VISITOR COMMENTS!

Working title- Dilemna

Is anyone interested in discussing a documentary? This would be perfect!
Ill check back..

I was born in North Carolina in 2006. I distinctly remember the "dilemna" spelling being the way I learned it. I won a couple spelling bees, nothing national or anything close though. I opened up a book I ordered and saw the "dilemma" spelling. I was shocked to learn that I've apparently been spelling it wrong for my entire life now. For the record, I also remember the Fruit of the Loom logo having a cornucopia.

It's March 2026 and I just found out about it now being "dilemma" and not "dilemna"! Your page is spot-on in regard to the debunking as a simple typo being nonsensical. In grade school we had weekly spelling tests and the silent 'n' tripped up fellow students. Another change I have experienced is "separate" (adj) and "seperate" (verb) are both now just "separate". That's like saying "advise" and "advice" are the same!

ABOVE: "Mention were and when you were educated"
Aargh! It's "where" !!!
In any case, I was educated in Erie PA in the 60s.

I was born in Scotland in 1993. I specifically remember being taught MN in school. My favourite song for some time in 2002 was "Dilemna" by Nelly featuring Kelly Rowland. I listened to that so much and I remember seeing MN in the song title. It was only in 2024 that I found out that it is apparently MM... I feel like I'm being gaslighted. It's not a word I use often, but I would have noticed sooner in spell checks in Microsoft Word if I had been wrong before... I refuse to believe it's always been MM.

Grew up in Scottsboro, AL. I distinctly remember dilemNA -pronouncing it that way because it was such an odd way to spell the word. I was watching a news show when they flashed “dilemma” across the screen, so I told my wife “Look, they forgot to use spell check again.” This started my disturbing experience of looking in dictionaries for the correct spelling only to find out it has never been spelled that way (MNA). What??? Something is very OFF!

I went to school in Hawthorne, NJ. I don't remember being taught dilemna, but I spelled it that way until my husband was in college. I typed one of his papers and spelled in with the N. The teacher made the correction, so I looked it up in the dictionary and have been spelling it correctly since. It's weird because I am an excellent speller. The only thing I can think of is I spelled it that way because of the how column is spelled.

I’m 55 yrs old and I was definitely taught to spell it with the “N”… Dilemna.
I also asked my Mom who is 86, and she remembers it as Dilemna.
She still doesn’t believe me that it’s actually Dilemma, Lolol!

I am 47 years old and just discovered on Friday through spellcheck that "dilemna" is not spelled with an "n." I don't like this at all. I am too old for silly switcheroo games. It's not a word I use infrequently, so why did spellcheck just correct me? Anyway, I guess I will comply with the new spelling, but grateful to have a community that thought it was spelled with an "n", so I don't feel as crazy.

I was definitely taught "dilemna" while attending grade school in NYC in the 1980's. This parallels with its incidence in books over the past 200 years according to Google Books, which although never common, peaked in 1980 (there is a post on the Columbia Journalism Review called "Mystery Misspellings" which discusses this). Doubtless many people, even educators, could also have been perpetuating this misspelling in day-to-day interactions.

I am not misremembering what I was taught, either. I have an eidetic memory, am obsessed with language, scored a 790 out of 800 on the verbal portion of the SAT (no, misspelling "dilemma" was not why I missed those 10 points lol), and I used to carry a small Webster's dictionary around with me as a child (and yes I am weird). I admittedly do not remember reading "dilemna" in the dictionary, however I do remember my English teacher instructing us on this very specific and odd spelling.

It's a shame that I later studied Latin and not Greek, or else I might have unlearned this bad habit as a teenager, considering the root is the Greek "lemma." As it happens, I only discovered that the proper spelling is "dilemma" a few years ago, but I still find it disorienting every time I see it, and I'm glad I am not alone! What else has gone wrong in this alternate universe we have sneakily slipped into? I remain vigilant. ;-)

It will always be a dilemna. With an education through the 50’s and 60’s in both England and South Africa, it was always ‘dilemna’; but now it is not - apparently. Floored in an on-line quiz by a broad American accented AI generated quiz-master, I can only assume a “conspiracy” is afoot, “dilemna “ has been expunged from the written language and back-copies of the revered Oxford dictionary have been burned; even the auto-correct function insists on amending the spelling.

