8/8/2019 Common Errors in Engilish

1/27

S M T W T F S

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

New Years Day

January

12008

TUESDAY

vintage point/vantage pointThe spot from which you have agood view is a vantage point.

Heres hoping for a vintage year.

8/8/2019 Common Errors in Engilish

2/27

S M T W T F S

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

January

22008

WEDNESDAY

slog it out/slug it outSlogging is a slow, messy business, typically trampingthrough sticky mud or metaphorically struggling withother difficult tasks. You might slog through a pile

of receipts to do your taxes; If you are engaged in afierce battle with an adversary, however, you slug itout, like boxers slugging each other. There is no suchexpression as slog it out.

8/8/2019 Common Errors in Engilish

3/27

S M T W T F S

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

January

32008

THURSDAY

lense/lens

Although the variant spelling lense is listedin some dictionaries, the standard spelling

for those little disks that focus light is lens.

8/8/2019 Common Errors in Engilish

4/27

S M T W T F S

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

January

42008

FRIDAY

patience/patientsDoctors have patients, but while youre waitingto see them you have to have patience.

The most popular pediatrician

in town, Dr. Holcroft was a manwith admirable patients.

8/8/2019 Common Errors in Engilish

5/27

S M T W T F S

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

January

5/62008

SATURDAY/SUNDAY

alleged, allegedly

Seeking to avoid prejudging the facts in a crime andprotect the rights of the accused, reporters sometimes over-use alleged and allegedly. If it is clear that someone hasbeen robbed at gunpoint, its not necessary to describe itas an alleged robbery nor the victim as an alleged victim.

This practice insultingly casts doubt on the honesty ofthe victim and protects no one. An accused perpetrator isone whose guilt is not yet established, so it is redundantto speak of an alleged accused. If the perpetrator has not

yet been identified, its pointless to speak of the search foran alleged perpetrator.

8/8/2019 Common Errors in Engilish

6/27

S M T W T F S

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

January

72008

MONDAY

on accident/by accident

Although you can do things onpurpose, you do them byaccident.

8/8/2019 Common Errors in Engilish

7/27

S M T W T F S

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

January

82008

TUESDAY

minature/miniatureFew people pronounce the secondsyllable in miniature distinctly, soit often gets dropped in spelling.

8/8/2019 Common Errors in Engilish

8/27

S M T W T F S

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

January

92008

WEDNESDAY

Swashbuckling Captain Bogg

definitely not a one-dimensionalcharacter.

one-dimensional/two-dimensional

Once upon a time most folks knew that three-dimensional

characters or ideas were rounded, fleshed out, and complexand two-dimensional ones were flat and uninteresting. Itseems that the knowledge of basic geometry has declined inrecent years, because today we hear uninteresting characters

and ideas described as one-dimensional. According toEuclid, no object can be one-dimensional (of course,according to modern physics, even two-dimensionality is only an abstract

concept). If you are still bothered bythe notion that two dimensions areone too many, just use flat.

8/8/2019 Common Errors in Engilish

9/27

S M T W T F S

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

January

102008

THURSDAY

oftenPeople striving for sophistication oftenpronounce the T in this word, buttrue sophisticates know that the masses

are correct in saying offen.

8/8/2019 Common Errors in Engilish

10/27

S M T W T F S

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

January

112008

FRIDAY

premier/premiere

These words are, respectively, the masculine and feminine

forms of the word for first in French; but they havebecome differentiated in English. Only the masculine formis used as an adjective, as in Tidy-Pool is the premier pool-cleaning firm in Orange County. The confusion arises

when these words are used as nouns. The prime minister ofa parliamentary government is known as a premier. Theopening night of a film or play is its premiere.

Premiere as a verb is common in the arts and in

show business (The show premiered on PBS), but it isless acceptable in other contexts (The state governmentpremiered its new welfare system). Use introduced or, ifreal innovation is involved, pioneered.

8/8/2019 Common Errors in Engilish

11/27

S M T W T F S

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

January

12/132008

SATURDAY/SUNDAY

role/rollAn actor plays a role. Bill Gates is theentrepreneurs role model. But you eat a

sausage on a roll and roll out the barrel.

8/8/2019 Common Errors in Engilish

12/27

S M T W T F S

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

sacred/scared

This is one of those silly typos whichyour spelling checker wont catch: godsare sacred, the damned in Hell are scared.

Joyce the angel in full-speeddescentits a fine line

between sacred and scary.

January

142008

MONDAY

8/8/2019 Common Errors in Engilish

13/27

S M T W T F S

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

January

152008

TUESDAY

grievious/grievous

There are just two syllables in grievous,and its pronounced GRIEVE-us.

8/8/2019 Common Errors in Engilish

14/27

S M T W T F S

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

January

162008

WEDNESDAY

suped up/souped upThe car youve souped up maybe super, but its not suped up.

Souped-up soup. Its superb!

