{"id":671,"date":"2008-07-16T05:00:19","date_gmt":"2008-07-16T13:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/?p=671"},"modified":"2008-07-15T18:06:27","modified_gmt":"2008-07-16T02:06:27","slug":"a-hard-word-to-spell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/language\/editing\/a-hard-word-to-spell\/","title":{"rendered":"A hard word to spell"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog-images-08\/dried-out.jpg\" alt=\"desiccated\" width=\"435\" height=\"297\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It means &#8220;<span>to dry; to preserve by drying.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m hiring a temporary replacement editor for a colleague who will be out several months on a medical leave. I got a lot of very qualified applicants. To whittle them down I produced a test of 85 objective questions. I tested the top 14 candidates, all with sterling credentials. Apparently the test was harder than I thought &#8212; the average score was 66 percent.<\/p>\n<p>The first twenty questions were multiple choice spelling questions. Thirteen of the fourteen editors disagreed with <em>Webster&#8217;s New Collegiate<\/em> on how this word is spelled:<\/p>\n<p>13.<br \/>\n___ desicate<br \/>\n___ desiccate<br \/>\n___ dessicate<br \/>\n___ dessiccate<\/p>\n<p>Correct answer after the break . . .<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>. . .<\/p>\n<p>13.<br \/>\n___ desicate<br \/>\nX__ desiccate<br \/>\n___ dessicate<br \/>\n___ dessiccate<\/p>\n<p>The double c comes from the Latin word <em>siccus,<\/em> dry. I think it is related to words for sack or bag: Latin <em>saccus, <\/em>Greek <em>sakkos, <\/em>Hebrew <em>saq.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>image from <a title=\"dessicant desert\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/46921813@N00\/2382142127\" target=\"_blank\">mbollino&#8217;s photostream<\/a><\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It means &#8220;to dry; to preserve by drying.&#8221; I&#8217;m hiring a temporary replacement editor for a colleague who will be out several months on a medical leave. I&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}