Leaf Spelling Dictionary

Why emerginate is such a tempting spelling

schwaEmarginate has one stressed syllable, MAR, and four unstressed ones. Those four vowels are all reduced in speech and all guessable in writing.

heard asemerginate
spelledemarginate
saidee-MAR-jin-ut

The word is emarginate, with an a in the second syllable.

Emerge, emergent and emergency are all common words that begin with exactly this sequence of sounds, and the ear reaches for the pattern it already knows. They come from a different Latin verb, emergere, to rise out of water. Emarginate has nothing to do with emerging; it is about an edge, and the a is the a of margin.

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