Definately tricky

An entertaining recent thread on those words whose spelling trips you up – or at least gives you pause – every time kicked off with queue (‘all those u’s and e’s’), proceeding by way of the likes of

Liaise

questionnaire (‘one ‘n’ or two?)

definately (or is it ‘definitely’?)

and

permanent vs permenant

to ‘separate’ – which I have to confess I also spent years correcting from ‘seperate’.

Star of the thread, though, was an entry from someone who said she’d never been able to get a handle on ‘necessary’, until a tutor took her to one side and suggested that

“Nearly Every Clown Eats Special Sausages At Rehearsals, Y? Because it’s necessary”