This thread is rediculous.
In your lifetimes the following spellings will become standard:
judgement
it’s meaning “belonging to it”
and nickle for a five-cent piece
The first two are just more logical than their current counterparts, and no one seems to realize the third one is misspelled; it appears in “Me Talk Pretty One Day” by David Sedaris anomg other volumes.
But “loose” for “lose” bugs the heck out of me.
-Myron
I can never remember how to spell “surprise”. I’m always leaving out that first “r” (maybe because I’m from the midwest & don’t pronounce it).
And, yeah–I can never remember which “its” is the contraction and which is the possesive. Actually, I’m still a bit fuzzy on it…
cite - a quotation
site - a location on the web
sight - what you have with your eyeballs
independent (not independant)
receive (not recieve)
If you begin a bracket, it must also be closed.
And for the love of all that is pure and holy, use capitilization and punctuation.
I have a sister who likes to send people “pitchers” in the mail. She has five children. Where will it end?
I’m guilty of mispelling ‘weird’ constantly.
I’ve noticed a lot of threads about ‘vegitarians’ recently.
For some reason a lot of people will poor spelling ability communicate using a ‘computor.’
One I see often is “discrete” (meaning distinct or separate) being used in the place of discreet (meaning prudent). And for that matter, it’s not “seperate”!
[hijack] I also hate the convention that requires the placing of commas and other punctuation within, rather than outside, quotation marks. It seems to me that this rule should only apply when the punctuation applies to what’s actually within the quotes. [/hijack {not “highjack”}]
“Tow the line.” I’ve seen it many times around here: “tow the line.” Ladies and gentlemen, you aren’t dragging the damn line behind you–it’s toethe line.
I haven’t come across it here that I recall, but it comes up in real life–using “statue” for what should be “statute.” We don’t cite stone figurines in this jurisdiction, Counselor.
Speaking of *cite,*I really used to hate it–it’s a *citation,*dammit. But I gave up and sold out, and I feel much better now.
(On the other hand…I once wrote a college Economics paper in which referred to “corperations” approximately three dozen times. When the paper was returned, the professor’s notes misspelled it the exact same way.)
That should be:
It was the keyboard’s fault…really…
The plural of an acronym does not have an apostrophe unless it is used to show possession.
I and myself is the subject form of the pronoun, and me is the object form. “Me and Bob” weren’t late for class; however, “Bob and I” were late for class. “The detectives questioned Bob and I” is incorrect. The detectives questioned “Bob and me.”
“Were” is the subjunctive of was.
Im, thats, dont, theyre, etc. are not words.
Who’s is a contraction for “who is” or “who has” and is not meant as a substitute for whose.
Supercede is not a word (I actually saw this arrangement of letters as a headline in my local newspaper).
If what is contained in a set of parentheses is an entire sentence, the period comes before the last parenthesis. If it is not, it goes outside.
Since when did “emphasize” become a synonym for “sympathize”?
Hopefully is an adverb that means “in a hopeful manner.”
For some reason, I just don’t like most usages of the word which. “Bin Laden is responsible for the terrorist attacks which claimed the lives of 5000 people.” I just don’t like it; I think it should be “that.” I think that which should be used only for parenthetical articles–i.e., you should be able to end the sentence right there or at least skip the “which” clause. E.g., “the stocks which are less volatile usually have lower returns.” Can you say, “the stocks usually have lower returns” and have the same meaning? No. I believe it should be: “the stocks that…”
There is a difference between count nouns and non-count nouns.
Imply and infer are not synonyms of each other.
Lay and lie… Ugh, don’t even get me started.
Do NOT use commas when they are not necessary. However, use them when they are necessary!
Dashes and hyphens are different things. Hyphens are used to connect compound words. Dashes are used to show a break in the sentence, and are usually used for emphasis. A hyphen is typed as -, and a dash as --.
Oh, and do NOT use the word “literally” UNLESS you LITERALLY mean it.
BTW, before someone points out my errors on the absence of quotation marks, let me just say that I’m lazy and after a while they just get too messy. Also, if someone points out my grammatical errors, it’s because it’s late :D.
For the love of god people:
LOOSE = not tight
LOSE = to not win something
I HATE it when someone spells ‘lose’ as ‘loose’ GYAAARRHHH!!!
Oh, and sorry for all the grammar-related nitpicks when the subject is misspellings. I just had to get that off my chest.
