By Paul Yeager, author of Literally, the Best Language Book Ever and Weather Whys: Facts, Myths, and Oddities
Estimated electoral college votes as of September 21, 2012; image from electoral-vote.com
We’re in the heart of election season, which means many things, one of the most annoying of which is how many people are going to say electorial instead of electoral.
You’ll hear it from your friends. You’ll hear it by television pundits (not pundints, by the way!). You’ll probably even hear it from one of the candidates.
There is no “i” in electoral or electoral college.
Now, of course, if you’re one of those people who believes that a mistake repeated often enough is no mistake–it’s new acceptable usage–then you might think electorial is a word. (Think dictionary.com, where electorial has a definition of electoral.)
P.S. Blue is my favorite color!
(Image from electoralvote.com)
