Posts: 394
Threads: 0
Joined: Jun 2013
Reputation:
8
Avoid homonym mistakes and look smarter
09-14-2014, 04:51 PM
Quote: (09-13-2014 04:38 PM)DaveR Wrote:
Quote: (09-13-2014 06:29 AM)Sp5 Wrote:
One mark of an educated person is knowing your homonyms and using the right word.
I can't help it, when I see mistakes in these words, I discount the writer's intelligence.
Using the right word in a phrase is an indication of education.
I very much agree, but with one large caveat: those born in the '80s and later may not have been taught English grammar, even if they otherwise received a good education. The reason is that during the '90s, educators in the English-speaking world came up with the moronic idea that children would simply "pick up" grammar by reading, writing and speaking the language.
Nailed it.
I went through middle school and high school in the 00's, and the majority of my English teachers rarely taught anything about grammar. The ones who did would only glance through it for a day at most. I only remember taking one grammar quiz in high school - that's how shitty modern education is.
Quote:Quote:
It wouldn't surprise me at all if that change was caused by Feminism; i.e., women taking leadership roles in education establishments and then working to reduce the technical aspects of the curriculum to make it easier for females.
If my memory is right, I recall Orwell saying that those who control language, control thought. It is not surprising then, that they are using this strategy to brainwash everyone for their own agenda.
Trump is playing chess while Soros is playing checkers, and the other cucks are off playing Candyland at Jeb's house. - iop890
Posts: 5,392
Threads: 0
Joined: May 2013
Reputation:
27
Avoid homonym mistakes and look smarter
09-14-2014, 06:35 PM
playa/playa
One is a "player" and the other is a dry lake or beach.
(^^^Technically those are homographs...)
If only you knew how bad things really are.
Posts: 2,696
Threads: 0
Joined: Feb 2013
Avoid homonym mistakes and look smarter
09-15-2014, 01:49 AM
Quote: (09-14-2014 04:51 PM)quino_16 Wrote:
Quote: (09-13-2014 04:38 PM)DaveR Wrote:
Quote: (09-13-2014 06:29 AM)Sp5 Wrote:
One mark of an educated person is knowing your homonyms and using the right word.
I can't help it, when I see mistakes in these words, I discount the writer's intelligence.
Using the right word in a phrase is an indication of education.
I very much agree, but with one large caveat: those born in the '80s and later may not have been taught English grammar, even if they otherwise received a good education. The reason is that during the '90s, educators in the English-speaking world came up with the moronic idea that children would simply "pick up" grammar by reading, writing and speaking the language.
Nailed it.
I went through middle school and high school in the 00's, and the majority of my English teachers rarely taught anything about grammar. The ones who did would only glance through it for a day at most. I only remember taking one grammar quiz in high school - that's how shitty modern education is.
Quote:Quote:
It wouldn't surprise me at all if that change was caused by Feminism; i.e., women taking leadership roles in education establishments and then working to reduce the technical aspects of the curriculum to make it easier for females.
If my memory is right, I recall Orwell saying that those who control language, control thought. It is not surprising then, that they are using this strategy to brainwash everyone for their own agenda.
I don't buy the "I was poorly educated" excuse.
You can read whatever you want on your own. If you read on your own, you learn words. That's the issue - homonym mistakes are a mark of being poorly read.
read / red / reed
Posts: 830
Threads: 0
Joined: Oct 2013
Reputation:
42
Avoid homonym mistakes and look smarter
09-15-2014, 06:19 AM
These are not homonyms, but they're still pet peeves:
I should have went.
"Teached" and other incorrectly conjugated past tense verbs.
"Less" for countable nouns. For example, "I have less apples than him." It should be "fewer apples". Less is for things you can't count. For example, "I have less water than him."
Adjectives used instead of adverbs. For example, "think different" or "I hope you do good on your exam."
Plural nouns that shouldn't have an "s" at the end. People generally seem to have problems with the words "criterion" and "criteria". I hear "one criteria" or "two criterions" frequently.
"Some" used in questions instead of "any". For example, "Did you catch some fish?"
This is perhaps my greatest pet peeve, and I hear it all the time from Americans under the age of 40 (older Americans don't tend to say it), including on television or in movies; it's even taught in Taiwanese schools as being correct:
John: I don't like apples.
Sam: Me too.
Sally: What are you doing this afternoon?
Lucy: Me and Amy are going to the park.
Also, although acceptable in American English, I dislike the American usage of license as a noun and practice as a verb because they look really strange when compared to other words. Americans also tend to avoid the perfect tense most of the time. For example, "I just ate" instead of "I have just eaten". I find the substitution of the simple for the perfect quite jarring.
Is "hung" (for a person who has been executed, not clothes) acceptable in Standard American English? I have encountered that relatively often.
Now I'll have a whine about Australian English. I can't stand how many Australians say "bought" for both bought and brought. For example, "I bought those books over for you." It drives me up the wall. I once heard Kerry O'Brien on the ABC (the national broadcaster) say it and nearly had a fit.
There are also a couple of strange phenomena creeping into English that I don't think used to exist. The first is the word order in negative statements. I hear "I don't know what time is it" quite frequently now. Another is the incorrect placement of adverbs in sentences containing an auxiliary verb. I hear things like "I often don't go to the park" quite frequently now, but I've only noticed a dramatic increase in this structure in the past couple of years.
Posts: 3,541
Threads: 0
Joined: Apr 2014
Avoid homonym mistakes and look smarter
09-15-2014, 09:27 AM
Licence/license
Posts: 1,536
Threads: 0
Joined: Nov 2010
Reputation:
21
Avoid homonym mistakes and look smarter
09-15-2014, 01:28 PM
Knock Knock.
