Daily Archives: July 29, 2008

Peeves Vol. 2

Okay, some more peeves:

Rain/Reign

Rain: falls from the sky, usually water, but near a volcano could be fire. The children played outside in the warm, gentle rain. Lyrics: “It’s raining men, hallelujah, it’s raining men, Amen.”

Reign: sovereignty, under the dominion, sway, or influence. England prospered during Queen Elizabeth the First’s reign.

Blog/Post redux

And we’re adding in comments here. Comments are not posts. They are not blogs. Comments are just that, comments. The comments are generally on the post’s topic, or as a response to another commenter.

Some comments are spam and some are from “trolls” and some are completely off topic.

But again: comments are not posts and comments are not blogs.

Affect/Effect

For this I will quote from Garner’s A Dictionary of Modern American Usage (an invaluable reference that should be on every writer’s bookshelf):

In ordinary usage, affect is always a verb; it means “to influence; to have an effect on.” Effect as suggested by its use in that definition, is primarily a noun meaning “result” or “consequence”. To affect something is to have an effect on it. But as a verb, effect means “to bring about; produce.”

Accept/Except

Accept: to receive – “She accepted the offer of a job with ABC Corporation.”

Except: to exclude – “She likes all the flavors of Bertie Bott’s jelly beans except earwax.”

I have seen this misuse in a business letter. The author wanted to accept a contract item, but wrote except instead. That changed the whole tenor of the letter and was, in fact, the opposite of what he intended.

Its/It’s

This one is a little different. It’s easy to confuse them, especially since one is a possessive and the other is a contraction and both usually call for an apostrophe to be used.

The easy way to remember proper usage is to ask this question: Can I substitute “it is” and have the sentence sound right?

The company held its annual summer picnic on the first Saturday in August. It’s usually well attended and a good time is had by all.

irregardless – IS NOT A WORD!

Caring less

Often seen around the web is the phrase “I could care less.” That means that the speaker could, indeed, care less about the subject than he or she does at this moment in time. The correct phrase is “I couldn’t care less” meaning that the speaker could not care any less about the subject than he or she does at this moment in time. The speaker’s “careability” level is as low as it could possibly go.


Any more?


mm-5