History Main / TheBigListOfBooboosandblunders

A term that will be found frequently in the following, but which may not be immediately familiar, is "eggcorn". "Eggcorns" are words or phrases that a person has only ever heard and never seen written, which when that person needs to write them down get written the way they ''sound'' to them. The term comes from the transcription someone once made of the word "acorn", which they had somehow gotten through their life without once seeing in print. The eggcorn is the half-sibling of the mondegreen.

Related to the eggcorn is [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_dialect "eye dialect."]] This is a term for the writer's device of [[FunetikAksent spelling words as they sound]] to give a sense of a speaker with a foreign accent, an odd dialect, or poor education. For example, using "gonna" for "going to". In general, this is a deliberate stylistic choice made by a writer, but on this page it's used also to reflect a variety of eggcorn that is caused by poor literacy skills—the key example would be writing the contraction "'ve" as " of" (as in "could of", "would of") out of simple incomprehension that the words in question ''are'' a contraction.

* Style guides have differing opinions on the possessive of words ending with "s". Some say that the house owned by James would be "James' house", others say "James's house", others say both are correct. However, the house belonging to "it" would always be "its house", not "it's house".
* Yet another pluralization problem is the misuse of some plurals as if they were singular—"bacteria" for "bacterium" and "data" for "datum" have already been mentioned earlier on this page; other common ones include "criteria" for "criterion", "dice" for "die" (some people even use the nonexistent noun "dices" as the "plural" of "dice", though of course it's valid as the third-person singular present conjugation of the verb "to dice"), "phenomena" for "phenomenon", and "vertebrae" for "vertebra".
* "Cut the muster" instead of "cut the mustard." Bizarre as the correct phrase sounds, mustard is the right noun. Cutting "muster" (a military assembling of troops) would be ''negative'' behavior, which is the opposite of the phrase's meaning, which is to be satisfactory. The phrase's origin is that a sufficiently sharp knife is needed to cut mustard seeds—a dull knife wouldn't "cut the mustard."
* One frequent problem is erroneous "corrections" by ignorant editors; there was the electronic-music album whose sleeve-notes mentioned what was obviously (from the context) supposed to be a "sine wave" (as in the trigonometric function) but had been changed to "sign wave"; and the edition of Larry Niven's ''Ringworld'' in which some idiotor had changed "holo-projection" to "hollow projection".

* The name of a show is always singular, even if the last part of a title is plural. Therefore, saying "''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' are getting stale" is incorrect, assuming you are referring to the show and not the title characters.

* If you use 12-hour notation for time, it's best to avoid "12 a.m." or "12 p.m." in a legal context, as they're ambiguous. While the way digital clocks and watches work has given us "12 a.m. = midnight" and "12 p.m. = noon", both of these are unofficial in many countries and may lead to confusion with someone who uses "12 p.m. = midnight". The 24-hour notation avoids this, as it has notations for midnight at the start of the day ''and'' midnight at the end of the day (0:00 and 24:00 respectively).
** Because of this issue, legal contracts use "12:01 a.m.", "noon", or "11:59 p.m." to refer to 0:00, 12:00, and 24:00 respectively.
** The correct usage in the 12-hour system was originally intended to be "12 a.m." for midnight at the start of the day, "noon", "midday", or "12 m." for the middle of the day, and "12 p.m." for midnight at the end of the day. However, this convention was probably never widely known, and as mentioned above, was destroyed by digital timepieces anyway.

** On a similar note: if you're using the 24-hour clock, you do not need "pm" for times after midday; this is already shown by having a number higher than 12 (for example, 1:15pm would be 13:15).
* Fewer (smaller in quantity) and less (smaller in amount) are often confused. If a cake has twelve slices and you eat two of them, you're left with ''less'' cake (mass noun) or ''fewer'' slices (count noun). Unless one is referring to mathematics or computer programming where a smaller number is always "less (than)".
* "Of" is often used in place of "have", in situations like "I should of done that" or "He could of said something", because people use the contractions "should've" and "could've" and don't realize that the second syllable is short for "have".
* When discussing the limits of a given range, the distressingly often-seen "between X to Y" is ''not'' correct. You can use "between X and Y" or "from X to Y", but don't switch in the middle.
** On a similar note, "both" doesn't match up with "but also". Choose between "both X and Y" and "not only X, but also Y".
** And if you're using a dash (–) to denote a range, omit "from". "From X – Y" is wrong. (And use an en dash, not a hyphen if you can avoid it, with small spaces on either side.)
* If you want someone to cease a given action, or just to talk about the cessation of it, the phrase you're after is "stop doing X", not "stop to do X". This mistake is generally the result of translation to English from a language like French or Spanish, where the phrase ''does'' use the second verb's infinitive form. "Stop to do X" in English means to stop what you're doing and do X instead.

** The dollar or pound sign goes before the number ("$50", not "50$").
** Use either the symbol or the word, but not both ("£25" or "25 pounds", not "£25 pounds")

** Also, when reading numbers aloud or spelling them out by name, American English sometimes omits the word "and"; for example, "103" can be pronounced either as "one hundred three" or as "one hundred and three". Likewise, thousands, millions etc. are separated by commas much as they are in numeral form. 4,842 is "four thousand, eight hundred [and] forty-two". In British English, "103" is always pronounced "one hundred and three".[[note]]This was the major plot hinge in Creator/IsaacAsimov's short story "1 to 999"; to work in UsefulNotes/BritishEnglish, it would have to be rewritten as "1 to 100".[[/note]]
** Fractions use a ''forward'' slash. "3/7", not "3\7".
*** Fractions also ''do not'' need "-ths" afterward. They're not ordinal numbers, which is where "-st", "-nd", etc. are properly used.
** "Plus", "minus", and "times" are already prepositions, and as such do not need other prepositions such as "with", "to", "from", or "by". The verb form of the operation ("added", "subtracted", "multiplied", or "divided") should be used when you use a preposition to indicate the direction of the operation-- e.g., "5×5" is either "five times five" or "five multiplied by/with five", and never "five timesed by five".
* "The reason ... is because ..." This is ubiquitous these days, but incorrect because "because" begins an adverbial clause, which cannot act as a predicate noun or predicate adjective modifying the subject "reason." Two ways to correct it are to replace "because" with "that" turning it into a noun phrase, or by rewording the sentence to remove "reason" and let the "because..." clause modify an adjective or verb:

* Beware of prefixes; as noted above, although "in-" is usually one ot the "not-" prefixes, "flammable" (can burst into flame) and "inflammable" (can be inflamed) are the same thing. Likewise, "indecent" is specifically the opposite of "decent" meaning "moral"; to negate other senses (good, fitting) you need "non-decent". Then there's "a-", "an-" and "as-"; words with these beginnings are often negatives (e.g. "azoic" = "not from a living thing"), but not always. "An-" (or "ana-" when before a consonant) in particular can also mean "back" or "again" (e.g. "Anabaptist", one who belives in adult baptism) or "down" ("analyze", to break down—the nominal opposite of "catalyse", which etymologically ought to mean "to break up"). "Ab-" is another problem prefix; it can be an intensifier ("absurd", and the related "irrational" meaning the same thing, both come from the Pythagoreans' prejudice against square roots (surds) because most of them cannot be expressed as rational fractions; or "aboriginal" meaning the most-definitely-original population) or a negator ("abnormal"=not normal).
* An interesting case: the Japanese word for "animation" -- and the resultant English loanword -- is "anime". If you add an accent, what you have is the ''French'' word "animé", which means "animated" and is an '''adjective''', not a noun.
* Not including "have" before "never", while common in colloquial language, is in formal language only acceptable when it refers to something that is no longer possible to do.
* You don't replace X ''by'' Y. You replace X ''with'' Y. This is very likely a result of direct translation similar to the "stop doing X" entry.
* The proper way to spell the abbreviation for ''UsefulNotes/TyrannosaurusRex'' is "T. rex", not "T rex", "T-rex" or "Trex". Abbreviations for binomial names always follow the form of: (first letter of genus name) (period) (second word of species name). The species name is always non-capitalized.

* Not including "have" before "never", while common in colloquial language, is grammatically only acceptable when it refers to something that is no longer possible to do.

No relation to [[WesternAnimation/YogiBear Boo-Boo Bear]], [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Boo]], the other [[WesternAnimation/MonstersInc Boo]], any ''other'' [[GagBoobs List of Big Booboos]], or ''Manga/BoboboboBobobo''.

--> '''Incorrect:''' The reason we are late is because we had a flat tire.
--> '''Correct:''' The reason we are late is that we had a flat tire.
--> '''Correct:''' We are late because we had a flat tire.

* An interesting case: the Japanese word for "animation"—and the resultant English loanword —is "anime". If you add an accent, what you have is the ''French'' word "animé", which means "animated" and is an '''adjective''', not a noun.

* The proper way to spell the abbreviation for TyrannosaurusRex is "T.rex", not "T rex", "T-rex" or "Trex". Abbreviations for binomial names always follow the form of: (first letter of genus name) (period) (second word of species name).

* "Cajones" means "drawers". If you want to say "balls" the term you're looking for is "cojones".

A term that will be found frequently in the following, but which may not be immediately familiar, is "eggcorn". "Eggcorns" are words or phrases that a person has only ever heard and never seen written, which when that person needs to write them down get written the way they ''sound'' to them. The term comes from the transcription someone once made of the word "acorn", which they had somehow gotten through their life without once seeing in print. The eggcorn is the half-sibling of the {{mondegreen}}.

* The proper way to spell the abbreviation for TyrannosaurusRex is "T.rex", not "T rex", "T-rex" or "Trex". Abbreviations for species names always follow the form of: (first letter of genus name) (period) (second word of species name).

* "vermilion" is an orange-red; "viridian" is green.
* "verses" as opposed to "versus". The first is poetry, the other indicates a state of opposition or contrast. It's "Tyson versus Holyfield", not "Tyson verses Holyfield"—unless Tyson is writing poetry about his opponent.
* A "vial" is a small, cylindrical container, usually for liquid medicines. Although "vile" (horrid) ''might'' be an appropriate description for such a container's contents, it is not the proper name for the container.
** Similarly, a "phial" is a "vial". A "file" is not.
* "viola"/"wa-la" when meaning the French word "voila" (literally, "look there", colloquially "check this out!"), which is pronounced "vwah-lah". "Wa-la" is just a spelling error, while a "viola" is a stringed instrument, the next step up in size from a violin, but not nearly as big as a cello. Also incorrect: "wallah" (Hindi, someone who is associated with a particular activity, selling or carrying something), "wallah!" (Arabic, w-Allah, "By God"), or "Walla" (half the name of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walla_Walla,_Washington a city in eastern Washington State]]).
** ''ahem''. It's ''Voil'''à''''', ''accent grave'', ''merci''. [[note]]The grave-accent "a" is done either with a multilingual keyboard, or by holding [=ALT=] and pressing 0224[[/note]]
** And "viola" means "[s/he] raped" in French[[note]] it's the ''historical past tense'' form of the verb "violer", which means "to violate, to rape". The form "violé" is the ''past participle'' of the verb, also usable as an adjectival form[[/note]]. If you're looking for the French name of the instrument, it's an "Alto".
* "viri" (or, far worse, "virii") for "viruses". In the original Latin "virus" is singular only; as one computer writer has put it, "since the Romans couldn't be bothered to invent an irregular Latin plural for 'virus', why should we do it for them?". As for the other spelling, come '''''on'''''—the singular isn't "vir'''i'''us", so how can the plural ''possibly'' be "virii"?
** It is even worse because 'viri' is a plural form of 'vir' (man).
** On the subject of virus singular/plural distinctions, a single functional unit (protein capsid delivery mechanism and DNA/RNA payload) of a virus is called a "virion".
* "Virile" (manly) vs "Virulent (extremely toxic or infectious). Despite sounding similar, the two words have no relation other than both being Latin.
* "visa vi" when the writer meant "vis-à-vis".
* "visa versa" for vice-versa. Surprisingly widespread error. People seem to want to make it rhyme.
* "visage" ''technically'' does mean face, but the two words should not be considered interchangeable. "Visage" generally refers to the expression or overall look of someone's face. Someone might present a ghastly visage after a particularly gruelling ordeal, but to point out that they also have a spot on their visage would be unfitting as well as rather cruel.
* "viscous" for "vicious". It either flows like molasses, or it's got a bad temper. You decide. (In the case of [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E22SkinOfEvil Armus]], it's ''both''.)
* "voyeurism" (liking to watch) vs. "exhibitionism" (liking to be watched). This is, like "itch/scratch," one of those strange confusions. The root words ("voy-" = "view", and "exhibit") should make it obvious, but some people still err, like in ''True Angel'' chapter 24, where someone walking around nude is said to be enjoying her voyeurism.
** Similarly, "sadism" (finding sexual pleasure from someone else's pain) vs. "masochism" (finding sexual pleasure from your own pain). You would not believe how many gamers have called the creators of NintendoHard PlatformHell games "masochists"...
*** However, they may be sadomasochists if they enjoy their own games.
** It should be noted though, that sadism and masochism do not always refer to sexual pleasure gained specifically from pain, and may refer to simple gratification or satisfaction.
* "waffled" (vacillated or cooked waffles) for "wafted" (drifted gently through the air)
* "wailing on someone" (howling shrilly while standing on someone) for "whaling on" (in USA slang, punching someone repeatedly.)
** "wale" means 'a streak, stripe or ridge produced on the skin by the stroke of a rod or whip' (similar to "weal" or "welt"). As a verb, it means 'to mark with wales'. So 'waling on someone' is a correct construction. While it would literally mean thrashing them with a rod or whip, a figurative meaning would be inflicting extreme punishment on them.
* "Wales" (country in the British Isles noted for long, unpronounceable place names) vs. "wales" vs. "wails" vs. "whales" (more than one large aquatic mammal).
* "Waist" (a part of the body) vs. "waste" (garbage, excrement, or something else you want to get rid of). Someone once told me that they read a Buffy fanfic with the sentence "Willow put her arm around Tara's [[{{Squick}} waste]]."
* "Wait ago" for "way to go". An amusing eggcorn.
* "wander" (walk around without a destination in mind) vs. "wonder" (ruminate). If you ''wander'' about something, you go on a walking tour of it. If you ''wonder'' about something, you try to understand what it means.
** If you get lost while ''wandering'' the countryside, you ''wonder'' where you are.
* "wane" (a verb meaning "to decrease") for "wan" (an adjective meaning "unhealthily pale")
* "wanton" means either "unprovoked" (said of violence) or "promiscuous" (said of a person). "wonton" is a sort of Chinese dumpling.
* "wave" (friendly gesture with one's hand, or a rhythmic propagation of energy through a medium) vs "waive" (voluntarily relinquish or refrain from enforcing a right or obligation)
* "weary" (tired, exhausted) for "wary" (cautious, concerned)
* "weather" (wind, rain, snow and other phenomena) for "whether" (used to delineate two possible choices, one of which might be implied).
** Don't confuse either of those with "wether", a castrated ram.
** A traditional mnemonic is "whether the wether can weather the weather"—"if the ram can endure the atmospheric condition".
** Additionally, "weather" vs. "climate". Weather is a day-to-day condition, whereas climate is averaged over years. This is a really bad one, as people have tried to use a one-day record low as supposed disproof of climate change.
* Now here's one that even some of the best writers have perennially failed to understand. "Whence" means "from which" or "from where" ([[{{Literature/Casabianca}} "Whence all but he had fled"]]). Therefore "from whence" ("from from which; from from where") is completely redundant and in all likelihood ignorant of the full meaning of "whence".
** Blame it on teachers [[HypocriticalHumour from whence]] we failed to learn the meaning of "whence".
* "where" (adverb indicating or querying location) vs. "were" (third person plural past tense of "is", also subjunctive mood of the simple past tense) vs. "wear" (what you do with clothing)
** "Were" is also an archaic word for "man"—hence a "werewolf", a combination of a man and a wolf.
*** In fact, originally the word man was gender-neutral, simply meaning "person." A male person was a wereman, while a female person was a wyfman. Eventually, the "were" was dropped entirely, while wyfman became woman.
* "where with all" for "wherewithal" (the means to do something): eggcorn.
* "Wherefore" does not refer to location, but is basically an archaic way of saying "Why" (as in the idiom "whys and wherefores," meaning "reasons"). "Wherefore art thou Romeo?" (note: no comma between "thou" and Romeo, as there would be if she was asking where he was) is Juliet lamenting that her new lover is a Montague, asking ''Why'' he couldn't be someone that her family wasn't sworn to kill on sight.
* "Which" should only be as a pronoun referring to objects and "who" as a pronoun referring to people, e.g. "The man who was here" vs. "the car which was here". That said, since English inexplicably doesn't have an impersonal equivalent to "whose" it is okay to say things like "The car whose motor won't work). Additionally, "that" can safely replace either of the two words.
* "who" (subjective pronoun) vs. "whom" (objective pronoun); few people know when to use "whom" and thus default to "who" for all cases. A simple way to remember which is appropriate is to replace the "who" with "he" or "him". If "he" sounds correct, use "who"; if "hi'''m'''" sounds correct, use "who'''m'''".
** Who loves whom? [[HoYay He loves him]].
* "Whoa" (Stop!, or just an expression of amazement in general) is considered the standard spelling. "Woah" is non-standard but still fairly common (considering the word almost always said aloud rather than written down, it's not surprising people would spell it in more than one way.)
* It's "wiener" (as it's a Vienna, Wiener, sausage), not "weiner".
** The latter is especially common for a certain body part, so [[FridgeBrilliance if that distinction could be made official and common, language actually would gain.]]
** This example [[StealthPun means nothing]] [[{{Music/Ultravox}} to me]].
* "wired" (hooked up to a power source, or high on stimulants such as caffeine) for "weird" (strange), likely a result of spellcheckers correcting "wierd". Which is, of course, because "weird" is a weird word—it fails to follow normal ie/ei convention as it neither follows a "c" nor precedes a "gh".
** Careful with that "normal" convention, too; there are more "ei" cases in English than "ie," it's just that the "ie" cases are in more common usage.
* "wither" (dry up, shrivel) for "writhe" (move with twists and turns). Also not "whither" (to what place/end), which sees little modern use in itself.
* "wizened up" (grew dried out and wrinkly) for "wised up" (got a clue)
** "wisened" is ''technically'' a synonym for "wised", but it's a very uncommon word and will usually be mistaken for a variant of "wizened".
* "woe" (misfortune) vs. "woo" (try to win someone's love). Saying you want to ''woe'' someone is not only bad grammar, it means you want to make their life miserable.
* "Women" is a plural; "woman" is the singular. You cannot have "a women."
* "work" for "walk". It's impossible to imagine someone who is not functionally illiterate confusing these two words, but it's a mistake that can be made by a typo that does not get checked.
* "worn" (used as clothing, or eroded by use) for "warn" (alert)
* "worst" (superlative) vs. "worse" (comparative). If you see "worst than", it's wrong. If you see "[[RougeAnglesOfSatin worst then]]"...
* "wrath" (anger, rage) for "wraith" (ghost, spirit)
** Though a wraith may be wroth (angry, enraged), or perhaps wear a wreath (circular band of foliage or ornamental work).
** "wrath" vs "hatred": The first is an act, the latter is an emotion. Wrath is an expression of hatred.
* "wreck" (to destroy or ruin) for "wreak" (to commit)—"wrecking havoc" means you're just neatening up the place.
** And if an eggcorn reeks, it simply stinks.
** Heaven help you if you write about someone "wrecking revenge" (sabotaging someone's revenge plans?) or—even worse—"reeking revenge".
* "wretch" (a pitiful person) for "retch" (vomit)
* "Yanno" as a contraction for "you know". There's already an established contraction for "you know"—it's "y'know". "Yanno" looks, to the ''literate'' reader, like some obscure foreign name, probably stressed on the first syllable.
* "Yea" for "yeah". Yea is an archaic form of yes, but it is pronounced "yay", not 'yeah'. The only time "yea" is used today is in response to a formal vote; to vote yea or nay.
* "you're" (contraction of "you are") vs. "your" (showing ownership by you). Again, this is an understandable error for non-native English speakers, but native speakers really should have learned this in grade school.

