Common_Errors_in_English_usage

this spelling is often mistakenly used for a quite different word,
"course," which can be either a verb or a noun (with several different
meanings).
COLD SLAW/COLE SLAW
The popular salad made of shredded cabbage was originally "cole slaw,"
from the Dutch for "cabbage salad." Because it is served cold, Americans
have long supposed the correct spelling to be "cold slaw"; but if you
want to sound more sophisticated go with the original.
COLLAGE/COLLEGE
You can paste together bits of paper to make a collage, but the
institution of higher education is a college.
COLLECTIVE PLURAL
In UK English it is common to see statements like "Parliament have
raised many questions about the proposal" in which because Parliament is
made up of many individuals, several of whom are raising questions, the
word is treated as if it were plural in form and given a plural verb.
This is the proper­noun form of what is called the "collective plural."
Many UK authorities object when this pattern is applied to
organization names if the organization is being discussed as a whole and
not as a collection of individuals. According to them, "The BBC have
been filming in Papua New Guinea" should be "The BBC has been
filming. . . ."
This sort of collective plural applied to the names of organizations is
almost unheard of in the US, and in fact strikes most Americans as
distinctly weird, with the exception of an occasional sports team with a
singular­form name like the Utah Jazz, the Miami Heat, the Orlando
Magic, or the Seattle Storm. There's a sarcastic saying, "The Utah Jazz
are to basketball what Utah is to jazz."
COLOMBIA/COLUMBIA
Although both are named after Columbus, the US capital is the District
of Columbia, whereas the South American country is Colombia.
COMMAS
What follows is not a comprehensive guide to the many uses of commas,
but a quick tour of the most common errors involving them.
The first thing to note is that the comma often marks a brief pause in
the flow of a sentence, and it helpfully marks off one phrase from
another. If you write "I plan to see Shirley and Fred will go shopping
while we visit" your readers are naturally going to think the announced
visit will be to both Shirley and Fred until the second half surprises
them into realizing that Fred is not involved in this visit at all. A
simple comma makes everything clear: "I plan to see Shirley, and Fred
will go shopping while we visit." People who read and write little have