London - Spellchecks are turning us into dunces with a third of adults failing to reach the expected spelling ability of an 11 year-old child, a study reveals.
Research involving 1 000 adults aged between 16 and 77 found that only 67 percent would reach Level 4 in Standard Assessment Tests (SATs), while less than half (44 percent) would achieve Level 5.
Fifteen percent of the adults tested failed even to reach Level 3, which is below the level expected of children at age 11.
Experts blamed the poor showing of adults on the prevalence of tools such as spellcheck and auto-correct, which both play a prominent role in modern-day living.
The study asked adults to complete spelling tests designed to gauge the performance of children aged 10 and 11, as they reach the end of primary school. But the test spelled trouble for many of the adults tested.
“Phenomenon”, “unnecessary” and “broccoli” were among the words spelled wrong by more than half of those who took part.
The study was commissioned by King Digital Entertainment, makers of popular mobile games such as Candy Crush, to mark the launch of its first word-based game, AlphaBetty Saga.
People taking part were asked to spell 35 different words taken from SATs spelling papers from the past three years, in a test which mimicked real exam conditions.
The most common errors all, unsurprisingly, hailed from the extended test for Level 6 spelling, with just 25 percent of adults correctly spelling the word 'phenomenon' under test conditions.
Other words which fewer than half were able to spell included rhythmic (42 percent) and jewellery (49 percent).
Susie Dent, lexicographer and resident word expert on TV show Countdown, believes the results were partly down to the prevalence of tools such as spellcheck and auto-correct.
She said: “It's disheartening to see that one third of adults would not reach the expected level for an 11-year-old, suggesting that the ability to spell is losing its importance in our daily lives. Modern tools like spellcheck and autocorrect encourage us to switch off from learning, leading to complacency or, at worst, indifference.”
THE TOP FIVE MISSPELT WORDS
1. Phenomenon (25% correct)
2. Unnecessary (32% correct)
3. Disappearance (36% correct)
4. Correspondent (37% correct)
5. Synchronised (37% correct)
Daily Mail