Good blogging is good writing. I have said that many times and stand by it. If you remember, I posted something on the difference between entitled and titled. To refresh your memory, entitled means to give someone the right to something while titled means having the title of (such as books, movies, and other works). In this post, let us look at a couple more pairs of commonly confused words.
Affect versus effect
Sometimes we see or hear one word being used instead of the other. This could be due to the fact that sometimes, when we speak, the sounds of the first syllable of the words get interchanged unintentionally. This could be translated into writing but it should not be. Affect means to influence while effect means the results. The former word is a verb while the latter is a noun. The keys for “a†and “e†are not that far from each other on a QWERTY keyboard so you should be watchful of possible confusion when writing.
Already versus all ready
Obviously, these two words/phrases are not pronounced differently. As such, it might be easier to make mistakes when using them in written work. However, they mean two different things. Already is an adverb that means “prior to a specified or implied past, present, or future time : by this time.†All ready is actually a more informal utterance that is used to mean that everything is prepared. For example: “The food was all ready when I got up.â€
Originally posted on August 20, 2008 @ 3:24 pm
