Grammar Errors by Seriousness

Common Grammar Errors

Mistakes that will make you look really stupid

• 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 semicolonswhen 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 toand 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 long subject of a sentence
• Treating none as a plural word