It's and its annoy me because they both make sense for possessive. The only thing that really made me feel better is thinking of it's like his and hers. His and hers doesn't have an apostrophe.
Pronounce and pronunciation seem like they should have the same root, but one of them has an extra 'o' for some perfectly logical reason. I know the difference and don't consistently misspell it, but if I edit a sentence to switch from one to the other without noticing that it's a danger inflection ...
Also maintain vs. maintenance for the same reason.
Australian English is based off British English but is not identical. Both are different to US English and have a lot of words that are spelled with a bit more historical contingency. That said, knowing which words have which version of suffix can be difficult.
For example, authorise or authorize. Practice or practise. Gaol or jail. English is a pain but it does make a good common language.
Yeah, and also the Oxford comma is in my mind much clearer. I think if you are understood you are using the language correctly. If you are not understood at first but become understood after a bit of back and forth then you are using the language and also pushing the limits a little, making changes along the way. It is an evolutionary process, not design, so it is messy.
What kinda helped me was thinking of then as relative to time and than was associated with math so it helped recognize how it related to concepts differently lol
Effect I just think of "special effects" and so I know the other is the one related to an impact.
The former is British, the latter is American. Noah Webster eliminated letter doubles in words where he thought the extra one didn't add anything useful. Another word that did the same thing is "level(l)ing".
I habitually throw random spelling and grammatical mistakes into my posts and comments all the time, to make it less likely that anyone can fingerprint my writing style and thereby dox me. That is the only reason for any such errors.
Licence / license, and practice / practise. I have to look them up every single time because I forget which of each is the noun and which is the verb, and even then, there are situations where using the noun as a verb might actually be the right thing to do and I hate the whole thing. So I probably still get those wrong whenever I use them.
Barring brain farts (increasingly common) and muscle memory leading me astray on the keyboard, my spelling is otherwise fairly good, but those pairings I could do without.
The former is the way I learned it in school way back in the 70's... Apparently that is the way the British spell it and it sends US citizens into an aneurysm.
One that bothers me the most when people do it is brake vs break. Your car will break if you do not apply the brake in a timely fashion.
"effecient" instead of "efficient".
The funny thing is as I get older I find myself typing homonyms of words instead of the word I meant. My fingers are barely listening to my brain lol
Somehow I am constantly mistyping "because" as "becsause." I know damn well I am hitting the a before the s but I type really fast (average 120wpm) and on a touchscreen it might be laggy 🤷♂️
One thing I'm realizing more and more as I type in a game in PC is that I'm only good at spelling the first half of words. I've gotten used to auto correct on phones and spell check in other programs. My errors are typically on the end.
Necessary and apparently are two common words I get wrong fairly often.
I used to have trouble with necessary. I have pages of notes with neccesary/neseccary/necesary/necessary scribbled in the margins to see which one looked right.
I always ALWAYS have to check separate / separation / separator. I want to put a third e in there so much.
uhm ... separate is an adjective and separation is a noun I guess?
I think they were referring more to a tendency of writing seperat(e, ion, or).
Unfortunately the classification of single words is not so cut and dry:
So few comments.... Yet mine is already taken. I get this wrong constantly too.
For some reason unfortunately gave me trouble until I broke it down and remembered to have tuna in there lol
So I just think: unfor tuna tely
unfor🐟tely
I will cry if this becomes the evolution of emoji usage lol
Think of all of the interesting things you can do with regional dialects!
We have kids saying U R . Emoji taking the place of words is just natural devolution.
Viscous vs vicious.
It’s a viscous cycle.
A vicious liquid!
I used to do this with nauseous versus noxious.
Sounds like a sticky situation.
Or slippery situation, depends on how viscous.
For the pairs you mentioned this might help:
It's and its annoy me because they both make sense for possessive. The only thing that really made me feel better is thinking of it's like his and hers. His and hers doesn't have an apostrophe.
thank you for the tips!
Diahhrheoea
Or whatever it is.
Pronounce and pronunciation seem like they should have the same root, but one of them has an extra 'o' for some perfectly logical reason. I know the difference and don't consistently misspell it, but if I edit a sentence to switch from one to the other without noticing that it's a danger inflection ...
Also maintain vs. maintenance for the same reason.
Australian English is based off British English but is not identical. Both are different to US English and have a lot of words that are spelled with a bit more historical contingency. That said, knowing which words have which version of suffix can be difficult.
