Thursday 4 October 2012

SPELLING

It's official. The word that Danes have most trouble spelling is "af sted", meaning away (as in go away).

I am not so surprised. The f is silent, and the d sounds like the th in "the". But the most difficult thing is that it is made up of two smaller words, af (from) and sted (place, as in the older English word stead). When you say it in Danish, it is impossible - even for Danes - to hear whether it is one word or two.

It's often written as one word, but the correct spelling is as two. That's also official.

Walter Blotscher
Posted by Walter Blotscher at 20:39

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous5 October 2012 at 21:24

    The reason, though, that people spell this word wrong isn't actually the silent letters or the fact that Danes spell quite badly, but that nobody in denmark actually knows that it is spelt in two words. Dictionaries spell it as one and no teacher in Denmark would ever correct you if you spelt it in tht way - in fact, the would only correct you if you did not.

    So is it really incorrect to spell it like that?

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  2. Walter Blotscher5 October 2012 at 23:12

    Er, yup. Here is a link.

    http://www.bt.dk/danmark/kan-du-stave-danmarks-svaereste-ord

    Regards,

    Walter

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