Confusing pairs of words...

Frequently misused on these forums:
Taught when they meant thought
Breaks when they meant brakes

bonzodog2 wrote: »

Frequently misused on these forums:
Taught when they meant thought
Breaks when they meant brakes

No problem with the first pair but always have to think twice about the second. I know they can both be verbs or nouns but I want to break (verb) when I use the brakes (noun) when in fact thats wrong unless I was damaging the brakes by breaking them.

SmartinMartin

Lose/loose
plurals/plural's

Ooh, I like "incident/incidence". "Incidences" is an actual legit word, but it probably wasn't being used correctly. As far as I know:

"We had an incident in the school in which a child got food poisoning from the school lunch, although we have had fewer such incidents this school year than last year. The overall incidence of food poisoning at our school has declined. However, the incidences of food poisoning at the other five district schools have increased."

http://www.gingersoftware.com/english-online/spelling-book/confusing-words/incidence-incidents

Principal/Principle

Roselm

bonzodog2 wrote: »

Frequently misused on these forums:
Taught when they meant thought
Breaks when they meant brakes

...and worn "threads" on tyres rather than "treads"

Knew and new, I doubt there is much confusion but if other peoples errors are made for the same reasons mine are made then the problem is in the brain thinking faster then the fingers can type. Only fix is a read through before posting.

looksee

bonzodog2 wrote: »

Principal/Principle

Easy reminder for this - the Principal may be your pal.

looksee wrote: »

Easy reminder for this - the Principal may be your pal.

But on principle I have to point out that it could be the principal on which interest is paid.

Alun

One that always makes me laugh is huge / hugh. Also (rather ironically) college / collage.

looksee

my3cents wrote: »

But on principle I have to point out that it could be the principal on which interest is paid.

Um, yes, didn't think of that!

Bob24

Won't confuse native speakers but lots of potential to confuse non-natives and get them to say something which makes everyone uncomfortable: rapist / rapper.

miamee

reign / rein

I still have to stop and think about which is which so I'm not including a sentence

thejaguar

SmartinMartin wrote: »

Lose/loose

This drives me nuts

...and 'would of/should of/could of' instead of 'would have/could have/should have'....

PaddyWilliams

No/Know.. How many times have I seen people typing back an answer to a question as 'I no'.

PaddyWilliams

thejaguar wrote: »

This drives me nuts

...and 'would of/should of/could of' instead of 'would have/could have/should have'....

Woulda / Coulda / Shoulda ?

Alun wrote: »

One that always makes me laugh is huge / hugh. Also (rather ironically) college / collage.

It would be interesting to know how some of these creep in and how they relate to the users schooling? In the case of huge and hugh (brings to mind hue and hew) you can see that in the context of posting online that the user can't be using a spell checker because hugh would be flagged as needing a capitol H (unless it was at the start of a sentence).

College and collage wouldn't show up as a spelling error but for someone who was taught to spell phonically can't really be mistaken. Phonetic spelling has its downside as if I didn't know better I'd be spelling college colledge :rolleyes:

Going back to hue and hew you can also add in Hue and Hugh which all sound the same; I know of at least one person that spells Hugh Hue.

Then there are some triplets, like by, buy and bye. Not forgetting a bye in cricket.

You could buy a ticket so see a bye at cricket

Mearings

my3cents wrote: »

Then there are some triplets, like by, buy and bye. Not forgetting a bye in cricket.

You could buy a ticket so see a bye at cricket

Btw.

Spotted in the wild just recently on boards:
Viscous/vicious
Defiantly/definitely

FishOnABike

Capital and capitol

FishOnABike wrote: »

Capital and capitol

I use the two words correctly, and once I looked at them I guessed exactly why they were different, but I realized I never actually consciously noticed the difference before. Weird.

Here's one. When I was a child growing up in America, I used to use the old-fashioned word "baloney" to refer to what I would, as an adult, simply call "bullsh!t". It was also what we always called the mortadella sausage that we commonly put in sandwiches. I thought that the sort-of-flabby, homogeneous, pink slices were called that because they somewhat resembled the tongue, and a too-loose tongue was what made people talk nonsense.

I knew "baloney" in my sandwich was really spelled "Bologna" like the Italian town, but since I also knew the word "mortadella", it didn't immediately occur to me that the real name was "Bologna sausage". And it took even more time for me to realize that the word as used to mean "you're talking nonsense" was really derived from "blarney".

monkeynuz

Bought/brought
Wonder/wander
Stationary/stationery

mansize

Excepted/accepted

I don't have an issue but if I use excepted many question it

mansize wrote: »

Excepted/accepted

I don't have an issue but if I use excepted many question it

They take exception, rather than accepting it. Just so

mansize

Speedwell wrote: »

They take exception, rather than accepting it. Just so

I like

my3cents wrote: »

Going back to hue and hew you can also add in Hue and Hugh which all sound the same; I know of at least one person that spells Hugh Hue.

That person wouldn't happen to be Vietnamese? In that language it is a name meaning "intelligence" or "lily/orchid".

Speedwell wrote: »

That person wouldn't happen to be Vietnamese? In that language it is a name meaning "intelligence" or "lily/orchid".

No I just think either they or their parents were being trendy, might even have been a nickname. A neighbor is called Nigel by everyone I know but that isn't his name and never has been but there is some long family story I've never really understood that's supposed to explain it

Even my own given name gets shortened and spelt differently by members of my own family :rolleyes:

If we've not had them already a pair, well in sound anyway, that get confused around here, your and your're.

I've this theory that Google is likely to become the arbiter of spelling in years to come. I have just used the word spelt which Googles spell check doesn't know but the word is spelt or spelled and used correctly, however over time I wonder if spellings not "approved" by Google will fall into disuse? Similarly if the spell check doesn't spot the difference in your and you're (because from a spelling point of view both words are spelt correctly) will your come to be an accepted alternative and you're be dropped from use altogether?

my3cents wrote: »

I've this theory that Google is likely to become the arbiter of spelling in years to come. I have just used the word spelt which Googles spell check doesn't know but the word is spelt or spelled and used correctly, however over time I wonder if spellings not "approved" by Google will fall into disuse? Similarly if the spell check doesn't spot the difference in your and you're (because from a spelling point of view both words are spelt correctly) will your come to be an accepted alternative and you're be dropped from use altogether?

Spelt is not a word that has fallen out of use; it is (at least) the name of a grain. Google and other spellcheckers are at best minor annoyances to me. I worked as a proofreader back in the day and an engineer manual writer more recently, and I have always found them to cause more problems than they solve. I spend an extraordinary time trying to teach them that this word or that is actually not misspelled.