I’m from Maryland, DC area and learned it with an N. Back in the late 50s- early 60s.

I love this conversation! I will continue to spell it with an N. I was educated in LA, California

I have written a book called Killing Beauty in North America. I have spelled this word with an N for a very long time. I’m 80 years old and love words and their origins ever since I learned to spell. Thank you for this information.. Feel free to check out my book, Constance Mills Atkins Buck PhD

It's a conspiracy. Changed by Dan Quayle in the 90s after a gaffe where he spelled dilemna wrong on live TV. In collaboration with the CIA, he scrubbed all evidence of "dilemna" from the records and replaced it with his incorrect spelling, "dilemma", to save face.

oh, and I was in grade school in the 80s.

This is amazing. YES feeling of the bedrock of understanding crumbling is exactly the shock, shock I tell you that happened when I tried to get my grammatically-and-always-spelling-correct husband to confirm that there should be an "n" and he refused... so I googled, and here I am - dumbfounded and pretty deeply confused!

WHAT! 50 some-odd years I’ve used the N. And now I have to use an M? Stunned. Shocked. Stunned and shocked.

Across the world? Not only the UK in desperate straights then…..

I’m not alone??!!!

Hmmm. I wonder what else changed? I'll have to be more careful with my bespoke time machine next time...

Decided to search about this again and was pleasantly surprised to find this website. Reassured me I wasn't crazy, though I am still amazed the origin is unknown! Really appreciate the validation though ^_^

My whole life I've been writing dilemna and never had an issue until today when the google doc spellchecker flagged it. Genuinely lost all confidence in my spelling ability

I grew up in the 80's and I also recall sounding out DI-Lem-Na to remember the correct spelling of dilemna with its tricky slient n.

I am so weirded out. I distinctly remember.

I am Italian, and in my language the word is exactly spelt as in latin, dilemma.

I DO NOT KNOW WHY but, when I had to use it in a sentence in English, I wrote DILEMNA.

Then I landed on this page.
So interesting.

Languages change. Apparently we're all being told it was never "dilemma", but that doesn't mean we cant make it "dilemna" in this universe too! Petition dictionaries to allow for a dialectical inclusion of our spelling, and eventually banish "dilemma" to the ways of old!

The cause of this dilemma is not hard to disCERN. Maybe they solved a dilemna by changing it to a slightly different problem.

Woah. I am shocked. Distinctly remember it as dilemna. I even pronounce it with an N in my head to remember to spell it correctly. Maybe another dimension lol

2 + 2 = 5

Wow!!! Mind officially blown...Starting to feel like there really is a Mandela effect! Cause i have been spelling "dilemna" like this my whole life! And had always taken pride on my good grammar and spelling!!! Now, not so much...🤯🤦‍♀️🥴🤷‍♀️

I am old enough to remember d i l e m n a. I was spelling b e e champion I know this word inside and out like the back of my hands and I used to pronounce it that way.

Bizarre. It was a red-underlined spellcheck that brought me to this website. I would have thought it funny if a colleague had spelled it -mma. Until now. Apparently I'm the buffoon. But I've been saying di-lem-NA to myself my whole life! Why? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?!?!?!?!?

Wow. I thought something was wrong with the spell-checker in Windows 365. I'm confused and questioning things.

Wow. This is crazy. I'm glad I'm not the only one at least

Your wires got crossed remembering the unusual spellings of column and autumn.

I thought this was the spelling because I read it in so many published books. I'm pretty sure Heinlein spelled it this way, at least in my copies. But also lots of other authors, to the point where I thought dilemma was wrong, and the correct spelling was with a silent n.

Thank you soooooooooooo much for quelling my concern that I have been closer to crazy than I thought. Let’s just use the hell out of the “n” and enjoy the rest of today. 😉

Product of the 60’s English school system here and it was always an N! Have never see the double M before until doing a crossword today and getting the answer wrong! That’s how I ended up here…

Yes, it was definitely spelled with an "N". At one time. Kit Kat also use to be Kit-Kat. And Chick-fil-a use to be Chic-fil-a. 100% certain of these 3 changes. 100%, not 99%.

Well this is a world gone topsy-turvy.

