The McAwesome Guide to English Grammar,
Common Errors and Usage Mistakes
How not to write like an idiot
by Dave McAwesomeHow to use The Guide. I capitalize The Guide to lend an extra air of self-importance. Are you really confused how to use it that you need an explanation? Are you new to the interweb? Look up your word/phrase/grammar issue in the list below. If there are two possibilities for the word, check both. For example, if you don't know whether to look up 'especially' or 'specially,' first check the Es. Not there, is it? Check the Ss. Yeppers, thar she is.
English ain't a perfect language. She has a lot of idiosyncrasies that one learns only by sheer memorization. On the other hand, she offers a wide range of possibilities in terms of sentence construction, synonyms and toleration of abuse. Think of her this way: She's got a few skin blemishes, but she's up for anything in the bedroom...and, whoa, what a great rack.
- 110 percent
- a, an
- accept, except
- accessary, accessory
- active, passive
- affect, effect
- ages
- see numbers
- "all but..."
- all right, alright
- Alzheimer's, Asperger's, autism
- amoral, immoral
- assure, ensure, insure
- auger, augur
- aural, oral
- a while, awhile
- axel, axle
- backward, backwards
- bail, bale
- bare, bear
- beach, beech
- beat, beet
- bight, bite, byte
- bold, italics and how it relates to punctuation
- brake, break
- breath, breathe
- bridal, bridle
- business jargon
- business or professional titles
- but, butt
- buy, by, bye
- calendar, calender
- chord, cord
- cite, site, sight
- cities
- colon
- commas
- complacent, complaisant
- complement, compliment
- core, corps
- descent, dissent
- desert, dessert
- die, dye
- dilemma
- discreet, discrete
- dual, duel
- eat your cake and have it too
- eerie, eery, eyrie
- emdash
- ensure, insure
- see assure, ensure, insure
- faint, feint
- fair, fare
- farther, further
- February
- ferment, foment
- foreword, forward
- fragment
- gallop, Gallup, galop
- gorilla, guerilla
- grate, great
- grammar, grammer, grammarical
- grisly, grizzly
- hair, hare, heir
- hangar, hanger
- hart, heart
- hear, here
- heard, herd
- heroin, heroine
- hoard, horde
- in-between, in between, inbetween
- internet and computer terms
- italics
- its, it's
- lam, lamb
- lay, lie
- licence, license
- load, lode
- lose, loose
- me, myself and I
- meat, meet, mete
- months
- moot, mute
- misspell
- naval, navel
- none
- numbers
- OK, O.K., okay
- our, out
- over, more than
- paragraph indentation
- parallel
- peak, peek, pique
- pedal, peddle
- percent
- pluperfect
- pneumonic, mnemonic
- pole, poll
- political party affiliation
- practice, practise
- praise, prays, preys
- preschool, pre-school
- principal, principle
- punctuation and quotation marks
- question marks
- see punctuation and quotation marks
- rain, reign, rein
- raise, rays, raze
- right, rite, wright, write
- road, rode
- root, route
- Safire, William, Self-contradicting Rules for Writing
- seam, seem
- sear, seer, sere
- seas, sees, seize
- seasons
- sew, so, sow
- shear, sheer
- (sic)
- siege, seize
- sole, soul
- soup up, supe up
- spacing
- specially, especially, special, especial
- speech
- spell checkers
- stake, steak
- States (U.S.)
- stationary, stationery
- steal, steel
- storey, story
- synergy
- see business jargon
- tense in attribution
- their, there, they're
- then, than
- through, thru
- titles
- see italics
- to, too, two
- toward, towards
- vain, vane, vein
- vice, vise
- way, weigh, whey
- weak, week
- wean, ween
- weather, whether
- Web site, website
- wet, whet
- whine, wine
- whirl, whorl
- whit, wit
- who's, whose
- wolf, woof down food
- writing for the Web
- who, that
- whoever, whosoever
- years
- your, you're