My Grammar and I (Or Should That Be 'Me'?): Old-School Ways to Sharpen Your English

T
HOMAS
H
OOD
Smart Alec: A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another
word but differs in meaning. The words may be spelled the same or differently.
It’s my bizness to be definate
Here are the correct spellings of a random selection of commonly misspelled
*6
words:
accidentally cemetery liaison
accommodate definite
millennium
allege
diarrhoea necessary
avocado
ecstasy
niece
association
embarrassprivilege
broccoli
grammar separate
business
height
sincerely

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Take my advice
In these commonly confused noun/verb pairs, the noun has a c and the verb has
an s .
†7
Noun
Verb
advice
advise
practice practise
device
devise
prophecyprophesy
licence
licens
e
Useful mnemonic: I’d  advise  you  not  to  give  advice.  Advice/advise is  the  only
pair in the list whose verb and noun are pronounced differently, but the rule of c
= noun, s = verb applies to all the others, too.
That’s if you’re British, by the way. If you are American, it is often, but not
always, the other way round. Did we mention that spelling was an uphill climb?
Swot’s Corner: Until the eighteenth century, English spelling was not
standardized on either side of the Atlantic. Then, in 1755, Samuel Johnson
published his Dictionary of the English Language , and in 1828, Noah Webster
published An American Dictionary of the English Language .
Webster was an orderly-minded man who disapproved of a lot of the spelling
that Johnson had recorded (indeed, he disapproved of a lot about Johnson, saying
that he was ‘naturally indolent and seldom wrote until he was urged by want.
Hence… he was compelled to prepare his manuscripts in haste.’).
Webster’s dislike of words that weren’t pronounced the way they looked led him
to decree that words such as centre and theatre should be spelled center and
theater ; he also dropped the silent u from words such as colour , favour and
honour . In fact, Webster was single-handedly responsible for most of the
differences between British and American spelling that survive to this day.