Hehehehe…
I… uh… I always thought it was calvalry for the horsemen, that’s how I pronounced it too. Oops.
IMO “new media” complicates the situation, as in the past (as in, up to about 15 years ago) most mass-circulated written material appeared in print and had first gone before an (at least alleged) editor before publishing. Meanwhile business correspondence had to go through a secretary first, so who cared if the Boss didn’t know how to spell, and material produced in school was graded for spelling and grammar (which had been starting to go away in the generation prior). BUT all of that did **nothing **to “fix” the usage drift based on “but it sounds that way to ME”, but merely kept it underground. Now with the 'net and various other communications systems a vast volume of “written” material can show up in the public consciousness entirely unfiltered, which tends to put us in a state of orthographic anarchy that, to me, evokes reading texts from 500 years ago.
:dubious:
Columbia: Capital district of the United States.
Colombia: South American country.
Thank you in advance for your careful consideration of this matter. 
Woosh?
Hence the uncertain smiley.
Sophomoric anti-religionist: “I suppose you believe in Santa Clause, too!”
Me: “Of course I do! That movie made Tim Allen a lot of money.”
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Principle (n.): rule, a moral standard
Principal: 1. (adj.) main, predominant
2. (n.) that portion of a loan or purchase on credit consisting of the money lent and to be paid back, or the basic price charged for the credit purchase, as distinguished from the interest due and payable
3. (n.) the faculty member charged with the administration of a particular school, as distinguished from the superintendent whose charge is the administration of all schools within the deistrict
The first is always a noun; the second, nearly always an adjective except in the two specialized noun usages. Not that tricky a concept.
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People who make the sorts of mistakes cited in this thread, well, they give the impression of being unable, in Robyn’s wonderful example, of being unable to tell their burro from a burrow.
Trooper: A person in a military or paramilitary unit
Trouper: a person in a theatre unit; a person who is uncomplaining through adversity
Aww hell, and I thought I was immune to this, I have been screwing up that spelling forever putting i in both.
Whoah. You totally just blew my mind.
I always thought it was “you’re such a trooper” in the sense of a soldier, ie., somebody who deals with unpleasant conditions and so on as a matter of course.
Too: one, also; two, in addition.
Two: a number in addition.
To: a preposition and an infinitive too.
I’ve posted this before, but -
**faze: **to disturb the composure of : disconcert , daunt <nothing fazed her>
phase: 1: a particular appearance or state in a regularly recurring cycle of changes <phases of the moon>
2 a: a distinguishable part in a course, development, or cycle <the early phases of her career> b: an aspect or part (as of a problem) under consideration
3: the point or stage in a period of uniform circular motion, harmonic motion, or the periodic changes of any magnitude varying according to a simple harmonic law to which the rotation, oscillation, or variation has advanced from its standard position or assumed instant of starting
4: a homogeneous, physically distinct, and mechanically separable portion of matter present in a nonhomogeneous physicochemical system
5: an individual or subgroup distinguishably different in appearance or behavior from the norm of the group to which it belongs ; also : the distinguishing peculiarity
Despite the far more numerous applications of the word phase, I swear 9 times out of 10 when I see it on this board or anywhere else, what was meant was faze. It’s a fine word, nothing wrong with it; please use it!
Not fair! It’s an accent, not a common spelling or lexicon error.
Ouch. Check thisout. For the most part, they’re the same word:
Right, but it’s wrong to say “Johnson, insure that Roberts has the report done on time.” That means to buy some policy or that Johnson should do it himself. Ensure, however, means to go check up on Roberts and possibly slap him around.
No, it’s usually “whoosh”.
Me too. In fact, I think that makes more sense. Who has a tougher life? My girlfriend, the trouper, or me, the trooper? Oh, I think you know.
Noone…no such word unless you were a member of Hermans Hermits
No-one… not a person
And while we’re on the subject: none has, not none have. None does, not none do.
None = no one. No one has. No one does.
I think that usage note is saying it is OK. “Please ensure your car for $500 a month”, conversely, would not be correct.
In what accent is “ask” pronounced like “axe?” It’s laziness or ignorance, not a regional distinction!
Doing this from memory, so count on some error creeping in. I hope it will enable someone with a good source on dialectal linguistics to emend it to factuality…
Acse was originally the verb for “to ask” (Early Middle English is what sticks in my mind, but that’s uncertain.) Like other metatheses, it transformed under the influence of Norman and Angevin French into “ask.”
The original form, usually written “axe,” remains a substandard dialectal usage in a few areas in Britain (IIRC, North of England) and is fairly common in Urban Black Dialect, apparently not as a neologism but as derived from the speech of English immigrants in Colonial times and eventually transferred to the slaves and other African Americans with whom they came in contact.
Obviously, this does not make “I axed you a question” good English usage, but it does provide a fascinating example of the survival and transference of an unusual dialectal usage.
Yeah, this is one of my biggest peeves too. Like sand in my teeth whenever I see that “n” in there, but I rarely point it out. Thanks for mentioning it here!
Usually, but not always.