Template talk:misspelling of

Intended use
What a strange template. It is not intended to be used for the hundreds of "* Common misspelling of ..." entries? Only in-line in definition sections? Is that right? To me, it seems like a strange misuse. --Connel MacKenzie 04:00, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Not sure what standard has been developed. Is referer out of line? DAVilla 20:13, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * No, that is the newer method that has been discussed between 8 July and now. The new method seems to satisfy the most people.  I still hate the notion of puting a language heading on something that is not a word in that language.  This seems to be a fundamental shift away from what was the standard practice a couple months ago; but apparently I'm the only one that cares about the language heading.  --Connel MacKenzie 21:00, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh please, there is no "Internet" usage of "Referer", Tim made the same spelling mistake in the RFC. This is nuts. At best, do Mispelling of like See also at the top of the page or a flat redirect if there is no content and if you must. Get rid of referer Robert Ullmann 21:28, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh dear, they actually wrote it into the HTTP specification, so that is the in-band name on the field. Sigh. Keep. You might note this. It is the HTTP Referer. Robert Ullmann 21:36, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I assumed the discussion was about the use of the template not the validity of the entry.
 * The "Internet usage" refers to the misspelling in the HTTP protocol itself, so every book that discusses the HTTP protocol has to discuss why the misspelling propogated unchecked.
 * --Connel MacKenzie 21:39, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * indeed, IMHO "sense 1" should go away. This isn't a noun definition sense; and you aren't the only one who cares. So the question becomes: is there any valid use of the template? This ain't it. (propogated? Oh my!) Robert Ullmann 21:48, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

strike "common"?
I would like to propose striking the word "common" from the expansion of this template. —scs 18:52, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) I would like to be able to use the template without worrying about whether the misspelling is truly "common".
 * 2) In any case, the word doesn't tell the reader anything useful.  A misspelling is a misspelling.


 * I would object to that change. The template is only to be used for very common misspellings; we should not be encouraging that it ever be used.  Instead, it should be used as a last resort.  --Connel MacKenzie 19:07, 26 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Connel is correct. We don't intend to give every misspelling here - that would be nigh on impossible and lead to more misspellings than correctly spelled entries. So no typos such as "hte" for "the", and no "carefull" for "careful", etc. Only very common misspellings are given (such as "accomodation" and "miniscule") as users are likely to look these up and being told that the word is misspelled (and what the correct spelling is) is useful; hence the use of "common" in the template. &mdash; Paul G 07:21, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Entry count hack
I was under the impression we recently decided not to allow wikilinks in this template as these entries shouldn't count anyway, do people still think this? Conrad.Irwin 23:15, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Good point, I forgot this. Sorry. -- Gauss 23:16, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
 * The good thing is: Now this fact is now finally mentioned on this talk page, and thus in the documentation of the template. I think it should have been laid down here earlier. -- Gauss 23:22, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Well they are entries, even if they are misspellings they are pages that exist on this Wiktionary. So yes, it needs a parameter for that. See also User talk:SemperBlotto (as of today's date). Mglovesfun (talk) 11:52, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Unncessary Formatting
The word linked should not be bolded.174.3.98.236 07:38, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Can you please explain why the word linked should not be bolded? In my opinion, the word linked should be bolded, because most information such as translations, related terms and more enlightening definitions is shown when the word linked is clicked. Therefore, it should draw attention from the reader. Nonetheless, if you create an account or sign up, you may easily determine your own formatting choices, including a linked word not bolded. --Daniel. 11:15, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Homophonic Misspellings?
It seems to me that it'd be useful to have a variation of this template that labels a homophonic misspelling, which I think is useful to understand why such misspellings occur. In particular it'd be nice for stuff like "of" ('ve) and "your" (you're), the latter currently has a usage note instead of using this template. Sabretoof 13:56, 11 November 2010 (UTC)