ENugent said:
. . . I recently had to sit an Oxford graduate down and go over the difference between the comma and the semicolon. I also had to explain how to use parallel structures correctly.
This is becoming worse. Go to any British newspaper site on the web, including The Times, the Telegraph, even The Lancet, FFS. The writers (and copy editors, I presume) use commas where semicolons are called for, revealing themselves as the unlettered ignoramases they are.
And seeing as I’m up, why the hell does internet and web deserve upper-case treatment everywhere but in this post? They aren’t that important. The telephone is more important. The wheel is more important. Hell, I’m more important, which is why I am upper case. Why TF should the web be as important as Jesus Christ?
Another thing, seeing as I’m on a roll. Why TF is with the English language turning into Summarian? There is no reason not to have spaces between words, at least not since six megabytes of RAM maxed out the box. The language looks like German, FFS, especially with the nouns web and internet written upper case.
When in the course of enough reincarnations I am God, the first against the wall will be those pretentious south-side apertures who write “as per margin.”
So there (pant, pant).
All right.
Not alright <shudder> … all right.
“Spiel”.
Not “shpiel”, “schpiel” or even “shpeel”.
It’s spelt S-P-I-E-L.
EXCEPT THE CHALLENGE!
That reminds me of another story that is fuzzy in my memory. If someone can find the story, it is pretty funny and worth posting. It seems some Iowa college students sent a huge postcard to Congress that was, unfortunately and not intentionally, riddled with spelling errors! I think they were trying to say that they were getting a great government education.
**
It’s separate and separation, not seperate and seperation! :rolleyes:
I only really learned that one when I moved to France – the way it is pronounced in French helps me to remember. That method also works for the word ‘surprise’. Of course, now I am constantly misspelling apartement and adresse – damn that French language! 
**
Does anybody else simply rely on the auto-correct function in word? Hell, I even misspell some words on purpose (or lazily) because they are easier to type incorrectly! I can’t be the only one to do that, can I? 
I also like to use the semicolon; however, I have changed my current writing style for now since my current teacher doesn’t like it.
Here are some more common errors:
It’s spelt consensus.
Don’t use the word “that” when “who” should be used (i.e., when you’re talking about people).
“Ex.” is an abbreviation for the word “example” and it has one period at the end of it. “E.g.” is a Latin word with the English translation being “for example” and has two periods as shown. “I.e.” is a Latin word that means “that is” in English. “I.e.” is usually used to further explain something; i.e., it is used for clarity. If you are showing an example, don’t use i.e., instead, use the abbreviation of exempli gratia (note the attempt to avoid ending a sentence with two periods :D; actually, it’s because I don’t know whether if it should be “‘e.g.’.” or just “e.g.” at the end).
“Good” is NOT an adverb and nor is “bad.” If you think you did bad on that English essay, you’re half right. However, if you believe you did good on that essay, you’re wrong on both counts.
Similar to the above, don’t mix up adverbs and adjectives. Adverbs usually have a -ly added to the end of an adjective.
Subject-verb agreement! I notice this one from reporters all the time. If your job is to speak English (and look pretty doing so), just remember that one thing! It’s not “there is three major candidates in this campaign,” it’s “there are…”
Double negatives. “I ain’t done nothin’” implies you did something, since you have not done nothing.
Compliment/Complement. A compliment is a nice thing said about someone; a complement has to do with going well with, matching, or completing another thing. For example, “the yin and the yang complement each other in Taoist beliefs.”
One more thing about the acronym thing: you wouldn’t write, “I have ten compact disc’s,” so why would you write, “I have ten CD’s”?
And it’s spelt fellatio.
“…so just return it to Bob or myself.”
“…so just return it to Bob or I.”
Sometimes I can’t decide which one angers me more.
I beg to differ. Supercede is a perfectly acceptable variant, from the Middle English superceden apparently.
Definition of supersede in an English dictionary:
Definition of supercede in an English dictionary:
Supercede is not an English word. However, while superceden is a word from Middle English it is still unacceptable to use in Modern English. Using the word “supercede” as a friggen headline is just bad English.
Ian: Very minor nit. Some years ago I was obliged to type legal material (a local law for a New York State municipality) and identified “supercede” as a misspelling. The author of the law gleefully pointed out that Merriam-Webster’s (at least at the time) listed it as an acceptable alternate spelling. I still don’t like it, though.