Common_Errors_in_English_usage

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as "in today's modern society" or "in the modern society of today." This is empty armwaving which says nothing more than "now" or "today." A reasonable substitute is "contemporary society." Such phrases are usually indulged in by people with a weak grasp of history to substitute for such more precise expressions as "for the past five years" or "this month." See "since the beginning of time." TOLLED/TOLD Some people imagine that the expression should be "all tolled" as if items were being ticked off to the tolling of a bell, or involved the paying of a toll; but in fact this goes back to an old meaning of "tell": "to count." You could "tell over" your beads if you were counting them in a rosary. "All told" means "all counted." This older meaning of "tell" is the reason that people who count money out behind bank windows are called "tellers." TOOKEN/TOOK/TAKEN "Hey, Tricia! Ted couldn't find his parrot so he's tooken your toucan to show and tell!" "Tooken" is a nonstandard form of "taken." In fact, there are two pasttense forms of "take" which shouldn't be mixed up with each other. For the simple past you need "took": "Beau took a course in acoustics." But if a helping verb precedes it, the word you need is "taken": "he has taken some other courses too." TOUNGE/TONGUE "Tounge" is a common misspelling of "tongue." TONGUE AND CHEEK/TONGUE IN CHEEK When people want to show they are kidding or have just knowingly uttered a falsehood, they stick their tongues in their cheeks, so it's "tongue in cheek," not "tongue and cheek." TOEHEADED/TOWHEADED Lightcolored rope is called "tow" and someone with very blond hair is called a "towhead." Towheaded children are cute, but a toeheaded one would be seriously deformed. TORTUROUS/TORTUOUS A path with a confusing proliferation of turns is tortuous (from a French root meaning "twisted"). But "torturous" (meaning painful or unpleasant, like torture) is very frequently confused with it. So often has "tortuous logic" (tangled, twisted logic) been misspelled as "torturous logic" that it has given rise to a now independent form with its own meaning, "tortured logic." Few people object to the latter; but if you want to describe your slow progress along a twisting path, the word you want is "tortuous."
TOW THE LINE/TOE THE LINE "Toe the line" has to do with lining your toes up on a precise mark, not with pulling on a rope. However if you have to take your kids along when you visit friends, you have them not "in toe," but "in tow." TOWARD/TOWARDS These two words are interchangeable, but "toward" is more common in the US and "towards" in the UK TRACK HOME/TRACT HOME Commuters from a tract home may well feel that they are engaged in a rat race, but that does not justify them in describing their housing development as a "track." "Tract" here means an area of land on which cheap and uniform houses have been built. Incidentally, note that the phrase is "digestive tract," not "digestive track." TRADEGY/TRAGEDY Not only do people often misspell "tragedy" as "tradegy," they mispronounce it that way too. Just remember that the adjective is "tragic" to recall that it's the G that comes after the A. TRAGEDY/TRAVESTY "Travesty" has farcical connotations; it's actually related to "transvestite." A disaster that could be described as a farce or a degraded imitation may be called a travesty: "The trialsince the defense lawyer slept through most of itwas a travesty of justice." A tragedy is an altogether more serious matter. TRITE AND TRUE/TRIED AND TRUE Ideas that are trite may well be true; but the expression is "tried and true": ideas that have been tried and turned out to be valid. TROOP/TROUPE A group of performers is a troupe. Any other group of people, military or otherwise, is a troop. A police officer, member of a mounted military group or similar person is a trooper, but a gungho worker is a real trouper. Troops are always groups, despite the current vogue among journalists of saying things like "two troops were wounded in the battle" when they mean "two soldiers." "Two troops" would be two groups of soldiers, not two individuals. TOUCH BASES/TOUCH BASE
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Common Errors in English by Paul Br
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But you made a mistake yourself! We
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ABSORBTION/ABSORPTION Although it's
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ACCURATE/PRECISE In ordinary usage,
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ADVOCATE FOR/ADVOCATE When they are
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as believers do not need to be able
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captivity. There is no such word as
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(notice, no "N") and "auteur" (in f
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with each other. Your greatgrandm
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"This pizza is really expensive
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ARTIC/ARCTIC Although some brand na
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To "assure" a person of something i
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AVENGE/REVENGE When you try to get
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concealing. It seems more likely th
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long this had been the custom and w
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the last word to "pail." The area o
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past tense of "bear": "My brother's
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"Breech" however, refers to rear en
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Side note: Britons laughed themselv
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weather, so we shouldn't be surpris
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not cast in stone." They may be inf
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lounge), resulting in the mispronun
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You cite the author in an endnote;
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trouble with commas if they deal wi
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CONCENSUS/CONSENSUS You might suppo
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COME WITH In some American dialects
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More on COULD CARE LESS" People who
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There are several words with Latin
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it just a goofy typo? DAMP SQUID/DA
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with short deadlines but not da
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degree" and "doctor of philosophy d
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substituting "do" for "due" (owing)
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established, if unusual. However, t
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applied to plans and activities, no
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Latin phrase exempli gratia. When y
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"burned/burnt" and "kneeled/knelt."
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You can pronounce the last two syll
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Originally these two words were syn
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An epigraph is a brief quotation us
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But when something happens only occ
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Something grows exponentially when
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Unfortunately, Star Trek has confus
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FIRSTABLE/FIRST OF ALL The odd word
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fortunate chance event. It is nonst
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FORBIDDING/FOREBODING/FORMIDABLE "F
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popularly as "Frankenstein's monste
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FUSHIA/FUCHSIA The flowers known as
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When "God" is the name of a god, as
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There are just two syllables in "gr
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safer using "disability" than "hand
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Heal is what you do when you get be
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A simple test is to substitute "us"
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HONE IN/HOME IN You home in on a ta
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(theoretically the width of a lette
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are expressing their own ignorance.
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of vague ways, often clumsily. Here
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"infamy." Humorists have for a coup
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INTERCESSION/INTERSESSION In theolo
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down to earth. Similarly in standar
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In electronics, a jack is a female
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JUDGEMENT/JUDGMENT In Great Britain
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might lead people to think of relax
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the standard spelling for those lit
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or "It feels like spring." In expre
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are less common now. LOGON/VISIT Yo
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spell his title with a double "L."
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MEDIOCRE Although some dictionaries
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AB "minus" 231. In the model name "
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"motherload" is a mistake which is
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people want to vomit, and it temper
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hilariously mistaken "nip it in the
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is singular, is the subject. If you
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OLDTIMER'S DISEASE/ALZHEIMER'S DI
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lose a shirt. Strictly speaking, "I
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ORIENTATE/ORIENT Although it is sta
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Some people derive the noun "paraly
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in the apartment." PAST TIME/PASTIM
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to "you peoples" indicated illitera
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Page 164 and 165: part of a team. Don't write "preM
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Page 168 and 169: PUNDINT/PUNDIT "Pundit" is one of t
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Page 200 and 201: called "suspicious." But "suspect"
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Page 212 and 213: The adjective "undue" is the opposi
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Page 232 and 233: they mean to say they're healthy. F
Page 234 and 235: For most Americans, the natural thi
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Page 242 and 243: y in large or enlarge by and large
Page 244 and 245: end justifies the meaning enervate
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Page 248 and 249: new leash on life neck in neck nitc
Page 250 and 251: ebel rouser recreate the wheel repe
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Page 254 and 255: language. Try one of them instead.
Page 256 and 257: as to which one prefers. My goal is
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Common_Errors_in_English_usage

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