Common_Errors_in_English_usage

the quality of being truly religious is "piety."
RELUCTANT/RETICENT
"Reticent" denotes only reluctance to speak; do not use it for any other
form of reluctance.
REMOTELY CLOSE
"Not even remotely close" is a fine example of an oxymoron. An idea can
be "not even remotely correct," but closeness and remoteness are
opposites; it doesn't make sense to have one modify the other. There are
lots of lists of oxymorons on the Web, but they mostly mix jokey
editorializing ("military intelligence" and "Microsoft Works") with true
oxymorons. Good for a laugh, but not providing much guidance to writers.
If there's a truly helpful oxymoron site you know of, I'd like to hear
about it.
REMUNERATION/RENUMERATION
Although "remuneration" looks as if it might mean "repayment" it usually
means simply "payment." In speech it is often confused with
"renumeration," which would mean re­counting (counting again).
REPUNGENT/REPUGNANT, PUNGENT
"Repungent" is an amusing mash­up of "repugnant" (disgusting) and
"pungent" (strong, especially used of smells). It is used for repulsive
smells; and though it is vivid, it's not standard English and may get
you laughed at.
RIFFLE/RIFLE
To rifle something is to steal it. The word also originally had the
sense of "to search thoroughly," often with intent to steal. But if you
are casually flipping through some papers, you riffle through them. You
never "rifle through" anything.
RONDEZVOUS/RENDEZVOUS
The first syllable of "rendezvous" rhymes with "pond" but is not spelled
like it. It comes from a word related to English "render" and is
hyphenated in French: "rendez­vous." In English the two elements are
smooshed together into one: "rendezvous."
REOCCURRING/RECURRING
It might seem logical to form this word from "occurring" by simply
adding a RE­ prefix­­logical, but wrong. The word is "recurring." The
root form is "recur," not "reoccur." For some reason "recurrent" is
seldom transformed into "reoccurrent."
REPEL/REPULSE