easier to remember how to spell them all correctly. The noun engineer refers to a person who designs, builds, or maintains engines, machines, or public works. The noun engineer ends with the letters ineer, like the English words mountaineer and mutineer. A mountaineer is someone who climbs mountains and a mutineer is someone who takes part in a mutiny on board a ship. There are many words that rhyme with engineer while also using the two letter e’s that are needed to make the right sound when we pronounce the word. They include:

• beer
• cheer
• peer
• veer
• auctioneer
• balladeer
• pamphleteer
• pioneer
• profiteer
• racketeer
• volunteer
• black marketeer
• charioteer
• conventioneer
• electioneer

In most of these examples, the word ending –eer means people who deal professionally, conduct, or produce the thing in question. Someone who is an auctioneer deals with auctions. A pamphleteer writes or sells pamphlets. People who are only interested in making profits and taking advantage of people might be considered profiteers. If we invent a few sentences using these words, we may remember to associate them with one another and keep in mind how they should be spelled. Some examples, where the meaning of the sentence is less important than the way similarly spelled words are brought together, include:

The engineer drank some beer and hoped no one thought of him as a profiteer.

The auctioneer was full of good cheer because he was a pioneer in online sales.

The volunteer tried to help the conventioneer who was also a pamphleteer.  

So when we see the word engineer, we should think of the person who does the engineering. One technique to help us remember that the word has two letter e’s in its final portion might be to think of the two letter e’s as two eyes, and the engineer looking at us from the middle of the word, to see if we will spell engineer and engineering correctly. If we can be sure that the words engineer and engineering have two letter e’s in their center, then we may succeed in avoiding the wrong spellings enginerring and enginering.

Another reason not to spell the word engineering as enginerring would be that the word erring in English means to make a mistake. It would not be a good spelling for the important word engineering to include a word with this meaning. The third most common wrong spelling for the word engineering is the opposite of the versions which write only one letter e instead of the correct two letter e’s. By using the mistaken spelling engineeering, the writer of Thai English is too enthusiastic about the number of letter e’s in the center of the word, and includes too many. Anyone who has studied English as a foreign language knows that rules are difficult to remember, sometimes because there are exceptions to the rule. This may be annoying, but certain cases make things easier because there are no exceptions. In standard English, there are no examples of words with three of the same letters one right after the other.  There can be no words engineeering or engineeer because they do not exist in standard English. If three of the same letters are found in a row in English, they are usually separated by a punctuation mark. So if a person or animal likes to eat bees, the word bee-eater might apply to them. Note that we would put a hyphen between the words bee and eater to make a compound word instead of mashing it all together as beeeater. There are clear reasons for this approach. Having too many identical letters one after another might be confusing for readers. Other examples might include when someone has a lovely voice, we might say they make a bell-like sound. Social scientists often write about a cross-section of the population. Natural historians and biologists who wish to describe animals without shells might refer to them as shell-less. In none of these cases would it be right to just put all three letters together. We never write in English belllike or crosssection or shellless. In the same way, engineeering and engineeer are impossible spelling choices.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)