When my brain moves too fast, and I’m writing, I get a lot of typos. I also have a tendency to confuse words with each other. It’s a byproduct of whatever word in the cluster I use more often. When I’m trying to type fast enough to keep up with my thoughts, I go into autopilot so sometimes I’ll type ‘you’re’ when I meant to type ‘your.’ Thank goodness for the editing process and for being aware that you NEVER submit anything without a careful second (or third) read.
For those of you out there who confuse words simply because the English language is truly confusing, here are some of my favorite pairs. Even if you consider yourself a savvy linguist, it never hurts to have a good refresher.
ADDITION AND EDITION
I put this pair in here because there is a specific instance where they can get confused. I’m not talking about mathematically, but it can happen when talking about something new. For example, when you add something to an existing something, it’s an addition. Think about building an addition to your home. You’re adding a whole new piece of house to an existing structure.
An edition is simply a new version of something that already exists. You’ll see this most often in textbooks. Each time it’s revised and republished, it’s a new edition.
ALLUSION AND ILLUSION
This pair gets tricky since one kind of deals in the abstract while the other in the concrete, yet both aren’t necessarily implying anything concrete. Confused? Me too. That sentence was harder to write than I thought. But, an allusion is when you’re referring to something specific but not coming outright and saying what you’re talking about. It’s like speaking in code. You may allude to the weather by talking about how much you’re sweating, but not come right out and say the sun is freaking hot.
An illusion can reference a statement that’s actually untrue or it can talk about how something looks like something else. Either way think of an illusion as a type of trick. I like to focus on a magician here and their optical illusions. They’re tricking your eye into seeing something that isn’t really there.
DESERT AND DESSERT
This, to me, unfortunately, is more of a spelling mistake rather than a confusion on the definitions of the word. It’s safe to say that most people know one of these words is that sweet treat you eat after a meal and the other is a wide expanse of sand dunes.
My own clever way of remembering these involves that extra ’s’ and thinking about how I’d want more dessert, not more desert. That way, when I’m taking about the ice cream sundae I had last night after dinner, I’m talking about dessert. And, when I talk about how freaking hot it is visiting my mom who lives in Arizona, it’s about the desert.
Note: Desert can also mean leaving somewhere as in to desert a town. It’s also a single ’s’ though. Doubling up is only for the tasty end to a meal.
FEWER AND LESS
These two are commonly confused words not because they look alike but because many have trouble distinguishing their definitions. Each has an appropriate time to get used grammatically, but it’s hard to remember what goes where, especially since they both have to with a decrease.
An easy way to delineate which word to use when is to look at the noun in the sentence. Not to get too technical, but one pairs with countable nouns and one with uncountable. Use fewer, which means not as many, for nouns you can count. My husband wishes we had fewer cats. (We have four.) Use less, which means not as much, for nouns you can’t count. I put less water in the cat bowls today. You may have to think a little bit here in some cases, but this strategy ensures you’ll be grammatically correct most of the time.
LOOSE AND LOSE
Be honest, when you read the two words in this section, did you get them right? Did you pronounce ‘loose’ as in The jar lid was loose and it leaked? Did you pronounce lose as in The home team will lose the game if they don’t score in the next 15 seconds? For me the first hiccup in getting these words right every time is in the pronunciation. If I see the words right, I use the correct one, but if I don’t, there’s a risk for error.
The best way to deal with this is to think of the word lost. It has one ‘o’ and so does lose.
PERSONAL AND PERSONNEL
You might not use both words in this pair the same amount, but it depends. I say personal way more than personnel, but if I worked in human resources, that might be different. Just to clarify, personal is the term used for anything that belongs to you or anything taken to heart. If someone insults you, you take it personally. Similarly, I’m writing this blog on my personal computer.
Personnel refers to anyone who works for a company or organization. It’s more of a technical term, and is best left for use professionally and in business communications.
STATIONARY AND STATIONERY
When looking for confusing pairs of words, I hadn’t thought of this one. It’s not one I confuse, but realizing how close in spelling they are, I wanted to include them on my list. This is a simple case of memorization. There’s no trick to remember which of these goes where.
Stationary is for anything that isn’t moving like that stationary bike in your bedroom you now hang clothes on instead of using. Stationery is that soon-to-be-forgotten paper you write letters on that go in the mail. I was obsessed with stationery as a child - loved writing letters, addressing envelopes, and all that. Now, I hardly mail anything, and the only stationery I keep handy are thank you cards that often just get handed to the recipient. Ah well, it makes sense I guess. Kids today can’t even read cursive, how could they appreciate a handwritten note on beautiful paper? (I will now step down from my soapbox.)
PICKING THE RIGHT WORD
These pairs are truly only the very tip of the iceberg when it comes to words that commonly confuse us all. It’s relatively easy to swap out two similar-sounding words or two words that have a similar meaning. This is why it’s imperative you reread anything you write — slowly and carefully — before sending it out. You don’t want the meaning of your content to be misconstrued, and you don’t want to look like you don’t know what you’re talking about. Any copy error can be a ding against your caliber as a writer so just remember to take YOUR time.