Maybe the other reality isn’t being taken over authoritarians. Maybe Covid didn’t happen in that one. Why am I here and not there? Was a specific choice I made the catalyst?

FLOORED by this. What is real?

well damn.
I was taught with the British school system and I believed it is just a difference between British and American English - like neighbour and neighbor. The internet spellchecks being mostly American English are just screwing with me.
A possible psychological explanation could be that the use of the silent "n" that we all believed correct has been so deeply rooted in our minds, like other abnormal words with silent letters (diarrhea, rhythm) - and due to this mental effort, that we just keep to it.

I was taught with the "n" in the 70s. Taking a spelling test online that geniuses can't pass I was informed
there are two mms. Spell check is strange with punctuation. Even
though it said I was a dictionary and I was a finalist in a spelling bee,
I guess I have been corrected forever on "dilemma". It's a truly strange world...

Learned to spell it with silent "n" at school in Germany in the late 70ies.
I'm glad I found this site because I'm rather alone with this, amongst friends an families.
The Mandela Effect seems to be very real...

I was taught dilemNa first by my mom, then it came up multiple times throughout elementary school (1980-86, Minnesota). I learned I was in the wrong 2 years ago and it honestly felt like a gut-punch. I have 2 older sisters who laughed off the silent N, but my mom falls in my camp to this day. My wife does too. Bring back the silent N universe!

Grew up, went to school in the 70s and learnt it as 'dilemna' and will continue to spell it that way. One day they'll tell us we live on the planet Mars and not Earth and have always lived on Mars, we were just mistakenly believing we lived on Earth SMH.

Learned in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in early 80's - DilemNa - shocked to discover I am in another universe

This seems like gaslighting. I’m 64 and have never seen it as double m til now.

Relying on the internet for the correct sprlling of dillemna/dilemma may be the culprit here. May I suggest looking at a few PRINTED dictionaries from before 1970?

I grew up in the 70s and I swear I was taught dilemna by my teacher.

I was doing a comment online and didn't have spellcheck. I wrote it the 1st time with an n. It didn't look right. I looked it up, got to here. Truthfully, neither does the mm spelling. It does remind me of the Mandela effect arguments. Education: 11 years in Catholic School in Oakland and Alameda CA, 2 years more High school Sebastopol CA, then on to college at SRJC, UC Berkeley, Cal State University Master's Degree Psych. So, plenty of school. It is not a word one uses every day.

Given the nature of greek root words (in this case LEMMA) it seems to me that it would be logically inconsistent for the greek root to contain 2 ms. In greek, redundant letters were not very common for pronunciation, and so the pronunciation of LEMMA would be easily translated to LEMA. However, LEMNA sounds much more consistent with the foundations of the greek alphabet and language.

That being said, I noticed this mandela effect in elementary school. I have an IQ of 140 (tested by the GATE program), and have been learning big words since I could speak them. I would often insist to my parents to tell me what words meant even if they thought I couldn't understand (it got really grating on them sometimes, lol). One of those words was Dilemna, which I was taught by my father. Then, at school, I checked with my teacher to see if it meant what I thought it meant, and she corrected me (after rudely laughing at me and belittling me) and told me it was dilemma.

Some mandela effects happen so quickly, at such a young age, with no data to refute it, making these "reality shifts" practically imperceptible.

My only remaining question is... who's doing it?

George Orwell, shades of 1984

By the way I was taught to use an n

Well it’s simple isn’t it, someone from one of those other dimensions found out how to get to ours, snuck over here and slipped an n in where there should be an m when no one was watching and now he comes over every now and then just for a laugh. I think maybe he taught some of his mates how to get here and they’re all trying to confuse us and that is why our world is in such a state.

It's definately dilemna

I'm a child of the 60s. My mother, bless her, was a "proud packrat" of her children's accomplishments. When she passed away in 2004, my brothers & I discovered old report cards, spelling tests, essays, etc. Some dating all the way back to 1966. On May 13, 1968, I took a spelling test and received 110% (all the answers + the extra credit answers correct). #4 on the list is D-I-L-E-M-N-A.
Additionally, my family has a little word game we play wherein we will pronounce oddly spelled words phonetically. For example, If I say 'segue' (pronounced "seg-way"), someone else will say, "Is that the same as se-gu-e?" We've always done this. I queried my father & brothers today - all of them say 'dilemNa' to remind themselves of the 'correct' spelling.
I'm calling it a glitch in the Matrix. Does anyone know which phone to dial for us all to get back to reality??

