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Isn’t it weird that humans learn how to use language to communicate with others without needing to put in that much effort? But if we want to write and read or to perfect it and make our linguistic abilities more sophisticated, we need to actually study the language. Despite starting strong and already being able to talk and understand others in childhood, we spend years learning our languages at school, but in the end, not everyone manages to acquire it completely.

Those who are more receptive to languages often get irritated by the mistakes other people make in spoken or written language. It really shows in a Reddit thread where a person asked “What is something that most people don’t use correctly?” and half of the answers consisted of people naming misused words and grammar errors others make.

Image credits: Martha Soukup

More info: Reddit

#1

The phrase “I couldn’t care less”

Most Americans I’ve heard say, “I could care less”. Like cmon you’re using that all wrong!!

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#2

Incredibly: should’ve. I’ve seen a ton of people write “should of” when they mean should’ve (as in should have) and in my opinion that’s worse than confusing “then/than”.

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H Edwards
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It comes from the way it's pronounced, and it's exclusively a mistake that native English speakers make.

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#3

The word loose. They mistake it for lose

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H Edwards
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

One of the most common spelling confusions in the English language, apparently. It's quite easy to see why, I suppose. The one that really grinds my gears for some reason is 'shepard' instead of 'shepherd' when people start discussing their dogs.

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#4

The they're/there/their and to/too/two. It's a pet peeve of mine when people say "This is to boring." In any situation when they use the wrong "to." My mates had taken University-level English classes in highschool yet they still make the "there" or "to" mistakes, and it makes my blood boil.

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Mary Rose Kent
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I didn’t even go to college and I still manage to use the right one every single time.

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#5

Less vs. fewer. Less is for uncountable nouns: you have less time, less pain, less work to do. Fewer is for countable nouns: you have fewer apples, fewer cans of soup, fewer distractions. People usually use less when they should use fewer; it rarely happens the other way around. People will say "there are less cars on the road," but they probably won't say "there is fewer traffic." There is a related problem with much vs. many. To be fair, what is countable and uncountable can get complicated, and it's easy to make mistakes (I do it too). You can't have fewer money, you can only have fewer dollars and cents (money, amusingly, is uncountable). You can't have fewer pizza, but you can have fewer pizzas (pluralization of something uncountable makes it countable).

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John C
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I understand this is technically correct, but not only does this not impede effective communication (you know exactly what they meant) but since language evolves over time, I suspect in the future this distinction will be eliminated and these two words cross-pollenating one another will be considered acceptable, or if nothing else slang.

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#6

The pedal next to the gas is not the break pedal

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Paul C.
Community Member
3 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It could be, if you push it to hard! You see what I did their? Im pleased with that. :-)

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#7

I'm gonna go get an expresso and excetera.

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#9

Than/then

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Hayhaypaula
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

"Than" is used when you are comparing two items. Use "then" when you are discussing order in time. Examples: I ate pizza, and "then" took a nap! I ate more pizza "than" wings!

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#10

Apostrophes.

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Robert T
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Apostrophes are such a pain to explain as they can indicate two things - possession (such as Robert's book or Mary's bicycle) and abbreviation (where letters have been omitted should've, would've, could've, won't). Then you have to try to explain it's to someone. Is it possession or abbreviation? Its is possession and it's is abbreviation. And they go "what?".

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#11

grumpyoldmanBrad said:
Affect/Effect

Daddict replied:
It's so easy.

Affect is a verb. Except when it's a noun.

Effect is a noun. Except when it's a verb.

No idea why people mix these up.

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memyselfandI
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Affect is first, effect is second. Usually in casual conversation, affect will be a verb (her emotions affected the decision), and effect will be a noun (the effect was that she got two dozen donuts instead of one). Affect as a noun means sort of your vibe, as in (his affect was one of confidence), effect as a verb is basically the same as affect, doing something that changes something else, but effect is usually used when making that specific change was the goal (he wanted to effect a change in legislation). Affect as a verb means your action has some consequences in the situation around you, effect as a verb means you are doing something for the specific purpose of making that change. One is unintentional, the other is intentional. Hope that clears things up.

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#12

APART

If you participated in something you were “a part” of it. If you are “apart” from something or someone you are deliberately not a part.

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ZAPanda
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My pet peeve is "alot". "Allot" means to award or to allocate. "A Lot" means "a bunch".

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#13

"Anyways" the correct word is "anyway". Anyway already denotes any possible way. Adding an S does nothing other than show your ignorance.

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H Edwards
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I see this as a kind of colloquialism. I use it even though I know it's not technically correct.

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#14

Literally

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Pickles
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Webster's dictionary has literally changed the definition of the word to include today's people's common misuse of the word as "figuratively" or "virtually". So the word has literally list all meaning.

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#15

The word “cavalry.” People often say “Calvary” instead.

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#16

Same with saying “payed” instead of “paid”. This one drives me insane the most.

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Robert T
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Nothing wrong with them saying it, it's when the write it down that it annoys me!

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#18

breath, breathe, and breathing. Makes me wanna kill someone more than I already do.

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#19

AtomBombBaby42042 said:
Woman/women!

smooshf**kie replied:
Right! But people don't get man/men wrong.

Why is it that people can tell the difference between man/men but not woman/women?

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Wondering Alice
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Is this a thing? I can't recall seeing someone mix up woman and women. Is it happening a lot?

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#20

;

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#21

Weary vs wary too. I am weary of the misuse of homynyms.

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Tom Hanlin
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Weary is not a homonym of wary but, for all I know, could be a homynym, whatever that is.

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#23

Grammer

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#24

Barley when they mean barely. That one grinds my gears.

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#25

"Begs the question"

It doesn't mean to raise the question.

It's a form of circular reasoning where the argument requires the conclusion to be true, rather than the argument supporting the conclusion.

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Mike Beck
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Interesting. I have only ever heard it used as "raises the question" and never the other.

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#26

The colon and semicolon.

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Fat Harry
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It's not even hard. A semicolon is a punctuation mark used to separate items in a list or to link independent but related clauses, whereas the colon is the longest part of the large intestine.

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#27

People say: You can't have your cake and eat it too.

The traditional correct phrase is: You can't eat your cake and have it too.

Nowadays the two ways of saying it are pretty much used interchangeably.

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Kanuli
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Does it make a difference though? Philosophically? In Switzerland we have that saying aswell, slightly different. There’s a bread called weggli, and it often has a chocolate coin(foifer). And usually when you share one get the weggli, the other the coin: thus :you can’t have the weggli and the foifer.

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#28

The English language

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Skara Brae
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

One time I passed a couple of college students. One was from Iran and the other from Korea. They were speaking in English, but their accents were so strong I could barely understand more than every third word. I was impressed how they could understand each other.

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#29

The words “everyday” and “awhile”.

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Robert T
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

But "everyday" means something different to "every day", which is what I assume you are getting at.

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#30

Plurals

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Robert T
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Plurals in different languages are quite strange. In English is usually by adding an "s" or "es". In Danish it seems to be by adding "er". In French they start messing about with the words before it as well.

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#32

Lately, more and more people are pronouncing the word "theater" as if it only has two syllables, and rhymes with "sweeter."

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Mary Rose Kent
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I know English is an ever-evolving language, but that’s just wrong!

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