The most important example of that class of error is REFERER. It should have been spelled REFERRER. But nobody caught it, and you really can't change something that is part of the HTTP standard...
creat() is weird because create() would fit that constraint just fine, so there's no obvious reason as to why it had to be shortened. The 1978 K&R C book actually notes it with [sic].
Technically there are several namespaces since you can, for example, name a struct the name as its type.
I thought it was supposed to be REEFERER.
“a nickname” was originally “an ekename” (eke being an old English word meaning also)
conversely, “an apron” was originally “a napron.”
English is a weird agglomeration of different languages, with things like the application of French-style plurals (-s) to Anglo-Saxon words (but not always, cf. ox -> oxen) and a generally Germanic syntax with a large fraction of Romance root words.
As part of my Dewey Decimal Project¹ https://www.dahosek.com/category/dewey-decimal-project/ I ended up reading some interesting books on English linguistics (scroll down to the 500s for those).
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1. I’m not quite done. I have two read books to blog about before I read the last book in the series which will be the book my local library has at its highest Dewey Decimal call number. Alas, it's not a 999 Extraterrestial Worlds book, but I think it's either Antarctica or Australia (I looked when I first started on this seven years ago, but I've since forgotten).