I'm a 54 year old woman. I KNOW it was Dilemna!

I am a writer and have always been an excellent speller with a "taste" for the correct spelling of a word. Dilemma definitely had a silent "n" in the universe I grew up in, in the 1960s. As others have pointed out, I recall it being used in school, along with "condemn" and a few other words as a classic example of a silent "n" word. I used to say the word a lot at home and would always pronounce it with the "n" just to be funny/dumb. And everyone in my family--all of whom are very literate word junkies--would get the joke. I was shocked to find out the spelling had not only changed to dilemma, but had done so retroactively, such that my remembered spelling never existed. I thought I was seriously insane until I discovered I am not the only person who remembers it this way. The more I read about alternate universes, the more I lean toward thinking this is actually the explanation. Something along those lines, anyway. There was a timeline in which the word was "dilemna," that's all I know.

I thought over and over throughout growing up that "dilemna" was the dumbest spelling of the word but alas I knew it to be the "correct" spelling! Come to find it never existed?!! WHAT! Is this a glitch in the matrix?! I was absolutely taught it as "mn" and swear I passed spelling tests on this one. U.S./Colorado public school system 70s/80s.

This is a Mandela Effect- reality keeps shifting. In our old reality it WAS dilemna not dilemma.

I was filling in a bug report and 'dilemna' got flagged as misspelled. I haughtily thought that's wrong, did a quick lookup to verify and here I am 15 minutes later reading about alternative universes. At least it explains the Berenstain Bears.

Yep I’m a “dilemna” girl. Taught to say “Di-lem-na” so I wouldn’t forget how to spell it. Scottish education system mid to late 1970s

I'm 64 years old and was absolutely taught the dilemna spelling in public school in New York in the 60's.

Can you do one on 'Canceled and Cancelled? Seems odd that this one was blatantly changed with no regard to the English rules I was taught as a child.

As a “dilemna” advocate, I ask the audience, “Do any of us have a cite to a respected dictionary which has the “na” spelling?” If so, please share‼️💥

It's one of the glitches in the matrix.

This is JUST TOO WEiRD!!!! I love it. Maybe we are a very special chosen group of people to know that the actual REAL spelling includes an 'N' !!! :D

I was just writing a blog. I used dilemna, and spellcheck gave it a red line as this system just give it a red line also. I was mystified. I , like most of you have always thought dilemna spelling was odd, but we have numerous words that have odd spelling that we ignore. Like why is there g in thought, or a u, and an h? We ignore it. But finding out that it has never been spelled that way, made me stop and visit this website, that makes you feel better because now you know that millions and millions have spelled it with an "n" their entire lives like me. I wonder if a teacher would mark you down for the "n"? If they do, you would be fired up to prove them wrong! And then when you try that, you can't find a damn thing to back your argument. Amazing!

I've always stressed the "MN" in my head when spelling it. Microsoft Word was trying to change it to "dilemma" and I was shocked to find it was telling the truth. Crazy

Most def was dilemna.
Anyone else remember the cartoon cat saying "What a dil-em-na!" from Looney Tunes?
I used to repeat that as a kid, all the time.

What an amazing website. My theory is there's a tiny but nonzero probability of learning this word incorrectly. It would be possible to misread -mn- and then assume it's a word like condemn etc. Then this website, found via Google search for "dilemna", collects people affected by this low-probability event, with the ones most likely to comment being those whose discovery experience is weirdest (e.g. because acquaintance was also affected).

FWIW I was never hit by this mistake, but I thought cardboard was 'carboard' and I thought canal was pronounced 'canOWL'.

infer v. imply

I've always joked with people, "That's quite the dilemNA ya got there!". Saying it with the intentional overemphasis on the NA. I thought nothing would feel as strange as the Fruit of the Loom logo not ever having had a cornucopia, but this is just as disturbing. I learned spelling with tricks like "the state meant it but the judge didn't" to remember the words statement and judgment correctly. I always emphasize to this day certain words like dilem-NA, Wed-NES-day, and Feb-RU-ary to spell them properly. I'm at a loss on this.

