Sunday, August 05, 2007

MISUSED WORDS

From the NZ Herald's Side Swipe column:


Now might be a good time to sit down with your dictionary and quiz yourself on the 100 Words Almost Everyone Confuses and Misuses, compiled by editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries.
There are definitely a few curly ones in there:

adverse/averse; affect/effect; aggravate; alleged; all right; altogether; among/between; assure/ensure/insure; auger/augur; average/median; blatant/flagrant; capital/capitol; complement/compliment; comprise; consul/council/counsel; convince/persuade; discreet/discrete; disinterested/uninterested; enervate; enormity/enormousness; factoid; fewer/less; flammable/inflammable; flaunt/flout; forte; gender/sex; hopefully; impact; impeach; imply/infer; incredible/incredulous; irony; irregardless; its/it's; kudos; lay/lie; leave/let; literally; mass/weight; mean ; mischievous; nuclear; parameter; penultimate; peruse; phenomenon; plus; precipitate/precipitous; prescribe/proscribe; presently; principal/principle; renown; reticent; sacrilegious; seasonable/seasonal; sensual/sensuous; set/sit; that/which; unexceptionable/unexceptional; unique; utilise/use; wherefore; wreak/wreck; zoology.

(Source: www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com)

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