In last week’s post, Check Your Writing, I mentioned the need to watch out for commonly confused words. Spell checkers point out some of the most typical—such as its versus it’s—but I suspect all writers have certain words that trip them up. Knowing what these words are is the first step to avoiding them when we write.
Some of my commonly confused words are:
- advice or advise
- choose or chose
- complement and compliment
- conscious versus conscience
- council, counsel, console, and consul
This, of course, is not a complete list, but merely the ones I have bothered to document so far. Although some of these pairs are pronounced differently, my diction doesn’t always distinguish between them. These are words that can cause my writing to stumble, so I carefully scrutinize their every appearance.
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Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD, is a full-time, career author. He’s published scores of books, hundreds of articles, and thousands of blog posts, with experience as a publisher, editor, and commercial freelance writer. A passionate wordsmith, his goal is to change the world one word at a time. Learn more at PeterLyleDeHaan.com.
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