Top 42 easy-to-get-wrong grammar, language and spelling mistakes

Still confused over 'who' and 'whom'? Check out my top 42 favourites from the Economist Style Guide. You too can become a spelling pedant and a better copywriter.

Top 42 easy-to-get-wrong grammar, language and spelling mistakes

Nobody is born knowing the English language, you have to learn it. Oh, and remember it. In all of its no-logic-just-have-to-memorise-it glory. There are some really strange words and spellings, and it's really easy to forget about the grammar rules. There can't be many English native speakers that can confidently relay when to use 'who' and when to use 'whom', are there?

Along this theme, and a slight break from tradition, I've listed my top 42 favourites from The Economist Style Guide: 12th Edition. I couldn't whittle it down any more, the more I read, the more I realised the big holes in my language knowledge. I've quoted directly from the book, so all credit, copyright, and legal stuff goes to The Economist Style Guide.

My favourite top 42 common English spelling, language and grammar mistakes:

1. Aggravate
Aggravate means make worse, not irritate or annoy.

2. Agree
Things are agreed on, to or about, not just agreed.

3. Apostrophes
Use the normal possessive ending 's after singular words or names that end in s: boss's, caucus's, Delors's, St James's, Jones's, Shanks's. Use it, too, after plurals that do not end in s: children's, Frenchmen's, media's. Use after the 's' for possessive plural - boys' coats (the coats of the boys).

4. Biannual, Biennial
Biannual can mean twice a year or once every two years. Avoid. Since biennial also means once every two years, that is best avoided too.

5. Bon vivant
Bon vivant, not bon viveur.

6. By contrast, in contrast
Use by contrast only when comparing one thing with another. If you are simply noting a difference, say in contrast.

7. Collapse
Collapse is not transitive. You may collapse, but you may not collapse something.

8. Convince
Don't convince people to do something. In that context the word you want is persuade.

9. Crescendo
Crescendo. This is not an acme, apogee, peak, summit or zenith but a passage of increasing loudness. You cannot therefore build to a crescendo.

10. Deal
Transitively, deal means distribute: “He was dealt two aces, two kings and a six.” Intransitively, deal means engage in business. Do not deal drugs, horses, weapons, etc; deal in them.

11. Decimate
Decimate means to destroy a proportion (originally a tenth) of a group of people or things, not to destroy them all or nearly all.

12. Different
Different from, not to or than.

13. Discreet, discrete
Discreet means circumspect or prudent; discrete means separate or distinct.

14. Disinterested, uninterested
Disinterested means impartial; uninterested means bored.

15. Effectively, in effect
Effectively means with effect; if you mean in effect, say it. The matter was effectively dealt with on Friday means it was done well on Friday. The matter was, in effect, dealt with on Friday means it was more or less attended to on Friday.

16. Enormity
Enormity means a crime, sin or monstrous wickedness. It does not mean immensity.

17. Fewer than, less than
Fewer (not less) than seven speeches, fewer than seven samurai. Use fewer, not less, with numbers of individual items or people. Less than £200, less than 700 tonnes of oil, less than a third, because these are measured quantities or proportions, not individual

18. Frankenstein
Frankenstein was not the monster, but its creator.

19. Free
Free is an adjective or an adverb, so you cannot have or do anything for free. Either you have it free or you have it for nothing.

20. Garner
Garner means store, not gather.

21. Homosexual
Since homosexual comes from the Greek word homos (same), not the Latin word homo(man), it applies as much to women as to men. It is therefore as daft to write homosexuals and lesbians as to write people and women.

22. Identical
Identical with, not to.

23. Impractical, impracticable
If something is impracticable, it cannot be done. If it's impractical, it is not worth trying to do it.

24. Luxurious, luxuriant
Luxurious means indulgently pleasurable; luxuriant means exuberant or profuse. A tramp may have a luxuriant beard but not a luxurious life.

25. Moot
Moot, in British English, means arguable, doubtful or open to debate. Americans tend to use it to mean hypothetical or academic, ie, of no practical significance. Prefer the British usage.

26. Overwhelm
Overwhelm means submerge utterly, crush, bring to sudden ruin.

27. Oxymoron
An oxymoron is not an unintentional contradiction in terms but a figure of speech in which contradictory terms are deliberately combined, as in bitter-sweet, cruel kindness, friendly fire, joli laid, open secret, sweet sorrow, etc.

28. Populace
This is a term for the common people, not a synonym for the population.

29. Positive
Positive means definitely laid down, beyond possibility of doubt, absolute, fully convinced or greater than zero. It does not mean good.

30. Practicable, practical
Practicable means feasible. Practical means useful.

31. Presently
Presently means soon, not at present.

32. Pristine
Pristine means original or former; it does not mean clean.

33. Prodigal
If you are prodigal, that does not mean you are welcomed home or taken back without recrimination. It means you have squandered your patrimony.

34. Propaganda
Propaganda (which is singular) means a systematic effort to spread doctrine or opinions. It is not a synonym for lies.

35. Report
Report on, not into.

36. Stationary, stationery
Stationary: still. Stationery: writing paper and so on.

37. Systemic, systematic
Systemic means relating to a system or body as a whole. Systematic means according to system, methodical or intentional.

38. Transpire
Transpire means exhale, not happen, occur or turn out.

39. Underprivileged
Underprivileged. Since a privilege is a special favour or advantage, it is by definition not something to which everyone is entitled. So underprivileged, by implying the right to privileges for all, is not just ugly jargon but also nonsense.

40. Viable
Viable means capable of living. Do not apply it to things like railway lines. Economically viable means profitable.

41. Which and that
Which informs, that defines. This is the house that Jack built. But This house, which Jack built, is now falling down.

42. Who and whom
Who is one of the few words in English that differs in the accusative (objective) case, when it becomes whom.
Whom should be used to refer to the object of a verb or preposition. When in doubt, try this simple trick: If you can replace the word with “he”' or “'she,” use who. If you can replace it with “him” or “her,” use whom.

Any of those new to you?