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Category Archives: Troublesome pairs

There, they’re and their

30 May

This should be a popular one as it’s a very common set of mix-ups (and I know it’s not a pair, but a trio: think of it as a Bank Holiday Bonus)

There – regarding a place. “Have you been to Wales? Yes, I’ve been there.”

Their – possessive of “they” – belonging to them “Don’t take their wellies without asking!”

They’re – less formal, abbreviated form of “they are” “Are Linda and Freddie going to be at the party? Yes, they’re going to the party!”

So, if some people are visiting a female relation who lives on the other side of the valley: “They’re visiting their aunt, who lives over there”.

That’s it, really!

For why we don’t add an apostrophe to “theirs”, see my article on the apostrophe.

For more troublesome pairs, have a look at the category cloud to your lower right, or click here!

 
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Posted by on May 30, 2011 in Errors, Language use, Troublesome pairs, Writing

 

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Lead or led?

26 May

Another potentially troublesome word pair: “lead” and “led”.

Here, we’re only talking about the sense involved in taking someone or something from one place to another, not the soft metal that’s made into roofing, the thing that connects your computer to your printer, or the thing that connects your hand to your dog …

This is quite a simple one: lead is the present tense, and led is the past tense.

So, we can differentiate thus: “lead” is used in the present, including when we’re requesting something at this moment: “Lead us not into temptation” – “Every morning, I lead the cows into the field and I still do that now”.

Contrast this with use of the past tense: “Every morning last July, I led the cows into the field, but that was in my old job and I do something different now” –  “He led me into temptation”.

“I’ll lead the horse today; you led him yesterday”.

If you want to see more pairs of words, click on the “Troublesome pairs” link in the category cloud to the right of this page …

 
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Posted by on May 26, 2011 in Errors, Language use, Troublesome pairs, Writing

 

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Affect or effect?

19 May

Welcome to the first of my weekly mini-posts on troublesome pairs of words.  Keep on suggesting new pairs on the comments to my original post!

So, today it’s affect and effect.

Quite a simple one – if you AFFECT something, it means you have an EFFECT on it.

Well, not quite that simple …

Affect is (mainly) a verb, which means “to have an effect on”, or to “make a difference to.”  Effect is used mainly as a noun, the difference that is created when something is affected.  It’s an end result or consequence.

Although you can also “Effect a change in something”, this is a different verb used in a different way.  And an affect is also used in other senses, such as to denote pretending or as a precise term in psychology, but we won’t worry too much about those uses, as they’re not the ones that tend to get mixed up.

Examples:

Bill’s injury affected his ability to play in the team, and had a bad effect on the team’s morale.

Bill affected the morale of the team when he got injured.  The effect was to make them play less well.

I will affect the balance of this blog between grammar and opinions when I post all these mini-posts.

When used in combination with another drug, this drug can affect the side-effects in a positive way.

The effect of the water on the runner was marvellous; he perked up immediately.

Sarah effected a change in the way the meetings were structured.

Thanks as usual to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary and New Hart’s Rules for helping back me up!

 
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Posted by on May 19, 2011 in Errors, Language use, Troublesome pairs, Writing

 

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Which pairs of words need clarifying?

11 May

I’m going to do a series of short posts, possibly daily, clarifying tricky pairs of words.

For example:

affect – effect
practise – practice
fewer – less
compliment – complement

I need loads of them – please comment with your favourite / least favourite / personally troublesome words and I’ll cover as many as I can and build up a nice resource for my readers!

 
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Posted by on May 11, 2011 in Blogging, Errors, Language use, Troublesome pairs

 

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Can, may and might

10 May

A request has come in from a reader to write about distinguishing between “can”, “may” and “might” – so here goes. Again, my sources of reference have been the Oxford English Dictionary, New Hart’s Rules and the New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors.

Can vs. May
Can implies the ability to do something. “Can she play the piano?” – is she able to, at any point in time, play the piano? Is she capable of it? Has she learnt to play it?
May implies permission to do something or the possibility of doing something. The latter is probably the easy one – “She may play the piano if she feels up to it” introduces the possibility of her doing so. “May she play the piano? ” is asking for permission to do so.
An amusing way to remember this – “May I play this piano?” – “Of course you may. But CAN you play the piano?” – “No, I never learnt to do so!”
You do also find this one in discussions with parents and teachers. “Can I leave the table?” – “You are certainly ABLE to leave the table, but whether you have permission is a different matter!”

May vs. Might
I admit here that I had to do some research on this one. Traditionally, may is used in the present/future tense, and might in the past tense. So: “I may have some coffee after dinner if I’m still thirsty” vs. “He might have known his attacker.”

All clear? Oh, and while we’re on cans and mays … “cannot” is preferably used as one word, rather than “can not”. The only exception is in constructions like “He can not only do this, but also the other.”

 
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Posted by on May 10, 2011 in Errors, Language use, Troublesome pairs, Writing

 

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Capital or lower case?

27 Apr

When do you use a capital letter to start a word, and when do you use lower case?

This is one of those things that has changed through the years. Think about Dr Samuel Johnson’s Twitter-feed for example – it’s partly effective because of its use of capitals. But nowadays, it’s “less is more”.

Of course, we always use a capital letter at the beginning of a sentence, and traditionally we use one after a colon, too (although this is no longer set in stone – the rule is: be consistent).

Proper names are still capitalized, so: Liz, the city of London (when referring to the place as a whole) but the City of London when referring to that specific region of the city.

Some words are capitalized (or not) to distinguish between an abstract and a concrete use of the term. For example, the Methodist Church as an organisation, but a Methodist church as a building. In a similar way, State is capitalized when you’re talking about a particular state – New York State, or the State of New York as an entity, but when talking about the states of New York and Wisconsin, no capital. And when you’re referring to something you’ve mentioned before, such as the University of Birmingham, you call it “the university” thereafter. The same with people: Prince William, but “the prince said”, etc.

Although this isn’t strictly a “troublesome pair”, the rest of them are here.

 
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Posted by on April 27, 2011 in Errors, Language use, Troublesome pairs, Writing

 

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