I am from Germany, i am 43. In german language it was always "Dilemma" and has not changed. It was "Dilemna" in english, well isn´t it anymore? I always wondered why Dilemma, which is also a german word in English is spelled differently as "Dilemna", in every english text or article, what i found ver wierd. So i thought, that you just assimilated the word and changed the spelling to "Dilemna" to make it easier for native english speakers?

I'm 67 and I've seen some weird things in my life.
I am well aware of the Mandela Effect and I totally believe that possibly an infinite number of parallel Earths exist. I refer to them as alternate timelines. We seem to periodically shift to alternate timelines without conscious effort - it just happens. I believe that CERN, using D Wave Systems quantum computers, is responsible for many of these shifts. I also believe that we sometimes "naturally" shift by simply wishing hard enough for a different existence than the one we're currently living. As Jesus said, Ye are Gods.
I know, too, that there are other versions of each of us on these other Earths. I've seen the proof of that but I cannot wrap my brain around that one. I cannot make any sense of it, I just know it's true whether I like it or not. It just is.
I get the nagging feeling that none of us were supposed to be here but something happened that no one expected and, as a result, we are here. It's like the Earth, time, the Universe, etc., was supposed to end in 2012 but some unanticipated thing happened and none of it ended like it was supposed to.
Anyway, Rod Serling couldn't have written a Twilight Zone episode any weirder than what we're living right now.
Find God, invite Him to live in your heart with you, and HANG ON TO YOUR SEAT!
This ride is far from over.

I just saw this word misspelled as “dilemma” in Scientific American and was totally thrown. I am 50 years old, grew up in Florida and have a graduate degree. Got an almost perfect score on my verbal SAT — language was my thing. I remember spelling it this way so clearly my entire life, and being taught that way down to everything you describe on the first page about even having the mnemonic device to remember the correct spelling with the silent “n” through the incorrect pronunciation in your head. And I too would sometimes mispronounce it out loud for fun. Until today I have *never* seen it spelled “dilemma” … how could that be??? I feel certain that if I could somehow go through my old books I would find an example of it spelled “dilemna”. I am completely shaken that there is no record of this.

I remember dilemna and also Haas Avocados! Interestingly, my 1986 dictionary claims the other spelling is correct. How did it change? It didn't!

Seriously? I've always spelled it d-i-l-e-m-n-a. It wasn't until spell checker told me I was wrong, did I go look it up. Well damn. Now I suppose someone is going to tell me I've been spelling "damn" wrong too!

Mad!

Listening to BBC Radio 4 on way to work this morning and heard Florian Zeler, the writer of the Oscar winning 'The Father', use our word and in his French accent definitely pronounce it dilemNa ! Will post clip on the FB page.

I'm sitting here stunned. I've always since grade school spelled it dilemna. Not until this morning, 4-21-21 did I find out that was wrong. I even went back to a book that I would've sworn the word was used with that spelling...turns out it was with a double M. I asked my Mom since she was the spelling and grammar gestapo growing up....and she said "I NEVER told you it was dilemna". SO where the hell did I get that. Coincidentally, I walked down the hall into my wife's office and asked her to spell it out loud to me as she would spell it. She replied with "D-I-L-E-M-N-A". What!?!?!

Schroedinger's cat!! The term given the experiment that demonstrated one light particle becoming an infinite number of particles immediately. Try to wrap your mind around that!

Today I was replying to a topic on a forum and I spelt it>>>dilemna>>hmmmm nope>> delimna> nope>
dilemna> NOPE>>> dilemma NO and NO Way.>> Then I googled it.

Before I looked my 'dilemna' up, the first spelling of >>dilemna was what I hurriedly copied for my post.

I looked at it just didn't feel right. BUT GOOGLE SAID!! I hit reply. I went to the bathroom read my post and here I am!

My editing window has passed.. Now I'm wiser and very amused by the spelling of 'Dilemma.'

I went to private school and I've always been a very good speller. I won the 6th and 7th grade spelling bee and 2nd place in the 8th grade.I bet I remember how to spell 'DILEMMA'
'dilemma' now!
Thank you!

