Commonly Confused Words

[zerl]

Gacked off my flist--
http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=14457200288064322170

I found the test difficult and very interesting, until I came to the score analysis:

"Remember, these are commonly confused English words, which means most people don't

Comments

[indywind]

Dishearteningly, many native speakers frequently confuse homophones (e.g. to, too, two), what I will call related pairs--e.g. imply and infer (or e.g. and i.e.. If the words both sound similar and have similar meanings (e.g. assure, insure, ensure) they're misused even more frequently.
I'm a grammar geek, but to my chagrin even I have to consult a reference for some very common words. (I'm also a little bit dyslexic; I don't know if that excuses anything or not.)

If I can generalize from my experience, I'm afraid very many Americans do not actually understand each other clearly, nor particularly care to. In our own language! To say nothing of how lazy we are about aquiring even minimum competency in other languages. ::stopping potential rant by force of will::

[zerl]

Oh, now that you mention it, Japanese does have a ghastly amount of homophones... And people do mix them up all the time. Me included!

I guess the thing is, in Japanese, many confusing sets of homophones are also very similar in meaning (like the different letters we need to use for "hot" when the adjective describes the atmosphere or some object) -- sometimes to the point of being indistinguishable. When the meanings are quite different, there's no way you can mistake one word for another in writing, because we use ideogramic characters.

That's why I was so shocked, I think. Alphabets are a very different matter, even if you're native speaking.

...Not that I don't still think you should learn them at school :P

[homasse]

Because people are stupid.

And I have to admit, I commonly goof up "loose" and "lose," since, by the rules of written English, 'lose' should have a long "o," and the way "loose" looks actually fits the way "lose" is spelled. Peope who learned spelling by phoenics--by the sound each letter makes and the rules of letter combinations--will have problems with that one. I know I always type them wrong and the stare at them for a second before I fix it.

And "assure," "ensure" and "insure" being commonly confused just makes me cry.

And yes, reading fanfic is an ordeal, because *god*, these people can't type, spell, or be arsed to use proper English, and they act like you've insulted them and pissed on their mother's grave if you ask them to.

[zerl]

Hee^^ The sad thing is? Right after I posted this I made a mistake in my own doc file, writing "chose" where it had to be "choose."

You know what, the main problem is English is such an irrational language. Especially its rules of writing: to a learner it looks like there's no rhyme or reason how things are spelled -- only, apparently a native speaker feels the same way.

Oh, speaking of native speakers making horrid mistakes... Would you be free tomorrow evening for the Japanese chat? I don't think I can only spare about two to three hours, but I'll try to be there around eight pm.

[homasse]

English spelling made sense...a couple hndred years ago. It got all screwed up thanks to the most unfortunate fact that the printing press was invinted right *before* the Great Vowel Shift in ENglish, and so spelling got standardized, and then right after it did, in a span of 20-30 years, the way English was pronounced completely changed, rendering the newly standardized spellings "bwuh?"

Saturday night? I'm not sure--I'm going to Toyo to see a recital. I *should* be back before 8:00, but I'm not sure. My guess, though, is probably not. Is Sunday OK?

[zerl]

Is Sunday OK?

Sure! We'll make it tomorrow then. Though I can't be there for very long this week. Sorry^^;

[originalkitsune]

The COMMON english speaker you see in the U.S. is DUMB. The newspapers here are generally written at 4th grade english level. Despite being one of the wealthiest nations in the world, the U.S. literacy rate is also VERY LOW. Even though I scored well on that test, lots of people I know didn't which is scary and some of those people write fanfiction.