15 Grammar Goofs That Make You Look Silly

15-grammar-goofsThis infographic from Copyblogger features some of my favorite grammar pet peeves. Making these mistakes can brand you as an amateur, so learn when each choice is correct and make sure your spelling, grammar and punctuation are correct before sending your writing out into the world.

Of course, knowing the correct choice does not free you from having to proofread. I sometimes catch myself making a few of these mistakes, usually when my fingers disconnect from my brain. Suddenly, I find myself keying something that my brain knows is wrong, but my fingers seem to believe is correct. Entering the wrong “there” or “their” seems to be one of my favorite keying errors, even though I know which word I should use.

A few of my pet peeves not on this list?

“I could care less.” People usually say this to indicate that they do not care at all about something. What they mean is that they couldn’t care less about it. Saying that you could care less means that you do care.

Using “nauseous” instead of “nauseated.” Nauseous means causing nausea. Nauseated means feeling sick to the stomach. So when you say you are nauseous, you are saying that you make people feel sick. You might be right–people who use words incorrectly make me a bit ill–but it is probably not what you meant to say.

Misspelling “voilà.” I see it spelled as “viola,” and more commonly as “wala,” “walla,” “wa-la” and other creative ways of messing it up. It is a French word and it is spelled voilà. Really. You can look it up.

There are others, but you get the idea.

Refer to this infographic when you need a reminder of these common grammar goofs and how to fix them. The 15 grammar goofs featured in the infographic are:

1. Your / You’re
2. It’s / Its
3. There / Their / They’re
4. Affect / Effect
5. Then / Than
6. Loose / Lose
7. Me, Myself, and I
8. Improper Use of the Apostrophe
9. Could Of, Would Of, Should Of
10. Complement / Compliment
11. Fewer / Less
12. Historic / Historical
13. Principal / Principle
14. Literally
15. The Dangling Participle

15 Grammar Goofs That Make You Look Silly
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