The English language is tricky. There are a lot of words out there that trip people up and are misused on a regular basis. Even I have struggled in the past to remember which word I'm supposed to use. While some may shrug this off as no big deal, it really is and using the wrong words can have a negative effect (or is it affect?).
One of the main word usage questions I get is about affect and effect. Affect is usually used as a verb and means "to influence." Effect is commonly used as a noun meaning "result, impression." Grammar Girl uses a simple mnemonic to remember which one to use - a very easy noun. The first letters of "a very easy noun" are the same as "affect verb effect noun." A correct example of each word would be: "Your decision affects me greatly." "The rain had no effect on our plans to watch a movie."
 | They're/Their/There is another set of words that are commonly misused. They're means "they are," their indicates possession, and there refers to a place. I like to remember, "They're going to their house over there." Then and Than are a couple more tricky words that are often confused. Than is a conjunction introducing a dependent clause of comparison. Then is an adverb meaning "at that time" or "next." For example, My car is faster than yours." and "We ate and then went for a walk." A "quick and dirty" tip from Grammar Girl: Both "than" and "comparison" have the letter "a" in them, and "then" and "time" both have the letter "e." |
This next one is a bit of a pet peeve of mine... Saw and Seen. Anyone else? Saw is the past tense of see and seen is the past participle. You would be correct in saying, "I saw the accident." You would not be correct to say, "I seen the accident." Seen is generally used alongside have, has, had, was, or were to make compound verbs - "I have seen many accidents on that road." This rule does change if a question is asked or when a conjunction is omitted from a sentence resulting in the re-arrangement of the noun/pronoun and the two parts of the compound verb. For example, "Has he seen the news?" and "Had I seen the announcement beforehand, I would haven't asked about it."
| And finally, your versus you're. My guess is these two words are often confused for the same reasons as affect/effect and then/than. They sound exactly the same. Your is the possessive form of you, while you're is a contraction of the two words you are. "You're going to be happy I answered your questions." When I was trying to decide which words to cover in this post, I quickly learned I could write a book about all of them. Which commonly misused words top your pet peeve list or which ones do you often struggle with? Comment below! |  NBC / Via theplanlaugh.tumblr.com |
Be sure to email me with a particular grammar topic you would like me to cover. I'm happy to help any way I can!
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