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8 Commonly Misused Words
Writers Write is your one-stop writing resource. In this post, we share eight of the most commonly misused words.
Source – Daily Infographic
[Top Tip: If you need practical help with your grammar, buy The Complete Grammar Workbook.]
Posted on: 29th August 2014
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11 thoughts on “8 Commonly Misused Words”
Not impressed as the correct words are abused often.
Fewer/Less and Lie/Lay are dialectal differences, not misuses…
Can we make one that focuses on the correct context in which to use the word “literally”?
I may or may not have misused accept for except haha
NRH Welch, you are mistaken, they are not dialectical differences.
Gordon, it has nothing to do with correct or incorrect words. Each word has distinct and different grammatical uses.
Erika, in many dialects of English of the world “lay” is used where Standard English uses “lie”, and this is perfectly grammatical and standard usage in the dialect – for example in British dialects like Sussex English, in American dialects like Appalachian English, in South African dialects like varieties of so called Coloured South African English, and in Australian dialects like the Sydney dialect.
To claim the standard usage is more “right” than these numerous dialects is just linguistic prescriptivism…
The same goes for the less/fewer case.
I live in Australia so maybe this is a cultural sort of thing but numerous of my English teachers have told me that “lay” is the past term for “lie”?
He had gone to lie down but they had stopped him.
He lay down beside her on the bed of soft green grass.
… Or am I just getting slack due to the school holidays?
Carolyn, you are correct. Please follow this link http://the-plain-language-programme.posthaven.com/lay-or-lie
Oh, okay, thanks ^_^
I was beginning to think that maybe I was wrong and that I’d need to go through and edit all my writing… Haha. 🙂
Don’t forget Who and Whom, Which and That, Whether and If, Since and Because, May and Might, Affect and Effect… Grammar Police beware, we are watching!
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