You're typing a quick email. Maybe a text. Suddenly, your fingers freeze over the keyboard because you’re staring at a six-letter word that looks completely alien. How do you spell follow? It’s one of those weird linguistic glitches. You know the word. You use it every single day on Instagram, Twitter, and in literal physical hallways. But in that split second, the double letters start to look like a typo.
The answer is f-o-l-l-o-w.
It’s simple, right? Two 'L's, one 'W' at the end, and a whole lot of phonetic confusion for English learners and native speakers alike. Honestly, English is a bit of a disaster when it comes to consistency. We have words like "solo" and "hollow" that play by different rules, making a basic word like follow feel like a trick question.
The Anatomy of a Six-Letter Head-Scratcher
Let’s break it down. Phonetically, you’re looking at /ˈfɒl.əʊ/ if you’re into the International Phonetic Alphabet. But for the rest of us, it’s just fol-low.
The reason people get tripped up on how do you spell follow usually comes down to the "O" sounds. The first "O" is short, like in "cot" or "hot." The second "O" works with the "W" to create a long vowel sound, almost like "oh." Because the word ends in that "oh" sound, people often want to ditch the "W" or, conversely, add an extra one where it doesn’t belong.
Then there are the double consonants.
English loves to double up its letters to signal how a preceding vowel should be pronounced. In this case, the double 'L' ensures that the first 'O' stays short. If it were "folow," your brain might try to pronounce it like "fo-low," rhyming with "solo." That double 'L' is the anchor. It keeps the word grounded in its Germanic roots.
Why Our Brains Delete Letters
Have you ever heard of Word Effacement? It’s that phenomenon where you stare at a word so long it stops looking like a word. It becomes a jumble of shapes.
I’ve done this with "follow" more times than I care to admit. You write it, you look at it, and suddenly you’re convinced it’s "folow" or "fallow." (Side note: "fallow" is a real word, but unless you’re talking about unplowed farmland, it’s not the one you want).
Memory plays a massive role here. According to researchers at Johns Hopkins University, spelling isn’t just about memorizing a sequence; it’s about mental representation. If your mental "map" of a word gets fuzzy because of fatigue or over-analysis, even basic words dissolve.
Common Mistakes and How to Dodge Them
The most frequent typo is "folow." You see it in YouTube comments and rushed DMs. People forget that second 'L'.
Another one is "fallow." This is a "homophone-adjacent" error. While they don’t sound exactly the same—fallow has that "ah" sound like "apple"—they look similar enough that autocorrect might betray you if you're not careful.
- Follow: To come after.
- Fallow: Land left unseeded.
- Fellow: A guy or a peer.
If you’re ever doubting yourself, just remember the "Follow the Leader" rule. Two people (the two 'L's) are following each other. It’s a silly mnemonic, but it works when your brain is fried at 2:00 AM.
The Social Media Impact
In the age of the "follow button," this word has moved from a verb of physical movement to a digital currency. It’s everywhere. Yet, ironically, the more we see it as a UI element—a small blue or white button—the less we actually "process" the spelling. We recognize the shape of the button rather than the letters within it.
This is what UI designers call "recognition over recall." You don't need to know how do you spell follow to find the button on TikTok. You just need to know it starts with 'F' and sits in the top right corner. But when you switch back to writing a formal proposal or a cover letter, that lack of active recall hits hard.
Etymology: Where Did This Word Even Come From?
We can blame the Old English folgian.
Back in the day, it meant to accompany or to go after. It’s related to the Old Frisian fulgia and the Middle Dutch volgen. You can see the DNA of the word shifting over a thousand years. The 'G' sound eventually softened, and we ended up with the 'W' we have today.
Linguists like John McWhorter often talk about how English is a "mongrel" language. We took the Germanic base and smoothed out the rough edges, but we left behind these weird spelling remnants. The "W" in follow is basically a fossil. It tells a story of a sound that used to be much harder and more guttural but eventually turned into a soft vowel-ender.
Practical Ways to Never Mess This Up Again
If you’re struggling with spelling in general, you’re not alone. English spelling is a nightmare. Truly.
- Use the "Double-L" Visual: Imagine the two 'L's as two legs walking. To follow someone, you need legs to walk behind them. Two 'L's, two legs.
- Sound it out in chunks: Fol-low. If you say it slowly, you can almost feel the break between the two 'L's.
- Check the "Low": The word ends in "low." If you can spell "low," you can spell the second half of follow.
Most modern spellcheckers will catch a "folow" or "follw," but they won't always catch "fallow" because it’s a legitimate word. Context is king. If you're writing about social media metrics and you use "fallowings," you’re going to look a bit silly.
Does Spelling Even Matter Anymore?
Some people argue that as long as the message gets across, the spelling is irrelevant. In a casual text? Sure. Whatever. But in a professional setting, spelling is a proxy for attention to detail.
If someone asks "how do you spell follow" and you give them the wrong answer, or you consistently typo it in a business deck, it signals a lack of polish. It’s not about being a "grammar Nazi"; it’s about clarity. It’s about making sure the reader isn’t distracted by your orthography so they can focus on your ideas.
Final Tactics for Perfection
Stop overthinking it. Seriously. The more you stare at the word "follow," the weirder it looks.
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If you find yourself stuck, type it out three times fast. Your muscle memory usually knows what to do even when your conscious mind is glitching. We spend so much time looking at screens that we’ve lost some of that tactile connection to language.
Next Steps for Accuracy:
- Audit your most-used phrases: If you’re a social media manager, create a keyboard shortcut where "fol" expands to "follow" automatically.
- Slow down: Most spelling errors occur during "rapid-fire" typing.
- Read more print: Seeing words on a physical page helps solidify their structure in your long-term memory more effectively than glowing pixels.
You've got this. F-O-L-L-O-W. Six letters. Two L's. One W. Simple.