For example, authorise or authorize. Practice or practise. Gaol or jail. English is a pain but it does make a good common language.
Yeah, and also the Oxford comma is in my mind much clearer. I think if you are understood you are using the language correctly. If you are not understood at first but become understood after a bit of back and forth then you are using the language and also pushing the limits a little, making changes along the way. It is an evolutionary process, not design, so it is messy.
It's only very recently that I learned I've been using the wrong then/than and effect/affect most of the time.
What kinda helped me was thinking of then as relative to time and than was associated with math so it helped recognize how it related to concepts differently lol
Effect I just think of "special effects" and so I know the other is the one related to an impact.
Nice try, FBI stylometric profiler.
you got me. But fuck I revealed my own spelling mistakes. Find me!
Can't recall them, but there are some words in which I keep typing double letters even though they aren't supposed to be there.
More a typo than a spelling mistake but if a word ends in ‘th’, my brain cannot stop adding an ‘e’.
So you're just a time traveler from the 1200s. NBD.
Travelling vs traveling
The former is British, the latter is American. Noah Webster eliminated letter doubles in words where he thought the extra one didn't add anything useful. Another word that did the same thing is "level(l)ing".
Interesting, so I could make the argument that I was right all along
I habitually throw random spelling and grammatical mistakes into my posts and comments all the time, to make it less likely that anyone can fingerprint my writing style and thereby dox me. That is the only reason for any such errors.
Licence / license, and practice / practise. I have to look them up every single time because I forget which of each is the noun and which is the verb, and even then, there are situations where using the noun as a verb might actually be the right thing to do and I hate the whole thing. So I probably still get those wrong whenever I use them.
Barring brain farts (increasingly common) and muscle memory leading me astray on the keyboard, my spelling is otherwise fairly good, but those pairings I could do without.
Regarding license and licence, in American English it's just always license. So when in doubt pick that and claim to be an expat lol.
ageing vs aging
The former is the way I learned it in school way back in the 70's... Apparently that is the way the British spell it and it sends US citizens into an aneurysm.
One that bothers me the most when people do it is brake vs break. Your car will break if you do not apply the brake in a timely fashion.
I'm an American and the former looks much more natural.
I can never figure out where that pesky u goes in restaurant. (Thank goodness for autocorrect, or I couldn’t have spelled it for this post!)
I fuck up "insure/ensure" and "effect/affect" a lot.
There are three meanings to each. Good luck.
In english a lot. Not just because i am dislexic, but also french stemming words are a nightmare
"Litterly" is one i have still no idea how to spell. Or wether, not meaning the weather as in sun and run but the one for implying choice
Literally and whether.
embarrassed to admit I mix up which and witch, and have misspelled both as wich on occasion
Nothing to be embarrassed about. I can assure you I am worse at spelling.
"effecient" instead of "efficient". The funny thing is as I get older I find myself typing homonyms of words instead of the word I meant. My fingers are barely listening to my brain lol
english instructors, were so anal with the words "act and acts" in writing a paper. or cellular and celluar.
Somehow I am constantly mistyping "because" as "becsause." I know damn well I am hitting the a before the s but I type really fast (average 120wpm) and on a touchscreen it might be laggy 🤷♂️
Their vs there vs they're.
I know the difference but my fingers clearly do not.
One thing I'm realizing more and more as I type in a game in PC is that I'm only good at spelling the first half of words. I've gotten used to auto correct on phones and spell check in other programs. My errors are typically on the end.
Necessary and apparently are two common words I get wrong fairly often.
recieve vs. receive
This one's easy, remember reecee, so it's rEcEive.
I just try to keep the mnemonic "I before E except after C" ^[1]^ in my brain.
::: spoiler References
Don't follow those stupid rules, there are so many exceptions not even sure how that shit got coined. Welcome to English
Do you mind referencing some of the exceptions that you have in mind to the aforementioned rule?
I say wether, not whether, and anyways, not anyway. I also never remember how to write thorought.
Thorought I think would be pronounced thor-uft.
I used to have trouble with necessary. I have pages of notes with neccesary/neseccary/necesary/necessary scribbled in the margins to see which one looked right.
Illegitimate/legitimate. Always struggled with that one until I got a phone that could tell me how to spell it.