* "oblivious" for "obvious"—the difference is between "unable to see it" and "unable to miss it."
* "obsurd"—eggcorn for "absurd."
* "octopi" would be the plural of octopus if octopus were derived from Latin, however, octopus is a Greek word. The correct plural is generally "octopuses", or "octopodes" if you want to be really pedantic.
* "off of" rather than simply "off", "on" (as in "based on") or "from" (as in "take something off of someone"), although this has become something of a popular colloquialism and hence is probably acceptable in casual situations.
* "oft chance" for "off chance". This is one of those eggcorns that means the exact opposite of the original. "Off chance" means it's extremely unlikely something will happen. "Oft chance" means it's likely to happen often.
* "ok" is not a word. The word is "okay" (or "OK" with both letters capitalized if you really feel the need to contract), and it's not a great word to use in writing anyway.
* "Old timers' disease"—eggcorn for "Alzheimer's disease", a lethal form of senile dementia.
* A person who is everywhere at once is "omnipresent"; someone who is all-knowing is "omniscient"; and someone who is all-powerful is "omnipotent". For monotheists, God is all three.
* "on the lamb" (perched upon a young sheep) for "on the lam" (fleeing from officers of the law)
** As [[Main/TheSimpsons Abe Simpson]] puts it, "Call me mint jelly, because [[IncrediblyLamePun I'm on the lam(b)!]]"
* "once and a while"—eggcorn for "once in a while."
* "one in the same"—eggcorn for "one and the same."
* The phrase "One of the only" makes no sense as there can only be one "only". The correct phrase is "one of the ''few''"
* "one's self" (the concept of the self, applied to a person) vs. "oneself" (reflexive pronoun).
* "ontime" is never, ''ever'' correct. Depending on context, it may be a mistake for "onetime" ("former") or "on time" ("punctual").
* "ordinance" (a local law or religious ritual) vs. "ordnance" (weapons or ammunition).
* "orgy" (a group sex act) vs. "orgasm" (what hopefully happens at the end of one)—sometimes seen in {{Lemon}}s.
** Also "organism" for "orgasm".
*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7DYFdPKBjs&feature=channel_video_title#t=1m04s This guy made that mistake on TV.]]
* "other wise" (which makes no sense without context) vs. "otherwise" (which means "under different circumstances").
** A context in which "other wise" can make sense is the archaic one where "wise" means the extent or manner of things; roughly similar to "way". In this sense "other wise" approaches "otherwise" in that it acknowledges alternatives may exist.
* Despite what some may think, "oriented" and "orientated" are both words and mean the same thing. And just to nip it in the bud, the same applies to "disoriented" and "disorientated".
* "Over" as a word vs. "over-" as a prefix. This one is growing ever more frequent.
** Likewise, "full" as a word (two Ls) vs. "-ful" as a suffix (one L).
* "oversee" (which correctly means to be in charge, or its Latin-derived equivalent "supervise") for "overlook" (to fail to notice).
* "ownership" and "possession" are two similar terms which are easily confused. If you own something, that means you have legal title to it; if you possess it, it is currently amongst your worldly goods. Neither of these terms implies the other. For instance, Franchise/HarryPotter ''owned'' his father's Invisibility Cloak from the instant of his father's death, but did not come into ''possession'' of it until Dumbledore gave it to him ten years later. The Harry Potter Wiki got this distinction wrong.
* "pad" for "pat"
* "pagan" (or even worse, "Satanist") is sometimes abused to mean [[ArtisticLicenseReligion "any religious belief to which I don't subscribe"]]; it actually refers to a particular belief system which arose in the early days of what is now Britain. In particular, yoga is described as "pagan" when it's actually Hindu in origin (and, in many cases of actual practice, has been stripped of its religious aspects); Hinduism and paganism aren't even from the same ''continent''.
* "Paid" (given money in exchange for work) vs "payed" (which officially means sealed with tar or pitch, usually in reference to part of a boat, although 99 percent of the time it's just a misspelling of the former.)
* "pallet" (a wooden platform for shipping things; also a thin, flat bedroll) vs. "palette" (a flat surface, often a thin board, which artists use to hold and blend paint) vs. "palate" (part of your mouth; colloquially, your sense of taste)
* "paper machete" (a large knife made of paper) for "paper mache"/"papier-mâché" (sculpting medium made up of shredded/chopped paper and glue)
** [[Anime/ReadOrDie Well, unless you're Yomiko Readman]].
* 'parsimonious' means 'miserly', and is not a synonym for 'concise'. In the context of science or philosophy, it means "using or requiring as few unproven assumptions as possible," as another name for OccamsRazor is the Law Of Parsimony.
* "passed" (moved in front of) vs. "past" (history)
* "pass mustard" (what you say when you're eating hot dogs) for "pass muster" (to be satisfactory). A properly-working gun might be said to pass muster, but it's a rare gun that can pass mustard.
* "pause" (stop, usually briefly) vs. "paws" (the feet of most mammals)
** Similarly, "pause" (see above) vs. "pose" (staying still for a photograph or a painting)
*** Just remember: A cat has claws at the end of its ''paws'', while a complex sentence has a ''pause'' at the end of the clause.
* "Pay-Per-View": (a service where you pay to watch something) vs "paper view" (looking at a piece of paper, presumably). Almost certainly an eggcorn.
* "Payroll officer" for "parole officer". Arguably, this could be a spellchecker error, but it has the look of an eggcorn to it.
** "Payroll" has more to do with money and financial matters than "parole," though it is entirely possible for a parole officer to be on somebody's payroll.
*** A payroll officer could well be a real job (someone working in the office of the payroll division) but it has nothing to do with criminal justice. It is a common job title in Australia.
* "peace of mind", not "piece of mind."
** Unless you're giving someone a "piece of your mind," but under those circumstances you are trying to ''disturb'' that person's peace of mind.
* "peak" (mountain) vs. "peek" (sneak a look) vs. "pique" (either whet, as in "pique an interest"; or a minor state of bad temper, as in "a fit of pique")
** There's a fairly popular Twitter bot called Stealth Mountain whose sole function is to tweet corrections at people who type "sneak peak."
* "peel" (skin of a fruit) for "peal" (loud succession of sounds, such as the ringing of bells). You cannot break into "peels of laughter".
* "pedal" (propel a bicycle forward, or the things you push with your feet to achieve such purpose) vs. "petal" (the pretty parts of a flower).
* "pedaller" (someone riding a bike) for "peddler" (itinerant seller of small portable goods).
* "pendantic" (having to do with necklaces) for "pedantic" (sounding like Ben Stein)
* The plural of "penis" is "penises" (or "penes" if you're a real stickler for the Latin). It's not the same as the singular, nor is it "penii" or any variation on that, no matter how much funnier that construction is.[[note]]The '-i' pluralization only works for words that end in '-us', and '-ii' requires the singular to ends in '-ius'. You can have a single Toyota Prius or multiple Toyota Prii, but if you have penii ''or'' a penius you should really consult your doctor.[[/note]]
** Nor is the word "[[Creator/LouisCK penisia]]", but if you actually think that's the plural you clearly weren't fully conscious when you watched that routine.
** And "penal" does not mean "relating to the penis". That would be "penile". "Penal" means "of penalties," i.e. about punishment. Which means it's almost certainly ''not'' a "penile colony". Similarly, a penal code is a list of laws and punishments. A penile code is presumably some kind of secret message written on someone's penis.
* Despite what some would say, both "people" and "persons" are grammatically correct. "Peoples" should only be used when referring to multiple races, ethnicities etc of people.
* The Latin phrase "per se"—which means, literally, "by itself"—spawns a lot of eggcorns. It's not "per say", "persay", "percy" (!) or anything else like that.
* "Perscriptivism" for "prescriptivism" was found on this wiki. Like "perserve" below, probably based on a very common non-standard pronunciation of "per" for "pre."
* Persecute: To harass or oppress through violence vs prosecute: to institute legal proceedings against. Although in some contexts either word would work as in: [[BuryYourGays "Some countries persecute/prosecute gay people"]]
* "Perserve" may be how some people pronounce "preserve," but it's not correct spelling.
** And "persevere" is something completely different.
* "personal" (relating to an individual) vs. "personnel" (the body of persons employed in any work). The ''ComicStrip/{{Alex}}'' comic strip managed to get a great joke out this confusion.
* "pharoah" (wrong) vs. "pharaoh" (not wrong).
* "phase" (part of a cycle or sequence, usually one that repeats on a regular basis; a derivative meaning covers things that come into sync with each other, or which make a transition (say, from intangibility to tangibility)) vs. "faze" (to evoke a stunned, surprised or shocked reaction in someone).
** Mark Twain made this mistake, and there are many people who will bitch if you use this (these) frequently-misspelt word(s) correctly, just because they expect 'faze' to be itself a misspelling.
* One Franchise/StarTrek [[http://geeksaresexy.geeksaresexytech.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/st2.jpg trivia list]] includes the "split infinitives are grammatically incorrect" nonsense (they aren't, English is not Latin) yet earlier says "this phenomena", which '''is''' grammatically incorrect (it should be "this phenomenon"). Likewise, a single item from the list is a trivium and a single requirement is a criterion (only if you have several requirements are they criteria).
* "pheonix" for "phoenix", a mythical firebird that has given its name to a city in Arizona, a superheroine from the ComicBook/XMen, and more.
* "physic" (an archaic way of saying "medicine") versus "psychic" (having or relating to powers of the mind) was found on this very wiki.
* "physician" (a medical doctor) vs. "physicist" (a scientist specializing in the study of matter and energy)
* "Pirate" vs. "privateer". A privateer carries a Letter of Marque from a government. They're essentially sea-faring mercenaries for hire, who sail under the flag of the country whose government they're getting paid by, and are authorised to attack and prey on any vessel bearing the flag of that country's enemies. A pirate, on the other hand, is an outlaw in the eyes of every recognised European government.
* "planer" (a tool for smoothing wood) for "planar" (flat; or having to do with two-dimensional geometric forms; or having to do with planes of existence in a fantasy universe, especially ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'').
** ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' has "plains" as a basic land type and "planes" as its term for worlds in its multiverse. For extra fun, it also has "plainswalk" (creatures with this ability are unblockable if the defending player controls a plains), "planeswalk" (to cross from one plane to another), "Planeswalkers" (those who can planeswalk), and "plainswalkers" (creatures with the plainswalk ability).
* "Pneumonia" to mean "hypothermia". Hypothermia is caused by the body's temperature being too low, while pneumonia is a lung disease caused by viruses or bacteria, and has nothing to do with temperature.
** Also, "hyperthermia" to mean "hypothermia". Hyperthermia is caused by the body's temperature becoming too high, rather than too low.
* "Pneumonic" (having to do with inflation or lung disease) for "mnemonic" (having to do with memory) or "pneumatic" (powered by air pressure)
* 'poleis' is the correct plural form of 'polis'. 'Polis' is the singular form, 'polises' is an error.
* "populous" (an adjective meaning "having lots of people living there") vs. "populace" (the people doing that living)
* "pores" (''n'' small holes; ''v'' reads something intently) vs. "pours" (empties liquid from a container).
** So if you "pore over" something then you study it closely; if you "pour over" it you just make it wet.
* "porpoise" (a marine mammal) vs. "purpose" (an aim or a goal). Of course, those who know better will often do this one [[IncrediblyLamePun on porpoise. For the halibut]]. (See the North American dub of ''Anime/ExcelSaga'' for a particularly convoluted example caused by a combination of GratuitousEnglish and puckish translators.)
* "possessed" is one to be wary of. If "A is possessed of B", that's the same thing as saying that "B is possessed by A".
* "preposition" A part of speech usually used to indicate where something is in relation to something else. Versus "proposition" a suggestion or, as a verb, to suggest something (usually something sexual.)
* "presents" (gifts that are given and received, or the act of presenting something) vs. "presence" (the state of being in attendance)
* "principal" (the first among something) vs. "principle" (a basis for reason, belief or action). A school's principal holds its senior-most academic position. It probably has several principles that underlie its rules. The principal principle of medicine is "Do no harm".
* "prolonged" (continues for a long time, such as "a prolonged boring speech about grammar") vs. "prologued" (an awkward verbing analogous to "monologued," probably taken as describing or creating the intro/backstory to a story, at some time in the past).
* "post-humus" (after the fertile earth) for "posthumous" (after death)
** May be related to "post-hummus", subsequent to the chickpeas.
* "Pot marked" for "pockmarked". (This brings some really bizarre images to mind...) "Pock" is the singular form of "pox", as in "chickenpox" and "smallpox", and it means a divot or crater in the skin caused by disease or infection.
* "Potter" (someone who makes pots or [[Literature/HarryPotter slays Dark Lords]]) for "putter" (perform a series of small tasks in no particular order or hurry; or a type of golf club).
** For randomly occupying yourself, "putter" is US English; "potter" is the British spelling.
* "A power onto herself" when what was meant is "a power ''unto'' herself".
* "pray" (trying to get some deity to pay attention to you) for "prey" (trying to exploit someone's weakness). "It is a social engineering attack, they prayed on the users' ignorance and capitalized on it."
** To quote [[Series/TheBigBangTheory Howard Wolowitz]]: "A ''Shiksa'' goddess isn't an actual goddess. We don't ''pray to'' them; we ''prey on'' them."
** Related: the insect is called a ''praying'' mantis. Many insects ''prey'' on others; not many do it holding that pose.
* "Precluded" (prevented, usurped the place of) for "preceded" (came before)
* "Predication" (a state of being contingent upon a prior condition, action, or event) for "predilection" (a taste, tendency or preference for a particular item or action)
* "Preform" (to shape in advance, perhaps) for "perform" (to do a task, or put on an act).
* "Prejudice" (a preconceived idea or opinion, usually without reason) for "Prejudiced" (one who has a preconceived idea or opinion).
* "prestigious" (respected, famous) for "prodigious" (very very large)
* "preverbal" (before you have the ability to talk) for "proverbial" (invoking or embodying a proverb or stereotype)
* "preview" (a look at an unfinished or unreleased product) for "purview" (jurisdiction)
* "privet" (a leafy shrub commonly made into hedges) for "private" (personal, secret). This editor came across a very-poorly-written story which referred to a girl's "privet parts".
** [[IncrediblyLamePun Her bush]], in other words.
* "prodigy" for "protege" (or, more accurately, "protégé"[[note]]the up-accented E (acute) can be easily accessed from your keyboard by holding down ALT and then hitting 0-2-3-3 on your numpad—or by holding down [=AltGr=] (or both Alt and Ctrl simultaneously if your keyboard doesn't have [=AltGr=]) and typing E[[/note]]). A protege is someone a mentor has taken under his wing. A prodigy is a person with an extraordinary talent. Chiyo-chan from ''Manga/AzumangaDaioh'' is a prodigy, but not a protege.
** Similarly, "progeny" (offspring) for "prodigy" (precocious genius)—''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' deals with this one, when Calvin refers to himself as a "child progeny."
** While a "prodigy" (precocious genius) may be "prodigal" (wastefully extravagant), it's neither necessary nor sufficient.
* "proof" (a line of reasoning deriving a conclusion from a set of premises) for "evidence" (information supporting such reasoning).
** The words "proof" and "theory" have sometimes-subtle but crucial differences in meaning when used in mathematics, science, or general usage.
* "prophesy" (verb) vs. "prophecy" (noun). When you prophesy, you produce a prophecy. In Christian churches you will sometimes hear them differentiated by pronouncing the verb as "prof-fess-sigh".
* "proscribed" (prohibited) for "prescribed" (specified, recommended)
* "prostrate" (lying down for reasons of humility, exhaustion or illness) for "prostate" (a fairly important part of the male anatomy, particularly for writers of slash fiction). This error is so widespread that the online dictionary definition of "prostrate" is surrounded by ads for prostate-related health products.
* "prostrate" for "prone". Someone prostrated in humility may well lie prone (lying face down), so it's easy to confuse the two words. But "prostrate" could also mean lying face ''up'' (the "supine" position), such as collapsing in exhaustion after a race. (In short, if he's lying on his back then he's not lying prone.)
* "main protagonist". Since "protagonist" '''means''' "main character" (literally "first character"), "main protagonist" is thus [[ShapedLikeItself tautologous]]. This is a problem on several Wikia wikis.[[note]]The phrase "Wikia wikis" is not tautologous. Wikia is a domain that hosts numerous wikis; a wiki is just a specialized type of web page.[[/note]]
* "Provence" (an area of southern France) for "province" (a subdivision of a country). The former is an example of the latter.
* "provincial" (having to do a province; also small-minded or parochial) vs. "provisional" (temporary, evaluative) vs. "provencale" (more properly "provençale", a style of cooking named after the above-mentioned French province).
* "pry" (forcibly loosen) for "probably". Often "probably" is shortened as such in speech, but the two words aren't really that close.
* "purposefully" (with purpose, as in "stride purposefully into the room") vs. "purposely" (on purpose, deliberately).
* "purse" (what you keep your money in if you're British, or a handbag if you're American) vs. "pursue" (to chase). You ''pursue'' the thief who stole your ''purse''.
* "puissant" (strong, powerful) for "pissant" (jerk, asshole, with implications of being small or insignificant)
* "purgative" (a medicine that makes you throw up) vs. "prerogative" (a right or privilege).
* "quadrant" (one fourth part of an area or thing). People often just use it to mean "A large part/area" even though you would '''think''' the "quad" part makes it obvious.
* Possibly a result of thinking that they have something to do with quadrants, but "quardnets" are actually "coordinates".
* "queue" (a line of items or people which is dealt with in sequential order) and "cue" (a signal to act, or a stick for pool)—these are often interchangeably misused for each other. If you "cue the gorillas" you're signalling for them to do whatever it is you got gorillas for, while if you "queue the gorillas" you're merely putting them on your list of things to do.
** Either of the above vs. "que", which not only has a different pronunciation but isn't even English. (It's Spanish, and pronounced "keh".)
** While "Kew" is a London district famous for its gardens.
* "quell" (suppress) vs. "quill" (a pen made from a feather) vs. "quoll" (a cute cat-sized Australian marsupial).
* "quite" and "quiet"—''far'' too common a confusion.
* "quote" (verb) for "quotation" (noun). This is becoming acceptable in informal situations, but some {{Grammar Nazi}}s will look down on you if you say "That was a quote from person X."
* "quote" vs. "quoth"—"quoth" is the past tense form of an obsolete verb which meant "to say." "Quoth the Raven" means "said the Raven," and has nothing to do etymologically with the word "quote."
* "rapped" (knocked) for "rapt" (completely engrossed in, involved in or fascinated by) or "raped" (violated, sexually assaulted).
** On a related note, someone who performs rap music is a "rapper", not a "rapist" (someone who rapes). Although being one does not preclude the other, the two refer to completely different things.
*** Not to be confused with "rapier" (a kind of sword).
*** Just to clarify, it's not "rappist" either.
* "rational" (adj: logical, sane) vs. "rationale" (noun: a reason or justification)
* "rationale" (as above) vs. "rationality" (sanity, mental stability)
* "ravish" (traditionally, to rape [[note]]contemporary romantic novels and art reviews use it to mean something more like "insistently thrill"[[/note]]) vs. "ravage" (to destroy, devastate). As in "Smaug then flew away to ravish a town of men". [[note]]which is a positively odd image if you read too many romantic novels[[/note]] Thank you, Creator/LinCarter. Even Creator/FritzLeiber got this wrong once, too, stating that [[Literature/FafhrdAndTheGrayMouser the Gray Mouser]] "began to ravage" a pretty girl. (She'd just made a completely unprovoked murderous attack on him, so the Mouser no doubt felt he had cause, but still...)
** One (tongue-in-cheek) article in summer 1977 described a rapist as "a man whose taste for ravishing women has unfortunately progressed from an adjective to a verb."
** Smaug example may be a DoubleEntendre but it is semantically correct if somewhat obsolete. 'Ravish' means both to 'rape' but also 'to sack, pillage, demolish', not unlike the term 'rape' used as a noun (they both stem from the same source word).
* "raze" (to demolish) vs. "raise" (to elevate or to construct, among other meanings)
** Some people with poor spelling speak of "razing" awareness, which conveys the opposite of the intended meaning; they want to heighten awareness, not flatten it.
** Similarly, "razor" (an instrument used for shaving) to mean "razer" (someone who destroys).
* "reckless" (irresponsible, careless) vs "wreckless" (not involving any wrecks). Reckless driving and wreckless driving would presumably be opposites, although the latter is usually just a misspelling of the former.
* "recourse" (an alternative or backup plan) vs. "resource" (a supply or stockpile).
* "reek" (stink, smell offensive, give off smoke) for "wreak" (inflict, perform, usually only appears in the phrase "wreak havoc")
* "refuge" (sanctuary) for "refuse" (garbage)
* "refute" is often used much too weakly, as if it meant "offer a contrary opinion". It means to ''prove'' something false.
* "regulated" (controlled, restricted or overseen by law) vs. "relegated" (assigned to an obscure place, position, or condition; a person who has been KickedUpstairs has been relegated to a new role.)
* "rein" vs. "reign". One involves controlling a horse, the other being controlled ''by'' a king. This mix-up is perhaps inevitable, since both offices have fallen out of daily usage; most people no would have no reason to realize we are talking about "reining X in", as in pulling on the reins of a galloping horse to cause it to slow or stop, and "free rein" (as in holding the reins loosely and allowing a horse to go where it will). "Reign", meaning "to rule" or "the duration of one's rule", is a different word related to "regal".
** While it is not incorrect to say "free reign", it's at the very least [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment redundant]]; freedom is ''implied'' in the office of a ruling monarch. On the other hand, "the two reins of Voldemort" is flat wrong. (Unless you're reading some sort of BDSM {{Lemon}} with a harness involved.)
** Neither should be confused with "rain" (precipitation), though they sometimes deliberately are for the sake of a pun.
* "relevant" (pertaining to) vs. "revelant", a metathesis. In the noun form, "relevation" vs. "revelation", it's the former that's the metathesis. Metathesis plus spellchecker has led to the misuse of "revenant" (a type of ghost or undead).
** A revelant can also be a noun, when referring to a person who has revelations, such as John the Divine (who wrote the Book of Revelation—no "s").
* "relevant" (pertinent) vs. "relative" (with respect to).
* "relive" (experience again) vs. "relieve" (ease one's conscience). The former was used as a malapropism for the latter on WMG.TheSimpsons.
* "repel" (to push away) for "rappel" (to slowly descend a vertical surface using a rope, most commonly in rock climbing)
* "repeatable" means that if you do the same thing twice under the same conditions, you get the same result. "reproducible" means that if you instruct someone else on how to do exactly what you did with their own equipment, they'll also get the same result.
* "reprisal" (a return strike or act of revenge) for "reprise" (to repeat a passage of music; more broadly, a repeat of any event)
* "resolution" (degree of detail in an image, or a formal statement of a position or policy) vs. "revolution" (a radical change like an armed insurrection, or one instance of a cycle like an orbit.)
* "restraunt" for "restaurant" (a place for eating). "Restraint" is a measure or condition that keeps someone or something under control, such as budget or self-discipline.
* "retarted" (presumably, to have been tarted for a second or subsequent time) for "retarded" (delayed or slowed, developmentally disabled, or an offensive way of saying something or someone is stupid)
* "retched" (past tense of "to retch", to vomit) for "wretched" (deplorable; of very poor quality or condition)
** Strictly speaking, "retching" is the act of making the convulsive throat movements, as if to bring something up; it's only "vomiting" if you actually succeed in bringing something up.
* "review" (critique of a book, film, etc., or to critique something) vs. "revue" (a form of theatre made popular by Ziegfield). The former is the most common word, so is often used when the latter is meant. And to make things more confusing, it's possible to review a revue.
* "revile" (to drive away with insulting or hateful words) vs. "revel" (party, enjoy) vs. "reveille" (a bugle call to awaken soldiers)
* In astronomical terms, something "revolves" around another body, but "rotates" about its own axis. The Earth rotates on its axis, and revolves around the sun.
