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Ten of the most commonly confused words in the English language
- sillypog 11y agoAs a developer working at a media company, I often see us run articles with terribly misused phrases (like how one sports team will "route" another). I try to point out these issues when I see them but ultimately I think it won't matter - eventually there will be more people who think the incorrect version is correct and at that point it will in fact be the correct version based on common usage.
- pavlov 11y agoI learned English as a purely written language years before I was taught the pronounciation. (I still struggle to remember that "bear" rhymes with "share", not "fear".) So I don't actually have any problem with the examples listed here. Because I don't hear English words in my head, the confusion doesn't exist. "Bated breath" is part of my visual memory, not aural. The downside is that my spoken English is stiff, but luckily a foreigner with an accent gets quickly excused from labyrinthine smalltalk anyway.
- kawera 11y agoLearned english decades ago but I still confuse though, thought, through and thorough when I write.