Millions of adults are unable to spell basic everyday words, a study suggests.

一項調查研究顯示，相當多的成年人都無法正確拼寫出一些日常生活中的基本單詞。

Of 2,500 surveyed, 40 per cent could not spell "questionnaire", 38 per cent were stumped by"accommodate" and 37 per cent were defeated by "definitely".

一項對2,500人進行的調查顯示，40%的受訪者都被questionnaire（問卷調查）這個詞難倒。另外兩個“難詞”是accommodate（適應、留宿或招待）和definitely（絕對、肯定），分別有38%和37%的受訪者不能正確拼寫。

Around a third of those questioned were unable to spell "liaison", "existence" or"occurrence".

還有大約1/3的受訪者會栽在liaison（聯絡）、existence（存在）和occurrence（發生、出現）這三個詞上。

Other simple words which caused problems were "calendar", "embarrass", "library" and"receipt".

其他一些容易出錯的單詞包括：calendar（日歷）, embarrass（困窘）, library（圖書館）和receipt（收據）。

Two-thirds blamed their inability to get words right on the predictive text function on their mobile phones.

三分之二的受訪者將不會拼寫歸咎于發送手機短信，因為現在短信的輸入都有單詞提示功能。

Alarmingly, 14 per cent did not think it was important to spell properly, and 11 per cent were not bothered by colleagues' spelling mistakes.

令人擔憂的是，14%的人認為拼寫錯誤并沒有什么大不了，而11%的人不會介意同事錯誤的拼寫。

Twenty per cent said they avoided writing documents by hand because their spelling was poor, and 59 per cent said they relied on their computer's spell checker to get things right--even though some are programmed with American English.

20%的人表示由于拼寫能力不強，他們會避免手寫的文檔。59%的人表示他們寫東西時會依賴電腦的自動拼寫檢查功能，即使需要鑒別一些美式英語和英式英語的拼寫差異。

It's interesting to see that despite getting basic words wrong, a huge majority still regard their spelling skills as excellent or good.

有趣的是，盡管很多人連一些基本單詞的拼寫都弄錯了，但絕大多數人仍舊認為自己的拼寫能力很好、很出色。

 

 

The 20 simple words Brits are unable to spell:

20個英國人最易拼錯的簡單詞匯：

1. Questionnaire 2. Accommodate 3. Definitely 4. Liaison 5. Existence

6. Occurrence 7. Referring 8. Occurred 9. Millennium 10. Embarrass

11. Calendar 12. Receive 13. Necessary 14. Separate 15. Cemetery

16. Library 17. Accidentally 18. Independent 19. Occasionally 20. Receipt

（來源：網絡 英語點津Jennifer編輯）