Commonly Confused Words

Commonly Confused Words.” How can you tell if you’re using the correct word from commonly confused word pairs and trios? Simply put, since spell check won’t usually spot them for you—and since autocorrect will sometimes switch them around without asking you—you need to learn to recognize which word is witch (whoops—I meant “which,” not “witch”!). It helps if you start by figuring out which sound-alikes you frequently confuse.

►Here are some that many people find difficult to distinguish:

affect/effect
your/you’re
their/there/they’re
too/to/two
its/it’s
loose/lose
Go through these and see if there are any you have doubts about. Look them up. Write a sentence (or more than one) that uses the commonly confused words correctly. Then post on the discussion board the following:

One of the sentences you wrote using one of these commonly confused words and maybe a comment about how you plan to remember which spelling has which meaning.
A note on other words you’ve mixed up before and ways you discovered to keep from confusing them. (For example, to use one of the above pairs, I remember to use too when writing “too much” by thinking of the extra “o” as an intensifier; in my mind, I hear it as “tooooo much”!)

You should look through LB’s “Glossary of Usage,” both to help remind you of a word pair you have a little trouble with and to get familiar with the glossary, as it’s really useful to have around.