Clothes/cloths is another one.
or decades, like the 1980s.
Actual email received by me yesterday:
I appreciate that she asked the question, but it’s the “apostrophe’s” that makes me cringe.
That one is hard for me. But I’m aware of it and try to figure it out before I made a mistake.
I think the reason many people spell “lose” as “loose” and “losing” as “loosing” is because they’re thinking of the pronunciation/spelling of “choose” and “choosing.”
Maybe she thinks there should be apostrophes?
Along with clothes/cloths, I’ll add breathe/breath.
And I give you the Grand Poobah: there/their/they’re
That’s one of those things that, for a while at least, was a quasi-accepted style. An apostrophe “offsetting” numbers and sometimes acronyms like “CD’s” or “DVD’s”. I used to do it, but I don’t anymore as I think it’s cleaner and more correct to just write “80s” vs. “80’s”. But I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong to do so, so when I see it I try not to let it bother my pedantry meter too much.
I know this one alone could be a whole thread topic for debate.
The one that’s currently grating on my nerves is the usage of the phrases “should of/would of/could of”.
I agree. The correct form is shoulda/woulda/coulda.
Jibe and gibe.
As for the OP, I’m at a loess.
My husband almost lost his shot with me back in college, when he wrote on my dorm whiteboard: ‘‘Spice, I think I am loosing my mind.’’
The message was creepy enough without the error.
I am, generally speaking, a descriptivist, but there are certain cases in which inaccuracy hampers communication, and this is one of them.
I should speak up about quiet/quite.
Quite, you!
(I suspect autocorrect is not helping in any of these matters.)
More like autoincorrect.
What I can’t wrap my mind around is how “decimate” has come to mean “complete destruction”. “Deci-” means “ten”! It’s basic Greek roots!
Never saw gibe, but jive is often misused for jibe.
Cite/site/sight.
You can be cited for trespassing if you are sighted at the wrong site.
*Who *and whom. This problem is easily avoided if you remember one simple rule of thumb: If you don’t know the difference between *who *and whom, never use whom.
“Deci-” here is Latin (although the Greek and Latin number words are clearly related).
I see “paid” misspelled as “payed” so often nowadays I expect it to become an accepted variant spelling in a decade or so.