Elitist and A Waste of Time

According to my very scientific Google search, there are over five million websites with "amateur" spelled incorrectly. You can guess what kind, for the most part.

"Amature" is the most popular misspelling, with half a million more hits than the almost-good-enough "amatuer."

While I was being a spelling snob, I decided to research some other gaffes, with the ultimate goal of finding a word spelled incorrectly more often than it is spelled correctly.

Here I go. Should I find such a word, I will probably attempt to destroy the Internet in some way. It'll be like a buddy comedy, with me and China.

Here are the results, in Google hits. I tried to stick with words that could (currently) never be used correctly in the "wrong" spelling.

I've ranked them in order from somewhat understandable, to completely unacceptable.

Right: Daylight-saving time       280,000
Wrong: Daylight-savings time   313,000

Right: Canada Geese        95,600
Wrong: Canadian Geese    22,900

Right: Barbecue    3,040,000
Wrong: Barbeque   947,000

Right: Surprise    11,200,000
Wrong: Suprise    393,000

Right: Misspelling    196,000
Wrong: Mispelling    36,300

O.k., even I'm already bored with this. I'll forgive the first two because I once made the same mistake, and I suppose that "BBQ" has probably messed up some people, who would otherwise spell barbecue correctly. (These are the same kind of people who have a problem with "xmas", I'd wager.)

"Suprise" is a shame, but spelling "misspelling" incorrectly (quicker Readers will notice that I used the word earlier, and make their own conclusions) is tragic.

Especially here, for example.