Emily Henderson Shares A Hysterical Tip To Help You Buy A New Dining Room Table
For interior design enthusiasts, the internet has proven to be an invaluable tool in the procurement of new furniture. E-commerce companies, like Wayfair and Overstock, promise to drop quality home goods in any size and color right at your doorstep, making them excellent resources for people who know exactly what they're looking for. Meanwhile, those with a gift for thrift are able to use the internet like a handheld flea market, scouring person-to-person sales sites like Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, and Ebay for incredible, used pieces that won't break the bank.
However, despite all the good it does, it's impossible not to acknowledge the fact that the internet is also wrought with human error. Just because something is published on the internet, doesn't mean it's true — or, in this case, free of spelling mistakes. In this classic example of, "If you can't beat them, join them," Emily Henderson, interior designer and host of HGTV's "Secrets from a Stylist," took to TikTok to explain how misspelling the word "dining" in your search for a dining room table can provide a world of hidden gems.
Why you should start misspelling dining table
In the TikTok posted to her account last year, Henderson starts off by issuing a warning that she's about to serve up a hot interior design tip. Chuckling, she explains that if you're in the market for a used dining table, you may be able to uncover some awesome hidden listings by simply adding an extra "n" to the word dining. While it may seem impressive that, in the age of autocorrect and spell check, so many people are still able to post about "dinning" tables, she explains that the phenomenon is all too common on person-to-person sales sites.
While intentionally misspelling a word may be a tough pill to swallow for those of us who wear the title of "grammar police" as a badge of honor, Henderson points out that we can use the common spelling mistake to our advantage. By searching for "dinning tables", instead of "dining tables", you are suddenly granted access to a slew of posts that you never would have seen, had you spelled the word correctly. What's more, Ideal Home notes that posts containing incorrect spellings generally procure less traffic, making it more likely that you can score the piece you're after before someone else beats you to the punch.
Does it actually work?
In the name of research, we decided to put this pro tip to the test. Upon searching for "dining" tables on Facebook Marketplace, we discovered that no listings using the incorrect spelling popped up. However, when we typed "dinning tables" into the query box instead, both listings containing the correct spelling, and the incorrect spelling were displayed side by side.
Meanwhile, on sites like Ebay, Craigslist and Offer Up, searching for "dinning tables" revealed an entirely different selection of tables than could be seen under the "dining tables" search. And even though using the correct spelling procured more search results across the board, there were certainly no shortage of dining tables listed under the incorrect spelling. While there were more than 600,000 search results for "dining tables" on Ebay, there were another 741 that were revealed after typing "dinning tables" into the search bar. So thank you, Ms. Henderson, for giving us the gift of more options!