* "ridiculous" (absurd) vs "rediculous" (to "diculous" more than once, presumably). This is probably an eggcorn caused by linguistic drift, but considering the root word is "ridicule" you would ''think'' it would be somewhat obvious.
* "ridged" (like Ruffles/[=McCoys=] potato chips) for "rigid" (not floppy). "Rigged" is a thing with rigging applied, such as a sailboat mast.
* "riggers" (people who set up rigging) for "rigors" (challenges or hardships)
* "right" vs. "write" vs. "rite"... probably vs. "wright" as well. Doesn't help that there's a supermarket chain called "Shop-Rite", which is actually urging its customers to "shop right". Which is bad grammar anyway, because it's modifying a verb with an adjective.
** Note that it's "rites of passage" (rituals), not "rights" (permissions or, mind-bogglingly, non-lefts). The Music/{{Rush}} song "Distant Early Warning" uses the latter, but it's a pun.
** It's also copyright—permission to replicate—not copy''write'' (replicating text) or copy''rite'' (a ritual performed to make a stubborn Xerox device work), and definitely not "copy''left'' (joke neologism with no legal validity). A ''copy writer'' is someone who writes (advertising) "copy," and has nothing to do with replicating since they're making an original.
* "rob" (to take property from, illegally) vs. "steal" (to take illegally). You rob the person, you steal the thing.
* "roll" (move along a surface by rotation) for "role" (part to play in an organized operation like a military strike or a theatrical production)
* "roll play" for "role play". Usually found in discussions of [=RPGs=] (role playing games). Sometimes "roll play" is used deliberately to refer to [=RPGs=] where the players just roll the dice instead of role playing, but [[StopHavingFunGuys disparaging someone else's gaming this way]] is a good way of triggering backlash and [[NeverHeardThatOneBefore was old]] when Creator/WhiteWolf did it in the early nineties.
* "Rowmania" (a craze for either arguments or a certain type of boating) for "Romania" (a country in Europe). "Roumania" and "Rumania", which also appear occasionally, are not technically errors, since they're old and now mostly obsolete spellings of the country, but unless you're writing a story set in a time when the older spellings were commonly used, stick with Romania.
* [[RougeAnglesOfSatin "rouge" (a shade of the color red, or a type of makeup) for "rogue" (a criminal or outlaw)]]. It's possible, though highly unlikely, that a ''rogue'' may wear ''rouge''.
* "saccharine" has at least once (in a review of "[[Music/TheVerve Bittersweet Symphony]]") been misused to mean "like saccharin". It actually means "like sugar"; which of course is where saccharin got its name.
** And then there are people who use "Saccharine" for the ''Franchise/{{Tintin}}'' character "Sakharine"...
* "Sanction" as a noun is unambiguous. "Sanction" as a verb has taken on two virtually diametrically opposed meanings: to approve and to punish. It's best to avoid "sanction" as a verb.
* "Santa Claus" does not have an "e" at the end, unless one is talking about the rule of Santa succession in those Tim Allen movies.
* "scamdalous" (something to do with scams?) for "scandalous" (causing outrage by flouting morality or law). Probably a typo.
* "scandalous" vs. "scurrilous" (gossip invented to damage someone's reputation). One may spread scurrilous claims of scandalous behaviour, but they're still two separate words.
* "scared" (frightened) for "sacred" (holy). An easy typo to make, admittedly, but this one is in the ''official subtitles'' of the ''{{Manga/Loveless}}'' DVD.
* "scarred" (giving scars, or having them) for "scared" (being frightened).
* UsefulNotes/ScotlandYard for the British national law enforcement, the equivalent of the American FBI. As its page indicates, Scotland Yard is the London Metropolitan Police, not their national police. The national law enforcement is known as the Security Service, sometimes called State Security and better known as MI5.
* "scrapping" (brawling, fistfighting, getting rid of) for "scraping" (dragging one object roughly along another)
* "season" (a time of year lasting about three months, generally distinguished by climate), and "seisin" (ownership of land). (As with "seise", below, use seisin sparingly.)
* "sealing" (that which seals) for "ceiling" (the solid top of a room)
** "sealing wax" lets you put a ''seal'' on an envelope; "ceiling wax" is presumably a cleaning product for the tops of rooms—or possibly something used to ensure your own baldness.
* "Segue way" when the writer simply means "segue", under the reasonable impression that the final "ue" in "segue" is silent, as in "rogue" or "morgue". However, "segue" is a word directly imported far more recently than these from another language, and still follows its origin language's pronunciation rules.
** In addition, there's "segue" vs. "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segway Segway]]", which for good or ill ''is'' how you pronounce "segue".
*** What's a Segway? About 80 pounds. ({{Rimshot}})
* "seize" (grab) for "cease" (stop).
** And it's "seize", not "sieze".
** Also, watch out for "seise". A person who is seised of a piece of land owns that land. (Although you should probably use this only if your story involves legal land ownership and you really want to [[ShownTheirWork show your work]].)
* "self-aware" (cognizant of one's own feelings, mental state, etc.) vs. "aware" (cognizant of a specific different thing). "Self-aware" is already shortened from "aware of oneself", so being "self-aware of something" makes no sense.
* "Self-deprecating" ([[SelfDeprecation making fun of one's own self]]) vs "self-depreciating" (making oneself go down in value, presumably). Likely a misreading, particularly since the word "deprecate" (to show disapproval) hardly ever appears on its own, except in technical senses.
* "Semitic" (relating to Jewish people or the language family Hebrew is part of) vs. "Sinitic" (relating to Han Chinese people or the language family Mandarin is part of).
* "sense" (perceive, or one method of doing such) for "since" (because, from the time of).
* The correct spelling is "sep'''a'''rate", not "sep'''e'''rate".
* "sepulchre" (noun; tomb, mausoleum) for "sepulchral" (adjective; eerily resonant). The latter is the adjective form of the former.
* "series" and "species" have the plurals "series" and "species". Spelled exactly the same. No apostrophes.
* "servile" is someone with slave-like attitude and demeanour: "serval" is a small feline predator.
* "sever" (to slice off) for "severe" (of great magnitude). Having one's arm severed would be a severe wound.
* "sew" (run thread through cloth with a needle) vs. "sow" (to plant, as in seeds; alternately, a female pig, though this has a different pronunciation)
* "sewage" means waste water and excrement; "sewerage" is the mass noun denoting the sewers built to carry the stuff.
* "shear" (to slice or cut) for "sheer" (translucent, almost transparent). "Sheer" is sometimes used in the sense of "pure" or "solid", as in "sheer force of will"; there's also a usage in the sense of a "sheer cliff face". "Shear force of will" is a meaningless phrase (although it might be turned into the name of a [[KiManipulation ki attack]] by a sufficiently clever [[strike:author]] Airbender). Although some good writer could dream up something about applying a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shear_force shear force]] to someone's will. The result might interest a psychiatrist (how much stress can someone take before they start to slip?).
* "sheave" (the grooved wheel on which the rope runs in a pulley block) for "sheath" (scabbard for a knife or other small blade)
** Or probably more commonly for "sheathe", which is the action of putting a knife ''in'' its sheath, or a sword in its scabbard.
** Also "sheaf" (pl. "sheaves"), a bundle in which cereal plants are bound after reaping.
* "shellshock" is simply the old name for PTSD, right? Not quite. The condition formerly known as "shellshock" actually refers to two similar yet distinct conditions: PTSD, which is a long-term condition, and acute stress reaction, which is short-term.
* "shield", not "sheild". As with "seize/sieze" just a few lines back, "deity/diety" and lots of other "ei/ie" pairs a lot of people seem to have problems getting that right.
** Just remember, folks: 'i' before 'e' except... all the times that it's the other way around.
* "shinning" (climbing up something) vs. "shining" (emitting or reflecting light).
* "shirking violet" (a flower that won't do what it's supposed to) for "shrinking violet" (idiom for a shy person)
* "(be) shod of something" (have that something put on your feet) or "(be) shot of something" (to get rid of it) for "(be) shut of something" (escape something or put it behind you).
* "Shortsided" when the author meant "shortsighted".
* "shutter" (covering for a window) for "shudder" (a convulsive shiver throughout the body)
* "sic" (to set someone or something—like a dog—upon a target) vs. "sick" (not well). Also, "sic" is Latin for ''thus'' and is used to indicate that a wrong spelling in a quotation is being preserved from the original.
** It is specifically ''not'' an acronym for "spelling is correct".
** One odd occurrence, almost surely the result of overzealous autocorrect, was "Sikkim!" (a state in India) being substituted for "Sic 'im!" (an attack command).
* "sight" (vision sense, thing or place to see) vs. "site" (a location) vs. "cite" (refer to)
** Relatedly: "On Sight" (as soon as you see them) vs "On site" (at a given location). There are a few contexts where both could work: to "kill on sight" is to kill as soon as you see the person, wheras to "kill on site" would be to kill the person right where they are (usually people mean the first, but the second still makes sense.)
* "simplistic" is not a "fancier" way of saying simple. It means oversimplified or simple to a fault, such as [[BlackAndWhiteInsanity "He has a simplistic view of morality".]] Accordingly, the "word" "oversimplistic" is both wrong and [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment redundant]], as the "over" is already implied in the base word.
* "sire" (method of address toward royalty, or to have a child) vs. "sir" (method of address toward one of superior military rank, or toward a stranger)
* "skivvies" (an old-fashioned word for underwear) vs. "civvies" (civilian clothing). Your civvies should ''include'' skivvies, but not be ''limited'' to them.
* "slavish" (blindly devoted to something or someone) vs. "Slavic" (associated with the cultures or languages of several Central and Eastern European countries).
** Though perhaps worth noting that, due to certain events in European history, the words share a root.
* The past (imperfect) tense of "slay" (to kill) is "slew", not "slayed". The past perfect tense is "slain".[[note]]Example: The knight set out to slay the dragon. The knight slew the dragon. The dragon was slain.[[/note]]
* "Sleek" (smooth and glossy hair or fur) vs. "sleet" (a mixture of rain and snow). It's hard to believe these two could ever be confused since they sound nothing alike, "k" and "t" are nowhere near each other on a keyboard, and their meanings aren't remotely similar, but I saw a fanfic that used "sleek" when they meant "sleet" (which conjures some truly bizarre images).
** Maybe it's because neither is a particularly common word?
* "slight of hand" (possessing small hands) for "sleight of hand" (dexterity), an eggcorn.
** In addition, the noun meaning the reverse of a compliment is spelled "slight", not "sleight".
* "soar" (fly like an eagle) vs. "sore" (when the soaring abruptly ends).
** Also "saw" for "sore".
* "solidarity" for "solitary." The first is a group acting in unison, especially as pertains to labor movements; the second is one by itself. "Solidarity" has nothing to do with isolation; in fact they are almost opposites.
* "sooth" (archaic word for "truth", as in "soothsayer") for "soot" (black carbon residue from fire) or "soothe" (v., "give ease")
* "spackle" (patching material for plaster walls) for "speckle" (tiny mote-like dot)
* "specially" (for a special purpose) for "especially" (used to single out one person, thing, or situation over all others)
* "specter"/"spectre" (a particularly nasty ghost) vs. "scepter"/"sceptre" (a ceremonial mace-like implement that is part of a monarch's or emperor's regalia) vs. "[[Music/ReginaSpektor Spektor]]" (a Russian-American singer/songwriter).
* "spurn" (dismiss brusquely, shun, ignore) for "spur" (encourage, prompt, force into action)
* "spendthrift" isn't a fancy expansion on "thrifty". It means the exact opposite.
* "stanch" (block, plug or stop up, as in a flow of blood) and "staunch" (unwavering, devoted)
** "Staunch" for "stanch" is such a common error that some see it as a legitimate variant spelling. Just not the other way round.
* For anyone attempting British slang, being "starkers" has nothing to do with being stark raving mad; instead, it describes being stark ''naked''. Therefore, it would not at all be appropriate to speak of being driven starkers (that is, unless you actually intend to say that someone has been driven insane to such a degree that he would randomly take all his clothes off).
* "stated" (said) for "statted" (to be represented in RPG or wargame statistics).
** Also, "stated" for "started", probably a typo.
* "station'''a'''ry" (not moving) is easily confused with "station'''e'''ry" (as in school stationery—pencils, pens, rulers etc.).
* "steal" vs. "steal from". If you steal a museum, [[MonumentalTheft you steal the entire building]]. If you steal from a museum, you steal some of its exhibits. Compare and contrast with "rob" vs. "steal," above.
* "steel" (an alloy of iron) vs. "steal" (to deprive someone of something)
* "Strait" vs. "straight". "Strait" means narrow (although nowadays it more often is used to mean a narrow body of water, like the Strait of Gibraltar); ergo, "straitlaced" refers to a tightly laced corset. Nobody cares if your corset is laced straight or crooked—it's an undergarment.
** In general parlance, people making a beeline for something head "straight" for it, not "strait" for it. Of course, if someone ''is'' going narrowly across the room, they might well be going strait.
** And the confining garment is a straitjacket.
* "stringed" (fitted with strings, usually a musical instrument) for "strung" (connected) or "stinged" (mostly abstained from, or gave someone too little of something).
* "subbing" for "sobbing"
* "substain" for "abstain". "To substain from sex" comes closer to "making your living from," implying having a fair amount of, rather than "having none whatsoever".
* "Substitute". To substitute A for B means to get rid of '''B''' and replace it with '''A''', ''NOT'' the other way around. The chap who said "in hot weather I substitute jeans for shorts" was saying the opposite of what he meant. He should have said "...substitute ''shorts'' for ''jeans''", or "...substitute ["replace" would be better] jeans ''with'' shorts". This is worth emphasising because (a) it is a common error, (b) it is a ''stupid'' error, and (c) those who make it often display a bizarre inability to understand what the problem is and seem unable to appreciate that they have inverted the meaning.
* "suit" for "sued". Well, if you get sued you'll have a suit on your hands, but they're not quite the same thing.
** On a related note, "suit" (a set of formal clothing or a costume, a legal action, or an offer of marriage in olden times) versus "suite" (a grouping of rooms in a hotel or an office building).
** Or "suit" (a set of clothing, a legal action, or a really old-fashioned way to say that you've proposed to someone) versus "suet" (beef fat, or a type of bird food).
* "summer" vs. "Sumer." The former is a season, the latter is an ancient Mesopotamian region and civilization.
** The latter is also a really, really old way of saying the former, as in the ballad "Sumer is icumen in." (Use of ''icumen'', a word so bloody old that even Shakespeare never used it, should give an idea of how long we've been using the double "m" in the season—it dates back to a time when English was more like German than the language we speak today.)
* "suppose" vs. "supposed". You're ''supposed'' to use the past participle in this sentence. I ''suppose'' it's the way it gets pronounced that causes people to lose the D.
* "surly" (grouchy, angry) for "surely" ("certainly", "truly"). [[Film/{{Airplane}} And don't call me Shirley.]]
* "suspicious" for "suspect". In these dark times, there's a lot of talk about "suspicious" packages, although it's unlikely that any package is capable of harboring suspicion. If you see a package which you believe might be a bomb, ''you'' are suspicious; ''it'' is suspect.
** Although this may be a language shift in process, given that the former word is now used much more often in this context than the latter.
* "synthetic" for "artificial"—ever hear of photosynthesis? This error is particularly bad when used for things such as the Duophonic process (to turn mono recordings into fake stereo), which necessarily involves taking the original apart in order to place different elements at different points on the sound stage—that's analysis, not synthesis.
** This error was present in the stated reason for deleting an item from NonIndicativeName (since restored); the deleting editor claimed that synthesizers are so called because they create sounds artificially. ''All'' musical instruments create sound artificially, but that's not the reason why synthesizers have that name; it's because they create sounds by a process of putting together (synthesis) as opposed to one of taking apart (analysis).
*** Of course, the most classical audio synthesis technique is called "subtractive synthesis", because it is removing frequencies from the signal.
** You can infer from this that the ''opposite'' of "synthetic" is "analytic", ''not'' "natural".
* "systemic" vs. "systematic": Something that happens ''because'' of a system is systematic, something that happens to a system ''itself'' is systemic.
* "tact" (discretion) for "tack" (heading of a ship, the method for sailing a sailing ship against the wind, or a small nail) or "tacked" (attached to something by small nails). The idiom is "to change tack", a nautical metaphor. This editor would have learned the difference a lot faster if his teachers hadn't insisted on "correcting" him not from "tact" to "tack", but from either of "tact" or "tack" to "tactic".
** The reverse also happens.
* "taking it on the lamb": using a young sheep to carry your goods; vs. "taking it on the lam": going on the run from the authorities.
* The noun "tamper" (something which tamps, e.g. the tamper of an atomic bomb) should not be confused with the verb "to tamper" (to interfere).
* "Tampion" is a plug for the cannon muzzle to protect the barrel from weather. "Tampon" is an item for female hygiene.
* "tapir" (a largish animal somewhat like a cross between a pig and an anteater) for "taper" (in this case, "candle", although it also means "narrows down to a point"). Lighting a tapir will only annoy it.
* "tare" a weed, only used as a noun; vs. "tear" to rip something (verb), or a rip in something (noun). "Tar" is a chemical produced by pyrolysis of pine wood used for waterproofing and rot-proofing things like wood.
** There is also "tare weight", which is the weight of an empty container or unladen vehicle, subtracted at weigh stations from the measured gross weight of said container to find the weight of its contents (the "net weight").
* "taught" (educated, given a lesson) and "taunt" (make fun of) vs. "taut" (flat, smooth, tight, often said of a fit and well-toned body, or a rope stretched tight)
* A tax ''return'' is the paperwork you file reporting your income. What you get back is the tax ''refund''.
* A "tart" is a sweet cake or slang expression for an over-made-up woman. A "tort" is a lawsuit for harms that are not either criminal or based on a contract, such as causing damage.
* "{{Telekinesis}}" (the ability to move things with ones mind") versus "{{Telepathy}}" (the ability to read minds or communicate directly through thoughts.) These often get confused, likely because they are both stock PsychicPowers and both start with "tele-".
* "temp" (a short-term employee) for "tamp" (to pack or press a powder into a solid mass, a step in loading black powder weapons like Civil War-era rifles and cannon).
** "Tamper" means "something which tamps" (see above) or "to interfere with". The tamper of an atomic bomb (as mentioned in Creator/RobertAHeinlein's novel ''Literature/StarshipTroopers'', for instance) helps it to explode; it doesn't hinder it.
*** And neither meaning of "tamper" should be confused with "temper" (a bad mood, a measure of how easily someone gets aggravated, or a verb meaning "to mitigate" or "harden by repeated heating and cooling").
* "tenet" (rule or item of belief) vs. "tenant" (someone who rents from you) vs. Creator/DavidTennant.
** Similarly, "tennis" vs. "tenets." An JustForFun/{{egregious}} mistake is to write about the "tennis of my religion".
*** Col. Potter [[{{Series/MASH}} didn't know tennis was a religion.]]
** To mistake them is to [[Franchise/TheElderScrolls invoke the wrath of Sithis]].
* "test their metal". Appears as an eggcorn of "test their mettle" (i.e., put their abilities to the test).
* "that" vs. "which". Generally, "which" is simply providing more information about something whereas "that" distinguishes it from a group of others like it. If you were asked to fetch 'my phone, which has a blue case' then that information just helps you recognise it, but if you were asked to fetch 'my phone that has a blue case' then that would imply the speaker has other phones in a variety of cases, and they particularly want the blue one.
* "then" (an adverb designating a time relative to the speaker) vs. "than" (a comparative). "Better dead than Red" is a sentiment from the 1950s and 1960s indicating a political preference; "Better dead then Red" indicates the order in which you'd like to be ''both''. If you pull a twofer and use "then" in conjunction with "different" (see above) then prepare for the [[{{Series/Firefly}} special hell]].
* "there" (indicating a location or direction) vs. "their" (showing ownership by a group of people) vs. "they're" (contraction of "they are"). Absurdly common, especially among non-native English speakers (who can generally be forgiven).
** Also, as with the other "ie/ei" pairs elsewhere on the page, it's ''[=thEIr=]'', not ''[=thIEr=]''. ''ComicStrip/{{BC}}'' made fun of this one thirty-plus years ago. It's time to start getting it right.
* "Tough" , "though", "thought", "through", "thorough", "trough". It's tough to be thorough when writing through the night, though. They didn't make those easy.
** In sequence: [[Film/BackToTheFuturePartIII Mad Dog Tannen]] was a ''tough'' guy. [=McFly=] wasn't, ''though''. Tannen ''thought'' this would be easy, but he couldn't shoot ''through'' [=McFly=]'s improvised armor. [=McFly=] was ''thorough'' in beating Tannen, who ended in a ''trough''. (Okay, it was a cart of manure, but it's always a trough in westerns).
* "Though" is never to be spelled as "thou", which is a completely different word in meaning and in pronunciation. Specifically, "thou" is an archaic second-person singular pronoun, so the two words aren't even of the same part of speech.
* "Till" meaning the same as "until" is a legitimate word, not a contraction. Spelling it '''till'' is considered incorrect.
** "Til" or "'til" (as in until) is also acceptable. "Until" is still recommended for the beginnings of sentences.
* "Times" is not a verb (as in "Times his HitPoints by 10). The correct word is ''multiply''
* Nothing drives a high school teacher insane faster than 18-year-olds who cannot distinguish between "two", "to", and "too".
** "Two" is a number; "I own two computers."
** "To" is a preposition; "I'm going to the store."
** "Too" is a comparison; "This page has too many examples."
* "Toe-headed" (bizarrely mutated) for "tow-headed" (tousled- and/or blond-haired). This was spotted in Issue 30 of the ''Weird NJ'' Magazine, so it's not just fan writers who commit eggcornery.
* "tomb" (a burial site) vs. "tome" (a large book).
* "tongue and cheek" as an eggcorn for "tongue-in-cheek", regarding a type of humor or humorous delivery.
** Also: "tongue", not "tounge".
* "Torturous" (very painful) vs "Tortuous" (twisty) vs "torturess" (A female torturer, presumably, though usually just a misspelling.)
* "towing the line" vs. "toeing the line"—the "line" here isn't a rope that can be pulled, it's a mark on the ground that you're stepping as closely to as possible. Think of Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam—"I dare you to step over ''this'' line." Sam refuses to toe the line, and ultimately gets in trouble.
* "track" (a path or route, or a verb meaning "to follow") vs. "tract" (a region of land, or political literature). You can't have [[Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail large tracks of land]], unless you own a bunch of hiking trails and none of the land between them.
* "trammel" (an impediment or restriction) vs. "trample" (to stomp on or grind underfoot).
* "trooper" is a soldier in an army. "Troper" is what we call ourselves on Wiki/ThisVeryWiki. This one is likely the fault of an overzealous spellchecker.
* "Tudor" (Henry VIII's family, or a style of architecture) vs. "tutor" (a teacher).
* "turn into" (transform into) vs. "turn in to" (hand something over to someone). Cinderella's fairy godmother turns Cinderella's rags into a ballgown; a criminal turns themselves in to the police. If you say someone turned a form into a person, you'd better be talking about a ''Literature/HarryPotter'' fanfic set in advanced inanimate-to-animate Transfiguration class or someone with extraordinary origami skills.
* "ubiquitous" vs. "exclusive". If you are saying that something is ubiquitous to a given area you are saying it can be found ''everywhere'' in that area; if you say it is "exclusive" to that area, you are saying it can be found ''only'' in that area.
* "unique" means one of a kind and is an absolute adjective, i.e. you can't be "more unique" any more than you can be "more dead". You ''could'' say something is "almost unique" if there were only two of it in existence, but this is hardly ever used.
* "undertake" (v., to begin something) vs. "undertaker" (n., someone who prepares dead bodies for burial). The author probably meant the former, unless the story is a murder mystery or involves funeral preparations.
** The opposite mistake crops up occasionally; a few ''Manga/BlackButler'' fanfics refer to the Undertaker as the "Undertake".
* "unmarred" ("not marred", "to mar" meaning "to damage") vs. "unmarried" ("not married").
* An unstable (adj.) instability (n.) destabilizes (v.).
* "upmost" (at the tippy-top) for "utmost" (greatest, most extreme).

