The worse thing that can happen to you is loosing the breaks in you’re car.
My all-time usage pet peeve: discretely/discreetly.
The vast majority of the time, the word the person wants is discreetly (Showing prudence and wise self-restraint in speech and behavior; circumspect. Free from ostentation or pretension; modest.). Yet everyone and his brother spells it discretely (consisting of unconnected distinct parts, distinct.).
Why?
He had nothing to…
Really? I always write it as '80s, with the logic that the 19 is omitted and the apostrophe indicates that stuff was left off. This style seems to be in the minority, but is it wrong?
So true. A good way to remember the difference, for those who have trouble, is: in discreet, the E’s are hiding together, but in discrete, the E’s are separate.
Nutty is talking about the other apostrophe, the one before the s.
80**’**s
'80’s looks pretty clunky. It almost looks like you’re talking about the “eighties” (ie not really the eighties).
If you use the leading apostrophe then you’re forced to leave the second one out. If you leave the first one then I think it becomes a matter of style as to whether you use the second.
Khiadra, the person who reads too many comics, has THIS to contribute!
How to remember the difference between ‘loose’ and ‘lose’.
Now there’s no excuse for forgetting the difference.
My personal belief is that the spelling to differentiate between the horseman version of the word and the stoner/slacker/surfer dude version of the word, which, IMO, have different connotations.
Sorry, I should have been clearer. :o I agree with Nutty that it should not be written as 80’s.
while masterbating.
I’m a merkin 
and I say “offen”. Too often those pronouncing the “T” are trying too hard to be “correct”. I know that pronouncing the “T” is acceptable, but it is not preferred.
Not sure on the other side of the pond. I’m still trying to suss out how y’all speak over there. (Actually, me mum is English).
Why whould he go on carving it while he was dying?
But, if it was being dictated…
That still doesn’t justify the idea that the word spelled “woah” would end with a long O sound. That “ah” has to do something or the word could be spelled “wo” and thereby maintain its “different connotation” from the horseman version of the word.
Not to mention that the connotation thing doesn’t hold up, because the word is being used in the exact same manner – as a substitute for the word stop. “Whoa, dude, do you really want to…” (“Stop and think about your choice, my friend.”) “Whoa, I didn’t know…” (“Stop what you’re saying so that I may absorb everything in full.”)