CHAPTER 2

The Dilemma Dilemna

It all started with an old guy giving some presentation about his company ( guess it was ITC or Reliance ). 10 min after the it starts comes the 3rd slide with the BIG dilemma ( or is it dilemna? :P ) in it.

And NO, my dear people, its not what you think! The dilemma aint the job nor its the research, but but but the "Dilemma"! I so clearly remember that the 1st thing I blurted out was, "WoW! How can someone make such a silly spelling mistake in such a presentation!"

And here starts the REAL story! With a bet! Actually 2 of them! 100 bucks each! Who cares about the job presentation when there is spare cash around!! :) Long story short, we have a team of 2 ( fR33z3 with a friend ) against 10 odd guys! And of course, he loses!

The dilemma problem seriously got to me after that. I went through at least 5 text dictionaries and ( I guess, at least ) 15 online dictionaries, leaving aside the a night of googling of "dilemma"s, "dilemna"s, "dilemma dilemna"s ( which gave me exactly 43,300 results! ), etc etc etc. Until last night, I could have sworn on a on a jug of cold coffee ( my "precious"! :P ) that there is exactly one ‘n’ and one ‘m’.

And, the story gets more interesting. If you check this out http://www.kingmarketing.ca/weblogs/ajkandy/archives/2005/02/instal_a_spell.html, you’ll see that its still a riddle (I suppose I could have said dilemna but resisted :P ) today . There’s this group of us that either grew up in an alternative universe or are part of some cosmic spelling experiment who learned the “one n, one m” spelling. And mind you, these people include authors, media columnists and crossword puzzle creators, etc etc!!!

If ur too lazy to go through the link, a few of them:

• “Ha! My daughter found dilemma spelled dilemna in a book today! Abigail Adams: Witness to a Revolution by Natalie Bober, published by Simon Pulse.”

• “Neither regional nor generational, I think. I’m 65 and live in the UK. Both my daughter, now living in Canada and educated in England, and I myself - grew up to spell it dilemna. We were both horrified to find we’d apparently been spelling it wrong all our lives. I’d have bet really serious money on my spelling.”

• "Hello, spelling fans. I fixed “dilemna” over at Design Observer. Mortifying. I’ve been spelling it that way for almost 40 years. Like the guy says in Spellbound when his kid brother is eliminated, “I still think he spelled it right!”"

• “Here I am, doing a crossword puzzle that won’t complete without me ‘mispelling’ dilemna.”

And probably the best ones..

• “I have found my people!I just discovered this posting/thread through a Google search on“dilemna dilemma”, incredulous after losing a bet with my partner.For what it’s worth, she and I are both 38 and didn’t start school until 1972; she learned to spell it with an MM in Iowa, and I learned to spell it with an MN (I swear!) in Massachusetts.”

• "I am a 12 year old girl from England, and I have always been taught to spell it as ‘dilemna’, not ‘dilemma’. I think that dilemma just looks too…clutterish.”

And then, can CNN be wrong??














And the bet? Well to be fair, I paid 100 bucks to one of them. And the rest? Solve my dilemna and the monnies all yours!