* "H[[subscript:2]]O" (the chemical formula for water)—the final "O" is an uppercase letter, not a number (except in ''Series/LookAroundYou'', but [[ArtisticLicenseChemistry Elements Do Not Work That Way]]). The same goes for [[Franchise/StarWars C-3PO]].
** And O[[subscript:2]], and N[[subscript:2]]O. (Protip: On Wiki/ThisVeryWiki it's [=[[subscript:blah]]=] for subscript, and [=[[superscript:blah]]=] for superscript.
** The fissile isotope of uranium is [[superscript:235]]U, not U235 (nor U[[subscript:235]]). However even scientists get this wrong all the time. Again, the lack of availability of superscript is an issue here, as well as the usual way of pronouncing it (which goes roughly "U-235"—incidentally, the most acceptable way to write it in the absence of superscript).
* "Hail" (as a noun, frozen rain; as a verb, to come from somewhere, to call to someone or to praise someone) vs. "hale" (as an adjective, strong and healthy; as a verb, to drag someone). A ''hale'' criminal may be ''haled'' into court in the town he ''hails'' from, but he won't expect to be ''hailed'' when he arrives (though it may well be ''hailing'').
* "hand and hand", an eggcorn for the phrase "hand in hand" (which means "in close association")
* "hanger" (that thing you put your clothes on) for "hangar" (where you keep your zeppelins, planes, and helicopters)
* "hansom" (a horse-drawn taxi) for "handsome" (good looking)
* The genitive of the masculine pronoun is "his". Not "he's". The latter (as a genitive, rather than as a contraction of "he is") is only found in certain dialects, yet it is not uncommon to see people writing "he's" in a non-dialect context as if they think that's really what the word is.
* "heal" (get better) for "heel" (back bottom of your foot)
* "Here, here!" for "Hear, hear!" an eggcorn found in the first paragraph of [[http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3413940 this article]] in ''ESPN The Magazine'', which supposedly employs editors. Enjoy the extra "i" in signify and the erroneous apostrophe in "Awards" at no extra cost!
* "heroin" (a drug) for "heroine" (a female protagonist), seen a lot in FanFiction summaries.
** [[http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/bulger.html An article on BreakTheChain.org]] makes the opposite mistake.
* "hey-stack" (a pile of shouted greetings) for "haystack" (a pile of hay), a misspelling that appeared right here on the Wiki, on JustForFun/TropesExaminedByTheMythBusters.
* "high and dry" (disconnected, left out of the loop) and "home and dry" (safe, or in a sense of conclusion) get mixed up sometimes.
* "high jack" (an elevated device for raising cars) for "hijack" (to take over something). Then there's "Hi, Jack!", which is what you say when meeting someone named Jack.
* "Hysterical" (losing control of one's emotions) vs "hilarious" (very funny). Comedians are sometimes described as hysterical, which would only make sense if said comedians are having some kind of mental breakdown.
* "hole" (a gap, pit or aperture) vs. "whole" (all of something). There was graffiti referring to someone as an "arsewhole", leaving the viewer to wonder whether being the entirety of someone's backside was worse than simply being its associated orifice.
* "hologram" for any type of stereogram. A hologram is specifically the kind of stereogram which records and replays the wavefront emitted by the object; other types of stereogram, which use two (or sometimes more) separate (2D) images to create the 3D effect, are most decidedly '''not''' holograms. An example is the 3-disc Special Collectors' Edition of Film/{{AVATAR}} sold at Tesco (UK) stores, which includes a pack of four so-called "hologram" art cards which are actually parallax stereograms.
* And while we're on the subject; "holograph" for "hologram". A holograph is a document entirely written by the person who signed it.
* "holy" (sacred) vs. "wholly" (completely, absolutely). Kipling punningly used both versions—correctly—in one of his poems: "Holy People, however it runs, Endeth in Wholly Slave." Similarly, the Discordians have "To diverse gods/Do mortals bow:/Holy cow/And Wholly Chao."
* "hollowed" (having its interior scooped out) vs. "hallowed" (holy, revered, honored). Oh, and "[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows Deathly Hollows]]"? They're holes that will kill you. The reverse also applies—it's not "Godric's Hallow" unless the entire town has been consecrated.
** And it's [[Franchise/KingdomHearts ''Hollow'' Bastion]], not ''Hallow'' Bastion (seen far too many times in various places). It means that the place is empty (well, aside from all the Heartless), not that it's sacred.
* ''Homo sapiens'' is not a plural, it's the official name for Earth's dominant clothed primate species. It means "wise man". So referring to yourself or anyone else as a "homo sapien" is incorrect.
* "horde" (a mob) vs. "hoard" (a large cache of treasure, or to collect and preserve something obsessively)
* "hostler" (a person employed to look after the horses at an inn) and "holster" (an apparatus for carrying a gun)
* "hungry" (possessed of the urge to eat) vs. "Hungary" (a country)
* "hung" (the act of having put something up on a wall) vs. "hanged" (the act of dangling a person by the neck until dead, often used as a form of execution). Crops up in ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'': "Your father was not a tapestry, dear."
** Though it ''is'' is correct to say (for example) [[LiteralCliffhanger "He hung from the edge of the cliff by his fingers"]]
* "hypercritical" (extremely critical) vs. "hypocritical" (to object to others doing something you yourself do).
* "hypocritical" vs. "hypocratical" (not a word, but could possibly be a mangled form of "Hippocratic", i.e. the oath doctors take).
** HypocriticalHumour is hypocrisy-related comedy. Hippocratical humour, if it meant anything, would be jokes related to the medical profession.
* "hypocritical" vs. "hypothetical" (based on a conjecture). Never, ever talk or write about a "hypocritical situation" when you mean a ''hypothetical'' one. And goodness knows what Hypothetical Humour would be. A comical hypothesis, or a discussion on what jokes would be suitable in a certain setting, perhaps?
* A "hypothetical" question is one where you are presenting false (or supposedly false) information, and you are asking someone what if this false information were true. A "rhetorical" question is one where you do not expect an actual answer. Examples: "What would you do if X were true?" is a hypothetical question. "You aren't really going to wear that, are you?" is a rhetorical question.
* "-idge" for "-age"—beveridge, leveridge, adidge (or just ''adige'') and so on.
* "I.e." does not mean "in example" (which ''should'' be obvious, as that isn't even a phrase; the English is "for example"). It is short for Latin ''id est'', translated as "that is." This is used for clarification of a previous phrasing, i.e., to restate something in terms easier to understand. If you want to give an example then use "e.g." (''exempli gratia'', translated as "for the sake of example").
** Also, both of them get a period after each letter, and usually a comma after the second period: "i.e." and "e.g.", not "ie.", "i.e", "eg.", or "e.g".
* "illicit" (illegal, immoral or otherwise under-the-counter) for "elicit" (encourage or motivate)
* "illusion" (seeing something [that is actually there] wrongly) vs. "hallucination" ("seeing" something that isn't there). Creator/GeorgeOrwell got this one wrong in his essay on seaside postcards.
* "immigrate" (moving ''into'' a location) and "emigrate" (moving ''out of'' a location). Same with derived forms like immigration/emigration, immigrant/emigrant, etc.
* "imminently" (in a manner that is about to happen) vs. "eminently" (usually meaning "extraordinarily good for" or "better than most at") vs. "immanently" (existing within, inherent).
* "impetuous" (having low impulse control) for "impetus" (inspiration or motive for doing something)
* "improving" (progressively getting better) vs. "improvising" (coming up with ideas and plans on the spur of the moment). Although this one smells of a spellchecker "correction".
* "incest" ([[IncestIsRelative sleeping with your relatives]]) vs. "insect" (a small invertebrate). These two should ''never'' be confused. ''Ever.''
* "incongruent" (not congruent) for "incongruous" (standing out; lacking harmony with [figurative]). To be fair, some dictionaries list "incongruent" as a word meaning "incongruous".
* "in fact" is, in fact, two words.
* "infinitesimal" (so little as to be almost non-existent) for "infinite" (absolutely limitless).
** "Infinite" itself is misused. Although Georg Cantor showed that one number ''can'' be more infinite than another (for example, the number of complex numbers vs. the number of integers), a number cannot be "almost infinite"—it either is or isn't.
* "in a tether" (within a rope tied to something), an eggcorn for "in a dither" (seized by a whirlwind of emotion).
* "inciteful" (provocative, troublemaking) for "insightful" (perceptive, understanding)—probably an eggcorn and extremely common.
* "inequity" (lack of fairness or justice) vs. "iniquity" (something sinful or wicked). Inequity may be iniquity, and iniquity may involve inequity, but they're not the same word.
* "infer" as a synonym for "imply". When something is implied, it is suggested without being explicitly stated. To infer is to conclude or pick something up that has not been explicitly stated. From the way he repeatedly implied that she enjoyed murdering puppies, I inferred his dislike for her.
** If you're not sure you're using these two correctly, replace "implied" with "hinted" and "inferred" with "gathered" and see whether the sentence still makes sense.
* "inforce" for "enforce". Enforcing is the act of making sure a certain thing or policy is used or adhered to, possibly quite strongly. Inforcing is not a word.
* "intact" means something is in one piece. "In tact" is not standard English, but could be a synonym for "tactfully". And then there's the just plain wrong "in tacked", which if it meant anything might mean something tacked to a wall.
* "intension" (a term used mainly in linguistics and philosophy, understood by people in those fields and virtually no one else) vs. "intention" (something you intend to do). The first word is so rare that if it appears at all it's almost certainly a typo for the second word.
* "inter-" (between) for "intra-" (within).
* "interrupt" (break into the middle of) for "interpret" (translate, render meaningful). This has the look of a spellchecker "fix" for a particularly bad typo.
* "into" vs. "in to". This is a very complicated subject, but generally speaking "into" is a preposition that tells ''where'' someone or something is.
** An easy way to tell whether you want "into" or "in to": pause between "in" and "to". If it sounds right, use "in to". If not, use "into".
* "inveigh" (to protest against) vs "inveigle" (to manipulate or persuade.)
* "isle" (a small, isolated outcrop of land in the middle of a body of water) vs. "aisle" (a passage between two rows of objects) vs. "I'll" (contraction of "I shall/will").
* "it's" (short form of "it is") for "its" (something belonging to it).
** Pronouns don't use apostrophes for possessives, but rather special forms (he/his, she/hers, me/mine, you/yours, they/theirs). "It" is a pronoun, and "its" is the special possessive form. ("One" is the sole exception; its possessive, "one's", does have the apostrophe.)
* For that matter, "it's" for "is". This one gives Spanish speakers a ''lot'' of trouble (the Spanish word "es" means both "it's" and "is").
* "Jack-o-Lantern" (a type of lantern carved from a pumpkin) vs "Jackal Lantern" (a lamp used to scare off wild dogs, presumably.) Thankfully not a very common mistake, although [[https://www.reddit.com/r/BoneAppleTea/search?q=jackal%20lantern&restrict_sr=1 this site lists a couple instances.]]
* "just desserts" instead of "just deserts"; the term "desert(s)" in this meaning ([[http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/desert Etymology 1 here]]) is otherwise little-used outside ethical philosophy and the theory of criminal law.
* "Kaleidoscope" (a tube that lets you see pretty shapes) vs "collidoscope" (a device that lets you see collisions, presumably.)
* "kerb" (noun) is the edging of a footpath or pavement; "curb" (noun) is a horse's bit that incorporates a chain or strap, or more broadly a check or restraint. One cannot kick something to the curb (at least, not without injuring a perfectly innocent horse). One can only kick it to the kerb.
** ...At least, not under the Queen's English. In American usage, "curb" has replaced "kerb" entirely, hence CurbStompBattle.
* "kernel" is a small hail, nugget or core of operating system, "kernal" is a no-word and "colonel" is a military rank.
* "Klu Klux Klan" (wrong) vs "Ku Klux Klan" (not wrong). This is a very common mistake, likely because the right way is hard to pronounce and it seems odd that the first word lacks an L when the other two have it.
* The [=YouTube=] automatic English subtitle generator often makes mistakes, but one of the most amusing is "koala" for "quoll". Though they are both marsupials, they are very different; a koala is similar to (and often mistaken for) a bear, whilst a quoll is more like a spotted rat.
* "Knave" (a {{Slimeball}} or other untrustworthy person} vs "nave" (the central "aisle" of a church between the rows of pews.)
* "lady" seems an easy word to spell at first, but be careful how many "d"'s you write in it, because "laddy" is a ''man''.
* "lair" (a hiding-place, usually belonging to a villain) vs. "liar" (person who tells lies). Probably caused by typing letters in the wrong order rather than actually mistaking these words for each other.
* "laissez-faire" (a policy of government non-intervention, from the French meaning "allow to do [something]") has been misspelled so many times in so many different ways (the eggcorn "lazy fair" is common) on the official forum for the FourX game ''VideoGame/VictoriaAnEmpireUnderTheSun'' that one member maintains a list of spellings he's seen.
** For those wondering, the pronunciation is roughly "less-ay fair".
* "Lassie" is a girl. "Laddie" is a boy. And, by the way, "Lassie" is not a dog breed - she was a Rough Collie. And a boy.
* "last" (at the end of something) vs. "lost" (something misplaced or someone in unfamiliar surroundings).
* "latter" (the second of two things) is often wrongly used as if it meant "the thing just mentioned". And if there's more than two things, you say "last", just as you can have the ''bigger'' of two things, but the ''biggest'' of more than two.
* Also "latter" vs. "later". Consider the Boer (1899–1902) and Crimean (1853–1856) Wars. The ''latter'' began in the Balkans, but the ''later'' was in South Africa.
* "lactose intolerant" (being allergic to lactose) versus "lack-toast intolerant" (not being able to stand going without toast, presumably) or "lack toast and tolerant" (not having toast and being fine with it?). Possibly eggcorns, though more likely spell-check or text-to-speech mistakes, given how little sense the wrong versions make.
* "lay" versus "lie". In the present tense, "lay" is a transitive verb (except when it's used to mean "have sex with") while "lie" is intransitive, therefore, one speaks of laying something down but of lying down. (Example: He went to lay the cloths on the table. vs. He decided to lie down for a while.) However, while the past tense of "lay" is "laid", the past tense of "lie" is "lay".
* "leach" (verb, to percolate, usually through something) for "leech" (noun, a bloodsucking worm).
* "leak" (a release of something that shouldn't have been) vs. "leek" (a vegetable, [[MemeticMutation sometimes spun]]).
* "leary" (a name, as in Timothy Leary) for "leery" (wary or suspicious).
** Also "leery" vs. "lairy" (drunkenly aggressive).
* "least" (smallest, most insignificant) for "lest" (for fear that/so that one should not)
* "lest" also often gets used as a synonym for "unless," when it actually means almost the opposite.
* Someone is "Lebanese" if he or she comes from Lebanon. Someone is a "lesbian" if she is attracted exclusively to other women.
* "led" (past tense of "to lead") and "lead" (soft, heavy dark grey metal). One park sign in South London says "Dogs must be lead"; presumably, iron dogs are not allowed.
* "lesbian" (sentence case) is a woman who prefers other women; this is a metonym. It is sometimes written as "Lesbian" (title case), but doing so makes it an eponym for a person from the Mediterranean Isle of Lesbos.
* "lei line" (a series of Polynesian flower necklaces) or "lay line" (not sure, but probably NSFW) for "LeyLine" (a natural path of magical or magnetic energy)
* Similar to the "hologram" example above, "lenticular" also suffers abuse in stereoscopy; it originally referred (correctly) to Oliver Wendell Holmes' refinement of the Wheatstone viewer to allow both images to be printed side-by-side on the same card, allowing for easy and cheap mass production (and eliminating alignment problems), but has come to be another term for parallax stereograms, although those direct each image to its proper eye using a grid of lines, not lenses as such.
* "Lesion" (scar tissue) versus "liaison" (a designated contact person) versus "lessen/lesson" (see below). This mistake was made on the Pixar Wiki, with "lesion" being used for "lesson".
* "lesson" (a period of education) vs. "lessen" (reduce in quantity or intensity).
* "let's" (contraction for "let us") vs. "lets" (allows).
* "lightening" (increasing the brightness level or reducing the weight) or "lighting" (sources of light) for "lightning" (bolt from the blue).
* "liquorish", an eggcorn for "licorice".
** Or meaning something which is akin to an alcoholic beverage.
** Note that in Commonwealth English it's spelled "liquorice".
* "Lip singing" for "lip syncing." This one is another eggcorn, as it technically makes sense. Lip syncing involves moving the lips to make it look like a person is singing.
* "literal" (real) vs. "literate" (able to read) vs. "literature" (what you read). Confusing the last two is understandable, especially if a spell-checker is involved, but using the first one to mean either of them makes no sense at all.
* "literally" means something actually happened. "He literally froze" is right (but raises questions on which meaning of "froze" is being used). "His eyes literally stood out on stalks" is wrong, unless you're talking about an alien.
* "loathe" (a verb meaning "feel hatred or disgust for") vs. "loath" (an adjective meaning "reluctant or unwilling"). If you ''loathe'' boats, you'd be ''loath'' to go on a cruise.
* "loop" (a circle or circular motion) for "loupe" (a kind of magnifying glass, used by jewelers) or "loup" (French for "wolf").
* "loose" (not tight, or to release) for "lose" (not win, or to misplace, or to shake off pursuit).
* "Low and behold" for "lo and behold". A simple case of not knowing or remembering the homophone "lo", which means essentially the same thing as "behold".
* "LSD" (lysergic acid diethylamine, a hallucinogen) for "LCD" (liquid crystal display, a type of monitor). No, if you break open a Game Boy, you won't get drugs. Neither is to be confused with "LDS" for the ''Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints'', the largest of the Mormon denominations (or the ''League Division Series'', a round of the UsefulNotes/MajorLeagueBaseball playoffs).
** Unless, like [[Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome Spock]], you took too much LDS in the 1960s.
* "lunge" (leap forward suddenly) vs. "lounge" (lay around comfortably).
* "macaroon" (a cookie of italian origin whose best-known variation in the US is coconut-based and dipped in chocolate, and popular in the southern US) vs. "macaron" (a delicate French sandwich cookie).
* A "maelstrom" is a very powerful whirlpool, one that can (according to ''WesternAnimation/{{The Little Mermaid|1989}}'' or Creator/EdgarAllanPoe) suck entire ships down. "Mealstorm" is not a word, unless a food fight got wildly out of hand.
* "TabletopGame/{{Mahjong}}" for "VideoGame/{{Shanghai}}". Let's get our terms straight; Mahjong is a 19th-century Chinese game for four players, Shanghai is a tile-matching videogame (played with Mahjong tiles, but there the resemblance ends). This can be very frustrating for those seeking to buy a Mahjong game online, as nearly all so-called "Mahjong" games are actually Shanghai, and the error isn't always apparent from the description. (If a boxed game is bought from a store, the box usually has one or more screenshots, and the nature of the game is evident from those.)
* "make due" (force a deadline to expire immediately) for "make do" (improvise with available materials)
* "manic" (wildly energetic) vs. "maniac" (a lunatic). The trope is ManicPixieDreamGirl. A Maniac Pixie Dream Girl would be a [[DeconstructedTrope dark deconstruction]]. However, the phrase "manic laughter" could probably apply to a maniac.
* "manna" (food from Heaven) for "{{mana}}" (the raw energy of magic).
* "manikin" for "mannequin". The former is a very small man or one of those desktop posable models used by artists; the latter is full-sized and used to display clothing. The words have the same Dutch origin, but "mannequin" spent time in France along the way where the meaning changed significnantly.
* "manor" (a house or estate) vs. "manner" (a way of doing something).
** Someone of aristocratic birth is said to be either "to the manner born" (the original phrase from Shakespeare was historically used to mean "raised from birth to a particular way of doing something" but came to mean "of the aristocracy"), or "to the manor born" (a 19th century coinage); as such people often live in manors, this confusion was punningly referenced by BBC sitcom ''Series/ToTheManorBorn''.
* "mantel" (an ornamental structure above and around a fireplace) vs. "mantle" (something that covers, envelops or conceals; a long, sleeveless cloak; a layer of earth between crust and core; or the glowing element of a gas lamp). Of course, all five of these meanings come from the idea of "enclosure" (a fireplace's mantel surrounds it, a planet's mantle surrounds the core, a gas mantle surrounds the flame...).
* "mash potatoes" (potatoes made from a slurry of barley malt and water), a misspelling of "mashed potatoes" (potatoes that are, well, mashed). Linguistic note: In UsefulNotes/BritishEnglish, "mash" is acceptable as an abbreviation of "mashed potatoes", e.g. "bangers and mash".
* "material arts" for "martial arts". The former might describe wood carving or pottery but ''not'' the art of fighting! Seen too many times in German ''Ranma'' fan-fiction.
** See also: "Marital arts." In common parlance, anything described as ''marital'' (marital aid, marital bed, marital chambers, etc.) all refer to [[SexTropes one thing]]. Specifically, keeping your spouse happy. In bed. Using your penis.
*** This was played with in one Literature/{{Discworld}} novel, in which the newlywed (and painfully shy) King of Lancre accidentally got a ''martial'' arts book instead of the ''marital'' arts book he'd intended to order. Still, it made the guy who was the sole member of the Lancrean Army happy...
** Likewise, not ''marshal arts''—they are skills for organizing and leading things and events.
** In ''German'' fanfic? In German one would say Kampfkunst or Kampfsport.
* "maroon" (to be left alone in a dangerous situation, originally on an island) and "moron" (someone of whom you have a low opinion)
** This one can often be laid at the feet of WesternAnimation/BugsBunny, because of his penchant for the odd malaprop. ("What a maroon!")
*** Also: [[http://lwtc247.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/get-a-brain-morans.jpg "morans"]].
*** "Maroon" is also term referring to runaway slaves and ethnic groups that originated with runaway slaves[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maroon_(people)]], in addition to a color. Eastern Kentucky University had to change the name of its sports team from "The Maroons" (maroon is one of the school colors) to "The Colonels" as a direct result of this.
* "marquis" (a title of nobility of hereditary rank) and "marquee" (an outdoor covering or sign on such a covering; an outdoor sign illuminated by flashing lights; by extension a flashing border [as in computer graphics]) The two words share a similar French derivation; the noble title is spelled as in French while the sign/border is spelled phonetically. Pronunciation is the same.
** There was here an example of a sports writer who used "marquis" when apparently intending "marquee"—but he used it as an adjective implying a team was especially notable, i.e. (probably) "worthy of being billed on a marquee". It's not clear whether this adjectival form is grammatically correct. "Marque" with a single 'e' is a designation and pronounced the same as "mark".
* "Marshal" is the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_Marshal military]] / [[http://www.usmarshals.gov/ law enforcement]] title. "Marshall" is a proper name.
** And please, karate and kung fu are not "marshal arts," even if it's pronounced the same.
* It's "Martial Law" when the military is put in place of civil government; Marshal Law is a Pat Mills comic book character.
* "Mastermind" (a really smart person) Despite this word techinically being a compliment, it's almost always used in a negative light for some reason (such as "The mastermind behind the terrorist attack"). While such usage isn't technically wrong, the word is in reality a lot more versatile than that.
* "may" for "might." This is complicated because the two genuinely are interchangeable in many circumstances. But if you want to suggest something ''could'' have happened in the past, but ''didn't'', then it's "might" every time. Thus "If only the ambulance had arrived sooner, the man might have survived," is correct, and tells us the man died, whereas "If only the ambulance had arrived sooner, the man may have survived," is impossible, as it suggests there is somehow still doubt as to whether he survived or not.
** This, of course, is assuming that there's a selective form of zombification in the work in question, in which case "may" could possibly be correct. It'd still be weird even in this case, though.
* "may be" for "maybe". Both definitions are close and sound the same, the former is a verb phrase meaning "might be" or "could be" and the latter is an adverb meaning "perhaps" or "possibly." "Maybe I will go out tonight," and "I may be going out tonight" are examples of their correct usages.
* ''Mediaeval'' / ''mediæval'' and ''medieval'' are acceptable spellings of the word used to describe something from the Middle Ages. It isn't, however, spelt ''VideoGame/{{medievil}}''. That would be [[IncrediblyLamePun something nasty from the Middle Ages]].
* Similar to the "persons" vs "people" example, both "mediums" and "media" are considered real words. For whatever reason, "mediums" is the preferred term for "more than one person with PsychicPowers" and "media" is the preferred word for "more than one art form".
* "Menstruation" (a woman's monthly bleeding) for "ministrations" (administration). Shows up in many a bad {{Lemon}}.
* "Micheal" for "Michael." The name in English is always "Michael"; the "-el" bit at the end is one of Hebrew circumlocutions around the Name of God (the whole name means "Who is like God?"). There is a limited circumstance in which "Micheal" is ''almost'' correct: the Irish-language form of the name is ''Micheál'' (note the accent), approximately pronounced "Mi-khawl".
** But note that the Renaissance artist Michelangelo is not "Michaelangelo" even if pronunciation suggests the latter.
* "mid-air" vs. "midair". A subtle (and really picky) difference between American and British English that gets misused by BOTH communities. "Mid-air" is the American version and is used to describe a point or region in the air. "Midair" is the British version that describes some point above ground level in the air.
* "middle ages" (500 AD through 1500 AD in Europe) for "middle age" (36 through 55 years in people)
* "mien" as a synonym for "face". "Mien" means someone's bearing, their countenance, the general look of them. [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings Aragorn]] might have a noble mien, but he'll certainly never have a smile on his mien. (As if to confuse matters, the actual Mandarin Chinese word for "face" is "miàn".)
* "Mindsight" for "mindset." This is another perfect eggcorn.
* "Minister" (a person who has a particular position within certain organisations) and "minster" (a type of church often associated with Northern England). "Minstrel" is a musician, "ministerialis" is a servant knight.
* "Minus" (and likewise "times") as a verb. If you want to know what six less than seven is, you ''subtract''. The expression would be read "seven minus six". By analogy, saying "times six by seven" is like saying "divided by six by seven", which makes no sense.
** Similarly, there is some debate between those who claim that referring to a subtraction operation such as 12-7 as a "sum" is incorrect and should be called a "difference," and those who argue that since subtraction is just the addition of a negative number to some other number, 12-7 is still a sum. (However, referring to a multiplication or division problem as a "sum", although common, is wrong; the correct terms are "product" and "quotient" respectively.)
* "Minute" vs. "minuet". One's a measure of time, the other's a dance. If you say something is only five ''minuets'' from somewhere, you're saying a person can get there in the time it takes to dance five minuets, which would be considerably longer than five ''minutes''.
** Will Kemp, a colleague of Shakespeare's, danced the jig from London to Norwich. Unless you're talking about a party or someone who imitated him, the word you want is ''minute''.
* "misanthropy" is the disdain of mankind—that is, the human race. "misandry" is the disdain of men—that is, the male sex.
* "mischievous" (playfully annoying) is properly pronounced as "MISS-chev-us" i.e 3 syllables. Many people mispronounce it "miss-CHEE-VEE-us", likely due to words like "devious", or just misreading the end. It doesn't help that people often spell it ending in "-vious", the misspelling matching the misprononciation.
* "miss" (opposite of "hit", or a title for an unmarried woman) for "mis-" (prefix meaning "wrongly").
* "mitten" (glove without separate fingers) vs. "midden" (garbage heap).
** For added confusion, either of these could also be mixed up with "maiden" (mostly obsolete term for a young woman).
* "Mixtake" for "mistake". Could be a typo, since "s" and "x" are pretty close together on most keyboards.
** Could also be a typo for "mixtape".
* "moral" (adhering to strict principles of right and wrong) vs. "morale" (confidence, spirit, willingness to fight) vs. "morel" (a type of mushroom) vs. "mortal" (someone who will eventually die).
** None of which should be confused with "molar" (a kind of tooth, or the term for something dealing in terms of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mole_(unit) moles]]), or "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moler Moler]]" (an Australian band).
** Also, many a prominent person has talked about low "morality" when they meant low "morale". (They probably didn't mean low "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molar_concentration molarity]]" or "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molality molality]]", though.)
** The correct phrase is "moral support", even though "morale support" would seem to make more sense in context.
* "Moray" (a type of eel) vs. "more" (pronounced "mor-ay"; the customs and traditions of a certain society). Eels aren't noted for their traditions, so if you see someone talking about a society's "morays" (and it's not a society where fishing is common), they probably mean the latter. "Moraine" is a kind of till.
* "moron" (an idiot) vs. "Mormon" (follower of Joseph Smith). While some people consider those who follow religions to be morons, mixing these two up may elicit offended complaints ([[CrossesTheLineTwice or helpless laughter]]).
* "Miss" vs. "Mrs." vs. "Ms.": "Miss" refers specifically to an unmarried woman, and "Mrs." refers specifically to a married one. If you're writing something and want to leave a character's marital status ambiguous (or just don't feel like setting it in canon), you can use "Ms." which is equally applicable to both. Also applies to writing messages in real life.
* "X, much less Y"—to correctly use this phrase, X must be smaller, more reasonable, or otherwise more common than Y; the two are contrasted to show that Y is unlikely, forbidden, or at least a very bad idea, compared to X which is usually much safer or more reasonable but wouldn't be in the given context. For example:
** "I wouldn't trust him to watch my purse, much less put him in charge of making sure the thieves don't get the Mona Lisa".
** "The doctor says I'm not allowed to drink a beer, much less split a bottle of vodka with you."
** Also, try not to confuse the above with "more or less", which is a term of approximation. Example:
*** "How much is this going to cost?" "Twenty thousand, more or less."
* "Murder" when what is meant is "murderer." If you are a so-called "murder" (the appropriate term is "murderee") you're most likely the ''victim'' (i.e., a corpse) and not the one who did the killing.
** Either that or a group of crows. Crows are one of many animals that have a special name for their flock or herd—a murder of crows, a [[Series/NotTheNineOClockNews flange of baboons]], a [[Literature/TheStarOfTheGuardians flock of priests]], etc.
** German people are especially prone to this mistake because murder sounds almost like the German word "Mörder" (meaning murderer). Murder in German is "Mord".
** There's also "marauder" (an invader or plunderer) vs "murderer". Probably a spell check mistake, although marauders do often murder people.
* "murderess" (somewhat uncommon feminine equivalent of "murderer") vs. "murderous" (homicidal). A murderess is murderous, but that's still no reason to mix these two up.
* "muslin" (a fabric) for "Muslim" (a follower of Islam).
** As the caption of the [[https://paulboylan.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/muslin.jpg "Obama: Half-Breed Muslin" image]] says, What's scarier, Obama being half-cloth half-human, or the fact that the person who made this sign still gets to vote?
** Also, it's "Muslim", not "Moslem". It may seem like a harmless spelling variation in English, but "Muslim" and "Moslem" are two distinct worlds in Arabic: with "Muslim" referring to followers of Islam and "Moslem" meaning an unjust, evil person.
* Also, the appropriate usages of "Muslim" and "Islam". Islam is the religion; Muslims are people who follow the religion. As a rule, the term "Islamic" refers to ''things'' that pertain to Islam, while "Muslim" is used when referring to people. Therefore, one refers to Islamic law, Islamic doctrine, Islamic republics, Islamic dress, but to Muslim men and women, Muslim families, Muslim bakers, Muslim doctors, etc.
* "mute" (silent, incapable of speech) for "moot" (academic or irrelevant in American English, and debatable or disputed in British English, but silent in neither).
** Likewise, a topic that is irrelevant to the discussion is a "moot point"; a mime with a sword is a [[IncrediblyLamePun "mute point"]]; and [[Webcomic/SluggyFreelance a cow's opinion is a "moo point".]]
* "mystic" (arcane, having to do with magic) vs. "mystique" (mysterious allure)
* "naval" (having to do with a navy) for "navel" (belly button). A "navel cruiser" is too small to help anyone, and a "naval piercing" is infrequent these days, though supposedly it has an [[RammingAlwaysWorks excellent success rate]].
** Wonder what they teach in the Navel Academy?
** Likewise, "navel gazing" (omphaloskepsis) is a form of Eastern Christian meditation. "Naval gazing" is the maritime version of trainspotting.
** By the way, they're probably navel oranges you saw in the store. All the naval oranges are out at sea fighting off scurvy.
* "Nameless" (not having a name) is not the same as "unnamed" (having a name that is currently undisclosed).
* "Naturist" and "Naturalist" are two different things. The latter studies things in a natural state, the former likes ''being'' in a natural (i.e. unclothed, i.e. ''naked'') state.
* "nauseous" (causing nausea) for "nauseated" (experiencing nausea). "I feel nauseous," really means, "I'm in a mood to make people sick." Hardly anyone gets this right: to the point it may be a language shift in progress. It is used properly in the song "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" ("You ''nauseate'' me, Mr. Grinch, with a ''nauseous'' super-nauss.")
** A good way to remember it: just as poisonous things make people poisoned, nauseous things make them nauseated.
* "Neigh" (the sound a horse makes) vs. "nigh" (virtually, or approaching) vs. "nay" (objecting to something).
* If you ever chance to write about Niger, whether it be the country in Africa or the civil rights activist Niger Innis, '''DO NOT DOUBLE THE "G"!''' [[https://us-east-1.tchyn.io/snopes-production/uploads/images/inboxer/graphics/niger2.jpg MSNBC made this very mistake a few years ago.]]
* Women wear nightgowns, men wear nightshirts.
** Nowadays, at least. Remember Wee Willy Winkie?
** Both can wear dressing gowns, however.
* "notorious" (famous for something bad) vs. "nutritious" (full of nutrients). Probably a spellchecker mistake. The context was "a pair of nutritious villains" -- perhaps the villains were big fans of healthy food, or [[ImAHumanitarian full of nutritional value themselves.]]
* "now and days" for "nowadays" (eggcorn).
* "nudity" (the state of wearing no clothes) vs. "nudism" (a philosophical movement and lifestyle associated with that).
* "nutters" (mad people, plural noun) for "nuts" (mad, adjective)—very common in Literature/HarryPotter fandom thanks to a frequently misinterpreted throwaway line in one of the books. However, "nuts" can also be a plural noun (for people as well as fruit kernels), it's just that "nutters" is never an adjective.

