Guess what word Massachusetts residents can’t spell
Hint: It's somewhere in this headline.
Here’s an interesting batch of data from Google Trends: Ahead of last night’s 2016 Scripps National Spelling Bee, the company released a map with each state’s most commonly misspelled words according to Google.
It’s the #spellingbee finals! These are the top “how to spell” searches for words by state, mapped #dataviz pic.twitter.com/rjXllJfOoE
— GoogleTrends (@GoogleTrends) May 26, 2016
So what types of spelling mishaps are happening nationwide? Google Trends made the map pretty straightforward: states in red are one of four states that misspell the same word, states in purple are one of three states that misspell the same word, and so on with blue and yellow.
Based on the data, it looks like California, Idaho, Indiana, and Connecticut are having trouble with the word “desert,” while Virginia, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Maryland can’t spell “cancelled.” (FWIW, Merriam Webster accepts “canceled,” too.) Other funny ones are “gray” for South Dakota, Michigan, and Oklahoma (which is a cop-out, come on Google), and West Virginia’s “giraffe” (this is very random and strangely awesome).
So what in the world might Massachusetts’s most commonly misspelled word be?
People in Massachusetts—a state that was ranked as the smartest in the whole country—can’t spell “Massachusetts,” their own home state’s name.
OK. Let’s acknowledge that “Massachusetts” is a hard word to spell no matter where you are. But come on, guys! We’re making America’s most intelligent state look bad. We can do this!
Granted, at least we aren’t those folks over in Ohio misspelling “banana.” Guess they aren’t fans of Gwen Stefani.
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com