8/8/2019 Common Errors in Engilish

15/27

S M T W T F S

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

January

172008

THURSDAY

eponymous/self-titled

It has become popular among certain critics to call

recordings named after their performing artistseponymous. Thus the album by the Beatles titled TheBeatleswould be an eponymous album. (Dont rememberit? Its the one most people call The White Album; the title

was embossed on the cover rather than printed on it.) Thispretentious term is not only so obscure as to be almostuseless, these writers are not using it in its original sense; it

was the person who was eponymous, not the thing named

after the person. I prefer the usage of critics who call suchrecordings self-titled. Its an awkward phrase, but at leastits easy for the reader to figure out what is meant.

8/8/2019 Common Errors in Engilish

16/27

S M T W T F S

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

January

182008

FRIDAYHorace hated vegetables; he thought

carrots tasted like sticks.

carrot on a stick/the carrot or the stick

Authoritative dictionaries agreethe expression refers to

offering to reward a stubborn mule or donkey with a carrotor threatening to beat it with a stick and not to a carrot beingdangled from a stick. For me, the clincher is that no oneactually cites the form of the original expression. In what

imaginable context would it possibly be witty or memorableto say that someone or something had been motivated by acarrot on a stick? Why not an apple on a stick, or a bagof oats? Boring, right? Not something likely to pass

into popular usage. This saying belongs to the samegeneral family as You can draw more flies withhoney than with vinegar. It is never usedexcept when such contrast is implied.

8/8/2019 Common Errors in Engilish

17/27

S M T W T F S1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

January

19/202008

SATURDAY/SUNDAY

plug-in/outlet

That thing on the end of an electrical cord is aplug, which goes into the socket of the wall outlet.

8/8/2019 Common Errors in Engilish

18/27

S M T W T F S1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

January

212008

MONDAY

lighted/lit

Dont fret over the difference between thesetwo words; theyre interchangeable.

8/8/2019 Common Errors in Engilish

19/27

S M T W T F S1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

January

222008

TUESDAY

for sale/on saleIf youre selling something, itsforsale;but if you lower the price, it goes on sale.

When I saw this hat for sale, I knew Icouldnt wait for it to go on sale.

8/8/2019 Common Errors in Engilish

20/27

S M T W T F S1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

January

232008

WEDNESDAY

ever so often/every so often

When something happens once in awhile, it happens everyso often.

The Visiting Committee, with his goldneck shrouded in cambric, appeared inthe schoolroom doorway about once inevery so often.

Margaret Fuller,A New England Childhood

8/8/2019 Common Errors in Engilish

21/27

S M T W T F S1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

January

242008

THURSDAY

leave/letThe colloquial use of leave to mean letin phrases like leave me be is not standard.Leave me alone is fine, though.

8/8/2019 Common Errors in Engilish

22/27

S M T W T F S1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

January

252008

FRIDAY

not all

The combination of not and all can be confusingif youre not careful about placement. All politiciansare not corrupt could theoretically mean that nopolitician is corrupt; but what you probably mean to

say is Not all politicians are corrupt. When not allis a minority, its sometimes better to replace not all

with some. The widescreen version is not availablein all video stores can be made clearer by saying The

widescreen version is not available in some stores.

h / i

8/8/2019 Common Errors in Engilish

23/27

S M T W T F S1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

January

26/272008

SATURDAY/SUNDAY

hero/protagonist

In ordinary usage hero has two meanings: leading character

in a story and brave, admirable person. In simple tales thetwo meanings may work together, but in modern literatureand film the leading character or protagonist (a technicalterm common in literary criticism) may behave in a very

unheroic fashion. Students who express shock that the heroof a play or novel behaves despicably reveal their inexperience.In literature classes avoid the word unless you mean to stress acharacters heroic qualities. However, if you are discussing themain character in a traditional opera, where values are oftensimple, you may get by with referring to the male lead as theherobut is Don Giovanni really a hero?

Mozart, hero tomany a composer.

8/8/2019 Common Errors in Engilish

24/27

S M T W T F S1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

January

282008

MONDAY

influencial/influentialIf you have influence, you areinfluential, not influencial.

8/8/2019 Common Errors in Engilish

25/27

S M T W T F S1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

January

292008

TUESDAY

croissant

The fanciful legend which attributes the creation of thecroissant to Christian bakers celebrating a 17th-centuryvictory over the Turks is widely recounted but almostcertainly untrue, since there is no trace of the pastryuntil a century later. Although its form was probably not

influenced by the Islamic crescent, the word croissantmostdefinitely is French for crescent. Pastries formed fromthe same dough into different shapes should not be calledcroissants. If a customer in your bakery asks for apain au

chocolat(PAN oh-show-co-LA), reach for that rectangularpastry usually mislabled in the U.S. a chocolate croissant.

8/8/2019 Common Errors in Engilish

26/27

S M T W T F S1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

January

302008

WEDNESDAY

span/spunDont say the demon span her head around.The past tense of spin in this sense is spun.

8/8/2019 Common Errors in Engilish

27/27

S M T W T F S1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

January

312008

THURSDAY

everytime/every time

Every time is always two separate words.

And so you see, class, everytime is correct every time!