* Just about [[http://www.emaildiscussions.com/showthread.php?t=21197 the worst thread hijacking on the EmailDiscussions forum]] was when one poster posted a thread on '''cases''' (of lettering) and one of the less-intelligent posters mistook the thread topic to be '''classes''' (of the socio-political kind, hence banned from discussion on EMD). She subsequently got banned for a far more serious breach of the rules, and the thread was locked and a "clean" copy posted in its place; but how she managed to mistake the two words, which are not only totally dissimilar in meaning but aren't even ''spelled'' all that similarly, is a mystery to this day.
** Maybe she thought it was "castes" (rigidly defined social strata) instead of "cases."
* "cash" (money) for "cache" (a stash, possibly of cash).
* Or "cache" for "cachet" (a distinctive quality).
* "casual" (informal, unconcerned etc.) vs. "causal" (being or involving a cause)
** A common extension is "causality" (the cause-effect relationship) vs. "casualty" (someone who got killed in some event, usually). In UsefulNotes/BritishEnglish, "casualty" is also another name for "A&E" (the accident and emergency department of a hospital); for example, "Casualty" was the title of a [[Creator/TheBBC BBC]] soap opera about an A&E.
* "cater" (to provide people with food) for "kilter" (balance or a nominal status, usually noted when something is ''off kilter'' or ''out of kilter''), an eggcorn.
* "cathouse" (brothel) for "cattery" (place containing cats)
* "cavalry" (horse-mounted soldiers) for "Calvary" (place where the Romans supposedly stuck [[UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} some Jewish carpenter]] up on a stick) and vice versa. WesternAnimation/BugsBunny mixes them up all the time.
** That's pretty standard in the American Southern dialect. This is particularly amusing, considering how enthusiastic Southerners stereotypically are about that Jewish carpenter and how they fielded some of the most impressive mounted units in UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar. You'd think they'd be more careful about that particular one.
** In the rebooted ''Battlestar Galactica'', Starbuck does this at least once when she says, "Here comes the Calvary," which is especially odd when you consider that Caprica shouldn't have had a history with Jesus in it.
* In discussing wars and their endings, know your terms.
** A "cease-fire", also known as a "truce", is a temporary agreement to stop fighting. It can be as simple as two opposing regiments agreeing to stop fighting for a few hours to gather their wounded.
** An "armistice" as a formal agreement between the two sides to end fighting in all theaters of operation. It does not mean the war is over, but is often a prelude to permanent peace negotiations.
** A "peace treaty" is a final end to the war.
** An "alliance" is an agreement for two or more countries to work together for some purpose, generally to assist one another in time of conflict.
** Finally, some examples. In World War I, a truce was observed for Christmas of 1914; however, fighting resumed the next day. An armistice went into effect on November 11, 1918. The treaty of Versailles, ending the war, was signed on June 28, 1919 and became effective on January 10, 1920. In World War II, fighting in Europe ended with an armistice on May 7, 1945. The peace treaty with Germany formally ending the war was signed on September 12, 1990 (no, this isn't a typo: it had to wait until East and West Germany were reunified) and went into effect on March 15, 1991. Following the treaty, Germany was formally allied with the U.S., France, Great Britain, and the other NATO members; it was at peace with, but not allied with, the Soviet Union.
* "chaff" (metallic debris used as a countermeasure for radar) vs. "chafe" (literally, to rub the skin raw, but also used metaphorically to indicate impatience or annoyance with some kind of obstruction or restriction).
** "Chaff" originally meant the seed coverings from grain, which was removed by threshing (hitting it with a stick and throwing it in the air). The radar countermeasure was named "window" and "Düppel" by the Brits and Germans who independently invented it, but its resemblance to the organic material (especially the way it falls and flutters through the air) took over as the TropeNamer.
*** And getting this kind of chaff in your clothes (surprisingly easy to do) will make them chafe for the rest of the day.
* "chaise longue" (a sort of chair) is misspelled in a variety of ways. "Chaise lounge" is the most common one, and somewhat understandable since "lounge" is an English word while "longue" isn't. The most amusing misspelling is "chase lounge", which is not only an oxymoron (if you're being chased, you're not lounging around) but conjures up some interesting images.
** It would have been much simpler if we simply used the English translation of the French and called it a "long chair", but alas it's too late for that.
** There's always the "chaste longue".
* "chalked full" for "chock full" (Eggcorn).
** Conversely, "chock up" for "chalk up".
* For what ever reason "chartreuse" and "puce" are often confused. To wit, chartreuse is a yellow-green color and puce is a pinkish purple color.
* "check" for "cheek".
* Except in the works of Creator/MadeleineLEngle, where ItMakesSenseInContext, the word "cherubim" is plural. The singular is "cherub".
* While "Childish" and "Childlike" both mean "resembling a child", the connotations they have are quite distinct. Namely, childish usually means implies, immature, naive, self-centered etc, while childlike implies cute,innocent, guileless etc (they are roughly equivalent to the {{Manchild}} vs OneOfTheKids tropes, respectively). People often incorrectly treat them as synonymous.
* "chord" (notes played together; also, a line segment with both endpoints on a circle) for "cord" (string or wire).
** Musicians and linguists would rather you referred to "vocal cords" than "vocal chords", because they are cords of tissue that can only play one note at a time. Linguists are less likely to be fussy about it because they know that most use of a language is nothing but a lot of well-established mistakes in the use of an older one.
*** Anatomists may refer to (vocal and) spinal cords or chords; the former is more common but the latter is acceptable. The phylum Chordata consists of those animals (the "chordates") that at some point in their life have a structure (the "notochord") which in vertebrates becomes the spinal c(h)ord.
* "Chow" (food or as a verb ,to eat, usually followed by "down"), vs Ciao (Italian for "Hello" or "Goodbye"). Some people spell the latter as the former, likely under the misconception that it's some kind of English slang meaning rather than a proper Italian word that just happens to sound the same.
* A 'Christain' is, presumably, a smudge or mark left behind by a Chri. A 'Christian' is a follower of the teachings of Jesus Christ. Compare 'athiest'.
* "chute" (a slide or duct, as in a laundry chute) misused for "shoot" ("a young growing plant")
** Bamboo chutes are not something you'd eat, then.
** [[http://cardhaus.com/images/db2-en246.jpg Or vice versa.]] Pharaonic Guardian was a dark time for ''Anime/YuGiOh'' fans.
** This error cropped up in ''the official subtitles'' of the ''Stellvia'' [=DVDs=].
*** Most official subs and dubs can't hold a candle to the more popular of fansubs. It's really fansub's ''raison d'etre'', except in cases where official subs don't exist (then, fansubs may be quite crude).
** The subtitles on the official DVD of ''Series/TheITCrowd'' series 4 make the opposite mistake, referring to the "shoot" of an arcade crane game.
** "chute" is actually a false friend for Spanish speakers, as "chute" is the subjunctive conjugation for the verb "chutar" which is actually synonymous to "disparar" (shoot) when the object being shot is a toy ball or [[UsefulNotes/AssociationFootball soccer ball]], and the propeller are the shooter's feet.
** A skydiver will ''never'' [[{{Shibboleth}} refer]] the rescue device he or she abuses as "chute" (short from "parachute"), but as ''canopy'' or ''rig''.
* Regarding '''the CIA''', while not an error per se, it's considered extra swanky in espionage circles to refer to intelligence institutions as proper names (as per ''Coke'', ''Xerox'' or ''Ozymandias''), hence without the leading article, ''the'' as in ''I worked for CIA during the Reagan years before selling out to KGB.'' Lay folk will still call it ''the'' CIA.
** Omitting the article is an Americanism. Just about any British-English speaker will always call it "the CIA".
* "circumflex", "^", is sometimes confused with a "tilde", "~", both diacritical marks and, astonishingly enough, sometimes professional linguists make this mistake.
* "click" vs. "clique"
** Also "clique" vs. "cliche" (which is actually a misspelling of "cliché", though it has become the accepted spelling and spell-checkers recognize the ''correct'' spelling as a misspelled word).
*** Never "click" vs. "cliche", though; it seems to be that the problem is that people remember that despite ''sounding'' like "click", the word they're looking for is spelled very differently, only they have no idea what that spelling ''is''.
* "clinch" vs. "clench"
** Unfortunately, these words are largely synonymous. According to a dictionary:
*** ''clinch'' means to clutch something tightly; to press your teeth together; to pound down the end of a nail into a hook; or to make an argument definitive and final. It can also mean a boxing maneuver.
*** ''clench'' means to pound down the end of a nail; to hold something tightly; to make a fist; or to press your teeth together.
** Tell that to anyone who's ever ''clenched'' a victory (or ''clinched'' their teeth, for that matter)
* "cloths" (pieces of cut fabric) for "clothes" (stuff you wear, made out of pieces of cut fabric)
** Or [[Fanfic/MyImmortal "cloves."]]
*** Itself not to be confused with "Clovis" ([[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clovis_I the first Christian king of the Franks]], [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clovis,_New_Mexico a city in eastern New Mexico]], or [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clovis_culture a prehistoric culture named after said city]]).
** "''... and normal people [[FanFic/HalfLifeFullLifeConsequences close]] because he was in his office lab coat.''"
* "clustered" (gathered in a tightly-packed group) vs. "cloistered" (hidden away from the world)
* "coach" (advise, motivate; or a variety of vehicle, often horse-drawn) vs. "couch" (item of furniture; or adjusting one's choice of words or phrasing for a specific purpose)
* "codecs" (devices or programs for converting analog signals into digital signals and back) vs. "codex" (a book). The Galactic Codex is the EncyclopediaExposita telling players about the ''Franchise/MassEffect'' universe; the Galactic Codecs are possibly involved in its communication system.
** '''CODEC''' is an abbreviation for '''Coder / Decoder''' not unlike '''MODEM'''.
* "collage" (an artform composed of individual pieces of paper assembled into a whole) vs. "college" (where you go after high school)
** Also, "colleague" (as in co-worker).
* "(Eau de) Cologne" is a fragrance meant to be worn, usually one designed for men, named for the city of Köln, Germany. "Colon" is the lower part of the intestine. "Ode colon" would presumably be a song about (or [[{{Gasshole}} from]]) the lower intestine.
** " Colón" (with the acute, so the stress is on the last syllable) is the name of several cities in different Spanish-speaking countries.
* "Complacent" and "complaisant" sound very similar and have the same Latin origin in a verb meaning "to please", but if you are "complacent" you're too pleased with your own work while if you are "complaisant" you're too willing to work to please others. If your spellchecker catches a misspelling in this word, make sure its suggested correction is the right one.
* "Command" and "demand" both mean to order, however command implies the person giving the order is within their rights to do so while demand doesn't e.g "The general commanded his army to attack" vs "The kid demanded his parents give him a new video game"
* "common" as a faux abbreviation for "come on". Come on, people, if you ''must'' abbreviate it, it's "c'mon". "Common" is a whole other word. A common one, in fact.
** [[http://www.monctonhostel.ca/ These people]] are running no ''common'' inn. (although there are common rooms... but that's a whole different use)
* "complex" (consisting of more than one part) vs. "complicated" (consisting of very many parts; sophisticated). This is especially a pitfall in mathematics or computer programming, where "complex" has one very specific meaning; one freeware calculator was claimed to be capable of "complex" calculations (those, involving the square root of -1, where numbers have two parts—a "real" one and an "imaginary" one) but wasn't (obviously the author meant "complicated"), and many of the negative comments on it picked up on this.
* "compliant" (obedient, agreeable) for "complaint" (expression of dissatisfaction)
* "compliment" (speak well of) vs. "complement" (go well with)
** Also "complimentary" (offering praise; also, free) vs. "complementary" (being a counterpart of; completing)
* "compose" (to make up) and "comprise" (to contain). This is a confusing one because not only do they sound similar, their meanings are very close but still distinct. They are in fact roughly inverse to each other: to say that the United Kingdom comprises England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland means the same thing as saying that England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland compose the UK; and therefore the UK ''is composed of'' England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and that England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland ''are comprised by'' (=are contained in) the UK. Get it?
* "compromised" vs "impaired". Both mean rendering something less than functional, but a "compromised" system is merely weakened but may still work, while "impaired" system is kaputt for good.
* "compulsion" (being forced to do something or behave in a certain way) vs. "compunction" (a feeling of guilt). One can rob a bank without ''compunction'' (without regretting it), and one can rob a bank without ''compulsion'' (without being forced to do it). These two should still never be confused.
* "conceded" (surrendered) vs. "conceited" (egotistical).
* "conciseness" (the state of being brief and to the point in your verbiage) for "consciousness" (the state of being aware of the world around you)
* "concur" (agree with) vs. "conquer" (win). You cannot "Divide and Concur".
* "Confection" (a piece of candy, dessert, or other sweet thing) vs "convection" (how heat spreads through a liquid or gas.)
* "confidant" (someone with whom you share secrets; sometimes written with a terminal "e") vs. "confident" (certain of one's ability or course of action)
** Strictly speaking "confidant" is meant to be AlwaysMale and "confidante" is AlwaysFemale (it's one of those weird words with a separate spelling for male and female.) That said, most people just use "confidant" for both nowadays.
* Creator/{{Confucius}}'s name is frequently misspelled (and mispronounced). "Confusius" and "Confucious" are the most common mistakes, but sometimes you'll also see "Confusus" and worst of all "Confusion"(!). That last one is probably the result of a spell-checker's "correction".
* "concave" (curved inwards) vs. "convex" (curved outwards). You can remember this by how a concave object is shaped (more or less) like a cave.
* A word's "connotation" is the secondary implied meaning(s) the word carries, e.g., "pale" and "pallid" mean roughly the same thing, but "pallid" is generally considered to have negative implications (such as the person being sickly). A word's "denotation" is simply its dictionary style definition.
* "conscious" (awake, aware) for "conscience" (one's moral or ethical "guiding voice")
* "conscious" (awake, aware) for "conspicuous" (showy, outstanding)
** "subconscious" for "self-conscious"
* "consul" (a diplomatic envoy or an ancient Roman official) for "console" (a box in which electronic hardware is mounted, or, as a verb, to comfort someone).
* "contemporary" versus "modern". Contemporary means that a person or thing lived or took place at the same time as something else. Modern means that a person or thing lives or has taken place in the present day. For instance, Chaucer is by no means a modern writer, but if we were discussing fourteenth century England, he would be considered a contemporary writer, as he lived during that time.
* "continuous" (adjoining in time) for "contiguous" (adjoining in space). The counties of Kent and of Greater London are not continuous, since the latter is far younger (1922); they are contiguous.
** An alternate sense of use is that continuous objects form an unbroken whole, whereas contiguous objects are perfectly joined at their boundaries without interruption. An unopened orange has a continuous covering of peel, but each slice inside is contiguous with the ones next to them.
* "continuous" vs. "continual". Both have the sense of being uninterrupted, but the former is one unbroken whole while the latter is a frequent series of distinct events. Last thunderstorm had a continuous gale and continual lightning (cf. "amount" vs. "number" above).
* "convient" is ''not'' a synonym for or variant of "convenient". It's just misspelled.
** Nor is convent (type of monastery, generally all-female)
* "coporial" (not a word) or "corpral" (also not a word; most likely an eggcorn) for either "corporal" (an army rank) or "corporeal" (someone or something that has a physical body).
** For that matter, "corporal" and "corporeal" have occasionally been confused for each other. Any work featuring the supernatural will inevitably have a fanfic talking about, for example, "corporal apparitions" -- meaning ghosts that are more solid than most, not the ghosts of dead soldiers.
* "copyleft" (neologism) for "copyright" (permission to copy). Although "copyleft" is fine as an in-joke among programmers (meaning a license that allows derivative works, but only under the same licensing terms as the original), it's only a name and not a substitute for a proper license. Also, don't confuse "copyright" with "copywrite" (create copy, especially advertising copy).
* "coronate" and "coronated" are not words. The words you're looking for are "crown" and "crowned". One is crowned during a coronation ceremony—though only, of course, if one is the King or Queen.
** Also "crowned" for "invested". The recepient of a lesser honour than kingship/queenship is invested (and the ceremony is an investiture); this mistake was made of Mater in a wiki article on ''WesternAnimation/Cars2''.
* "coronet" (a small crown) instead of "cornet" (a musical instrument similar to a trumpet; also, a pastry cone, usually filled with [[strike:whipped cream]] [[Manga/LuckyStar chocolate]]; also, a very junior commissioned officer rank—equal to 2nd Lieutenant—in some cavalry units of the [[UsefulNotes/BritsWithBattleships British Army]]). As neither is a particularly common word, fanfiction writers tend to get this one wrong.
* Space Corps Directive #196156: Any officer caught misspelling "corps" as "core" even though they are pronounced the same will be discharged without trial.
* "costumers" instead of "customers".
** At Halloween, the costumers see an increase in their customers.
* "council" (a group of people, often a governing body of some sort) vs. "counsel" (advice, advise, or a lawyer).
** Therefore, unless you are describing someone who keeps a group of advisors imprisoned in his home, the appropriate phrase is "keeping one's own counsel", not "keeping one's own council".
** Also, "consul", a diplomat, or, in ancient Rome, the highest executive office of the Republic.
** Don't forget "console", a physical device to operate a computer or play video games.
* On a related note, "councilor", a member of a council, vs. "counselor", an advisor, usually legal, or a therapist.
* "could of" as eye dialect for "could have" or "could've"; similarly "would of" and "should of." If you must render it in dialect, "coulda / woulda / shoulda" will get the point across and confuse fewer people.
** Depends on the dialect. Some people do actually say, clearly and distinctly, "could of", and "coulda" would not be an accurate representation.
* "could care less" as a replacement for "couldn't care less". Here the author is writing the exact opposite of what is meant (which may be either a mix-up of one's words, or using SarcasmMode). Saying you "couldn't care less" is analogous to saying that things "couldn't possibly be worse"—in other words, in the former case, you don't care at all, and in the latter case, things are as bad as they can possibly be.
** "Could care less" is technically "correct" in US English. That said, it still makes no sense whatsoever, as Creator/{{David Mitchell|Actor}} [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om7O0MFkmpw explains here]]. (Various rationalisations have been offered, such as that saying "could care less" has an implicit "...but it would take enormous effort". Well, perhaps. It still originated simply as a mistake.)
* The term is "coup d'état"—from the French, literally "strike of the state," and either uncapitalized or with a primary "C" capital at the start of a sentence—not the eggcorns "coup de tat" (meaningless), nor "cou de tête" (neck of head?), nor anything else. ''Ever''. Similarly, "coup de grâce" (mercy strike), not "coup de gras" (a blow to the fat, apparently). Nor of course "coup de grass" (a French lawnmower).
** "Coup" is pronounced "koo", not "koop". If you pronounce it "koop", you're essentially saying "henhouse of the state".
* "cowtow" (towing a cow?) for "kowtow" (to be obsequious to someone).
* "crawler" for "cruller". This is a wonderful eggcorn, but I'd rather have a donut than something that creeps on the ground any day.
* "crinching" for "cringing"
* "Crony" is most often used as a synonym for {{Mook}}, such as "that thug and his cronies". It actually just means a long time friend and doesn't inherently have any negative connotations.
* "cubical" (shaped like a cube) for "cubicle" (a box in which to work, change clothes, go to the toilet etc.)
** "Cubicle" actually has nothing to do with cubes, as it turns out, although many cubicles are somewhat cubical.
* "Cue" (a signal to do something, especially for an actor) vs "queue" (a line, as in the kind you wait in.)
* "Cumber bun", an eggcorn for "cummerbund" (the pleated sash-like covering that goes around your waist when you wear a tuxedo).
** The name of the actor Benedict Cumberbatch occasionally gets eggcorned as the latter!
* "cumin" (a plant with aromatic seeds used in cooking) for "coming" (to be arriving somewhere or having an orgasm), probably a consequence of chatspeak plus [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupertino_effect overactive spellchecker]].
* Curaçao (koor-a-sow, rhyming with "cow") is an island at Caribbean, "Curacoa" looks like someone is attempting to find cure for a coa.
* "dammed" (said of a watercourse that has been blocked to form a lake) for "damned" (having had one's soul condemned to Hell)
* But "dammit", rather than "damnit", as an informal form of "Damn it".
* "dampening" (making damp) for "damping" (reducing movement). If you want to stop inertia from [[ChunkySalsaRule turning the crew of your spaceship into chunky salsa]], you should use inertial dampers, which would damp inertia. Inertial dampeners utilize the resistance of mass to force to moisturize an area.
* "dander" (to lose your temper, in the phrase "get your dander up") vs. "dandruff" (a skin condition affecting the scalp) vs. "gander" (a male goose). If you get your gander up, you wake a goose. If you get your dandruff up, you get a lot of dead skin cells on your scalp. But note that "animal dandruff" ''is'' called dander.
* Datum is the singular of data. "This data is" is wrong; it should really be "these data are" or "this datum is". "Data point" is however an acceptable synonym for "datum", especially in technical writing.
** Unless you treat data as a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_noun mass noun]], which is acceptable in informal usage. (Even then, the Brits use plural pronouns when referring to mass nouns: "On the advice of Film/JamesBond, MI-6 have decided to protect you.")
* "dawn" for "sunrise". Dawn is actually the twilight period before sunrise, just as the twilight after sunset is dusk.
%%** This is [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonymy metonymy]], not an error.
* "dead beet" (a no-longer-living root vegetable) for "deadbeat" (a lazy person, or one who defaults on debts).
* "dead metaphor" (a former metaphor which has become literal, such as "electric current") should not be confused with "stale metaphor" (an overworked metaphor, such as "at the end of the day, the bottom line is, use of clichés should be avoided like the plague").
* "dead wringer" (deceased twister of soaked cloth and/or poultry necks), an eggcorn for "dead ringer" (a virtual twin of another person).
* "deafening" (literally "making someone deaf", but almost always means "very loud" instead) vs. "defending" (protecting). At least one fic contains the phrase "The silence was defending" when the writer means is "The silence was deafening".
* "debait" for "debate". OK, maybe some people are too eager to enter a debate, letting their hobby horse trample all over it, but "debaiting" as a method to prevent this sounds rather fishy.
* "debase" (humiliate, degrade, or corrupt) for "disabuse" (to free from a falsehood or misconception).
* "decapitate" ([[OffWithHisHead to behead someone]]) vs. "incapacitate" (to render unable to do something). If you're decapitated, you'll definitely be incapacitated, but these words should never be confused.
** "decapacitate" is a (rarely used) synonym for "incapacitate", but it's such an uncommon word that if it ever appears, the author has probably mistaken it for "decapitate".
* "defamed" (damaged someone's reputation) vs. "deformed" (adj. misshapen; v. having made misshapen). TheCorrupter may have ''deformed'' your character (made you a worse person), but usually what is meant is someone ''defamed'' your character (spread lies about you).
** Nor is it "defecation of character", even if you feel that they are shitting on your good name.
* "definatly" is not a word, but an extremely common misspelling of "definitely" (see below).
* "defiant" (disobedient) for "definite" (certain). This seems to be the fault of the misspelling "definate" combined with misguided spelling checkers.
* "define" (to state the meaning of something) vs. "deify" (to make a god). Probably a spellchecker is to blame for this, since the former is a much more common word than the latter.
* "delusion" (a belief in something that isn't real) vs. "illusion" (a deceptive appearance or impression). The phrase is "labouring under a ''delusion''".
* Special note for illiterate authors of ''Series/{{Buffy|the Vampire Slayer}}'' fanfic: It's "demon," not "deman" or "deamon". Or "daemon/daimon" if you go the GratuitousLatin[=/=]YeOldeButcheredeEnglishe route.
** However, if you're writing Literature/HisDarkMaterials fanfic, it's "dæmon", not "demon" (or "daemon").
** Also, don't confuse any of these with "Damon", which is a rather uncommon given name. (A variant of Damien/Damian, perhaps.)
** Daemons are programs that act as servers. Or [[VideoGame/{{Nethack}} monsters based on those programs]].
** [="DaiMon"=] is a Ferengi title similar to "Captain".
* A delim'''i'''ter establishes the boundary (or limit) of something. Supposedly, a delim'''e'''ter measures delicatessens.
* "dependent" vs. "dependant" is actually a case of SeparatedByACommonLanguage. In British English, "dependent" is the adjective (the state of depending on something) and "dependant" is the noun (one who depends on another). In American English, "dependent" is used for both and "dependant" isn't a word.
* "depilated" (stripped of hair) for "dilapidated" (said of a building that is in danger of falling down). It's a rare building that even needs depilated, but many are dilapidated.
* "deride" (mock; ridicule) vs. "derive" (get an idea, etc. from something) vs. "deprive" (take something away from someone). If you ''deride'' a book, you have a low opinion of it. If you ''derive'' an idea from a book, you take inspiration from that book. If you're ''deprived'' of a book, someone refuses to let you read it.
* "desert" (noun: an area of dry land; verb: to abandon something) vs. "dessert" (the sweet course of a meal). Neither should be confused with "desert" (noun: something deserved), spelled like the dry area but pronounced like the sweet, and seen mainly in the phrase "just deserts."
* "Deva" (a supernatural being from various Eastern religions) vs "Diva" (a female celebrity, usually said with negative connotations.)
* One of the most unusual misspellings I've ever seen is "devilruss" for "devilish", as in "devilish laughter", from "Illusion" by chaoseternus.
** Probably itself a misspelling of "devilrous", which is not a word but would get the point across.
* "devise" (verb, = to build or create; also to leave something to someone in your will) for "device" (noun, = gadget).
* "devise" for "divine" (in the sense of determine or discover, as in "to divine someone's motive"; this is the sense of the word as used in "divining rod")
* "dialogue" (conversation) vs. "dialog" (a message box on your screen).
* "dice" is plural. You cannot have ''a'' dice, or roll a dice, or anything. The singular is "die". "Rolling a dice" is like "walking a dogs".
* "diety" for "deity". A deity is a god, diety is not a word (but it looks like a way to lose weight).
** God Lite, now with 30% less Hell And Damnation! Easier on your conscience! ([[Creator/RobinWilliams Sounds like Episcopalianism!]])
* "different from" (correct) vs. "different to" (nonstandard) vs. "different than" (utterly wrong).
