Reply #18: The common misspelling of separate, like many other common [View All]

[MineralMan]

misspellings, can be linked to our use of the "schwa" phoneme for unstressed vowels in our speech. Since its sound is really indeterminate as far as spelling goes, it leads to misplaced vowels in many words. Languages which do not change the pronunciation of stressed and unstressed vowels are much simpler to spell correctly. Spanish is one such language.

And then there is French. "Août" anyone? It's coming next month. French is notoriously difficult to spell from speech.