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This week I have been looking at commonly misspelled words, and ‘proof’, ‘prove’ and ‘proving’ fall into this category. Although I know that proof has two ‘o’s and prove hasn’t, I tend to pause when writing ‘prove’ or ‘proving’ as it sounds like they should have a second ‘o’ (as in ‘proove’ or ‘prooving’). An article on … Continue reading
A work colleague suggested today’s blog. He told me that he’s seeing an increasing amount of people confusing the words lose and loose. Apparently it’s been a word confusion for many years, more so recently because of predictive texts. Why is everybody starting to spell “lose” wrong? writes a very frustrated user on yahoo answers. This question is … Continue reading
I often have to think about this one before I write it. Does a person lay on the settee or do they lie on it? The answer is, you lie on it. Richard Lamb in his book The Queen’s English, says “I object when told to lay on the chiropractor’s couch. Lay what?”. Before I continue, none of this relates to … Continue reading
I saw this word written down today and had to look it up to see if there was also a spelling of descendent. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, descendant is a word that is frequently looked up; however, from my research today, it appears that no one has provided a comparison of these two spellings before. … Continue reading
What is the true difference between speciality and specialty? Is it because the former is British English and the latter is American English? I decided to trawl the internet and a few books in the library today to find out some more, but the answer is not that straighforward. First I’ll start with some definitions. Definition (as … Continue reading
Whenever I type this word, I struggle to remember if it is spelt instalment or installment. Today, I got caught out by someone reviewing one of my other blogs (which inspired me to write today’s blog), so as usual I went looking for explanations. Wiki Answers explains that installment and instalment both mean the same, but installment (with a … Continue reading
Is it focussed or focused? A work colleague asked me how to spell this word today and I had to look it up. The Colllins English dictionary and Merriam Webster‘s website indicated that both spellings were correct. I decided to Google it to find out which is preferred. Future-perfect.co.uk says “This word [focussed or focused] can take either double or … Continue reading
It’s a common mistake to write ‘between you and I’; however the correct way of writing this is ‘between you and me’. If we break the phrase down, the word ‘between’ is a preposition and the words ‘you’ and ‘I’ are personal pronouns. When personal pronouns follow prepositions, they should be in the object form and not the subject … Continue reading
During my research today, I found many definitions and explanations of the words efficiency and effectiveness, but my favourites are Peter F. Drucker’s and the Cambridge Dictionaries online: Definitions from Cambridge Dictionaries Online Efficiency When someone or something uses time and energy well, without wasting any http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/efficiency?q=efficiency Effectiveness Successful or achieving the results that you want http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/effective_1?q=effectiveness … Continue reading
Today I am comparing ‘a lot’, ‘alot’ and ‘allot’; however one of them doesn’t exist in the English language. http://oxforddictionaries.com defines the words as follows: A LOT means “a large number or amount” ALOT is sometimes used, but is not a word in the English language. ALLOT is a verb meaning “given or apportion (something) to someone” Here are some examples in sentences: … Continue reading
My Writing Notebook 