** If you get confused, look at it in terms of motion. If you strip the word "different" down to its Latin roots, it means "bringing ''away''" ("-ent" usually more-or-less equals "-ing".) So if, say, ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' and other HumongousMecha series are different, the reason is that they're diverging, moving away from each other, ''Evangelion'' is going off on its own, etc. And you can't diverge ''to'' something, or move away ''than'' it. So it has to be "from."
*** Taking the same perspective with the opposite concept, things can be ''similar'' to each other, not similar from, because they're converging, or moving toward each other.
*** It's even easier to re-parse the sentence mentally so it uses the verb 'to differ'. Nothing will ever ''differ to'' or ''differ than'' anything; things will only ever ''differ from'' one another.
*** The first (differ to) may be a mistake for "''defer'' to," which is something else entirely.
* "differential" (A calculus computation for the derivative; also a vehicle component and a term used in the medical phrase "differential diagnosis") for "deferential" (respectful, yielding)
* "diffuse" (adj, = spread out, thin or wispy; or verb, = to make something achieve that state) vs. "defuse" (to reduce or eliminate the volatility or explosive possibility of a situation or object)
** Defusing a bomb the wrong way might well cause you to be [[LudicrousGibs diffused]].
** Related: "disperse" vs. "dispose". It's ''not'' the "bomb dispersal squad".
*** Although some will dispose of their rubbish by dispersing it.
* A "dike" is a wall used to hold back water. "Dyke" is a slur aimed at lesbians.
** The boy who stuck his finger in a dyke got into a LOT of trouble for it.
* There is no 't' in "dimension". Look at it yourself if you don't believe me.
* "dinning" (making a din, which is a noun for "loud unpleasant noise") vs. "dining" (eating a meal). One ''can'' make a din when dining, but correlation does not prove causation.
* "dire rear" for "diarrhea"—a hilariously apt eggcorn, but an eggcorn nonetheless. ([[VideoGame/SouthParkTheStickOfTruth "You know what a dire rear is, don't you?"]])
* "disburse" (pay out money) for "disperse" (scatter, spread about, diffuse)
* "discreet" (cautiously secretive) for "discrete" (in distinct pieces or amounts). And vice versa. The noun-form of "discreet" is "discretion", though, which doesn't help.
* "Disguarded" for "discarded". Another perfect eggcorn.
* "Disinterested" (impartial) vs. "uninterested" (lacking interest in a thing or situation): "Judges should always be disinterested, but never uninterested, in the cases before them".
* "dissemble" (obfuscate, lie) for "disassemble" (take apart, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disassembler translate machine code into assembly language]])
* "dose" (a prescribed amount) vs. "doze" (sleep lightly, drowse) vs. "does" (third person present tense of "to do," or more-than-one female deer, depending on the pronunciation).
* "dottering" (a variety of medical procedure) for "doddering" (senile)
* "dotting" (making dots) vs. "doting" (maternally solicitous)
* "dower" (property settled by a groom on his bride, which generally doesn't become payable until his death) vs. "dour" (severe, harsh, stern)
* "Draw" when what is meant is "drawer" (sliding box with a handle in a cabinet, dresser or chest). This is a perfect example of eye dialect—many people swallow the sound of the final "r" in the word, pronouncing it as "draw-ah", which eventually gets worn down to, and written as, "draw".
** Unless you're from the midwest and pronounce it "droor," like door with an r.
** Most women keep their draws in drawers.
* "drawer" is a sliding shelf. One who draws is an artist. (Or a draftsman, depending on context.)
** Or a gunman.
** Or a card dealer.
* "drawl" for "draw"
* "drowned" as present-tense, not just in writing but in speech. Played for laughs in ''[[Series/TheAddamsFamily Addams Family Values]]'', where a swimming rescue simulation has the aspiring actress cry out "Help! I'm ''drownding''!" The past tense then becomes "drownded," which is even more bizarre.
** "Drownded" is very common in lower-class English accents.
* "drudge" (scullery maid, scutworker, blog author) for "dredge" (scrape the bottom of something, such as a river; or coat something in a powder, such as flour or sugar)
* "drug" is a general term for a wide array of chemical substances or the use thereof. "Dragged" is the past tense of the verb "to drag".[[note]]Similar booboos and blunders have lasted long enough to become correct, turning the inherited d-past verb "to dig" and the Norman French loanword "to strive" into Germanic strong (i.e. stem-changing) verbs.[[/note]]
* "due to" (caused by) vs. "do to" (do something to someone).
* "duly" (following proper procedure; as expected or predicted) vs. "dully" (with little interest; lacking liveliness; boredom). If you ''duly'' sign a document, you do so properly. If you ''dully'' sign a document, it bores you.
* "dying" (ceasing life functions) for "dyeing" (recoloring).
* "early adapter" (someone who adapts something very soon after acquiring it) for "early adopter" (someone who adopts something quickly). Someone who buys the very latest in technology as soon as it's released is an early adopter. I suppose that if they immediately started changing it for their convenience, you could say they're an early adapter, but it's usually a mistake.
* "edged" (put a decorative border around, or describing a cutting edge) for "etched" (incised or burnt into a surface with a caustic chemical). "Etched" should also not be confused with "engraved" (incised into a surface with a tool).
* One malapropism on this very wiki (WMG.TheSimpsons) is "edict" (n., formal proclamation) for "eidetic" (adj., (of memory) total-recall).
* "edition" (revision or printing of something) for "addition" (something that is added to something)
* "effluent" (water outflow, frequently sewage) vs. "affluent" (wealthy); despite the phrase "filthy stinking rich", these should never be confused.
* "JustForFun/{{egregious}}" (exceptional, from the Latin ''ex gregaris'' "not of the flock") should be avoided; it originally meant "exceptionally good" (which presumably is how Creator/DouglasAdams used it in ''Literature/DirkGentlysHolisticDetectiveAgency'') but now more often means "exceptionally bad" (e.g. the error in the UsefulNotes/ZXSpectrum game ''Xavior'' whereby the end-game routine doesn't work). Creator/GeorgeOrwell fell into this trap in his essay "Politics and the English Language" (which has little or nothing to do with politics); he accused one Professor Hogben of not knowing what "egregious" meant, when the problem was that Hogben was using it in the modern sense instead of the original one. (Orwell was being hypocritical in his accusation, since he clearly failed to realize that a "battery" is an array of similar things (e.g. a battery of floodlights or of cannon) or that "to prescribe" means to state what must be, as opposed to "to describe" which merely states what is. Hogben's usage was thus correct.)
* "either... or" when used to describe more than two things. "Either A, B, or C" is wrong; it should be "A, B, or C" or possibly "Either A or B".
** "Both" is also only to be used for lists of two items, ''no more''. Both 'A' and 'B', not Both 'A', 'B' and 'C'. Found in several places on this very wiki, not to mention endemic to the internet and real life.
** The correct usages are "either... or..." and "neither... nor...". If you use "neither... or...", you're wrong.
* "elude" (to avoid or escape) for "allude" (to refer to indirectly; noun form: "allusion")
* "elephantiasis (a disease causing the victim's body parts to [[BodyHorror gruesomely swell up and deform]]) is often misspelled and mispronounced "elephantitis". While understandable (as many diseases do end in the suffix -itis), this would make no sense as it would literally mean "inflammation of one's elephant", rather than "condition of the elephant" (the correct meaning).
* "eminent" (exalted) for "imminent" (about to happen).
** Also "immanent" (inherently part of something).
* "empathy" and "sympathy both indicate fellow-feeling for someone. "empathy", though, is for when you've actually been in that position yourself, whereas "sympathy" is for when you haven't but can connect regardless.
* "empress" (noun, female ruler of an empire) for "impress" (verb, to get a favorable or awed reaction from)
** But often an empress is dressed to impress.
* "emerged" (came into view, came out of a situation, object or a liquid, or became known) for "immersed" (put under the surface of a liquid; dunked, or involved deeply) has been spotted on Wiki/ThisVeryWiki.
* "emulate" (to behave in a similar way) for "immolate" (to set fire to). Although some emulations are so poor that immolation is the only sensible remedy, and conversely, emulating Thich Quang Duc involves immolation.
* "endorse" for "indorse". Whenever you sign a check that's made out to you, you ''indorse'' it. All other occasions, such as stating your support for a political candidate, is when you would ''endorse'' something.
* "enormity" for "enormousness". "Enormity" means "huge badness," not "hugeness."
** According to Creator/BillBryson, UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan fell victim to this one, saying when he won the presidential election that he "could not believe the enormity of what had happened".
*** Nor could his rivals.
* "en-scrolling" for "ensorcelling". Possibly a spellchecker-caused error, as it's difficult to see how it could be made otherwise. Of course, why you would use the word "ensorcelling" at all is beyond me.
** The [[PurpleProse pretentious upgrade]] for "enchanting."
** en·sor·celled, en·sor·cel·ling, en·sor·cells or en·sor·celed or en·sor·cel·ing or en·sor·cels. To enchant; bewitch. [French ''ensorceler'', from Old French ''ensorcerer, ensorceler''].
* "entropy" (a physics term for the amount of increasing disorder/disorganization in a system such as the principle defining the eventual heat-death of the universe, among other meanings) for "atrophy" (deteriorate from lack of use)
* "envelop" (to wrap up in; to surround entirely; to conceal or obscure) vs. "envelope" (a cover for a letter; the fabric structure enclosing the gasbag of a balloon or airship, or the upper and lower operational limits for a device)
* "En garde" (interjection used in swordfighting, meaning, more or less "get ready") vs "on guard" (paying attention, though in this context it's a eggcorn), an understandable mistake, as the two are pronounced the same and saying "on guard" would make some sense in context. Still a mistake nevertheless.
* "epithet" (a nickname or descriptive term, often with negative connotations). vs "epitaph" (writing on a tombstone)
* "erogenous" (giving rise to sexual pleasure) for "erroneous" (wrong). Quite possibly a FreudianSlip, or risen from a cloudy memory of the 1977 self-help book ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Your_Erroneous_Zones Your Erroneous Zones]]'' by Wayne Dwyer.
* "erstwhile" (former) for "out-of-line" or "poorly behaved." Your companion may behave objectionably, but they're not an erstwhile companion unless you no longer associate with them.
* "eschatological" (having to do with the end of days) vs. "scatological" (having to do with feces or obscenity in general). Admittedly, anyone who actually knows one of these words is probably unlikely to use it incorrectly, but any context in which the mistake can be made is liable to be rather grating. But don't sweat it: this shit ain't the end of the world.
* "-esk", an misspelling of "-esque" (a suffix meaning "like" or "resembling", e.g. "picturesque" = "like a picture").
* "etc." or "et cetera" (Latin for "and others", suggests alternative examples) vs. "and so on" (which suggests repetition)
** Even worse, "ect." (electroconvulsive therapy) for "etc."
** Due to it meaning "and others", saying "and etc" means you're saying "and [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment and]] others".
* "evade" (dodge) for "avoid" (stay away from).
** Especially found in relation to taxes. Tax avoidance is using shrewd accounting and/or LoopholeAbuse to legally minimize the amount of tax one pays; tax evasion is illegally not paying taxes one should be.
* Also "evade" vs. "escape": One comes before capture and one comes after (you ''evade'' arrest and ''escape'' custody).
* "everyday" (ordinary) for "every day" (occurring during each 24-hour period)
* "evidentially" (having to do with the existence or state of being of evidence) vs. "evidently" (apparently, seemingly)
* "exasperate" (to annoy or irritate) for "exacerbate" (to make something worse than it already is)
** It may be all right to confuse them when you're dealing with a temperamental TykeBomb or the like, however.
* "executor" vs "executioner". The former puts in effect legal statutes such as person's last will: the latter carries out the capital punishments.
* "exercise" for "exorcise". It's the difference between Richard Simmons and Linda Blair.
** [[Series/WhoseLineIsItAnyway Back, back, devil! You must desist! I'm Richard Simmons, the exercise-ist! And one, two, three, four and one, two, three, four!]]
* "exiting" (leaving through the out door) for "exciting" (giving or encouraging a heightened state of thrill or energy)
* "ex-patriot" (someone who is no longer patriotic) for "expatriate" (someone who's left their native country). A person may be an expatriate because they're an ex-patriot, but this is still a mistake.
* There was once an electronics catalogue which had several (often hilarious) spelling errors. Probably the funniest was the part described as an "expendable logic gate" (instead of "expandable")—perhaps it included a self-destruct circuit.
* "extend" (as in "extended leave") for "extent" (as in "to a lesser extent")
* "exulted" (rejoiced, showed triumphant joy) for "exalted" (lofty, elevated)
* "eye" (organ of vision) for "aye" (agreement from a seaman)
* "facism" (something to do with faces, presumably) for "fascism" (a political ideology).
* Many Website/YouTube videos claim to be lists of "false facts". If an item is false then, by definition, it isn't a fact.
** It's a ''factoid''. A factoid isn't a small fact, it's something that resembles[[note]]the usual function of the -oid suffix[[/note]] a fact but isn't.
* "Fallible"(Imperfect, capable of making mistakes) vs "foulable" (not a word, but would presumably mean able to be fouled) probably an eggcorn.
* "fallow" (a field plowed and tilled but not planted) for "follow" (come after, pursue). Also, "fallowing" (enriching a field's soil by plowing and tilling but not planting) for "following" (subsequent, coming after). Unless the story is set on a farm, the author probably meant the latter.
* "fare" (food, as in a "bill of fare;" also, a fee charged for transportation) for "fair". Creator/FlandersAndSwann used this as a deliberate {{pun}} in their song "A Transport of Delight", about London buses; they quote the line "Earth has not anything to show more fair" twice, but the second time it's "fare".
* "faucet" (plumbing fixture which dispenses water) for "facet" (any of the flat surfaces of a gem, alternately any of the details or aspects of an object or situation). Also "fossette", a fairly rare term outside anatomy and zoology meaning a small depression in a solid structure.
* The use of "federal" crimes when one actually means serious crimes. In fact, a federal crime is one that violates a law made by the U.S. government (or certain other national governments with federated systems), as opposed to laws made by local (including state, provincial, or territorial) authorities. Thus, in the U.S., while bank robbery is a federal offense, in many cases, rape, murder (including cop-killing), child molestation, kidnapping (that does not involve crossing state lines), torture, and even some acts of terrorism are covered under state, not federal law, and are not federal offenses. This is especially egregious when you are dealing with nations that do not have a federated system of government.
** On a related note, the use of "federal" and "national" as synonyms. This is true only of approximately twenty of the world's countries—those with federated systems of government. (Although among those countries are some of the big ones [[note]]The U.S., Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Nigeria, Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Russia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Germany, Iraq, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Australia. [[/note]].)
* "feet" (things at the ends of your legs; no, the other ends) vs. "feat" (accomplishment)
* "Feint" for "faint". "To faint" means that someone's collapsed into unconsciousness, usually from shock. A "feint" is a deceptive tactic intended to make an opponent move into a weak position. "Playing possum" could be described as a "faint feint".
** "Faint" as an adjective can also mean something along the lines of "slight" or "barely perceptible", leading to confusion on the part of some of us as to whether [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Faint Attack always hits because the opponent can't see it coming, or because it's actually a]] ''[[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} feint]]'' [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} attack (because it certainly isn't an attack that involves the user fainting, although playing possum is always a possibility)]].[[note]]Fortunately, ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'' clarify that it's ''Feint'' Attack.[[/note]]
* "Felicity" (a female given name, originally meaning "happiness" though the common noun "felicity" also means "aptness") for "facility" (ease of use).
** Also not to be confused with the above is "fidelity" (faithfulness).
* "fiancé" and "fiancée". This one's French through and through, so "fiancé" (without the final E) is the man you're going to be married to, and "fiancée" (with the extra "e") is the woman. Now that same-sex marriage is a thing, the distinction is quite possibly more important than it has ever been.
** Similarly for née, used to identify a married woman's birth name. If you ever have occasion to use it for a man, it should be né. Alice Smith, née Jones; Bob Jones, né Smith.
* "fiary" instead of "fairy". Although some fairies are fiery.
* "Filler-buster" instead of "filibuster" (eggcorn written by an Australian who was not familiar with the U.S. legislature).
** "Philibuster" instead of "filibuster". This was used as a deliberate pun for an album title.
* "Filter" is a device containing material for sieving out impurities, especially one used to extract impurities from air or water. A "philter" is a magic potion, especially a love potion.
* "Firry" or "firey" for "fiery".
** "firey" gained usage in Australian English for "fire brigade member" or "firemen (and firewomen?)" or "firefighters". It's one of those slang Australian diminutives we love like garbo (garbage man) or ambo (ambulance driver/Emergency Medical Technician).
*** Do the garbage collectors vant to be alone?
** But [[Series/RedDwarf Danny John-Jules]] was the voice of two of the Fireys in ''Film/{{Labyrinth}}''.
* "firstable" (able to be first?) is not a word. It's an eggcorn of "first of all" (first in a list).
* "flair" (special ability, or stylishness) for "flare" (a sudden burst of light or intensity; what trousers did in the '70s).
* "flagrant" (brazen wrongdoing) vs. "fragrant" (sweet-smelling)
** On that note, "blatant" vs. "flagrant". Both refer to something brazen and conspicuous, but "blatant" emphasises the the boldness of the act while "flagrant" emphasises that it was inappropriate or immoral.
* "flammable", "inflammable", and "non-flammable". "flammable" means that something is likely to burst into flames. "inflammable" means—exactly the same thing as "flammable". For their antonym, look no further than "''non''-flammable".
--> '''Dr. Nick:''' [[https://youtu.be/Q8mD2hsxrhQ "'Inflammable' means 'flammable?' What a country!"]]
* "flaunt" and "flout" are often confused, perhaps because both actions are often performed blatantly or brazenly. To "flaunt" your possessions or attributes is to show them off. To "flout" a law is to break it. "Lady Godiva flouted the law by flaunting her body in public."
** On a related note the correct phrase is "flout authority", although you could concievably "flaunt authority" if it's your own authority you're showing off.
* What properties a "flourescent tube" would have as opposed to a "fluorescent tube"? Disperse finely ground wheat when you switch it on, perhaps?
** Florescent is a real word, but it means flowering (in either the literal or figurative sense). Occasional hilarity results when people are actually trying to use this one and get the more common one instead, e.g. an archaeological report referring to "The fluorescent Hohokam civilization..."
* "fool moon" for "full moon" (May be a simple typo, but it's unintentionally amusing. Or it may be an intentional reference to the title of the second ''[[Literature/FoolMoon Harry Dresden]]'' novel by Jim Butcher.)
* "For all intensive purposes." For those of you going, "well, what's wrong with that?", the phrase actually is "for all intents and purposes". It means, basically, "for any possible reason", not "for those reasons which are particularly strong or sharply felt". "For all intensive purposes," in comparison, is a briefer way of saying, "If you plan to put this object to intense use," but how often does anyone say ''that''?
** Well, maybe those using it are all in tents, and [[http://www.wastedtalent.ca/comic/phocoena-intensus porpoises]]?
** "Well, sir, if you're just wanting to do casual DIY then this basic drill will suffice, but if you're willing to invest in a more resilient model like this, then it will also be suitable for all intensive purposes". Or something like that. You did ask.
* "fore" (prefix for "in front") for "for" (a preposition, conjunction, and a prefix) or "four" (a number). It has been the source of a few mistakes, as seen below.
* "foreboding" (implying or forecasting ill events) for "forbidding" (frighteningly impressive, as well as its more common usage).
* "forward" (direction) for "forewarned" (given advance warning).
* "foreword" (part of a book) for "forward" (direction).
* "forbear" (refrain) for "forebear" (ancestor).
* "Formally" instead of "formerly".
* "fort" (a military stronghold) for "forte" (a person's best subject or skill). Historically, these were pronounced the same, but it has become common to pronounce "forte" with two syllables (as is correct for the musical term "forte", meaning loud).
* "forth" (a direction, or a river in Scotland) for "fourth" (a number)—seen a lot in ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' fics ("forth year")
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forth_(programming_language) Forth]] is also a programming language. So-named because the IBM 1130, on which it was devised, only allowed five-letter file names, and because it was the FORTH attempt (the FIRST, SECND and THIRD all failed).
* "Fortunate" (lucky) vs "Fortuitous" (coincidental). A fortuitous event may also be a fortunate one, but the words are not synonymous.
* "I found up the bank". From context, the activity wasn't "looking for" but rather "contacting by telephone", so it's not just an overly zealous spell-checker at work here. In the same paragraph was "I then walked her throw how easy it was".
* "founder" (n. a person who starts something, v. to sink, literally or metaphorically) vs. "flounder" (n. a fish, v. to thrash about in the water)
* "Fourty" (just no) vs. "forty" (the proper spelling).
* "free" is often abused. Back in the days of film cameras, it was common for photo labs to offer deals including a "free" replacement film; including one lab which offered two deals, one with "free" film and another without, leading a newspaper to ask "if the film is free, what accounts for the price difference?". In the mid-[[TheNineties 1990s]], firms sprang up offering so-called "free" internet access (one was actually called Freeserve), but such access was actually pay-as-you-go and, for regular use, substantially more expensive than non-"free" access. Currently mobile phones are being offered on deals such as "free for £15/month"; again, spot the contradiction—if the only way to get a phone is to enter a £15/month service contract, you aren't getting it "free", you're getting it on what used to be called "hire purchase"—with the difference that you never own it.
** This stems from the fact that 'free' has more than one meaning. In this case, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_libre the distinction is made between 'free' meaning 'unrestricted' and 'free' as in 'free of charge']]. Both uses are sound linguistically nevertheless.
* If something is more free than something else, it is "freer". It isn't "free-er", which looks like someone hesitating mid-sentence. Bonus points if you [[LampshadeHanging draw attention to your error]] by spelling it with quotation marks.
** Many linguists would argue that "freer" is just as invalid as "free-er". Free should be an absolute, something is either free or not.
*** This [[HypocriticalHumour begs the question]] of whether freer than free means you're paid for owning it, instead of being required to pay to purchase it.
** But a "freer" can be a noun meaning "that which frees" (e.g. unsticks by relieving friction), such as a lubricant.
** Or It could mean more free in a non monetary sense.
* "full" (the word, meaning "having no space for any more") vs. "-ful" (the suffix, meaning "full of").
* "full-proof" in place of "fool-proof". Could be related to the "rum-for-room" dialect of English, could be a typo.
* "furl" (roll or fold something securely) vs. "furrow" (either a wrinkle on a person's forehead or what a ploughed field is covered with). A confused person may ''furrow'' their brow, but only an alien or mutant could ''furl'' their brow. And don't talk about a ''furrowed'' sail, either; it may have wrinkles in it, but the word you want is ''furled''.
* "furry" (covered in fur or a member of a [[UsefulNotes/FurryFandom certain fandom]]) instead of "fury" (intense anger and rage).
* "gambol" (to dance or caper about) for "gamble" (to make a bet or take a chance).
** This confusion was deliberately used as a pun by the management of Windsor Greyhound Track, whose restaurant was called "Eton Gambol" (Eton being the name of the local district —yes, as in the famous public school).
* "gamut" (full range of something) vs. "gauntlet" (a metal glove). Just to add to the confusion, "run the gamut" and "run the gauntlet" are both idioms. To "run the gamut" is to experience the full range of emotions, music, etc. To "run the gauntlet" is to face attacks from many different angles.
* "gantlet" (a DeathCourse or other ordeal) vs. "gauntlet". Some dictionaries accept the latter spelling for the former.
** The idiom is always "run the ''gauntlet''", never "run the gantlet". The reason for this is that it derives from a sort of military discipline.
** However, it was originally "run the gantlet" (from the Swedish ''gantlope/gantlopp'', a narrow lane), hence "gantlet track", where two railway tracks are overlaid to allow two-way working (but only one way at a time) without the use of switches; "gauntlet" was originally a French word for a long (often metal) glove which covers the wrist as well as the hand. Since these words are similarly spelled '''''and''''' military, they have converged, to the point that "gantlet" has disappeared from British English. It remains in American English, hence the name of the Doom 2 level.
* "genera" (plural of genus) in place of the French loanword "genre"
* One common error (seen in the edit summaries of this very page) is to claim that "a gerund is the -ing form of a verb". Not true, since a straight verb, and a gerundive (a verb used as an adjective—a gerund is a verb used as a noun) can also end in "-ing":\\
--> Verb: "He was smoking a large cigar"\\
--> Gerund: "Smoking is injurious to health"\\
--> Gerundive: "He held a smoking gun"
** Also, the resultative noun (naming the object resulting from an action, such as "building" or "painting") is not a gerund. Only the verb naming the ''process'' is a gerund, as is "building" in "Building is hard work".
* Gentle (peaceful) vs Gentile (non Jewish person) vs Genteel (polite) vs Genital (sex organ).
* "Gentleman" (a NiceGuy, basically) is often used when it's completely inappropriate (such as calling a bank robber a gentleman). Most likely this stems from the practice of using "gentleman" as just a synonym for "man" as in "ladies and gentleman"
* "getaway" (act of escaping or a place people go to for a short vacation) vs. "get away" (to escape). The former is used as a noun, the latter as a verb.
* "get's" (not a word) vs. "gets" (obtains).
* "give tongue" is used only in reference to hunting (it means the dogs have found the scent and started barking). It does ''not'' mean "to speak one's mind". The author was probably thinking of the idiom "to give ''vent'' (to feelings, thoughts, opinions, etc.)".
* "Good rithens" instead of "good riddance". Would this qualify as an eggcorn when "rithens" is not even a word?
** Of course; some would even call it a perfect eggcorn.
* [[ThoseWackyNazis Certain People]] like to claim that "goyim" is Hebrew for "cattle", the implication being that Jews see everyone else as cattle. In reality the Hebrew word for cattle is "bakar", and "goyim" (singular goy) is really just a mildly derogatory term for non Jewish people.
* "graduated" (calibrated, divided into degrees, granted an academic degree or diploma) for "gravitated" (to drawn inexorably towards something)
* It's "grammar", not "grammer". An easy typo, yes, but all too easy to misinterpret. "Is it a typo of 'grammar', or 'gramme', I wonder?" Or maybe it's [[Creator/KelseyGrammer Kelsey]].
* "grate" (a frame of iron bars, as part of a fireplace; or a harsh rasping sound) for "great" (really good).
* The ''Star Wars'' character and the adjective are both spelled "grievous". Not "grevious".
** And while we're on the subject, they're both ''pronounced'' the same way too: "gree-vus", not "greevy-us".
* "grizzly" (a type of brown bear (''Ursus arctos''), subspecies ''U. a. horribilis'', found in Alaska, western Canada, and parts of the northwestern United States) for "grisly" (terrifying, horrible), or vice versa. A grizzly bear attack could cause grisly wounds to its victim.
** Note that according to Wiki/TheOtherWiki this confusion was the reason for that "horribilis" in the species name.
** In the same vein: "grizzled" vs. "grisled." The first means "having grey hair," the second... less so.
** The parts of the meat you can't chew? That's "gris'''t'''le."
* "Gunnery" (the skill of using really big cannons to blow holes in things) for "gurney" (a wheeled cot used to transport injured or ill persons).

