Discussion
Find the correctly spelt word:
Answer: A
Correct answer: Vacuum
The correct spelling is vacuum - one c and two us. It is among the very few English words containing a double u, the others being continuum, residuum and menstruum. All are Latin neuter nouns whose -uum ending English kept intact. The commonest error doubles the c instead, by analogy with vaccine and vaccination - which are entirely unrelated. Those come from the Latin vacca, a cow, because the first vaccine was derived from cowpox; vacuum comes from vacuus, empty, the same root as vacant, vacate and evacuate. Keeping the two roots apart - vacca the cow with two cs, vacuus the emptiness with one - disposes of the error for good. The plural is vacuums in ordinary use and vacua in scientific writing.
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