Who's there?
To.
To Who?
Surely you mean "To Whom"?
Posts: 2,696
Threads: 0
Joined: Feb 2013
Avoid homonym mistakes and look smarter
09-16-2014, 01:22 PM
One I look up to check before using everytime:
imminent / immanent
Posts: 394
Threads: 0
Joined: Jun 2013
Reputation:
8
Avoid homonym mistakes and look smarter
09-18-2014, 05:35 AM
Quote: (09-15-2014 01:49 AM)Sp5 Wrote:
I don't buy the "I was poorly educated" excuse.
You can read whatever you want on your own. If you read on your own, you learn words. That's the issue - homonym mistakes are a mark of being poorly read.
read / red / reed
My post wasn't meant to be interrupted as an excuse.
Instead, it was meant to provide an example to the lack of grammar being taught in today's schools. Of course, this is just a symptom of the actual problem, namely the decline of intellectual rigor in modern education.
root/route
Trump is playing chess while Soros is playing checkers, and the other cucks are off playing Candyland at Jeb's house. - iop890
Posts: 164
Threads: 0
Joined: Oct 2013
Reputation:
3
Avoid homonym mistakes and look smarter
09-19-2014, 09:25 AM
ordnance / ordinance
Ok I admit that one is not common.
Posts: 14
Threads: 0
Joined: Aug 2014
Avoid homonym mistakes and look smarter
09-20-2014, 06:25 AM
Excellent thread!
with regard/with regards - not exactly interchangeable
with regard = with reference to/in terms of/pertaining to
with (my best) regards to... = I would like to express (my best) wishes to....
Also:
bore/boar
Posts: 2,696
Threads: 0
Joined: Feb 2013
Avoid homonym mistakes and look smarter
09-20-2014, 06:25 PM
Just saw another one
white / Wight
Someone wrote "Isle of White" in a YouTube comment
Posts: 2,696
Threads: 0
Joined: Feb 2013
Avoid homonym mistakes and look smarter
09-21-2014, 04:27 AM
apposite / opposite or apposition / opposition
sound alike but are almost antonyms
Posts: 1,520
Threads: 0
Joined: Mar 2013
Reputation:
48
Avoid homonym mistakes and look smarter
09-21-2014, 04:48 AM
paid/payed
inquiry/enquiry
break/brake
heresy/hearsay
judgment/judgement
flawed/floored
Illicit/elicit
piece/peace
deviate/deviant
cast/caste
need/knead/kneed
wreak/wreck/reek
Posts: 199
Threads: 0
Joined: Dec 2013
Avoid homonym mistakes and look smarter
09-21-2014, 05:32 AM
There/Their
Defence/Defense
Counsil/Counsel
Posts: 2,696
Threads: 0
Joined: Feb 2013
Avoid homonym mistakes and look smarter
09-21-2014, 06:02 AM
Quote: (09-21-2014 04:48 AM)Windom Earle Wrote:
judgment/judgement
flawed/floored
Illicit/elicit
piece/peace
deviate/deviant
cast/caste
need/knead/kneed
wreak/wreck/reek
Great list, but isn't judgment / judgement a spelling variation, too?
Posts: 2,696
Threads: 0
Joined: Feb 2013
Avoid homonym mistakes and look smarter
09-21-2014, 10:56 AM
Quote: (09-21-2014 06:39 AM)Windom Earle Wrote:
Quote: (09-21-2014 06:02 AM)Sp5 Wrote:
Great list, but isn't judgment / judgement a spelling variation, too?
Judgment, at least in Australia, is predominantly utilised in a legal context.
Judgement tends to be reserved for usage when quantifying an attribute i.e. display good judgement.
OK, in the USA, judgment is the usual spelling for all uses of the word.
Posts: 2,696
Threads: 0
Joined: Feb 2013
Avoid homonym mistakes and look smarter
09-21-2014, 11:02 AM
catch / ketch / cache / cash / caché
(the last not much of a homonym, pronounced "ca - shay")
Posts: 2,696
Threads: 0
Joined: Feb 2013
Avoid homonym mistakes and look smarter
09-21-2014, 12:59 PM
Quote: (09-21-2014 12:08 PM)Moma Wrote:
Quote: (09-15-2014 01:49 AM)Sp5 Wrote:
I don't buy the "I was poorly educated" excuse.
You can read whatever you want on your own. If you read on your own, you learn words. That's the issue - homonym mistakes are a mark of being poorly read.
read / red / reed
What do you recommend for those who reside in America to maintain their grammar and vocabulary? Do you have any good talk shows/discussions or books etc that you can recommend?
Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, Gowers's The Complete Plain Words, any used high school grammar book.
Read what you like, fiction, non-fiction. As long as it's adult level, you'll get a better sense of language. My best teacher in high school used to push us to read thrillers from Alistair MacLean and others and science fiction.
There are plenty of smart writers in paperbacks, take George Martin and Stephen King for example.
If you're interested in a non-fiction subject, read about it. History, finance, science, there are plenty of good writers.
Just read a lot.
Quote: (09-21-2014 12:35 PM)Brodiaga Wrote:
Quote: (09-15-2014 09:27 AM)CrashBangWallop Wrote:
Licence/license
What is the difference?
I don't think there is a difference, it's just another British / American distinction, like defence / defense.
Like all of the colour / color / favor / favour words, and the -ise / ize words (example of a word with two variations: glamourize / glamorize).
Posts: 275
Threads: 0
Joined: Jun 2012
Reputation:
4
Avoid homonym mistakes and look smarter
09-21-2014, 01:29 PM
border / boarder
(I see this in the Travel forum occasionally).