Common_Errors_in_English_usage

with short deadlines­­ but not datelines.
DAY IN AGE/DAY AND AGE
The expression is "in this day and age; but it's a worn­out expression,
so you'd be better off writing "these days."
DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME/DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME
The official term is "daylight saving time," not "savings time."
DEBRIEF
"Debrief" has leaked out of the military and national security realms
into the business world, where people seem pretty confused about it.
When you send people out on missions, you brief them­­give them
information they'll need. You give them a briefing. When they come back,
you debrief them by asking them what they did and found out. Note that
in both cases it's not the person doing the actual work but the boss or
audience that does the briefing and debriefing. But people commonly use
"debrief" when they mean "report."
The verb "brief" comes originally from law, where someone being given a
legal brief (instructions on handling a case) can be said to have been
briefed. Debriefing has nothing to do with underwear.
DECEPTIVELY
If you say of a soldier that he is "deceptively brave" you might be
understood to mean that although he appears cowardly he is actually
brave, or that although he appears brave he is actually cowardly. This
ambiguity should cause you to be very careful about using "deceptive"
and "deceptively" to make clear which meaning you intend.
DECIMATE/ANNIHILATE, SLAUGHTER, ETC.
This comes under the heading of the truly picky. Despite the fact that
most dictionaries have caved in, some of us still remember that when the
Romans killed one out of every ten (decem) soldiers in a rebellious
group as an example to the others, they decimated them. People sensitive
to the roots of words are uncomfortably reminded of that ten percent
figure when they see the word used instead to mean "annihilate,"
"obliterate," etc. You can usually get away with using "decimate" to
mean "drastically reduce in numbers," but you're taking a bigger risk
when you use it to mean "utterly wipe out."
DEEP­SEEDED/DEEP­SEATED
Those who pine for the oral cultures of Ye Olden Dayes can rejoice as we
enter an era where many people are unfamiliar with common expressions in
print and know them only by hearsay.* The result is mistakes like "deep
seeded." The expression has nothing to do with a feeling being planted
deep within one, but instead refers to its being seated firmly within
one's breast: "My aversion to anchovies is deep­seated." Compounding