Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Weirdo Spelling

I have recently become aware of a totally new standard by which we can sort humanity into worthy citizens vs. scum of the earth: how you spell that word that means "having a difficult choice to make."

I have always seen it as "dilemma," which your average dictionary prefers, but apparently there are a large number of otherwise well-educated people who spell this word with a silent n: "dilemna."

I had never heard of this before Paul Levy mentioned it at Running a Hospital, and frankly I don't think I hold with it, but based on this update, it's actually fairly common. As an intrepid investigator reports after Googling the variant spelling,

DILEMNA is known all over the English speaking world, from America to Australia, and no one has an idea where it originated.

Weird.

But as I said, this will be a handy tool with which to make snap judgements about people: ask them to spell 'dilemma.'

I haven't yet decided exactly what judgments I'll be making, but rest assured there will be some.

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