7 Homophone Mistakes to Avoid

When you’re speaking out loud, homophones sound alike, but when you’re writing them out, it’s a different story. Though they have the same pronunciation, homophones may have slightly different spellings and totally different definitions. Since using the wrong one can completely change the meaning of your statement, it’s important to make sure you have the right word in mind.

Commonly Confused Word Pairs

By Laura Wallis for The Stir by CafeMom

Words that sound alike but have different meanings and spellings are called homophones, and especially for kids who are just learning to spell, they can cause trouble every time. There are some rules to help budding writers remember the trickiest homophones, but in many cases it’s just a matter of memory. There, their . . . they’ll get them in time.

What’s the Difference Between Was and Were?

The key to understanding when to use was or were in a sentence is determining whether you need to use the subjunctive mood or not. A verb is in the subjunctive mood if it expresses an action or state that is not reality. For example, it might be hypothetical, wished for, or conditional.

“Was” and “Were” as Past and Subjunctive Verb Tenses

To better see what we are up against when deciding when to use was or were, let’s compare the past and subjunctive conjugations of to be side by side.

The Rise of the Helping Verb

You hire a fashion consultant to help you redesign your wardrobe. He tells you to get rid of your most recently acquired shoes. You gasp in surprise because you bought the shoes only a couple of days ago. All the celebrities are wearing them. How can they not be fashionable? You may ask the same thing about helping verbs. Aren’t they always in fashion? The short answer is no.

That’s How You Say It? 9 Words with Tricky Pronunciations

If you read a lot, you probably have an excellent vocabulary. But it also means that you may know a lot of words that you’ve only seen in writing and never heard spoken aloud. Sometimes even common words are easy to misread. Language enthusiasts have coined the term “misle” for a word that leads you to incorrect assumptions about its pronunciation. It comes from the word misled (as in, the past tense of mislead), which many language lovers admit to misreading at one time or another as the past tense of some imaginary verb along the lines of “to misle.”

Canceled or Cancelled?

This word is a student’s best friend and a concert-goer’s most dreaded nightmare. Take these two signs:

Snow day: school canceled.

Drummer has food poisoning: performance cancelled.

So, which spelling is correct? The answer depends on where you call home.

Canceled or cancelled is the past tense of the verb to cancel. Both spellings are correct; Americans favor canceled (one L), while cancelled (two Ls) is preferred in British English and other dialects.

What Is a Collective Noun?

A collective noun is a word or phrase that refers to a group of people or things as one entity. One common error that arises from using collective nouns is subject-verb disagreement: writers often become confused about whether to treat a collective noun as singular or plural. While collective nouns are mostly treated as singular, there are exceptions.

Collective nouns represent more than one person or thing in a class.

Program vs. Programme–What’s the Difference?

In American English, program is the correct spelling. In Australian English, program and programme are both acceptable. In British English, programme is the prefered spelling, although program is often used in computing contexts.

Decades ago, program appeared in American and British writing. In the nineteenth century, the Brits started to favor the French way of spelling it—programme.

Labeled or Labelled—Which Is Correct?

• Labeled and labelled are both correct spellings.
• Labeled is the preferred spelling in American English.
• Labelled is the preferred spelling in British English.

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How should you spell the past tense of the verb label? After adding the -ed ending, should you double the L? Speakers of American English might answer differently than speakers of British English.

Labeled vs.