Category Archives: Writing

They used to just be a plural word, referring to a number of people and having the standard reflexive form of themselves – “There were many people in the queue. They were all told to help themselves from the buffet”.

But we are seeing more and more usage of they and them as a singular, to avoid clumsy uses of  he/she or him/her followed by himself/herself. Then, by extension from the him – himself or he – himself formation of the reflexive, people are starting to use themself as the reflexive. “If a child is confident, they may be able to help themself to water”.

This does seem to be sensible, and it’s something I think I’ve used myself (there’s another one!) in the past. However: no more! Because, having been asked about this via Twitter, I looked it up and found that actually themself is not regarded as “good English”. And we like good English on this blog, don’t we?

So the reflexive of singular they and them is themselves, and my above example should read: “If a child is confident, they may be able to help themselves to water”.

An easier one, I suppose, in that one is correct and one is incorrect – you don’t have to remember different usages, just not to use themself. Make that we don’t have to remember …

You can find more troublesome pairs here and the index to them all so far is here.

Counsellor and councillor are very commonly mixed up – you find them everywhere, from non-fiction books to blog posts and all points in between. I suppose both of them try to help people – but they are different words for different things, and they need to be kept separate and understood as such.

A councillor is someone who sits on a council. So, local councillors are those people we elect to sit on the city council and run bits of our lives for us. Oh yes, let’s not forget our capitalisation rules in all the excitement: Councillor Broomfield sits on Libroville City Council. She is a councillor who sits on a city council.

A counsellor is someone who provides help with personal problems. They give counsel, they counsel you. Maybe that’s the way to remember it, as you can’t council someone. Can you? You go for counselling with a counsellor (I have seen the two spellings being mixed up even in that context) and maybe that’s the way to remember it.

If anyone has any nifty ways to remember these differentiations, do post a comment!

You can find more troublesome pairs here and the index to them all so far is here.

Weary or wary seems to me to be an odd pair to mix up – sorry if you do this and don’t think it’s odd, but they just seem so different. Having said that, I do keep seeing them being mixed up, so this will probably be helpful!

I see weary being used where it should be wary more than the other way round; I have a feeling that perhaps a memory of leery is getting into it, and then the pronunciation means the writer goes for the word that sounds like leery. Who knows. Anyway, here we go:

Weary means tired. And to weary of something means to be reluctant to experience any more of it. “I’m weary, because I’ve worked 10 hours today” (this is not literally true, don’t worry!). “I’m weary of writing Troublesome Pairs posts and I don’t think I’ll do it any more” (this, also, is not true).

Wary means cautious about possible dangers or problems. It’s linked to beware, and maybe that will help people to remember it. “I’m wary of dogs after being bitten a few times”, “I’d  be wary of going down that dark alleyway if I were you.”

Let’s see if we can use the two in the same sentence … “She was weary of being wary, jumped into the middle of the pack of dogs … and got bitten.”

Sorry, dog lovers – please feel free to substitute any other biting animal in these sentences!

You can find more troublesome pairs here and the index to them all so far is here.

I’ve been working my way through the last of Gill’s massive list and this is one of the final ones … I have had some more suggestions here and there, though, so the supply won’t run out just yet!

So, today we have confound and confuse.

To confuse someone is to make them bewildered or perplexed – “He confused her with his rapier wit until she would agree to anything”.”1% fat or 99% fat-free? I’m confused”. In a linked way, it also means to make something less easy to understand – “He confused all the issues with each other until it was impossible to understand his arguments”. And it also means to identify wrongly – “Is that Busted? Oh – I’ve confused them with McFly.”

Now, confound does carry a meaning of to surprise or confuse,  but it’s more used in the sense of proving something wrong or causing it not to work, defeating a plan, a hope or an aim “Her hopes of living off her savings were confounded by the low interest rates”; “Ha! With my intelligence and wit, I have confounded your dastardly plot!” A useful and flexible word, it can also mean to mix up with something else: “in his formula, x is confounded with y, and that makes it come out wrong”.

