I just noticed that "tentative" is not infrequently misspelled "tenative". On reflection, this is not surprising, because in North American speech, it is often pronounced this way, much as "dentist" is pronounced "dennis" in informal contexts.
However, that is no excuse.
"Tentative" has three t's. Something tentative is an attempt, and the words both have the same Latin source, temptare (to try, to tempt). So think of "attempt" when you are writing "tentative".
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About Me
- Katherine Barber
- Canada's Word Lady, Katherine Barber is an expert on the English language and a frequent guest on radio and television. She was Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary. Her witty and informative talks on the stories behind our words are very popular. Contact her at wordlady.barber@gmail.com to book her for speaking engagements; she can tailor her talks to almost any subject. She is also available as an expert witness for lawsuits.
Drives me NUTS! CNN and all the other broadcasters drop the second "t" all the time, even in the bottom-of-the-screen crawl. Thank you for giving voice to the silent miseries of bad spelling and grammar ;)
ReplyDeleteAnd Greg or Gregg is spelled with 2 "G"'s or 3 "G"'s, not 1 "G" or 2 as is often, incorrectly asked.
ReplyDelete