* For video games, using "2D" and "3D" when one actually means side-scrolling or free-roaming. 2D and 3D refer to the graphics, not to the available dimension(s) of movement, and it is possible for a side-scrolling game to be 3D (such as ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBros''). Even Wiki/ThisVeryWiki makes this mistake with the trope TwoAndAHalfD.
* "abject" (pitiful) for "object" (a thing, a goal, or to disagree); the case in point was "an abject lesson".
* "Adsorb" and "adsorption" are technical terms used in chemistry; the difference between "'''ab'''sorb" and "'''ad'''sorb" [[http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2004-02/1077064138.Ch.r.html is explained here]].
* "accept" (agree to the existence of) vs. "except" (other than). "Nothing is known except A" means "All that is known is A". "Nothing is known accept A" (which should really be "Nothing is known; accept A") means "No information is available; understand that A exists."
* "access" (permission, liberty or ability to enter) for "excess" (surplus).
* The terms "accuracy", "precision" and "resolution" are, as pointed out in a [[TheSeventies mid-1970s]] article in British magazine ''Electronics Today International'', often confused with one another; for example, so-called "double-precision" calculations are actually double-resolution, and in a computer exhibition at around that time, one exhibitor advertised a real-time clock board with a "1/100th of a second accuracy"—a meaningless claim, for it failed to specify the interval which that accuracy was obtained over. (Again, they probably meant a "1/100th of a second ''resolution''".) According to the article, if a series of tests are done with an instrument and in each case the result which ''should have been'' obtained subtracted from that which ''was'', giving a set of error terms, the accuracy of the instrument is given by the arithmetic mean of those terms, and the precision by the standard deviation. The resolution is the smallest possible difference between measurements.
** A common illustration of the difference is: fire a gun at a target repeatedly. Your precision is the size of the cluster of holes, your accuracy is how close those holes are to the bullseye, and the resolution is the size of the rings on the target.
* "acronym" as a synonym of "initialism" (or worse, "abbreviation"). An acronym is a new word formed from the initials of a phrase (such as laser); a phrase contrived to form an already-existing word, or the word thus formed, is an acrostic (e.g. MIME); and a bunch of initials which can't be pronounced as a word is just an initialism (e.g. HTML). Note also that while an initialism is an abbreviation, an abbreviation isn't necessarily an initialism (e.g. the British English "mash" for "mashed potatoes"). NASA (NASS-uh) is an acronym; NSA (enn-ess-ay) is not.
** Sometimes of course it's not clear-cut: the name of the database language SQL can be (and is) pronounced both as an initialism (ess-queue-ell) and as an acronym ("SEE-quill")—sometimes by the same speaker.
* "acute" (intense but lasting a short time) vs "chronic" (lasting a long time). These words are almost opposite but are frequently confused, perhaps due to the both being medical terms.
* "adapt" (change to fit the circumstances) vs. "adept" (competent, skilled) vs. "adopt" (take as one's own)
* "addictive" (causing a physical dependence) for "habituative" (causing a psychological dependence). Marijuana, LSD, VideoGame/{{Doom}}, and [[TVTropesWillRuinYourLife TV Tropes]] are all powerfully habituative, but (except in rare cases) none of them are clinically addictive.
* "adjure" (to solemnly command) vs. "abjure" (to renounce or abandon). You ''adjure'' someone to ''abjure'' something.
* "admits" (owns up to) for "amidst" (among). This could be a simple typo.
* "adoptive" (the active party to the adoption) for "adopted" (the passive party). In ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe'', the girls are the ''adopted'' children of Gru; he is their ''adoptive'' father.
* "adultery" means sleeping with someone while married to someone else. "Adultry" is not a word.
** Also note that adultery refers only to a ''married'' person cheating on their spouse. If you cheat on someone you're dating but not married to, you're a disgusting cheat but not an adulterer/adulteress. What you're guilty of in that case is ''infidelity'' (or just "cheating"). However, if ''you're'' not married but sleep with someone who ''is'', you ''are'' guilty of adultery.
* "adverse" (bad, negative, unpleasant) vs. "averse" (opposed).
* "aesthetic" (having to do with the fine arts or appreciation of same) vs. "ascetic" (following a strict discipline of self-control and denying oneself excess and luxuries). The classic instance of this error showed up in an early ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' rulebook in the description of the Monk character class. While monks certainly do have fine appreciation on beauty, they are more known of their unworldly lifestyle. "Acetic" (related to vinegar) is also used for either of the above. Even more confusing if you're talking about an AsceticAesthetic.
* The verb "affect" (to act on, produce a change) and the noun "effect" (result, consequence) are ''not'' interchangeable. [[http://xkcd.com/326/ There actually is a rather esoteric meaning of "effect" as a verb]], however; it means "to bring about."[[note]][[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Theatre/ThePiratesOfPenzance Frederick here, o joy, o rapture. Summon your men and effect their capture!]][[/note]] Even worse, "affect" is also [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affect_(psychology) a technical term in psychology]] when used as a noun, making it possible to both affect an effect and effect an affect.
* "afterwords" (author's notes at the end of the book) vs. "afterward" (in the time following an event).
* "aid" for "aide"—The first is not just the verb "to aid" but also can mean any inanimate object that helps with something; the second is a person who provides help of one sort or another.
** "aides" for "AIDS"—just see the ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode with Jared from Subway in it for this one.
** On a related note, it's lemon''ade'', which means "made from lemons", not lemon''aid'' (something that helps lemons). Unfortunately, it ''is'' Kool-Aid, which means both halves of the word are spelled wrong.
*** Depending on your point of view, however, Kool-Aid could mean 'something that helps keep you cool,' or 'kool,' in which case only half of it is still spelled wrong.
* "all for not" when what was meant was "all for naught".
** Similarly, "ought" ("should") for "aught" ("nothing").
* "ain't" when used in conjunction with any personal pronoun but "I". "Ain't" stands for "am not", so "you am not X" is not correct.
** For that matter, "ain't" is an informal colloquialism and should only be used when trying to convey such informal colloquialism; technically, the above rule is invalid since "ain't" does not conform to formal English speaking rules anyway.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hound_Dog_(song)#Elvis_Presley_TV_performances_and_recording The King]] disagrees.
** ''Ain't'' used as ''[I] am not'', ''[you] are not'', ''[she] is not'' or ''[They] are not'' are all perfectly acceptable in any dialog in which informal colloquialism is acceptable. Most circumstances that require a more formal tone also proscribe contractions in general. One example is the quote ''These numbers ain't for fiddlin''', attributed (if not confirmed) to professor and astronomer William H. Jefferys, in explanation of the physical constants of the universe i.e. that these constants arrived at their respective values through natural forces (as opposed to by chance, or through the actions of a higher intellect). It started as a contraction of "I am not", and could even be used formally for this purpose for a short time. It was doomed to informal situations afterward (with the unfortunate consequence that "am not" now has ''no'' formal contraction), and as long as you're using the anything-goes brand of English, there ain't no problem in using it for other pronouns (or with double negatives, for that matter); hell, it's one of the best words in the language that there ''is'' for indicating that you are avoiding being completely formal.
* For those who write fanfic of ''Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium'': "Ainur" is plural. "Ainu" is singular. The same goes for "Maiar"/"Maia" and "Valar/Vala". As a rule, if a collective noun ends with "-r", it's plural.
** Also, "Vala" is masculine. "Valië" is the feminine form.
* "alley" (narrow little street) for "ally" (someone on your side). Example: "And just like that, Neville knew that he had uncovered an alley in the Slytherin House" from "Longbottom's Army" by kerrymdb. The reverse mistake is made as well; I've frequently seen fics where someone "goes down an ally", which is either unintentionally sexual, or just improbable. And then there's "allay", which means to put at ease, and "alloy", a mixture of two metals.
** "allay" can also be confused for "assay". "Allaying" is the act of putting something at ease, whereas "assaying" is the process of testing metals or ores to determine composition. Any confusion is probably due to the existence of the word "assuage", which also refers to putting ill feelings at ease.
* "allusion" (to refer to something) vs. "illusion" (something unreal) vs. "elusion" (the act of avoidance; evasion) vs. "elution" (the process of washing a substance out of a matrix by flushing it with a solvent).
* A mistake made by at least one editor on the {{Creator/Pixar}} wiki: "alma mater" is Latin for "nourishing mother", and is used metaphorically to mean "college" (in the specific sense, i.e. "Harvard is his alma mater" means "he attended Harvard"). It has no connection with Mater from the ''{{WesternAnimation/Cars}}'' movies.
* "aloud" (audibly) for "allowed" (permitted)
* "alot" for "a lot". [[http://overcompensating.com/posts/20060206.html "A lot" is two words.]] "Allot", meaning to distribute, should certainly not be used here. "Alot" is not a formally recognized English word at all; the stricter [[Film/{{Equilibrium}} grammarians]] will demand even "a lot" as two separate words be replaced with something more formal and proper. [[Webcomic/HyperboleAndAHalf Actually, the alot is better than you at everything.]]
* "alright" for "all right", when used in a context such as "The figures are looking all right."
** The [[https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/all_right Oxford English Dictionary]] comments: "There is no logical reason for insisting that all right should be written as two words rather than as alright, when other single-word forms such as altogether have long been accepted. Nevertheless, alright is still regarded as being unacceptable in formal writing."
* "alter" (change) for "altar" (sacrificial table)
* "altitude" (flight height) for "attitude" (personality trait) This one has been intentionally used as a pun. People have been known to tell someone who has their head in the clouds that they "don't like your altitude" on purpose.
** Although, it is possible for an aircraft to have an adverse attitude (inclination of the three main axes)...
** An airplane ''can'' have an "attitude". "Attitude" is the orientation of an aircraft with respect to the horizon, and expressed as an angle.
** Altitude indicator is the gauge which gives you your flight height. Attitude indicator is the artificial horizon.
*** [[HurricaneOfPuns Yaw angle of attack is a drag: couldn't be any rudder. Contrail yourself!]]
*** [[IncrediblyLamePun Just skidding...]]
* "altitude" (flight height) vs "height" (vertical distance) vs "elevation" (vertical distance from zero reference point). "Elevation" is the geographic height of ground from sea level (in a case of an airport, expressed as QFE—Field Elevation). "Height" is vertical distance from ground. "Altitude" is the sum of elevation and height (in aviation, expressed as QNH—Nautical Height). ''Elevation'' is used to indicate how high an airport or terrain is above mean sea level. ''Height'' is used to indicate how high an aircraft is above the ground. ''Altitude'' is used to indicate how high an aircraft is above mean sea level.
** "Elevation" can have a sense of "distance from the ground" (i.e., something more like "height" or even "altitude"), but in this case it is an angle: the target, the observer, and a point on the ground directly below the target form a triangle, and the elevation is the angle at the observer's corner. For the observer's purposes, the point on the ground is represented by the horizon. In this form, "elevation" is combined with "azimuth" (an angle measured clockwise or counterclockwise from some standard direction) to pinpoint the target's position on the sky (as seen from the observer's location).
* "amendable" (easily modified) for "amenable" (agreeable)
* "amateur" vs "dilettante". The former is someone who practises something for the sake of loving it (Latin ''amare'', to love) and may be really, really good on it, but has not yet given up his day job. The later is a "casual practitioneer", who may be good on what s/he is doing but usually isn't.
** "amateur" vs "newbie". "Amateur" is simply someone who hasn't given up his or her day job [and is not necessarily inexperienced]. A "newbie" may be a professional, but lacks on experience and/or skills.
** "amateur" vs "professional". The latter has given up his day job and does it for living. The former hasn't. There may be skills difference, but not necessarily.
** "amateur" vs "amateurish". The former adjective says that the thing described was not done by a professional, the latter says that it wasn't of professional quality (you'd expect better from someone who was getting paid for the result).
* "amount" (uncountable) for "number" (countable). A cake is made from a certain ''amount'' of flour, and is cut into a certain ''number'' of slices. Referring to "the amount of slices into which this cake is cut" just sound wrong, even though it's a common usage. (You can have a number of peanuts, or an amount of peanut butter. If you have a number of peanut butters then I guess you're trying to decide between smooth or chunky or extra chunky.)
* "analogue" (noun) vs. "analog" (adjective). On a similar note, "dialog" (a message box spawned by a program) vs. "dialogue" (conversation).
* "anamorphic" (of distorted shape) for "anthropomorphic" (non-human of humanoid shape). The Disney Wiki's ''[[WesternAnimation/WreckItRalph Sugar Rush]]'' page applied this malapropism to the game's [=NPCs=]. The ''{{Literature/Animorphs}}'' series does not help clear up the confusion.
* "and" for "an"—Usually a typo.
** Probably a particular type of typo: the finger macro. Particular character combinations [[DamnYouMuscleMemory are so common]] that typing part of them subconsciously causes "missing" characters to be added (like "d" after "an", to make the more common "and").
* "ancestors" (members of prior generations of one's family) for "descendants" (members of ''subsequent'' generations). It's amazing they could be confused, but it's quite frequent of a mistake. Your great-great-grandchild is your ''descendant''; you are their ''ancestor''. It's impossible for someone to be the ancestor of someone who lived a hundred years before them unless time-travel (or immortality) is involved.
** It is one of ''countless'' mistakes made in ''Literature/TheLegendOfRahAndTheMuggles'', and actually one of the milder ones.
** In some translations of ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets'', Dumbledore says that Voldemort is the last living ancestor of Salazar Slytherin. Cue EpilepticTrees...
* "ancestry" (one's family tree) vs. "[[IncestIsRelative incest]]" (sleeping with one's relatives). In certain works it may be possible for one to [[MyOwnGrampa commit incest with their ancestry]], but these two should still never, ''ever'' be confused.
* "Anchors away" is not a proper nautical term, but could mean that the anchor is being dropped. The proper term is "anchor's aweigh," which means nearly the opposite of the former—the anchor is being raised and has just reached the point of being supported by the anchor cable but still touching the bottom; the ship is about to leave port.
** "Anchor's away" could mean that the captain of your team is absent, or you have no one to host your news broadcast. It could also, possibly, mean that the anchor cable has become severed.
* A common error (especially on signs) is to use the wrong conjunction, particularly "and" (intersection) when "or" (union) is the intended meaning. For instance, "Do not consume food and drink in this shop," meaning that it's all right to consume one or the other as long as you're not consuming both. To clarify:
** "A and B"—both of them at once.
** "A or B"—either (or both) of them. This can also be phrased "A and/or B" to prevent confusion with the following (especially common in legal documents, where ambiguity is something to be avoided at any cost).
** "Either A or B"—either (but not both) of them. In computer languages this case is called "A xor B" (eXclusive OR).
*** [[{{Nerd}} Depends on the processor]], some have it as ''EOR'' (6502, ARM, AVR, [[PrehistoricMonster IBM 1130]]...).
** In math, "A or B" and "either A or B" mean two different things. The word "or" does not exclude both choices from being selected (a union), but saying "either A or B" means that picking one specifically excludes picking the other (no intersection). This distinction is actually quite important in logic and law.
** Alternately, this isn't an error at all, just a difference in parsing. Signs that use "and" this way are seeing "food and drink" as a lexical unit: "Do not consume (food and drink) in this shop", vs. "Do not consume (food) or (drink) in this shop".
*** But I'm not consuming food and drink; I'm only consuming food. Perhaps the sign is supposed to be parsed (Do not consume food) and (drink in this shop).
*** The text was ''In math''. In math there is no question of ambiguous parsing. ''Or'' means ''one or both''.
* "Android" is a man-like robot in a sense of "male human being". A female human-like robot is a "gynoid". A generic human-like robot is an ''anthropoid''.
* An "anecdote" (a short account of an incident or event) is not the same as an "antidote" (a remedy that counteracts the effects of poison).
* [[RougeAnglesOfSatin "angle" for "angel"]]
* "Angle of incidence" vs "angle of attack". Both are concepts of wing or sail aerodynamics, but different. ''Angle of incidence'' ("rigger's angle") is the set-up angle on which the chord of an airfoil (wing of an airplane, or boom of a yacht) has been mounted. ''Angle of attack'' is the angle in which the airfoil meets the flow of the air, and is dependent of the direction in which the skipper heads the yacht or plane into wind.
* "Annihilate" means to destroy utterly. "anhialate" is not a word.
* "anomalous" (at odds with its surroundings or companions) vs. "anonymous" (nameless or unknown)
* [[Series/JoanOfArcadia "Anticlimatic" means you're against the weather.]] The adjective form of AntiClimax is "anticlima''c''tic."
* "antisemantic" (against words?) for "antisemitic" (against Jews and Judaism)
* "anut" for "aunt". She might be a little odd, but it's truly amazing how many people think their mother or father's sister is "anut".
* "anyway" (however, whatever) vs. "any way" (an indeterminate direction)
* "apidimy" for "epitome," a spelling error from the Internet.
* "appauled" for "appalled". This is an appalling mistake, [[JustForPun unless someone named Paul has appalled someone]].
* "appalling" vs "appealing". One is something you really dislike and the other is something you really like.
* "appraise" vs. "apprise". If someone wants to be informed about something, they want to be kept ''apprised''. To ''appraise'' something is to determine its value, generally to sell it or have it insured.
* "Aragon" (a place in Spain) vs. "Aragorn" (a character in ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings''). Spotted in many a LOTR fanfic. The opposite mistake happens too; several history teachers have complained about students referring to Henry VIII's first wife as "Catherine of Aragorn" (which would make sense only in a very strange crossover, possibly one involving a CrackPairing.)
* "armature" (a wire frame, esp. for clay sculpture) when what is meant is "amateur".
** Also, note the difference between an '''amateur''' (one who engages in an activity for the love of it) and a '''novice''' (a beginner or a n00b). Not all amateurs are '''novices'''; to the contrary, ''amateur'' is related to the Latin ''amare'', to love, so amateurs are often ''experts'' in their field. The opposite of ''amateur'' is ''professional'' (also not necessarily an ''expert''). Until 1988, athletes competing at the Olympic Games had to be amateurs, which meant they weren't being paid for their athletic performances.
*** Note that "amateur" usually carries the implication of being a dilettante or lacking in professional training. Another case of a word having deviated significantly from its Latin root (but see the discussion above regarding amateur vs. dilettante.).
** A common misspelling of ''amateur'' is ''amature''. This one pops up a lot in amateur ''and'' novice writing.
*** The correct form of someone is not mature is ''immature''.
* "aroused" (sexually attracted) vs. "roused" (awakened, usually by jostling). Aroused can sometimes mean "piqued" or "interested", but this is pretty rare nowadays.
* "arthritis" is a disease that causes stiff, painful joints; "arthuritis", if it meant anything, would be the urge to [[Myth/KingArthur pull swords from stones]].
* "artic" (short for "articulated", hinged in the middle, especially of a vehicle and particularly a truck) for "Arctic" (the region surrounding the North Pole). Even worse is the eggcorn "Antartic" (against the truck?) for "Antarctic" (of the South Pole). Note that the ''pronunciation'' "Artic" is acceptable for the word "Arctic".
* "Artist" (one who creates) for "artiste" (one who performs). This error is far too common; for instance, it's embedded in the [=ID3=] tag system.
* "ascent" (an upward motion) for "assent" (agreement)
* "assent" vs. "consent", both being words for expressing your approval of something. Generally speaking, you "assent" to an idea and "consent" to a course of action.
** You may hear people saying that someone "assented" to an action—sometimes this is just plain being incorrect, but they may be trying to express that someone "assented" to ''the idea behind'' the action. There are probably more straightforward ways of conveying that, though.
* "asinine" is not spelled with two S's, however much the word "ass" might be in the mind of the person typing it.
* "assume" vs. "presume". You presume something if your belief has some basis; you assume something if it does not. Consider the famous quotation "Doctor Livingstone, I presume". The speaker was looking for the aforementioned doctor and consequently expected to encounter him.
** "assumption" vs. "presumption". An assumption is something you believe without proof. Technically, a presumption is something you believe is probable, but it's more often used to describe arrogant, disrespectful behaviour.
* "Assure" (to declare with confidence) vs "ensure" (guarantee). The term "quality assurance" would make more sense as "quality ensurance", but that term is hardly ever used (perhaps out of fear people will misinterpret it as referring to some kind of insurance.)
* "atheistic" (not believing in God) for "aesthetic" (related to the beauty of something). IGN's guide to ''VideoGame/TheMovies'' probably did not mean to say that "[s]creen fades are purely atheistic".
** Also, 'atheism' is not the same as 'agnosticism'. Atheistic means you don't believe in the existence of a god. Agnostic refers to someone who feels there is insufficient evidence to decide one way or the other. While it is possible to be both, it's also possible to be one or the other.
* "Athiesm" for "Atheism" is extremely common.
** Also atheist doesn't mean the same as non-religious. They often [[UsefulNotes/{{Atheism}} overlap]], but not necessarily.
* "Attorney Generals" is ''not'' the plural of "Attorney General." The proper plural form is "Attorneys General".
** Likewise the plural of "Surgeon General" is "Surgeons General"
** And the plural of "court martial" is "courts martial"
*** And it's "court martial", not "court marshal"!
** And it's "passers-by", not "passer-bys".
** Also, for Brits, it's "Trades Union", not "Trade Unions". Despite how illogical it seems.
** This is a general principle; nouns and verbs can be plural. adjectives cannot. Thus, for instance, "bureaux-de-change".
* "aviator" (a pilot) for "avatar" (a physical embodiment of a god, especially in Hinduism, or an icon used to represent a user on a computer system).
* Confuse "awful"/"awesome" and "terrible/terrific" especially on funerals to win friends.
* "backpeddling" (selling something in reverse?) for "backpedalling" (retreating).
* "Bacteria" is a plural (of "bacterium"). If you say "bacteria is", then the Biology Police will hunt you down and [[Literature/{{Discworld}} place your figgin upon a spike.]]
* "bald" (having no hair on one's head, or figuratively, bare) for "bold" (brave, daring). Some accents pronounce the two words identically.
** Related, the expression is "a bald-faced lie", as in, a lie that's so obvious that it can be seen on your face, not "a bold-faced lie" (which would be a lie you tell while putting on a brave face, maybe).
** And the famous composition by Music/ModestMussorgsky is "Music/NightOnBaldMountain", which uses a slightly archaic meaning of the word "bald" as a synonym for "bare" (as in, the mountain is just bare rock, no grass, plants or anything).
* "ball" (generally used, as a verb, is a slang term for sex), for "bawl" (crying and wailing).
** On a related note, to "bawl someone out" is to yell at someone, read them the riot act, etc.; to "ball someone out" is, presumably, to have sex with someone to the point of exhaustion.
** And "balling your eyes out" implies some vigorous and probably inadvisable activity.
* "balmy" (warm weather) vs. "barmy" (crazy). Just to confuse things even more, "balmy" ''used'' to be another spelling of "barmy", but that usage is now outdated.
* "banzai" (an exclamation of excitement or success) vs. "bonsai" (the art of carefully growing and sculpting miniature trees).
* "barbarian" (meaning not civilized) vs. "Bavarian" (meaning from Bavaria, a province—formerly a kingdom—in southern Germany).
* "barbeque" for "barbecue".
** The dictionary lists both as being correct, though the former is a "variant" or "slang" version, possibly back-formed from the abbreviation "BBQ".
* "bare" (to reveal or strip nude) vs. "bear" (to carry; to give birth to; large, dangerous omnivore—yes, I've seen a "grizzly bare" show up in a story.)
** What about grisly bears?
*** [[MemeticMutation bare form iz 4 fite!]]
** That means you could have a sentence like—now bare with me on this[[note]]Sorry, but I don't know you well enough for that[[/note]]—"Bare bears bear bare bears bare." [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment (Naked bears carry naked bears while naked)]]
** And then there's "grisly bare", which if it meant anything would mean a horribly injured naked person (whose injuries might have been caused by a grizzly bear).
* Don't confuse a barista with a barrister. Only one of these is likely to serve you a skinny latte.
* "barley" (a grain, used to make beer and soups) vs. "barely" ("almost", "by a narrow margin")
** [[RunningGag "Barely bare bears barely bear barely bare bears barely bare."]]
* "barrow" (peddler's wheeled cart, or a large burial mound) for "borrow" (temporarily take or make use of something owned by another person)
* ''baited'' vs. ''bated''. "Bated" is a proper English word (same root as in ''to abate''), and has nothing to with "baited". You can wait for something ''with bated breath''; but only a mosquito, irresistibly drawn by the carbon dioxide in the air we exhale, may possibly know what a "baited breath" is supposed to mean.
* "Beck and call", not "beckon call".
** In the Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse, a "beckon call" is a remote control which orders the user's spaceship to home in on said remote-control's location using autopilot. The pun is almost certainly intentional. Zahn [[PungeonMaster likes his wordplay]], but tends to make it subtle enough not to distract the reader.
** A '''beck''' (noun) is a signal, hence to be at one's '''beck and call''' is to be receptive to communications and summons. To '''beckon''' is the verb form of '''beck'''. A '''beacon''' is a locational signal used for navigation, and yes, they're all derived from common Middle English roots.
* "Bedlam" (chaos) vs "Beldam" (somewhat obsolete word for a [[EvilOldFolks nasty old lady]].)
* "Begging the question" as used to mean "raising the question", as opposed to in reference to the logical fallacy (which does not involve begging or a question).
* A particularly odd one: "Behoove" (to be necessary and appropriate) sometimes gets mangled into "be who of" (meaningless) [[http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/english/641/be-who-of/ this article]] provides an analysis.
* "bellow" (yell, shout) vs. "below" (underneath) vs "billow" (blow up, like sails) vs "bellows" (tool for creating air current).
* "beknighted" (made a knight, carrying a knight or pestered by a knight, perhaps?) for "benighted" (darkened; intellectually or morally ignorant). Probably a deliberate pun.
* "bemuse" (and its forms) vs. "amuse" (and its forms). If your joke bemuses your audience, then they will be scratching their heads in puzzlement, not laughing[[note]]Laughter can follow, for instance when an insane diplomatic message causes bemusement, then derisive amusement. Idi Amin's "diplomacy" was famous for this.[[/note]].
* "besides" (disregarding) vs. "beside" (next to, physically).
* "bespeckled" for "bespectacled." [[Manga/UruseiYatsura Megane]] wears glasses, and isn't freckled or otherwise spotted.
* The word "biceps" is used as both singular and plural for "biceps brachii".
* "blond" and "blonde". In French, "blond" is masculine (and therefore used for men) and "blonde" feminine (and used for women). In English, you won't be making a mistake if you follow that rule. Or you can simplify and use "blond" for both (and lose the opportunity for wordplay). Hair, no matter whose, is always "blond". "Blonde guy" is either a linguistic abomination or someone in dire need of gender reassignment therapy.
* "blossom" vs "flower". Technically all blossoms are also flowers, but only blossoms develop into fruits or berries.
* "boarder" (someone who rents a room from you, or someone who is attacking your ship, as in the phrase "repel boarders") vs. "border" (the edge of a country or other political unit)
* "boarding" (getting on a ship, staying in a hotel or school, or long, thin pieces of wood used to build or cover something) vs. "hoarding" (a board used to advertise something, or the act of accumulating something and refusing to give it away). For added confusion, hoarding might well be made of boarding.
* "borne" (carried) vs. "born" (begin living as an independent organism)
** Further muddied by phrases like "she had borne him a child".
*** Although, of course, the child was borne in her womb for nine months before it was born.
*** And neither one has anything to do with [[Franchise/TheBourneSeries Jason Bourne]], or with [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourne,_Massachusetts a city in southeastern Massachusetts]].
** There is a book Airborn (born in the air), a word play on Airborne (lit. carried in the air). One of the characters was born on an airship.
* "bosoms" when referring to a single person. "Bosom" means the upper chest, the breasts or (figuratively) the heart; a woman has breasts, but only one bosom.
* "boson" (subatomic particle) for "bosom" (breasts).
** Also "bosun", short for boatswain, a supervisory position on a ship similar to that of a sergeant on land. Any fandom involving seafaring will have several fics with bosons running around.
** [[Manga/{{Hellsing}} "Integral]] [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2781781/1/ tried hard to not cover her not so small boson."]]
* "bossism" (the ideology of being a boss?), also for "bosom".
** Bosoms should always be handled with care.
* "Bought" is the past tense of "buy". "Brought" is the past tense of "bring".
* "Bowl" (open container) for "bowel" (intestine), and vice versa.
* "brazier" (a pan for lighting fires in) for "brassiere" (female underwear, usually shortened to "bra").
* And while we're talking about brassieres, it's best not to confuse them with brasseries (which are French or French-style restaurants).
* "breaks" (fractures, turns of fortune) for "brakes" (devices for stopping a vehicle)
** That may simply be an archaism, rather than an error. Victorian reports of investigations into railway accidents almost invariably use "break" to mean a stopping device.
* "breath" (noun) for "breathe" (verb).
* "breath" (air in the lungs) for "breadth" (width).
** Also, a tiny distance is "a hair's breadth"; "a hare's breath" is the respiration of a large lagomorph.
* A person from Britain is a "Briton", not a "Britain".
* "Bring" (carry ''toward'' the speaker or their home) vs "take" (carry ''away'' from the speaker or his home). If you bring someone home, they come to your house, if you take someone home, they go back to their own house.
* "broach" (to make a hole in, or the hole itself, or to open a subject for conversation) vs. "brooch" (piece of jewelry)
* For Americans writing Brit Fic: "bullocks" (young male cattle) vs. "bollocks" (testicles). "Cutting off your bullocks" simply means you're no longer providing those calves with financial support.
** Cutting off a bull's bollocks makes a bullock.
* From [[http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22burning+mandella%22&btnG=Google+Search numerous]] ''Franchise/SailorMoon'' [[http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=%22burning+mandela%22&btnG=Search fics]]: "Burning Mandella". Rei does ''not'' ignite the former president of South Africa and throw him at her target. Not even with his name spelled ''right''. This should be, of course, "Burning ''Mandala''" (a Buddhist meditation symbol).
** Nor does the same happen to William Mandella, the protagonist of the sci-fi novel ''The Forever War'', whose name actually ''is'' a misspelling of "mandala" (because his parents chose the name when they married, but ... didn't know how it was spelled).
* "calendar" (a means of keeping track of dates) vs. "colander" (a perforated bowl used to strain off liquid from food) vs. "calender" (a machine for glazing paper or cloth). It's hard to imagine a situation where a fanfic writer would actually intend a reference to the latter.
* "caliber" (degree of competence, also a diameter of a bullet or something similarly shaped) for "caliper" (an instrument to measure thickness or part of the brakes on a car). "Man of his caliper" is used far too often. Interestingly, you can use a caliper to measure caliber.
** And, despite what certain game titles (and episodes of CSI:Miami) might say, it's not spelled "calibur".
*** It should be noted that the name [[VideoGame/SoulSeries Soulcalibur]] is a reference to {{Excalibur}}. Don't misspell the sword as "Excaliber," or the video game series as "Soulcaliber."
* "callous" (uncaring) for "callus" (hardened skin).
** Actually, "callous" is the adjective form "callus." (Calloused skin has calluses on it. A callous person is hardened against empathising.)
* "Canadian geese" for "Canada geese". Canada geese are a specific type of geese. Canadian geese would be any geese that happen to live in Canada.
* "cannon" for "{{canon}}"—mostly found in reviews. (The Verne Canon is the body of Creator/JulesVerne's fiction; the Verne Cannon is a fictional very-large-bore weapon from ''TabletopGame/CastleFalkenstein''.)
** A Kannon is a Buddhist Boddhisattva, sometimes called the goddess of mercy. The company Canon is named after her.
%%** Now that's ''my'' kind of mercy.
** The back-cover blurb for ''[[TankGoodness Bolos: Honor of the Regiment]]'' speaks of them having a "laser canon."
*** Depending on the style of that, laser weaponry ''could'' be [[IncrediblyLamePun canon]]. Laser ''rifles'', on the other hand—what difference could rifling the barrel possibly make to a beam weapon?
*** Most military firearms are now rifled; the ones called "rifles" fulfill a particular role (precision shooting), so a "laser rifle" is probably a reasonable concept. A "laser canon" on the other hand could be a high-tech BadassPreacher.
** While we're on the subject of the word cannon, another plural mistake—the plural of the singular cannon is still cannon, like with the word sheep. So, the Light Brigade charged down a hill into all of the Russian cannon, not all of the Russian cannons.
* "can" (Am I able to?) vs "may" (Am I allowed to)? Most people ''do'' know the difference between the two. Despite this, mixing them up is surprisingly common even for adults. Some dictionaries allow "can" to be used this way, although it's usually noted as informal
* "cant" (hypocrisy, slang, or [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cant_(road/rail) a measure of the slope of a banked turn]]) for "can't" (cannot)—sometimes seen in trope titles. Also "wont" (habit) for "won't" (will not).
** Follow-up: "cannot" (is unable to) vs. "can not" (is able to refrain from).
* "canvass" (to search thoroughly; often used in the political context to mean "knock on doors") for "canvas" (heavy cotton fabric). The art student paints [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible incomprehensible]] paintings on ''canvas'' but during the daytime will ''canvass'' for UsefulNotes/BarackObama's campaign.
* While "[[http://comics.com/wizard_of_id/2009-10-23/ capeesh]]" or "capiche" can be acceptable, as the expression itself has become more of an interjection than a word with actual meaning, the original Italian is "capisce." Best translation is "do you understand?"
-->"So sit down and be quiet, capiche?"
--><pause>
-->"Do you understand me?!"
-->"...everything except the capeesh part at the end."
** This one is a problem, since it stems from a Sicilian colloquialization of the word "capite" in Italian. The [[Film/TheGodfather Corleones]] were Sicilian, so, "capisce" became the most common form known to non-Italians.
*** And you know, it's not even really pronounced that way in Italian. Rather than "kuh-PEESH" it's really "kah-PEE-shay."
** The original Italian is "capisce"... but the word in Italian-American slang is ''[[http://www.word-detective.com/030698.html coppish]]''.
* "capricious" (whimsically arbitrary) for "capacious" (having lots of room)
* "caret" (^-shaped cursor or mark for insertion of text into a document) vs. "carat" (tiny unit of mass for gemstones) vs. "karat" (measure of pure gold in a jewelry alloy, ranging from 0=none to 24=100%) vs. "carrot" (orange root vegetable)
** Measure of gold purity may be also spelled 'carat', but 'karat' is preferable because of similarity to its symbol (K or kt). Unit of gemstone mass is always spelled with a 'c' however.
* "carrel" (a library cubicle used for private study) vs. "corral" (an enclosure for horses). Neither should be confused with "coral" (the stuff reefs are made of), "carol" (a song of joy), "Carol" (a female name or [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Carol a hurricane in 1954]]), "choral" (of a chorus or choir), or "Corel" (a software house).
** And while we're at it, "[=CHOral=]" (adj. meaning of a chorus or choir) is not the same as "[=choRAL=]" (noun, a religious melody). In English, the latter is sometimes spelled "chorale," to make the (spoken) distinction plain; the former is not.

