Spelling of temperature and preparation

Today, I have come up with the two confusingly-spelled words: temperature and preparation.

The ‘para’ in preparation, and the ‘pera’ in temperation, look quite similar in pronunciation when we read those two words out loud. Hence, new language learners might get confused whether to spell temperature as temparature or temprature. Also, they might get confused in spelling preparation as prepration or preperation.

In a nut shell:

  • Why can’t we spell temperature as temparature or temprature, if they all give the same pronunciation?

  • Why can’t we spell preparation as prepration or preperation?

Is there any spelling rule in writing such words properly? Are there other words (containing pra, pera and para) apart from temperature and preparation?

Answer

You can, of course, use any spelling you wish. If you use unconventional spellings such as “preperation” in a formal setting, such as an academic paper, the reader may regard your work as inferior, which would interfere with your academic purpose.

There are many rules for English spelling, but most of them are wrong at least some of the time. English borrowed heavily from other languages during its development. Because of this, many things about English are irregular.

For more information, good starting points may be these Wikipedia articles:

Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : Ahmed , Answer Author : MetaEd

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