Miscellaneous Entries.
skill-less — so hyphenated — is sometimes misspelled *"skilless." E.g.: "Regardless of what people think, it's not a skilless [read ‘skill-less’] job," said a clerk at a West End Safeway. Mike Sadava, No Stores to Shut if Strike Hits Safeway, Edmonton J., 21 Mar. 1997, at B3.
skim milk; *skimmed milk. Though the latter was the original form, "skim milk" is now standard, outstripping the other in frequency of use by an 8-to-1 ratio.
skulduggery; *skullduggery; *sculduggery; *scullduggery. "Skulduggery" (= trickery; unscrupulous behavior) is the standard spelling. The others are variant forms.
skyjack; hijack. Today airline hijackings are still sometimes termed "skyjackings." But "hijacking" remains the more common word.
*Invariably inferior forms.
For information about the Language-Change Index, click here.
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Quotation of the Day: "Letters have been misread, and have failed of their purpose, because of their writers' ignorance of punctuation, indifference to its advantages, or rebellion against its discipline. Such errors, in business, sometimes cost money. In the writing and printing of contracts, they may lead to lawsuits. In the drafting of laws or constitutions, they may cause wars and rebellions, or, at the least, time-wasting debates and expensive delays while the courts interpret." Edward N. Teall, Putting Words to Work 7 (1940).
