Spelling Test Questions and Answers

Answer: B

Correct answer: Pharaoh

The correct spelling is pharaoh - the vowels run a-a-o, and the word ends in a silent h. The near-universal error is pharoah, which transposes the last two letters. There is no rule to appeal to; the word came into English through Latin and Greek from an Egyptian phrase meaning great house, and its letters simply have to be learned. The initial ph for an f sound is the standard English rendering of the Greek letter phi, and it marks a whole class of borrowings: philosophy, physics, photograph, pharmacy, phenomenon and sphere. The adjective is pharaonic, which shifts the stress and makes the vowel order easier to hear. The plural is pharaohs, keeping the silent h before the s.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Bureau

The correct spelling is bureau - bur- followed by the vowel cluster eau. It is French, and originally meant the coarse woollen cloth that covered a writing desk; the sense moved from the cloth to the desk, then to the office, and then to the organisation. The cluster eau is purely French and appears in every English word borrowed with it: beau, plateau, tableau, chateau, trousseau and gateau. Most of them may take either a French plural in -x or an English one in -s, so both bureaux and bureaus are correct. The commonest error inserts an a after the b, on the model of beautiful - which is a different cluster altogether. The derived forms are bureaucracy, bureaucrat and bureaucratic, each keeping the whole of bureau intact.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Rendezvous

The correct spelling is rendezvous, keeping the z that English pronunciation does not sound. The word is French and was originally an imperative phrase, rendez-vous, meaning present yourselves - hence its sense of an appointed meeting or meeting place. English took it whole in the sixteenth century, dropped the hyphen, and kept every letter. The final s is silent in the singular; the plural is spelt identically but pronounced with the s sounded. It functions as a verb too, giving rendezvoused and rendezvousing - forms that look impossible but are standard. Other French phrases absorbed whole into English include tête-à-tête, cul-de-sac, coup d’état and faux pas, all of which keep silent letters that give no help to the writer.

Answer: C

Correct answer: Reconnaissance

The correct spelling is reconnaissance - a double n, a double s, and the ending -ance. It is among the hardest words in English to spell from its sound alone. It is French, from reconnaître, to recognise or survey, and ultimately the Latin recognoscere - the same root as English recognise, cognition and connoisseur. Connoisseur is its closest relative in difficulty, sharing both doublings for the same reason, and the two are best learned together. The military abbreviation recce in British usage, or recon in American, exists precisely because the full word is so awkward. The verb formed from it in English is reconnoitre, which is spelt differently again, with -oitre, and which is a rare instance of the noun and the verb diverging so far.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Fluorescent

The correct spelling is fluorescent - fluor-, not flour-. The transposition is almost universal, because the English word flour is far commoner and the ear supplies its order. But the two are unrelated: this word comes from fluorspar, the mineral in which the phenomenon was first observed, which is itself named from the Latin fluere, to flow, because it was used as a flux in smelting. The same fluor- appears in fluoride, fluorine, fluorescence and fluorocarbon, and the same fluere in fluid, fluent, influence and affluent. The ending is -escent, which marks a beginning or a process, as in adolescent, convalescent, luminescent and effervescent. The noun is fluorescence, with the same shift from -ent to -ence.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Amateur

The correct spelling is amateur, ending -eur. The commonest error transposes the last two vowels to -uer, and the second commonest anglicises the whole ending to -ure, giving amature. It is French, from the Latin amator, a lover - the same root as amateur’s meaning, someone who does a thing for love of it rather than for payment, and as amorous, amiable and enamoured. The -eur ending is a French agent suffix and belongs to a recognisable family: chauffeur, connoisseur, entrepreneur, masseur, saboteur and restaurateur. Learning the group together secures the ending in every one of them. The adjective is amateurish, and the abstract noun amateurism.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Wednesday

The correct spelling is Wednesday, with a d that modern pronunciation entirely drops. The word is Old English Wodnesdæg, the day of Woden, the chief Germanic god, corresponding to the Roman Mercury - which is why the French call it mercredi. Seeing Wednes- as Woden’s restores the missing letter. The other days of the week are named the same way: Tuesday after Tiw, Thursday after Thor, Friday after Frigg, and Saturday after the Roman Saturn, with Sunday and Monday after the sun and moon. A useful mnemonic pronounces the word as it is written, Wed-nes-day, when writing it. English keeps several such historical spellings whose sounds have vanished: knight, listen, island, debt and February, whose first r is almost always unpronounced.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Cemetery

The correct spelling is cemetery - three es and no a anywhere. The mistake cemetary comes from the far commoner ending -ary, found in library, secretary, necessary and February. Only a small group takes -ery: cemetery, monastery, stationery meaning writing materials, confectionery and millinery. The mnemonic is that there are three es in cemetery, one for each syllable that is not the last. The word comes through Latin from the Greek koimeterion, a sleeping place - the initial c being the Latin rendering of the Greek kappa, which is why semetery is wrong despite matching the pronunciation. The pair stationary and stationery shows how much the two endings can matter: one means motionless, the other paper and pens.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Sieve

The correct spelling is sieve - ie, following the rule i before e except after c, even though the word is pronounced siv and gives the ear no help at all. The gap between spelling and sound is the whole difficulty. The word is Old English, sife, and the modern spelling reflects a medieval pronunciation that has since shortened. The same ie pronounced short appears in friend, which is equally unhelpful to the writer, and both are worth learning as pairs with the regular ie words: believe, relieve, achieve, grieve and chief. The exceptions to the rule take ei: seize, weird, leisure, foreign, height, either and neither. The verb is spelt the same as the noun, giving sieved and sieving.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Renaissance

The correct spelling is renaissance - a single n at the start, a double s in the middle, and the ending -ance. It is French, meaning rebirth, from re-, again, and naître, to be born - ultimately the Latin nasci, which also gives nascent, native, nation and innate. The double s is French and is not signalled by the English pronunciation, which is why it is so often reduced. The temptation to double the n instead comes from words like rennet and from the general expectation that a doubled consonant follows a short vowel. Its close relative in difficulty is reconnaissance, which doubles both the n and the s. When it refers to the European cultural movement of the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries it takes a capital R; in the general sense of a revival it does not.