Special bonus word: to confute – is to prove to be wrong (shall we do confute and refute next time?)

So, a simple rule – confuse if you want to perplex or mix up; confound if you want to ruin the dastardly plans. Got that?

“She was confused by the bright lights, and he confounded her plan for escape by tripping her up.”

That’s probably the last troublesome pair for 2011 – will anybody be on the internet reading blogs next Friday?

You can find more troublesome pairs here and the index to them all so far is here.

That, which or who? This is a set of words that I see used incorrectly all the time, especially using “that” instead of “who” (although there are a few debates, it’s normally quite clear). I’ve also been asked for help on that/which a number of times, and I have to admit that I wouldn’t have been able to reel off the rules without checking it. Of course, I do check all of these, even when I think I know the answer, just to make sure I’m giving you the correct information!

So, to start off, you can use that OR which if you are introducing clauses that define or identify something (the fancy name for these is “restrictive relative clauses”) and it doesn’t seem to matter which – it’s a question of style preferences or what feels better in the sentence (wouldn’t you know: another one without a proper rule!) So: “A book which aims to explain all human life”, “a book that aims to explain all human life”.

Which is officially used (instead of that) if the clause gives additional information. “The book, which costs £15, has sold 1000 copies”.

Although it’s not officially specified in my reference books, I would therefore use them like this:

– If you’re just saying what the book (or whatever) does in general, use that: “these are the books that will tell you about the stars”.

– If you’re explaining something in comparison with something else, use which: “This is the book which explains all human life, unlike this other one, which just explains about men”.  The way to remember this? “Which is which?”

Moving on to who, we use who when we’re talking about a person or something that’s personified such as a group of people or a named animal. “The man who said yes”, “The proofreaders, who were all a bit pernickity”, “Felix the cat, who was very naughty” (and possibly, “the cat, who was very naughty”, if it’s a specific cat, but “the cats that lived in the barn”, “the cat that I saw on my way to work, which was white with a grey tail … “).

Things do get a bit confusing when you get to a group of people, as a group is non-personified, but the people are – you can do it either way but someone will argue with you, whichever path you take (“The group of men who were going to the ball”, “The group of men that was going to the ball” – I prefer the former, personally. Remember to make the verb agree when you do this – it depends whether you’re referring to the singular group or the plural members of the group).

You can find more troublesome pairs here and the index to them all so far is here.

Another troublesome pair from my friend Gill’s enormous holiday list – if you have any more you’d like me to look at, do let me know …

Today we’re looking at till (or more properly, ’til, although the Oxford Dictionaries no longer include a listing for ’til) and until, which I do see being used interchangeably by both native and non-native English speakers (this is quite rare, actually: most of the pairs I’ve been talking about are usually only found in native English speakers, in my experience. Non-native English speakers have all sorts of other common issues, but  not these.) (That gives me an idea for a new series of posts!).

Anyway: till and until. I have consulted the dictionaries and reference books and … they are the same. They mean up to a particular point in time or an event that is being mentioned (“He wasn’t able to take any holiday days until Christmas”), but in a sense that’s more concentrated on that particular date or event, as opposed to a word such as by which is more about the period itself. (“He was told to take all of his holiday by Christmas but he didn’t manage to do it until the gap between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve”; “You can’t play on the Playstation until you’ve finished your homework”).

Until is considered to be more formal, occurring more often in written English. Till is, wouldn’t you know it, more informal, and occurs more in spoken English. Till is also used as a noun (a cash register or a glacial deposit) or a somewhat archaic agricultural verb to do with preparing the soil before planting a crop.

However, there is one important distinction: you always use until when starting a sentence.

“She gave him the pills till he felt better” or “She gave him the pills until he felt better” but always: “Until he felt better, she continued to give him the pills”.

You can find more troublesome pairs here and the index to them all so far is here.