Saturday, August 2, 2008

Wonderings and Googlings (Wherein I wonder about words, then I Google them)


relieve stress = 1,890,000 hits
relive stress = 17,000 hits

(More fun: The first hit for "relive stress" says, "Physical contact is a great way to relive stress," and appears to be from an article that appeared in some publication of Caltech.)


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2 comments:

Joel said...

I'm curious what prompted your search because I have often wondered at the popularity of that misspelling, but thought it was just me. Maybe it's the advent of spell check; this one, of course, gets past and, in fairness to sloppy typists, it's easy to overlook on a re-read.

Anyway, physical contact is most certainly a great way to relive stress. And we've even an acronym for all of that reliving, contact-induced or otherwise: PTSD.

June Casagrande said...

I was copy editing something that said "relieve stress" and (as is unusual for me) stopped to pay careful attention and make sure all the letters were there. It's like "pubic company." Spell check won't catch it.

I was just wondering how many people had let it slip by. (I realize that not all instances are typos. But it gives you a rough idea.)

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