Grammar Errors by Seriousness

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Common Grammar Errors

Some grammar errors are more embarrassing than others. The list below starts with the bad ones and ends with the ones that you'll probably get away with. You can use this list to prioritize our lessons and tests.

"You are what you write."

Mistakes that will damage your credibility

• Confusing you're and your
• Confusing its and it's
• Using an apostrophe in a plural (e.g. 4 lion's)
• Writing could of, would of or should of
• Confusing too and to
• Confusing they're, their and there
• Confusing who's and whose
• Using a double superlative or comparative (e.g. most prettiest, more better)
• Confusing accept and except
• Writing her's, our's or their's
• Confusing allot, a lot and allot or writing alot
• Confusing allowed and aloud
• Confusing desert and dessert
• Confusing grisly and grizzly
• Confusing then and than

Mistakes that will make you look careless

• Confusing advice and advise
• Confusing e.g. and i.e.
• Confusing affect and effect
• Getting an or a wrong
• Confusing adverse and averse
• Putting a capital letter on a common noun (e.g. Drink our Water)
• Confusing allude and elude
• Confusing allusion and illusion
• Confusing altar and alter
• Confusing bare and bear
• Confusing being or been
• Confusing censor, censure and sensor
• Confusing cite, sight and site
• Confusing coarse and course
• Using a dangling modifier (e.g. Smelly and heavy, she prodded the walrus.)
• Confusing decent, descent and dissent
• Confusing defuse and diffuse
• Confusing elicit and illicit
• Confusing fewer and less
• Confusing forth and fourth
• Confusing imply and infer
• Confusing incite and insight
• Confusing loose and lose
• Confusing past or passed
• Confusing plain and plane
• Confusing pore, pour and poor
• Wrongly placed apostrophe for possession (e.g. The cat bit the dogs' leg.)
• No subject and verb agreement (e.g. A box of tapes are under the stairs.)
• Confusing principal and principle
• Confusing precede and proceed
• Confusing raise, rise and raze
• Confusing role and roll
• Confusing colons and semicolons when extending a sentence
• Confusing stationary and stationery
• Writing these kind of and not these kinds of
• Confusing vain, vein and vane
• Confusing waist and waste
• Confusing weather, whether and wether

Mistakes for which you'll be forgiven

• Being inconsistent with abbreviations (e.g. BBC and I.T.V.)
• Putting AD after the year (e.g. 2011 AD)
• Confusing adoptive and adopted
• Failing to use hyphens in compound adjectives (e.g. 4 seater aircraft)
• Confusing already or all ready
• Using "my wife and I" when you mean "me and my wife"
• Confusing appraise and apprise
• Confusing beside and besides
• Confusing breathe and breath
• Continuing a sentence with , however,
• Confusing climactic and climatic
• Failing to use a comma after a transitional phrase (e.g. As a result he lost.)
• Not knowing when to use a comma before which and who
• Confusing complement and compliment
• Confusing definite and definitive
• Confusing dependant and dependent
• Confusing discreet and discrete
• Confusing disinterested and uninterested
• Creating a double negative with neither/nor
• Confusing incidence and incidents
• Confusing instance and instants
• Confusing law and lore
• Confusing lay and lie
• Confusing lead and led
• Confusing licence or license
• Confusing loath and loathe
• Confusing notable and noticeable
• Confusing practice or practise
• Confusing precedence and precedent
• Confusing prophecy and prophesy
• Confusing proscribe and prescribe
• Starting a sentence with which or who (e.g. She can play the trumpet. Which is nice.)
• Confusing storey and story
• Confusing who and whom

Mistakes you'll probably get away with

• Failing to use hyphens in expressions like "3-and-a-quarter million"
• Using hyphens with adverbs (e.g. extremely-talented actor)
• Confusing alright or all right
• Confusing altogether and all together
• Confusing amoral and immoral
• Confusing amount, quantity and number
• Failing to use apostrophes in temporal expressions (e.g. 3 years insurance)
• Using a capital letter for a season (e.g. next Summer)
• Confusing can and may
• Confusing canvas and canvass
• Failing to use a comma after an interjection (e.g. Yes I do.)
• Failing to use a comma to show the vocative case (e.g. John you're next.)
• Confusing compose and comprise
• Writing comprise of
• Using a hyphen instead of a dash
• Confusing economic and economical
• Confusing enquiry and inquiry
• Confusing envelop and envelope
• Confusing getaway and get away
• Confusing historic and historical
• Confusing if and whether
• Using the wrong version of into/in to, onto/on to and up to
• Putting a hyphen in no one (e.g. no-one)
• Incorrectly writing numbers in full
• Confusing provided or providing
• Illogically placing punctuation inside or outside a quotation
• Failing to nest quotation marks (singles and doubles) correctly
• Starting sentences with figures

"Mistakes" that might annoy your reader

• Ending a sentence in a preposition
• Using a split infinitive (e.g. to really try)
• Starting a sentence with And or But
• Not using a comma before and when merging two sentences
• Putting a full stop (period) after a contraction (e.g. Mr.)
• Failing to use a comma after a sentence introduction (e.g. At 4 o'clock he went home.)
• Not following your national convention with commas in lists
• Incorrectly treating a collective noun as singular or plural
• Using a comma after a long subject of a sentence
• Treating none as a plural word