I’m a bit of a schoolmarm when it comes to word usage. I don’t get upset or annoyed by improper use but, as evidenced by my discovery about mispronouncing ‘often’, I do my best to keep my words in order. Here’s a few more common errors made with words…
everyday or every day: I see this one all the time in my blog statistics as people search for “learn something new everyday” (the more common, but incorrect, word choice). Every day means something that happens continuously each day. Everyday, on the other hand, does not refer to frequency, but rather something that is common. Think “everyday people”, or “everyday clothes”.
Ninja letters: I also try to keep my eye out for letters lurking in the dark. Words like library, Wednesday, and February have those tricky little bumps that really ought to be enunciated.
it’s or its: You can go back over this blog and surely find multiple mess-ups on this one. I often get mixed up between its and it’s. We’re used to writing “the dog’s ball”, where the apostrophe signifies the ball belongs to the dog. However, it’s incorrect to write “the dog is brown, it’s ball is red.” The only time you can use it’s is as a contraction of it is. All other times, use plain old its.
there, their, and they’re: Another little detail that often gets mixed up is these three homonyms. There refers to the location, their is a matter of belonging, and they’re is a contraction of they are. I’m pretty good about keeping them straight, but I’m terrible about spelling their correctly. I always get mixed up by possibly the worst “rule” of the english language; “I before E except after C”.
(for the record, here’s a few other common “jail words”, as my grade two teacher would say: beige, conscience, deity, dreidel, eight, either, feign, feint, feisty, foreign, forfeit, freight, heifer, heigh-ho, height, heinous, heir, heist, neighbour, neither, rein, science, seismic, seize, sheik, society, sovereign, veil, vein, weight, weir)
I don’t mean to sound like a nit-picky grump. Its no big deal, as their are people making these mistakes pretty much everyday. Even on wendsdays at the libary. But if you do catch yourself, now you can make an effort to fix it.
- Source: Just me. My grade two teacher would put rule-breaking words inside a little birdcage… I guess the lesson stuck.
