You Won’t Believe What Word Arizona Misspells the Most

When thirteen-year-old Aliya Alpert, an 8th grader from Yavapai County, won this year's Arizona spelling bee, she made the rest of the state stand up and cheer. The homeschooled student bested 27 competitors when she correctly spelled the word volemic, garnering a decisive v-i-c-t-o-r-y.

The Most Commonly Misspelled Words in Arizona

I used to be pretty good at spelling. These days, though, I have to admit, autocorrect and spell-checkers have made me lazy and cut into a skill I once valued.

Lately, it takes me three or four tries before I can spell a word as simple as callender calender calendar correctly. If I'm writing something out longhand with pen and paper, there's no telling what you'll see written, crossed out, and then just "whatevered" on the paper before I give up and hope for the best.

And I'm not alone. It turns out, Arizona - and most of the internet - has trouble spelling quite a few words.

Arizona school children have to learn words like saguaro and cholla when writing about cactus.

Words like Ajo and Ruthrauff are memorized for those times you have to give directions in Tucson.

We have to spell Huachuca, Cochise, and Pima when we're talking about place names. So why does Arizona have so much trouble with these common words? Well, everyone does, even Arizona!

So, What Does Volemic Mean?

In case you were wondering, according to Merriam-Webster.com, volemic is defined as "of, relating to, or concerned with the volume of circulating blood or plasma."

Thankfully, it's not a word we use often, but thanks to Aliya Alpert in Arizona we're ready should the need arise!

[ Merriam-Webster.com | AZEdFoundation.org | 12News.com | WorldMetrics.org | TheLanguageNerds.com ]