‘Colour’ and ‘beautiful’ among the words most South Africans can’t spell

South Africa’s love-hate relationship with the English language has been laid bare by new research revealing the country’s most misspelled words of 2026. Word unscrambling experts at Unscramblerer.com analysed Google Trends and Ahrefs data from January 1 to June 8, 2026, tracking searches for “how do you spell” and “how to spell” across more than 120 spelling search variations. The research is particularly well-timed given South Africa’s recent spelling bee success.

In April, South African students claimed the Africa Spelling Bee Championship title in Zimbabwe, ending Nigeria’s four-year reign as continental champions. The team will carry that momentum to China in July for the global competition.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ “Colour” generated 124 800 searches, making it the word South Africans reached for Google to spell more than any other. “Favourite” followed with 85 200 searches, and “beautiful” came in third at 84 000.

Rounding out the top ten were “license” (72 000), “weird” (70 800), “because” (68 400), “auntie” (62 400), “birthday” (57 000), “surprise” (56 400) and “jewellery” (55 200). The full list of 30 most misspelled words also included “definitely,” “weather,” “queue,” “business,” “tomorrow,” “neighbour,” “quite,” “received,” “bougie,” “gorgeous,” “croissant,” “necessary,” “honour,” “daughter,” “colleague,” “conscious,” “apologise,” “scissors,” “diarrhoea” and “unfortunately.” Spokesperson for Unscramblerer.com Randoh Sallihall said the list was a window into the peculiarities of English orthography. “Analysing South Africa’s list of most misspelled words for 2026, we found silent letters, irregular vowel sounds, tricky suffixes, difficult consonant blends, weird double letters, British spelling that uses extra letters, French loanwords that break every phonics rule,” Sallihall said.

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According to Sallihall, the research breaks down exactly what makes these words so tricky. Silent letters alone account for a significant chunk of the most-searched words all contain letters that are written but never spoken.

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