Public service announcement

[GMouse]

Lose == to cease to be in possession of, as in "I will lose my dog."
Loose == to let free or unleash, as in "I will loose my dog upon that small child."

Affect == verb, except in psychological jargon
Effect == noun

Thank you.

[/irritation]

[Optional]

Also:

its = first person singular possessive! e.g. "Its cost was the largest selling point."

it's = IT IS e.g. "It's annoying how 99% of native English speakers can't even use their own language properly."

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there = used to indicate a location or a point in a given process or sequence of events e.g. "He went over there." or "There he goes again."

they're = THEY ARE e.g. "They're so stupid!"

their = third person plural possessive e.g. "Their attitudes require... readjustment."

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When people mix those up, it really makes me mad :<

[diego1116]

Nice topic, specially (especially?) for non-native English speakers

[GMouse]

Nice topic, specially (especially?) for non-native English speakers

Why thank you. I just get irritated with people, native speakers no less, who keep making some of these mistakes.

[rduke]

And almost everyone under the age of 40

[Optional]

And almost everyone under the age of 40

I've seen quite a few people over the age of 40 making these mistakes...

Another one that just came to mind:

then: only used with time-related things (giving a set of directions, explaining what orders things happened in) e.g. "Go left, THEN go right." or "He walked home, then went straight to his room".

than: demonstrative pronoun (used with comparisons and anything not related to time) e.g. "He is fatter than him." or "Russian is harder to learn than Finnish."

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English has too many homonyms

Edit:

loose

Loose also means the opposite of 'tight' e.g. "The ropes were loose." or "Your mom is loose."

[Pobega]

Affect == verb, except in psychological jargon
Effect == noun

Thanks for this one, I asked one of my teachers once and I got a horrible explanation back, which explains me ever using it wrong.

"Affect is when it's done to you, effect is when you do it to someone else"

[GMouse]

Basically, when you affect something, you're having an effect.

The psychological exception is in reference to somebody's affect. The stress is on the first syllable. From Websters': "The emotional complex associated with an
idea or mental state. In hysteria, the affect is sometimes
entirely dissociated, sometimes transferred to another
than the original idea."

[Optional]

Affect as a noun is pronounced like 'ahh-fect'. The verb is more like 'uhh-fect'.

(in American English anyways... no idea what the Brits say)

You will very rarely see affect as a noun though... 99.9% of the time it's a verb.

[sinical]

Im straylian so Ill start spellin fronetikalee

[detly]

You can also effect a change in somthing (or have effected etc).

You may enjoy Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation...

[bluesdog]

One of my favourites...

[Lavene]

Words are fun... I love playing with words.
"When something, in effect, is done in affect, the effect might affect a lot of people"

Of course, not being a native English speaker makes it a bit easier to ignore the finer points of the language

Tina

[DeanLinkous]

your - possessive case of you
ex . Your hair is a mess.
you're - contraction of "you are"
ex. You're going to brush your hair.

[AgenT]

One of my favourites...

That is a common problem word. However, it is rather easy to remember the spelling if the word is broken up.
de-finite-ly
Notice that finite is an English word in itself.

[actionM]

Good one. I always had a problem with that one until I realized it contained the word 'finite'.

[mzilikazi]

My day job is technical support and it requires that I am very well versed in all sorts of colloquialisms and variations of the English language. I can understand (but not necessarily speak) Ebonics (which very nearly became an accepted variation of English) Southern Drawl where everyone is addressed as "y'all"and Eastern New England accent where they don't believe in using the letter 'R' and the New York dialect where everyone has an attitude that shines through in every word they say. I too get annoyed by some of the gross spelling & grammatical mistakes here but I seriously doubt that this post (or any of the dozens of others in this same vein) will ever do one little bit to change the way people speak (write) in forums. Kids these days think that LOL, BFF & other chat/text message acronyms are actuall words and use them regularly in daily conversation, letters, cards and even papers turned in for assignments. Yep - it's possibly hopeless so what chew trippin foo?

[Optional]

I'm from Rhode Island, and some people use the Boston accent here... especially in the capital

'Park the car in the yard' becomes 'Pok da coh in da yod' :<

'sniper' becomes 'snipuh', etc.

[llivv]

'

[esaym]

I'm getting dumber everyday