Just in time for the Scripps National Spelling Bee, Google has released its list of America’s most misspelled words by state — and Wisconsinites have some explaining to do.
Google Trends tweeted a map on Tuesday showing “America’s Most Misspelled Words,” based on the top “how to spell” searches in each state in 2017 so far.
The word people in Wisconsin need most help spelling: Wisconsin.
Badger State Gov. Scott Walker’s office did not immediately respond to request for comment.
The rest of the “most misspelled words” per state ranged from some as short as “liar” (R.I.) and “gray” (Georgia) to longer and more complicated ones such as “pneumonia" (Washington) to "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" (Connecticut) from the movie "Mary Poppins."
See the full list below:
“If you look at how people spell on the internet, that also should scare you,” said Tom Karls, an administrative clerk with the Madison Public Library in Wisconsin.
Karls said he found it "dumbfounding" that Wisconsinites had so much trouble spelling the name of their state, and that it showed modern society’s reliance on Google rather than the dictionary or other, traditional reference material.
“If you think about it though, that’s... wow,” he said.
“It becomes a great commentary on the education trends of our society,” he added.
Related: Can you spell these National Spelling Bee words? Take this quiz!
Wisconsin may have been the only state this year where the top searched word was the name of the state itself, but last year that honor went to Massachusetts (this year the Bay State had trouble with the word "license").
And as of Tuesday afternoon, here's a map of countries searching for "spelling bee" by region, according to Google Trends:
The release of the trend map comes a day before the preliminary rounds of the 90th Scripps National Spelling Bee, where spelling champs from across the nation will compete for up to a $40,000 cash prize, trips to New York and Los Angeles and an engraved trophy.
Last year, the spelling bee ended in a tie for the third consecutive year in a row, with Jairam Hathwar and Nihar Janga declared co-champions.
This year, the bee is introducing new rules that could prevent another tie, including a "tiebreaker test" for finalists with 12 words and 12 vocabulary questions.
