Separate
I saw a report somewhere recently from 2010 that said that a study had found that "the word 'separate' is the most commonly misspelled one in the English language. The eight-letter description of people or objects which are set apart from each other came top due to the regular placing of an 'E' where the first 'A' sits. I am excellent at spelling but I do remember getting this wrong once.
A spokesman for OnePoll.com, which carried out the study among 3,500 Brits, said: "There seem to be some words which we always struggle to get down onto paper, and 'separate' is one of those which eludes us. A common mistake many make is writing a word the way it sounds which leaves us muddling up one letter with another and getting it wrong. Fortunately, computers' spell-check corrects wrongly spelt words for us, but that means we become lazy and never learn the correct spelling."
