This thread made me curious so I asked my family. My dad said he initially learned it as dilemna (in the 1960s). He is extremely articulate and a great speller, so it was taught to him that way. I favour the erroneous textbook theory. My aunt, same age, same province, different school, said she did not learn it that way.

MM spelling but I spell a lot of words differently thanks to my mother who grew up in a British colony and taught us writing and maths (lol) from a young age: colour, recognise, theatre, etc. Spellcheck catches it these days.

Wow - the things I learn on these forums!

Another one here who hasn't encountered the word with an N until now...I think...

I don't remember learning it but I always saw it and spelled it dilemNa. I started to notice it on the forums with dilemMa and kept thinking it was a slip up. I remember reading The Omnivore's Dilemma and even then, I don't think I realized the spelling. When I went to write the name of the book, I recall triple checking it because I was sure it was dilemNa.

Thanks to this thread, I realize I did not live in my own separate reality so that was nice.

Fwiw, I am in my 60's and grew up in NYC so if the spelling was taught regionally or varied by time , maybe that helps?

I now spell it with the 2 M's because that actually seems more commonly used.

"I now spell it with the 2 M's because that actually seems more commonly used."

Plus it's the correct spelling. 😊

I love words, and have always been an excellent speller. I have never seen the word dilemma spelled with an ‘n’. However, I was dressed down, and punished, by my 6th grade teacher (who was one of my favorite teachers) for correcting her pronunciation of ‘colonel’ as ‘colonial’ because, as she said, “There is no ‘r’ in that word!” (Even then, my control issues were a problem) So, I can see a common misspelling being accepted, and taught by, an otherwise conscientious teacher.

Apparently so. To be filed under "live and learn".

Deeinohio, Your story made me smile remembering correcting a French teacher in 9th grade, a great lesson in psychology, shall we say :-)

As for the errant N in dilemma, nope, never saw that. The worst I have seen is a missing M.

I have never seen it with an N. Google only has it in dictionaries with two M s no N and get proof. Com says the n is always an error.

Two m’s. I have never seen it any other way until right now.

There are quite a few articles online about this dilemma.

Some of them think that it may be the "Mandela effect" where large groups of people collectively misremember things. Just like the lots of people are positive that the spelling of the Berenstain Bears was changed to or from Berenstein.

I've spent years here silently screaming every time someone spelled it "dilemna." Doesn't anyone have spell check?

Plural vs possessive errors make me twitchy too, but at least those aren't easy to catch with spell check.

I have seen both but doubt I have ever had occasion to use the word so I don't know how I'd spell it.

I learned to spell it with an n.

Nobody uses it correctly anyway so no reason to spell it right. :)

https://brighthaven.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/dilemna-vs-dilemma/

"Yes, I’m a great speller–a stickler if you will. For a time, I made a conscious effort to never even speak a word if I couldn’t be sure of its spelling. You never know when someone may say: “That word you just used, gorgeous, can you spell that for me?” It’s really better to be safe than sorry, I feel."

I have done this. :P Thanks for the chuckle, Annette.

Interesting thread. Regarding “dilemma”, I’ve never seen or heard it any way but with two ‘M’s. Never “chester drawers”, either.

Growing up in Michigan, we said “sofa” or “davenport”, but in the Canadian town where we had our summerhouse, they said “chesterfield “! I haven’t heard anything but “sofa” or “couch“, though, in many years. These days, I just say “sofa”.

But, I do have a question for you all. I’ve lived out here in New Mexico for 37 years. Four years before that in Florida. DH is from Oklahoma, where he and both our kids went to college. Everyone chuckles or gives me a weird look when I say “Cripe” (Cry-p). I grew up saying it. It‘s kind of like “darn!”. No one except my Michigan family and friends seem to use it. Has anyone else ever heard this expression?

I have heard cripe used - as "for cripe's sake."

I grew up with a grandmother who said davenport, and a great grandmother who said chesterfield. I believe that both were originally brand names.

I'm in Canada, LynnNM, and yes, we'll use Cripe (instead of Ch***t). I wonder if people are chuckling because they think it's quaint you're not swearing?

Yes, I've always understood "cripes" (never heard it without the s) to be an exclamatory way of saying Christ.

Another who was particular about spelling, and was taught dilemna, thank you very much.

From Annette's link, clearly many, many others were as well..

No n - never heard of the n dilemma

No N in dilemma for me. That is one I had not heard of.

Our family says crikey mcgeiki. I have not heard other people saying this. It must be a family thing. We use cripes much less but are familiar with it.

Native Ohioan here. I rarely use dilemma, but cringe when someone uses the n. Dad used to say davenport, and we said "for cripes sake." I've never heard cripe by itself.

Never heard of spelling it with an 'n', and truly puzzled at all these stories of teachers who can't spell teaching it wrong!

This has been such an interesting read. It made me remember that, yes, I was taught it with an “n” in school. It took me a long time as an adult to get used to using two “m”s instead.

Speaking of furniture misspellings in ads, I’ve seen “Chip and Dale” more than once on Craigslist.

I have always assumed “cripe” was a euphemism for Christ... a way for the pious to curse.

Dilemma is and always has been spelled with mm. I used it yesterday and do so fairly often, which could mean something if I stopped long enough to think about it.

If someone actually used the phrase chester drawers I hope I would kindly correct them as an act of charity!

