Ten Words You Need to Stop Misspelling
12th January 2012
The Oatmeal is watching.
Addendum: DO NOT CONFUSE ‘IF’ WITH ‘WHETHER’ (unless you have tattoos or piercings, in which case you are doomed to life in the Underclass anyway and it doesn’t matter whether you can use the language properly). (Note the correct use of ‘whether’ rather than ‘if’.)
‘IF’ is conditional. ‘I want to know if you are going.’ =>’You’re going: I want to know; you’re not going: I don’t care.’
When you want to know regardless, use ‘whether’: ‘I want to know whether you are going.’ => ‘Go or stay, I still want to know.’
January 13th, 2012 at 10:37
Reading this article will unfortunately not effect a change in the affect of those most needing it.
2nd Addendum: Leave out those seemingly ubiquitous yet totally unneccessary words ‘at’ and ‘what’, such as in the sentences “Where is itat?” or “It’s better than whatI it was.” The ‘at’ and the ‘what’ add nothing; remove them and the meaning remains unchanged.
January 13th, 2012 at 10:44
3rd Addendum: The words are ‘irrespective’ and ‘regardless’, which are synonyms. There is no such word as ‘irregardless’.
January 13th, 2012 at 10:48
4th Addendum (as long as I’m on a roll):
The countries are pronounced EE-raq and EE-ran. There is no EYE-raq, no EYE-raqis, no EYE-ran, nor any EYE-RAYnians. No more than there is a country called EYE-taly, where the EYE-talians come from.
January 13th, 2012 at 13:16
Let me add that the nuts used in pies and candies are called pecans (puh-kahnz). Pee-cans are something that folks used to keep under the bed so they wouldn’t have to go all the way to the outhouse at night.