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ESCALATOR is one of many words that were originally trademarks but have become ordinary words found in dictionaries. Some other words which were originally trademarks (or still are) are AQUA-LUNG, ASPIRIN, AUTOHARP, BAKELITE, BAND-AID, BREATHALYZER, BVD, CELLOPHANE, CELLULOID, CORNFLAKES, CUBE STEAK, DACRON, DEEPFREEZE, DICTAPHONE, DITTO, DRY ICE, DUMPSTER, FORMICA, FRISBEE, GRANOLA, GUNK, HEROIN, JACUZZI, JEEP, JELL-O, KEROSENE, KLEENEX, LANOLIN, MACE, MIMEOGRAPH, MOXIE, NOVOCAIN, PABLUM, PHILLIPS SCREW, PING-PONG, PLEXIGLAS, POGO STICK, POPSICLE, PYREX, Q-TIP, ROLLERBLADE, SCOTCH TAPE, SHEETROCK, STETSON HAT, STYROFOAM, TABLOID, TARMAC, THERMOS, TRAMPOLINE, VASELINE, VELCRO, WINDBREAKER, YO-YO, ZIPPER [Charles Turner and others]. In addition NYLON was coined by du Pont, although the term was never trademarked .
------------------ The only countries in the world with one syllable in their names are CHAD, FRANCE, GREECE, LAOS (one pronunciation), and SPAIN. There is also WALES, although it is not an independent country ------------------ SOME COMMON MISSPELLINGS
The words most likely to be misspelled (ratio of incorrect to correct spellings) according to a study of Usenet traffic several years ago were DUMBBELL, OCCURRENCE, MEMENTO, FRUSTUM, COLLECTIBLE, AMATEUR, DAIQUIRI, PASTIME, ACCIDENTALLY, PLAYWRIGHT, EMBARRASS, ACQUIT, HARASS, and PRONUNCIATION. The same study showed these words most frequently misspelled (by gross count): RECEIVE, A LOT, AMATEUR, SEPARATE, REALIZE, THEIR, DEFINITE, INDEPENDENT, WEIRD, EMBARRASS, ARGUMENT, NO ONE, ACQUIRE, ACCIDENTALLY, OCCURRENCE, COLLECTIBLE, RIDICULOUS, MANEUVER, LIAISON, GAUGE, ATHEIST, GRAMMAR, SUPERSEDE, KERNEL, and CONSENSUS. The study does not reveal common errors such as IT'S/ITS and YOUR/YOU'RE. Another study of misspelled words at http://www.barnsdle.demon.co.uk/spell/error.html shows the following words (or forms of these words) as the most frequently misspelled: MINUSCULE, MILLENNIUM, EMBARRASSMENT, OCCURRENCE, ACCOMMODATE, PERSEVERANCE, SUPERSEDE, NOTICEABLE, HARASS, INOCULATE, OCCURRED, SEPARATE, EMBARRASS, PRECEDING, INDISPENSABLE, DEFINITELY, PRIVILEGE, GAUGE, QUESTIONNAIRE, EXISTENCE, MINIATURE, PRECEDE, WEIRD, RHYTHM, SEPARATELY, CONSCIENTIOUS, MISSPELL, HIERARCHY, GRAMMAR, CALENDAR, and WITHHOLD. The author of the website also points out, "Anecdotal evidence and personal observation indicate that a few other cases where a "non-standard" spelling is frequently used on the Internet are alright for all right, alot for a lot, and it's for the possessive its. However, search engines don't look for extremely common words (asking one to search for posts with the word the would turn up just about every post ever made) and looking for two-word phrases (all right, a lot) is trickier than for a single word.” Some of the words in the above paragraph have alternate spellings in some dictionaries (such as "miniscule" and "millenium"). Some other commonly misspelled words are BARBECUE and UKULELE, although some dictionaries also give "ukelele" and Chambers has "barbeque.” MWCD11 now has bicep as an entry, dated 1939, although the preferred term BICEPS is dated 1634. In Samuel Johnson's abridged 1843 Edition of his dictionary, FRUSTUM is misspelled as "frustrum.” CALENDAR is misspelled when used as the title of a chart in Noah Webster's first dictionary, and spelled correctly elsewhere on the same page. (There is, however, an unrelated word "calender.”) Bob Doerschuk reports that even professional musicians misspell ACCORDION, ending it with -ian. The Internet search engine Google revealed that in May 2001 its top five misspelled queries were amtrack, volkswagon, jenifer lopez, william sonoma, shakespear. In June 2001 its top five misspelled queries were ticket master, wimbeldon, morpheous, victoria secret, anna kornikova. In July 2001 its top five misspelled queries were audio galaxy, bigbrother, recipies, mcdonalds, bluebook. In August 2001 its top five misspelled queries were rotatorcuff, southpark, niagra falls, destinys child, sailormoon. STEGOSAURUS is spelled Stegasaurus in a Doonesbury comic strip in 2004
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