* "Jack-o-Lantern" (a type of lantern carved from a pumpkin) vs "Jackal Lantern" (a lamp used to scare off wild dogs, presumably.) Thankfully not a very commom mistake, although [[https://www.reddit.com/r/BoneAppleTea/search?q=jackal%20lantern&restrict_sr=1 this site lists a couple instances.]]

* "Bought" is the past tense of "buy". "Brought" in the past tense of "bring".

** Finally, some examples. In World War I, a truce was observed for Christmas of 1914; however, fighting resumed the next day. An armistice went into effect on November 11, 1918. The treaty of Versailles, ending the war, was signed on June 28, 1919 and became effective on January 10, 1920. In World War II, fighting in Europe ended with an armistice on May 7, 1945. The peace treaty with Germany formally ending the war was signed on September 12 1990 (no, this isn't a typo: it had to wait until East and West Germany were reunified) and went into effect on March 15, 1991. Following the treaty, Germany was formally allied with the U.S., France, Great Britain, and the other NATO members; it was at peace with, but not allied with, the Soviet Union.

* "Confection" (a piece of candy, dessert, or other sweet thing) vs "convection" (how heat spreads through a liquid or gas.)
* A word's "connotation" is the secondary implied meaning(s) the word carries, e.g., "pale" and "pallid" mean roughly the same thing, but "pallid" is generally considered to have negative implications (such as the person being sickly). A word's "denotation" is simply its dictionary style definition.

* "(Eau de) Cologne" is a fragrance meant to be worn, usually one designed for men, named for the city of Koln (Cologne), Germany. "Colon" is the lower part of the intestine. "Ode colon" would presumably be a song about (or [[{{Gasshole}} from]]) the lower intestine.

* "(Eau de) Cologne" is a fragrance meant to be worn, usually one designed for men, named for the city of Koln (Cologne), Germany. "Colon" is the lower part of the intestine. "Ode colon" would presumably be a song about (or [[Gasshole from]]) the lower intestine.

** In the ''StarWars'' EU, a "beckon call" is a remote control which orders the user's spaceship to home in on said remote-control's location using autopilot. The pun is almost certainly intentional. Zahn [[PungeonMaster likes his wordplay]], but tends to make it subtle enough not to distract the reader.

* "H[[subscript:2]]O" (the chemical formula for water)—the final "O" is an uppercase letter, not a number (except in ''Series/LookAroundYou'', but [[ArtisticLicenseChemistry Elements Do Not Work That Way]]). The same goes for [[StarWars C-3PO]].

* "Lassie" is a girl. "Laddie" is a boy. And, by the way, "Lassie" is not a dog breed - she was a Rough Collie.

* "sewage" is waste water and excrement, "sewerage" is the mass noun denoting the sewers built to carry the stuff.

* A "maelstrom" is a very powerful whirlpool, one that can (according to ''WesternAnimation/{{The Little Mermaid|1989}}'') suck entire ships down. "Mealstorm" is not a word, unless a food fight got wildly out of hand.