What are the most common English usage mistakes? [closed]

Question

I am not a native English speaker and I make a lot of mistakes (specially with prepositions), but still, there are a few things that I notice in other people's writing which really annoy me.

On the top of my list are the following:

• the use of "it's" when it is supposed to be "its" and vice-versa.

• the use of "there" and "their" interchangeably.

What are some other common mistakes that really annoy you?

If possible, I think it would be nice to give also an explanation of why it is wrong, or the correct way of saying it (even though I did not do that for my examples).

Answer 1

You have a comprehensive list here: Common Errors in English Usage

(online book)

Answer 2

Pet peeve: using "myself" (or other reflexive pronouns) instead of "me" (or "you", etc):

"The other attendees are myself and Steve."

should be:

"The other attendees are me and Steve."

Answer 3

A very common error is not having control of verb tenses, especially over-using the present tense, e.g. translating the German "Wir gehen jetzt" to:

We go now.

instead of a correct version of this, depending on the context:

We're going now.

or:

We're going to go now.

or:

Let's go.

Answer 4

Common mistakes:

Writing "woulda" or "would of" instead of "would have."

People both saying and writing "mines." Example: "That one's yours, but this one's mines!" It should just be "mine."

Another common one is confusing "your" and "you're." "Your" is possessive and "you're" is the contraction of "you are."

Some people still insist on saying "a umbrella" instead of "an umbrella."

Some people also refuse to capitalize the pronoun "I." It should be "why would I want to go to the store?" not "why would i want 2 go 2 the store?"

Spelling phonetically. Native English speakers tend to contract words a lot, and if they speak more than they read, they tend to make a lot of mistakes. For example, "probly" and "rediculous" instead of "probably" and "ridiculous." (EDIT: Peter Mortensen put a link in the comments with some good examples. I'll point out, though, that "extant" is also a word. Here's the link: http://www.irosetta.com/questions/433/vowel-substitutions )

Also, learn the exceptions to the "i before e" rule. A few common exceptions are weird, seize, all of the -cies plurals, and caffeine.

People ignore the subjunctive case a lot. Some even believe it doesn't exist in English. It should be "if I were going,..." not "if I was going,..."

If I think of more, I'll edit...

Answer 5

Seen too often, often by native English speakers: loose vs. lose, e.g. "Did you loose your dictionary?"

Answer 6

Apostrophes and commas are troublesome even to native English speakers (although I'd argue the 'rules' are less strict for the latter).

Cue bad joke:

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons.

'Why?' asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit.

The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

'Well, I'm a panda,' he says, at the door. 'Look it up.'

The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. 'Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.'

Via - Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation

Answer 7

I find a lot of people use then instead of than, such as

If it's later then six, don't call me.

Whereas it should be

If it's later than six, don't call me.

Answer 8

In writing, the ones I notice the most are:

• you're (should only be used as a contraction for you are) and your (possesive)
• alot instead of a lot
• everyday versus every day (the first is an adjective, the second is a phrase)
• irregardless — rarely used and regarded as incorrect in standard English

Incidentally, some of the ones that get an unfair break are:

• alright — it is a word, albeit somewhat recent
• till — it's the older form of until, not the other way round

Answer 9

Punctuation marks such as commas ,, colons :, and semicolons ; seem to give people trouble.

Answer 10

I remembered another common mistake which bothers me:

• affect x effect (affect is a verb only)

and the following common spelling mistakes:

• avorcado instead of avocado

• slowely instead of slowly (I have seen so many people writing this! Why?)

• rediculous instead of ridiculous

Answer 11

Not annoying, but a sure tipoff to a non-native speaker: misuse, particularly underuse of articles. She went to house to get sweater. "House" and "sweater" need something to specify them further, even though "the house" adds zero information.

Answer 12

Incorrect usage of the apostrophe - especially with respect to plurals and possessives. I see examples like these everywhere:

Orange's $xyz per bag

Fords newest model

People's computers

The correct forms for the above are Oranges, Ford's and Peoples'. Ok, I'm not 100% sure of the last one ;-)

As for why people do this? Poor education perhaps? Laziness? I certainly know a lot of people who don't care that they can't spell and have poor grammar. For some it's even a badge of honour.

Answer 13

The most common grammatical error (as opposed to spelling errors like the ones you mention) is probably subject/verb (dis)agreement.

Answer 14

The favorite still is "If-clauses" "If I would..." for "If I was..." - even native speakers start using it :-(

Answer 15

In the US, there are a lot of regional differences in language that are technically usage mistakes. For example, I grew up in central Pennsylvania, and it's common to hear people use a construct like The lawn needs mowed when the correct form is The lawn needs to be mowed.

Answer 16

(not English specific) So called False Friends lead to many mistakes. These are words which are somehow similar to a word in the speakers native language but have a very different meaning. E.g. in German the word "eventuel" (= potentially) may be incorrectly translated as "eventually".

Answer 17

One of the hardest for those who weren't born speaking English (starred that I hear often):

"do" and "make"

1. Do time
2. Make time
3. *Do trouble
4. Make trouble
5. *Do a mess
6. Make a mess
7. *Do a dive
8. Make a dive