Words Confused and Misused

This publication is a compilation of some of the most frequently misspelled, commonly confused and easily misused words around. Some are just workds that are highly susceptible to misspelling. Others are homonyms that look or sound similar to one another, but have different meanings. In an era of email, instant messaging, pagers, and cell phone text messaging, correct spelling and grammar, proper capitalization and use of complete sentences has become a thing of the past. The increasing use of Intenet and IM acronyms makes in increasingly important for us to recognize the proper use and spelling of many of the most commonly mangled and misused words. Far too many people blindly accept correction from spell checker software while failing to recognize that they must differentiate between the similar words. With homonyms, since both examples are valid words, your spell checker will not pick up the mistake.

The list of commonly misused words, is extensive. There are several that tend to be most commonly misused words are simply the result of spelling errors, at other times, misused words can significantly change the meaning of a sentence. People tend to get into trouble with words using apostrophes. Many people include apostropes when changing a word to plural form. For example, if one wants to pluralize friend, the correct plural if friends. The incorrect form is friend’s. The apostrophe in this case implies possession. Apostrphe in this case implies possession. Apostrophes are used for two purposes: to indicate possessive form or to join two words together like do not into don’t.