 * What do you have in mind? —Ruakh TALK 14:11, 11 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Well the problem is that AFAIK, you can't qualify this template at the moment, producing the sort of output that I'd like. Really all that I'm asking for is to be able to say "common homophonic misspelling" in the output ... I'm not sure whether a separate template or a parameter would be appropriate though ... there may be other types of misspelling, though this is obviously a common one. Sabretoof 17:55, 11 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't know . . . I'm not sure that homophonic misspelling is very clear: a misspelling is by definition homophonous with the correct spelling. You're using it to mean something like "A misspelling of word X that is the right spelling of word Y, where X and Y are homophones, and this homophony is the cause of the misspelling", but I don't think that's at all obvious. —Ruakh TALK 18:23, 11 November 2010 (UTC)


 * It's not particularly important to me how it's described as long as the content is there in some manner, i.e. currently the misspelling definition and the homophone definition have no relationship in entries, and everyone is left to figure it out. And yes, it would obviously have to be a real word (or at least morpheme) in the language in order to qualify. Sabretoof 18:42, 11 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Understood. I'm just not sure what shape the content should take, which makes it hard to set about adding it . . . —Ruakh TALK 19:33, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Doesn't the fact that a 'real' and a "misspelling of" definition both exist for a word imply what you want, Sabretoof? Does it need to be stated? &#x200b;—msh210℠ (talk) 19:52, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, there's an implication, to be sure, but I was talking about stating it explicitly. If someone wasn't a native speaker it might not be obvious that the misspelling is a word pronounced the same way. You can find out indirectly, but it seems useful to me to make it direct. In the more complicated case of 've and of, it's not even obvious to a native speaker that they are homophones in some contexts. Sabretoof 21:29, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I should point out that many spelling errors are actually not homophonic, but the choice of a similar sounding word, e.g. conscious and conscience. Perhaps that's more accurately described as a misconstruction or something else, but I don't think a layperson would necessarily be thinking that. Sabretoof 21:39, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

striking "common" - redux
I propose we strike "common" from the template. If an English word gets just three misspellings ever, but they can be used to cite the entry, then it can be created, and policy says we ought to create it with this template. This template then lies about its frequency by calling it "common". With the new set of languages that can be cited with just one citation (limited documentation languages), this is even more common, and I've seen it in extinct languages that already ha the one-cite rule, like Latin. Any objections? --Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 04:20, 20 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Re: "If an English word gets just three misspellings ever, but they can be used to cite the entry, then it can be created": And deleted. We only keep common misspellings. As Criteria for inclusion puts it:
 * Most simple typos are much rarer than the most frequent spellings. Some words, however, are frequently misspelled. For example, occurred is often spelled with only one c or only one r, but only occurred is considered correct. The misspellings may well merit entries.
 * —Ruakh TALK 13:54, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Maybe I don't get it - I thought we keep attested, non-SOP, fully cited, non-copyvio, correct entries - even if they're alt-forms or misspellings (the two are often interchangeable, in my experience, cf. oportunus). Deleting terms we would normally keep because they are seen as a certain unaccepted variety of another word seems strange to me. --Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 16:40, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I think it's the common sense principle, we don't want every single error attestable somewhere in a dictionary, even if we do mark them with 'error' in some way. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:47, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
 * It's a blurred line at best. I think I'll just use for now, and not worry about it. --Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 16:51, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
 * oportunus looks like a reasonable rfd candidate. And yes they are indeed blurred 'at best'. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:20, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
 * RFD it if you want to; it doesn't make a difference to me. --Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 21:35, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

How to use this with words that have multiple acceptable spellings
I couldn't find anything about making a misspelling entry for a term that can be spelled acceptably in two or more ways.

This morning I just found the internet is full of "nerve-wrecking" and decided to make an entry for it. I then became aware that both "nerve-racking" and "nerve-wracking" are acceptable.

Please check and see if my solution is optimal: nerve-wrecking &mdash; hippietrail (talk) 22:37, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Since the latter form was proscribed and etymologically incorrect I figured it’d be best to only show the first form.Jonteemil (talk) 16:11, 29 January 2019 (UTC)