15 Everyday Errors Used in The English Language

English has a lot of traditions and can be a complex language to learn correctly, even by those who grew up with the language, just imagine what challenges people from other cultures face when coming to the language, especially when migrating to a land like England (United Kingdom), the United States, Canada, Australia, or other countries where English is spoken as the first language.

Here are some of the common mistake people make:

• Your or You’re: Your denotes possession and means “belonging to you”. You’re is is joining the words “you are” for simplification. When spoken these are very similar, yet it is when written the error becomes evident. In English, the apostrophe often denotes an abbreviation or simplification.
• Its of It’s: This is one of the most common errors. The apostrophe denotes an abbreviation or the joining of the words “it is” into a shortened form.
• Adding words like “very”: The phrase “He has a unique personality” is not enhanced by the use of “Very” as the word “Unique” meaning one of a kind cannot be modified through the use of a comparative or superlative, when something is one of a kind it cannot be compared.
• Ain’t: is intended as a contraction of “am not” and often leads to double negatives. This is not a valid word, or contraction in the English language.
• “Can” or “May”: “Can” is an auxiliary verb that means “to be able to”, whereas “May” is also an auxiliary verb, but this means “to be permitted to. When you wish to talk to someone you should ask “May we talk?” because you are asking for their permission to converse. “Can we talk?” has one answer “Yes humans are able to talk.”
• “Could of”, “Should of”, “Would of”: None of these are valid. Correct use is “Could have”, “Should have”, or “Would have”. However the complication comes from the contraction “could’ve”, “should’ve”, and “would’ve” which most people prefer.
• “Farther” or “Further”: “Farther” is a comparative use of the word “far” and thus “farther” implies greater distance. “Further” means “to a greater extent” or “additionally” and whilst it has it roots in “Far” it refers to time or an amount. Correct use: “London is farther away than New York” and “We should be further along with this work”.
• “Historic” or “Historical”: When something is historical it is having to do with history or is from the past. “Historic” is something or someone having significance in history. The pot we dug up in the garden is historical, but it is not historic unless it changes our understanding of history.
• Irregardless: There is no such word; it is an attempt at a double negative and is used by many as the opposite of regardless.
• “Kind of” and “Sort of”: These expressions generally mean “type of” or “variety of” as in “The kestrel is a kind of falcon”, or “What kind of sausage is that?”. However this has developed in another direction as in “John felt kind of lonely” which should have been “John felt somewhat lonely” or “John felt rather lonely“. Worse still is “kind’a” which derives from this usage.
• To “Accept” or “Except”: When we receive a gift we accept it. Except is almost an opposite word meaning to exclude or leave out.
• “There” or “Their”: There refers to a location whereas their is plural possessive. “The coach party are going there, and these are their bags” indicates that the party are going to a location and also indicates their possessions.
• Adding and apostrophe when pluralising nouns: “The peach’s are sweet” is incorrect because the plural of peach if peaches. Lynn Truss has a whole critique of this type of error in her book “Eats, Shoots & Leaves“.
• “ATM Machine” or “PIN Number”: This is an example of where a person is repeating one of the words in the abbreviation and thus making the sentence a nonsense. “Where is the ATM Machine?” would therefore become “Where is the automated teller machine machine?” and we would would not speak that way. Similar for “PIN”, which means “personal identification number”.
• “That’s a good question”: This is being used frequently as a stalling mechanism because the speaker does not know how to answer the question, it gives them time to think. The problem here is that every question cannot be a good one.

Another I would like to add is “Whatever” it is usually used as a dismissive statement or to express indifference to something. Basically it is used as a conversational blocking tool where the person being talked to indicates their disinterest. Its use is normally considered very rude.