I once tried to correct a person on a travel board who liked to use the term “per say.” I sent her an anonymous email explaining the origin of the word and the correct spelling (per se). She announced online that someone had corrected her and was not happy about it. 🙄

Wa la, @User! (Voila). Perhaps per say is now accepted, much as ‘conversate’! (My annoyance may be proof of my aging)

Chip and Dale is such a frequent mistake, Google doesn't even blink. Not even a helpful hint of "did you mean Chippendale?"

Crazy. :)

Kswl - if I persistently misspelled something or used the wrong word I would appreciate being told in the way that you did, which didn't bring it to the attention of others.
I wish that there was a way for me to tell a friend that a balcony is not a pied a terre.

Terrilks....you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!

I've never heard of dilemna.

I love some of these, esp. "Chip and Dale" and "chester drawers."

The disappearance of people who know about the "conditional were" distresses me.

I like words and I've always been a proficient speller, but I notice that the best grammarians tend to have been liberal arts majors.

I never learned how to type properly ('keyboard skills" they call it now) though, and I am a bit lazy about it all.

"Cheese and rice"

"Holy schneikies" (spelling)

"Shut the front door"

"Son of a gun"

Here one of the most popular expressions of exasperation is probably 'Jesus Mary and Joseph'

My MIL got a stack of postits that she thought was for Wednesday Thursday Friday hehe.

Never, ever seen dilemma spelled with an “n” or, if I did, I assumed it was a misspelling.

The other FBMP goodie is ”rot iron” for “wrought iron.”

When did the verb distribute (dis-trib-ute) become dis-tri-bute? I’ve heard it pronounced that way on several news programs recently. fingernails on a chalk board!!!

I cannot fathom people not wishing to be corrected! Ignorance forever, versus a fleeting embarrassment, seems like an easy choice to me.

Watching a medical show is a real laugh when they mispronounce simple words like saline, often they put the emphasis on the last syllable instead of the first. And it’s a wonder to me how many people pronounce the silent T in often.

There are loads of regional differences in pronunciation across the U.S. but phonics are still the same!

Now, I’m curious, kswl: how is saline supposed to be pronounced? I say say-leen.

This is interesting, so I messaged my 4 siblings. We all went to the same school and none of us recall specifically being taught how to spell the word, so we assume we just saw it printed somewhere, and took on that spelling when writing it ourselves. However, my two older siblings (by 9 and 7 years) both say they've always spelled it 'dilemna' while my two younger siblings and I have always spelled it as 'dilemma.' It's interesting why the difference, when we're all family members who lived in the same house, went to the same school and even had the same elementary school teachers. My question is, why did someone apparently take it upon themselves to spell it with an 'n' when phonetically, (since the 'n' is silent) they had to go out of their way to alter the spelling? Strange.

Back when I was pregnant with my first child, during labor, the doctor said "you are 10 centimeters dilated. She pronounced the first syllable to rhyme with 'lawn' whereas I've always pronounced the first syllable to rhyme with 'men.' I thought it was just her way of saying it. But then when I was having my second child, the nurse (different hospital) also said it like 'sawntimeter' so I knew it wasn't just one person.

Then I realized that along with 'centimeter' the only other word I could think of that I hear differently by medical personnel is 'angina.' I pronounce it with the stress on the second syllable, which I rhyme with 'eye.' so like an-jEYE-nuh. But my G.P. and cardiologist both pronounce the word with stress on first syllable, then like the alcohol gin, so like AN-gin-uh. Now I'm wondering, are medical schools teaching a different pronunciation?

Tartan, you’re saying it right. I’ve heard it pronounced more than once as se LEEN.

(The e should be upside down indicating the schwa pronunciation but I can’t find it on the keyboard.)

Back when I was pregnant with my first child, during labor, the doctor said "you are 10 centimeters dilated. She pronounced the first syllable to rhyme with 'lawn' whereas I've always pronounced the first syllable to rhyme with 'men.' I thought it was just her way of saying it. But then when I was having my second child, the nurse (different hospital) also said it like 'sawntimeter' so I knew it wasn't just one person.

Yes, the only times that I heard centimeters pronounced that way was by labor and delivery nurses.

I found this article about it: http://doccartoon.blogspot.com/2012/08/whats-sontimeter.html

Peanuts (all old strips, but timeless) has been running a sequence with Sallie learning cursive penmanship, and was doing a long line of nnnnnnnnn all run together. Charlie Brown asked if they were m's or n's.

I'll bet that's the source of this dilemma. Blame cursive.

One theory that I read is that there are very few words with a double m, and quite a few, like column with mn. Haven't they heard of summer, communication, immune, comma, commercial, accommodate, mommy, etc.?

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/words-containing-mm

I just had a phone conversation with a cell phone representative that kept pronouncing "eligible" e-legal-bel. I almost lost it the 10th time.

I sent a query to the family text thread. There are seven of us on the thread. Five have at least one post graduate degree. Six spelled it correctly. One thought it had an ”n” He’s a quant not a poet.

Tartan: you're correct, it’s pronounced SAY-lean”. Having both been in the medical field for many years, DH and I avoid watching tv medical shows. Too many mistakes that irritate and frustrate us (LOL)!

I rarely write the word “dilemma”, but if and when I do, my inclination is to spell it with that erroneous “n”. I think in my mind the word looks, I don’t know, too loose or almost slangy with the double “mm”. But it‘s incorrect and I can say with 100% certainty that I will never misspell it again. (tbh though, I’ll probably choose another word as I still don’t like the aesthetics of it in print.)

From the Columbia Journalism review:

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/moreso_dilemna.php