Brits find accommodation a little uncomfortable

Hot on the heels of the shock news that native speakers of English struggle to spell "embarrassment", a net search engine analysis of "which words received the most queries requesting a correct spelling" revealed that Brits find "accommodation" the most challenging.

That's according to Ask.com, which also fingered "accessory", "guarantee" and "opportunity" as hot faves for correction plus, natch, "embarrass". Also on the list of shame were "restaurant" and "February", while "hundreds of people are also confused by the letter order of eighth and the silent 'p' in 'receipt'", as the Telegraph puts it.

The reasons? Yup, you guessed it: Text speak, reliance on spellcheckers and general bone idleness are about to consign our beloved mother lingo to orthographical oblivion.

Ask.com's Cesar Mascaraque said: "With so much rapid communication these days, it seems people often spell words incorrectly in emails and text messages without really bothering too much. However, when it comes to formal letters and even job applications, they need to get the correct spellings in place.

"Perhaps people are putting less emphasis on correct spellings in everyday communication these days, but as a consequence their spelling is suffering." ®