Strange little language quirk

andell
Tue, 05 Dec 2006 13:09:05 +0000

The misspelling isn’t really because of different spelling styles between American English and British English. “Definitely” is spelled correctly only one way…“definately” is actually pretty much a phonetic mistake, since the word sounds like “de-fi-naet-ly” when spoken quickly; the “naet” part is just assumed to be spelled “nate.”