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`NthErik. · 04:08 PM

Many simple mistakes often aggravate me when reading things on this forum. Hopefully this will help those who actually care about whether or not they're making mistakes. I'm not even bothering with those who don't; so don't come in here to make posts saying things such as, "Why do you care?" and "ITZ THE FUKKIN INNERNET".

Quote:

Of / Have: I would have done that if I had the opportunity / Of what colour is your house?

The place where people get mixed up is when "have" is contracted into "'ve"; as in "should've", "could've", and "would've". "Have" functions as an auxiliary verb, "of" is not a verb and can't be used in place of "have".

Quote:

It's / Its: It's a dog, can't you see that? / Its features include feathers and wings; it's obviously a bird.

Its is the possessive form of "it", just like "his" is the possessive form is "he". "It's" is a contraction of "it is".

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Whose / Who's: Whose dog is this? / Who's that? I can't tell from here.

"Whose" is the possessive form of "who", whereas "who's" is a contraction of "who is".

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Your / You're: You're a good person. / Your shoe is untied.

"You're" is a contraction of "you are" whilst "your" is the possessive form of "you".

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Than / Then: I had some coffee and then a bagel. / Red is better than blue.

"Than" is a grammatical participle and preposition used to compare two things. "Then" is an adverb or noun, indicating the time in which a series of events took place

Quote:

There / They're / Their: The store is over there. / They're good people. / They've lost their minds.

"There" indicates a place, "they're" is a contraction of "they are", and "their" is the possessive form of "they".

Quote:

There's, where's, etc.: There's a car in the street

The problem here is that people use "there's" even when the subject is plural. If there were multiple cars, you should say "there are cars" instead of "there's cars".

Quote:

Accept / Except: I accept your apology. / All except for the chief were present.

"To accept" is to agree, take in, or receive. "Except" is a preposition which means "apart from", but is also rarely used as a verb, meaning "leave out".

Quote:

Addicting / Addictive:

"Addicting" is the present participle of "to addict". I see a lot of people on the internet using this as an adjective when they shouldn't be. The adjective is "addictive".

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Affect / Effect: The rain affects my sight. / The bomb effects the wall's collapse.

"To affect" is to influence; an "effect" is a result of something.

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Aloud / Allowed: He said his name aloud. / You are not allowed to state your name.

"Aloud" means "out loud" and is seldom used. "Allowed", however, means "given permission" and is used often.

Quote:

Ironic / Sarcastic: It's ironic that you would say a chocolate teapot is useful. / His tone was so overcome with sarcasm that he hurt the child's feelings.

Irony is defined as using words to convey something other than, and especially the opposite of, their literal meanings.

Quote:

Lay / Lie: I lay the napkin on the table. / I lie in bed.

"To lay" is a transitive verb, which means it must take a direct object. "To lie" is an intransitive verb, which means it cannot take a direct object and it means "to recline". If you're unsure which you should use, replace it with "recline" and see if it would make sense.

The major reason people get confused about these verbs are their conjugations:

To lay: I lay / I laid / I have laid / I am laying.
To lie: I lie / I lay / I have lain / I am lying.

Misspellings:

Congrads / Congradulations: This should be "congrats" / "congratulations".

Alot: "A" and "lot" are two separate words.

Seperate: Should be "separate", with an /a/ after the /p/.

Definately / Definatly etc.: Should be "definitely".

Noticable et al.: Should be "noticeable", with an /e/. Otherwise it'd be pronounced "no-ti-ka-bl".

Rediculous: Should be "ridiculous", with an /i/ instead of an /e/ as the second letter.

Additude: Should be "attitude", with two /t/s instead of two /d/s.

Phrases / Expressions

I could care less: This should be "I couldn't care less".

Past Participles

For some reason I keep seeing people mess up simple past participles, saying things like "I had ate," which should be, "I had eaten". There's really no way I can help you with this, but you should probably get to learning these past participles. It's not "I've ran"; it's "I've run".

"Ran," in the example above, is the preterite. When you use a verb in conjunction with an auxiliary verb, you use the past participle instead of the preterite which, in this case, would be "run": forming, "I've run".