A quick word … seperate: smell a rat?

 

This is a case of if it looks wrong, it’s right.

‘Separate’ looks wrong. ‘Seperate’ looks right – which is why you’ll often see it spelt like that.

However, the correct spelling is: separate.

Remember: there is always a rat in sep-a-rat-e.

The following spellings also look wrong, but are correct (there’s a rat in all of them):

Separates

Separated

Separation

Separately

Separateness

 

See all posts from the ‘quick word’ series