Another wave /particle dilemma is the propagation of radio frequency energy inside a waveguide (the 'plumbing' that connects a transmitter [inside] to an antenna [outside]. The energy travels straight through the waveguide and also is reflected off of the inside walls. The distance traveled through the waveguide is shorter straight through than the distance traveled of the reflected energy bouncing from one side. to side---Yet all of the energy arrives at the same time at the antenna! The speed of the energy never changes (speed of light) so how can the two paths (described above) take the same amount of time to travel?

Yes! I was flabbergasted when I found out. I was playing scrabble and thought I could make a 7 letter word and get my extra 50 points. Holy molly cow! It was not accepting my dilemNa. What? I said. So I went googled it and found you all guys. This is unnerving. This whole time I thought I was very good with words and didn't have to think twice about spelling. Now, I have retrain my brain and think dilemma. This is quite uncomfortable!

It has always been diemna. Also bearenstein bears not bearenstain bears. My 16 year old remembers my way so age has nothing to do with it...

Danielle

I was just now composing a letter with the word DILEMNA in it, and as usual, sounded it out to myself as I spelled it to correctly put the N in, only to have it flagged as a "misspell" by the spell check. So, I looked it up, and landed here! Wha? How can this be, where did I learn so carefully to spell it this way, I cannot remember. It really does feel disorienting, wondering when did I transition into a parallel dimension?!

I remember being taught to spell 'dilemna' with an 'n' and have always written it as 'dilemna'. I was an English major in university and can't imagine it would never have been corrected at some point if I had been getting it wrong all that time. Just today I texted someone about the film The Social Dilemna only to see the word underlined in read as a spelling mistake. So I googled and now see the entire world spelling it as 'dilemma' with two 'm's. This is so strange. It's been dilemna my entire life.

Words that have come to us via Latin sometimes have -mn endings: autumn column condemn damn solemn appear have Latin roots.

Words coming directly from Greek do not generally seem to show the mn combination: dilemma, comma, gamma

Maybe the Romans were so decisive and authoritarian that they never faced a dilemma and therefore never saw the need to romanize the word?

These days, we mix with impunity: Tele(Greek)vision(Latin)

I have always known it to be spelled dilemma. However I have just asked my 9 year old without prompting and she said dilemna! She is adamant that she has seen it spelled mn mmany times!

This is my first experience with a mandela effect phenomenon. My theory is that words like "condemn" have a silent n. The word dilemma for whatever seems like it should be spelled with an n and the brain just fills it in that way. The words "condemn" and "dilemma" are also the same length and enter our vocabulary around the same time.

I was 35 years old when I realized I'd been transported into this dimension from one where you'd use an N to spell dilemma. I had the exact same reaction described in this article. Such a strange phenomenon! Learned to spell in the 80s in Idaho, USA and have distinct memories of saying "dilem-NA" to myself to make sure I remembered to spell it "correctly".

What was even more strange to me was that I asked a few of my classmates that I was still in contact with. They attended the same schools with the same teachers and they spelled it with the double M. They thought I was nuts. They almost had me convinced I WAS nuts until I found these kinds of articles.

I live in Washington state, USA. About three years ago, at 30 years old, I realized the “true” spelling of the word. I did the same, googled and googled some more only to find out I’ve been wrong my whole life. I also remembered it to be spelled that way because I pronounced it as I thought it was to be spelled! So baffling. I’m glad I’m not the only one! 🤯

Very similar story to the original - my sister just recommended I watch the movie "The Social Dilemma" and I thought "how funny, how'd a typo make it into a title of the movie?"

Honestly quite pleased to find this website because my first response was utter disbelief! There must be some explanation.

This is just disturbing on so many levels, primarily because there is no explanation. As a writer, I was shocked at this ME, and I've seen many that have unnerved me. I have spelled this dilemna my entire life by sounding it out in my head as I was taught. I have no doubts. Dilemma looks strange to me.

I remember my teacher telling me it's spelt with an N, I remember sitting in class looking it up in my dictionary and it was indeed spelt with an N. I still have the very same copy of the same dictionary, and when I look it up now... it's spelt with double M. Reality has actually shifted. I cannot explain this. I too have pronounced it dilemNa all my life just to remember the correct spelling, and will continue to do so. DILEMNA looks right. DILEMMA just looks wrong.