I blame spellcheckers. Many years ago I probably knew every day from everyday, whether it’s a lot or alot, but after awhile I go with what the spellchecker keeps insisting.
Yeah, I had to almost literally arm-wrestle the spell-checker to get it to accept my use of “themself”
at the end of the third sentence beginning with “Perhaps” in my post immediately above yours.
For me, the fault lays more with auto fill then with spellcheck.:dubious:
It is easy to screw up lie and lay, but the then/than confusion? WTF?
I can’t understand the confusion between were and where.
Um, just out of curiosity… where did you see that? My employer’s tagline uses the words “Every Day” and I need to know if I need to contact someone in corporate communications.
(Just checked our website: “Save Big Every Day!” Whew.)
Depends on what your accent is. You probably don’t confuse sit and set, but in someplace those two words are pronounced the same.
The Exchange (formerly AAFES) is the original culprit. A few days ago, while I was in downtown Beijing, I saw the same slogan on a small store catering to us foreigners.
Nobody seems to know the word “peek.” They all think it’s “peak.”
“Sneak peak.” “Take a peak at this.” ARRGH
You have peeked my curiosity. Tell me more.
I fear the “chomping at the bit” war was lost long ago.
Has anyone been seeing “tow the line”? Make me feel like I am drowning in others’ ignorance.
Pretty often, even if it’s not an everyday occurrence. 
I can’t understand why seemingly everybody these days, including people who are paid to write stuff good, confuses horde and hoard. Not that the notion of would-be terrorists amassing a horde of guns isn’t terrifying a prospect, but…
I’ve always understood a greengrocer’s apostrophe to be as used in “tomato’s”. Not that it has to be vegetables, but I’ve never seen the term applied outside of plurals.
Well, a greengrocer probably wouldn’t need to disambiguate any clitics besides the plural 's. My intent was to show that the function and format are equivalent.
I’m still positive that I learned the word (or non-word) “alot” in a spelling book in elementary school. Where “alot” meant “often” and “a lot” meant “many”: eg. “He goes to the gym alot” and “There are a lot of weights there”. I know now that’s incorrect and probably just made it up in my little-kid mind.
I still can’t figure out “Workout”. I have a flow chart in my cubicle that says “Should I Workout Today?” - yes - “Go Workout”. It seems like it should be “Work Out”, but that looks weird.
This all sounds familiar. I used to bicker with an attorney I used to work for over similar grammatical issues.
It’s: “Please go and pick up the signed documents.”
Not: “Please go and pickup the signed documents.”
In vain I’d try to point out that “pickup” is either an adjective that describes a truck or a noun referring to the truck itself. Alternatively, it could be a noun and referred to a person you met at a bar for a one-night stand.
And don’t get me started on people who use ‘‘lightening’’ instead of ‘‘lightning.’’
I would use “work out” for both of those verbs, and “workout” as a noun (“What a workout!”). But I don’t really care what you do.
I’m surprised at the relative lack of the “language evolves, you old shrivs” type of comments in here!
While we’re at it, let’s talk about “login” and “setup.” As a technical writer, I’m constantly having to fix these in instructions.
“Setup” is a noun, or an adjective. (“When you finish setup, go to step 2” or “When you finish the setup tasks, go to step 2.”) “Set up” is a verb (“Set up the server, then go to step 2.”)
Likewise “login”. You do not “login” to a computer. You “log in.” Using your login name.