Like all editors, I’m always on the lookout for mistakes. And I love when someone brings to my attention a less-common English mistake. My friend Mary is a teacher in primary (grade) school. Recently she overheard a pupil tell a teacher “I don’t want to do [this assignment].” The teacher replied, “I see, you couldn’t be arsed to do it!”.
Mary later took the teacher aside to point out that this way of speaking with the children was a tad inappropriate. “What do you mean?”, the other teacher responded. “All I said was, ‘You couldn’t be asked to do it!’.”
When I had stopped laughing, we had a fun conversation about English mistakes that are less frequent than the usual ‘lose/loose’, ‘accept/except’, etc. Today I came across another one, when I read an article where someone wrote that “for all intensive purposes, I am fully cured”. I’m delighted about the author’s clean bill of health, but to all intents and purposes she could do with some remedial English classes.
I’ve already written a list of the most common English mistakes that I come across in my work. Today, let’s look at some that are less common.
My favourite less-common English mistakes
Wrong...
Right!
Should of
Should have. Come on, you know that’s just being lazy, right?
Irregardless
Regardless
Another thing coming
It’s ‘think’, not ‘thing’. “If you think I’m going to hike over to your place and pick up pizza on the way, when I could just as well sit at home binge-watching Netflix, you’ve got another think coming.”
Peak/peek my interest
Pique, meaning to rouse or provoke.
Fine toothcomb
Fine-tooth comb. I think this one is self-explanatory, but I always enjoy hearing this mistake and getting that fleeting image of someone combing their teeth with a tiny little comb.
Less
Fewer, as in “There are fewer interesting TV shows on Netflix during the summer.” ‘Less’ would mean something different here, as in “There are less-interesting TV shows on Netflix during the summer.” However, usually the context makes the meaning clear, and I think we should just accept the shift from fewer to less. It really doesn’t bother me to hear or read “There are less apples in this basket than in that one.” It’s a fact that this change is happening. English is an evolving language, and that is part of its beauty. So sometimes we have to sit back, observe the evolution and enjoy the ride. Regardless.
I
Me. Whether to say ‘I’ or ‘me’ can be tricky. It should be: “He invited my husband and me to come over for pizza.” Hint: remove ‘my husband’ and you’re left with the correct sentence “He invited me to come over for pizza.”
Everyday / everyone / sometime
Every day / every one / some time. It’s not always right to turn words like these from two words into one. It changes the meaning. Every day I’d like to eat everyday things like bread (and pizza). But sometimes I don’t, when I reflect that I’ll need to diet for some time to make up for it.
Which / that
These are often used interchangeably, but they shouldn’t be. It’s all about essential messages versus nice-to-have, add-on messages. ‘Which’ introduces a nice-to-have message that is not essential to the sentence. ‘That’ introduces a phrase that is essential to the meaning of the sentence.
Supposably
Undoubtably
‘Undoubtably’ means ‘not capable of being doubted’, or ‘it cannot be doubted’ (i.e., it’s a fact). ‘Undoubtedly’ ‘means ‘not questioned or doubted by anyone’ (but it’s an opinion). So, Paris is undoubtably the capital of France and undoubtedly a beautiful city.
See also: common English mistakes.
