Common Writing Mistakes - Hobgoblins and Ghosts of the English Language
As the fall holidays approach I thought it might be fun to uncover some of the skeletons in the closet of English writing and common writing mistakes. English is one of the most difficult languages to learn. Why? Partly because our language contains words that sound alike but are spelled quite differently and therefore have different meanings.
So what is the ghost that haunts you? Is it a word that sounds like it belongs together but in reality doesn’t, like “a lot”? Perhaps chills run up your spine when you are faced with the choice of “their”, “there”, or “they’re”. You are not alone! Whether you are new to the English language or were born and bred (or is that bread) an English speaker you have plenty of company.
When you look at the most often missed words you will discover that generally the words that are missed are words that have more than one meaning. This is the reason that, as a Copy Editor, I stress the importance of reading your work for correctness and not just relying on your spell checker’s software. Sure that software can assist you in catching errors and even automatically correcting them. However, it will always miss words like “the” when you meant “they” and “which” when you should have said “witch”. What about the words “principle” and “principal”? Do you know the difference? Sure, you know that a “pal” is a person, but does your spell checker know which one you should have used? I’ll venture out on the proverbial limb here with the old hoot owl and proclaim a resounding “No”!
What I am going to do is share with you a brief list of the most often misspelled words, yes misspelled is with two “s”s. Which brings me to another point; take care of when to use the apostrophe. I’ll come back to that in a bit. If you would like to obtain a more complete list you will find one on the web at Your Dictionary, (http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/misspelled.html). Here you will not only find the correct spelling but a clear explanation of the common error.
Words that sound correct when you say them but are spelled differently top the list; watch out for these.
- Acceptable
- Accidentally
- Collectible
And one of my pet peeves,
Continuing on here are a few more.
- Declare
- Discipline
- Dumbbell
- Exceed
- Existence
- Experience
- Foreign
Ooo what about this one? Have you missed this one before? I bet you have.
- Grateful
- Judgement
- Privilege
And here is another one you have probably succumbed to:
And last but by no means least is:
I could go on but I think you would do better to look at the site that I mentioned earlier to see what others there are and why they are so commonly misspelled.
Now let’s scare up that goblin named apostrophe. Just when do you use it? As in the previous sentence the word “let’s” indicates a contraction, “let us” so it is proper to use it here. One exception, and don’t we English love our exceptions, is the word “its” when indicating possession whereas the phrase "it is" is written “it’s”. So be careful with this rule.
What about words like “effect” and “affect”? Even the best writers struggle with these two. What effects cause you to end up with are affects. I know this is unnatural for us, because in the English alphabet “a” comes before “e”, but in this case it is just the opposite.
So whether you are a zealot for words or there is just a ghost of a chance you might want to become a writer be sure to proofread your work before you submit it. This one task, above all others, will save you from embarrassment time and time again.
I hope I have unmasked at least one helpful hint in all of this. If, on a larger scale, you find all of this a bit overwhelming contact me and I will be happy to assist you with your copy editing needs.
© Copyright 2006 Ginger Marks
Ginger Marks is the founder of DocUmeant, Your writing & design assistant. For more information, visit her website at http://www.documeant.net Currently she authors a column on business development and personal growth at ArticlesOn.com:
(http://www.articleson.com/Category/Business-Development-Personal-Growth/289).
Mrs. Marks has also written several articles and eBooks that are available through her business site DocUmeant.net. In addition she offers a FREE monthly e-Newsletter titled Words of Wisdom. To receive your copy sign-up at http://www.documeant.net
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