One of the recent entries in the Macmillan Open Dictionary highlights both one of the difficulties of spelling in English, and the fun of wordplay: attachmeant. Ordinarily, the correct spelling would, of course, be attachment, just as all words ending in -ment are spelt, yet the correct spelling for meant (past participle of to mean) is with the ‘a’. It’s understandable why students might misspell nouns with endings that sound the same (homophones), but it’s a trap to be avoided!
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