This is another spelling mistake I have seen cropping up on websites and forums of late. Again, as we discussed last week, it is easy to incorrectly use words that sound the same but are spelt differently. Peer and pier, or indeed peers and piers, mean entirely different things.

According to Merriam Webster the word peer is defined as follows:

One that is of equal standing with another. One belonging to the same societal group especially based on age, grade, or status

A slight adaptation, peerage, is also used in British English as follows:

- A member of one of the five ranks (as duke, marquess, earl, viscount, or baron) of the British peerage.

- A person will often refer to his/her friends, work colleagues or club members as “peers”.

According to Merriam Webster the word pier is defined as followed:

- An intermediate support for the adjacent ends of two bridge spans

- A structure (as a breakwater) extending into navigable water for use as a landing place or promenade or to protect or form a harbor

A pier is most commonly used for referring to a structure that lay adjacent or vertically along a seaside resort.

So, the simple way to remember whether to use pier or peer in a sentence is to think double “e” for friend, colleague or nobleman, and think “ie” for the seaside or a bridge-like structure.

Easy!

The best way to engage children is in a fun, interactive way. When it comes to spelling this means using pictures and stories to engage the imagination. For young children who are new to the alphabet, the old “A for apple  Z is for zebra” approach is perfect. By working you way through the alphabet and associating words with letters, your child will learn through image recall, soaking up the information like a sponge.

Buying books that can help you do this is easy enough, but if you’re on a budget, why not try your hand at drawing yourself. Better still, let your child have a go at drawing objects and then writing the associated letter next to the object. It won’t be long before your child is recalling images through memory and saying the correct word.

Next it is time to start the spelling process. To do this, simply add the remaining letters to the word you associated with the alphabet. Don’t over do it. Learn 3 spellings per session, going over each 5 or 10 times. Work your way through the alphabet and then add in new matching words once the first set of words have been mastered.

An essential part of learning to spell is to break up the syllables for your child. So, apple, becomes ap-ple, zebra becomes ze-bra. Ask your child to say each syllable in turn, followed by the entire word in one go. Now ask your child to write down each syllable and then bring them together to form the word. Your child will learn how to break down a word and form the correct pronunciation and the correct spelling.

“But I used spell check, it must be correct”! Oh, if I had a penny for every time I have heard someone say this. Spell checkers aren’t foolproof and here’s why. They are designed to pick up sequences of letters that don’t form a word; for example, if you type in “bdgdget” the spell checker picks that up because it doesn’t correlate with any word in the English language. However, if you type in “my pear of pants,” the spell checker won’t pick up the wrong use of the word pear/pair.

No matter how careful you are with spell check, there is no substitute for proofreading your work twice over and having someone else proof it for you. It is impossible for a spell checker to identify when you mistakenly used a correctly spelt word, like “infection” instead of “affection.” In this respect a good investment is a grammar checker.

Silly spelling mistakes will make you exactly that, silly. Never send an email, article or letter off without going through it with a fine toothcomb. While we encourage you to use the spell checker on this site, we also encourage you to analyze each word as you go, checking it is the correct form of the word you want. Perhaps the funniest mistake I have ever seen is someone type “penises” instead of “premises” in a presentation at a seminar. Mistakes like this happen because people first misspell a word, and then use the auto-correct function in MS Word to fix it, but choose the wrong correction. Now there’s a mistake worth checking your work for.

I was sent an email recently with the word dumbbell spelt “dumbbell,” which made me think I should produce a list on the site for all those difficult words that leave people confused as to whether it should be a single or double letter.

The list started to grow and grow, to the point where I thought; actually, I will categorize the spellings into two lists. The first list contains words people try to spell with too few letters. The second list contains words that have double letters but not as many as people think.

Words people try to spell with too few letters

• broccoli
• occasionally
• questionnaire
• coolly
• dissipate
• difference
• generally
• incidentally
• magically
• success
• balloon
• dumbbell
• embarrass
• millennium
• misspell
• occurrence
• possession

Words that have double letters, but not as many as people think 

• disappoint
• finally
• fulfill
• necessary
• occasion
• occurred
• parallel
• sheriff
• tomorrow
• deterrence
• harass
• personnel
• recommend
• referred
• disappear

NB: Occasionally there will be words spelt differently in British English. For example, labeled becomes labelled. Therefore you need to be aware of the language your spell detector is picking up.

Email, or e-mail as it is often spelt, is a massive part of everyday life, and whether business or personal emails, the words contained within an email represent the sender. Once sent, an email becomes a permanent record of a message written by you, and as such cannot be retrieved and changed to better reflect your grammar, spelling and intentions. It is a fact that people judge intelligence on the way a person writes. If you send email messages that are full of errors to co-workers and clients, they are likely to form a negative impression of you.

It is important to remember that email spell checkers aren’t foolproof, and often don’t pick up common mistakes. This is why it is absolutely imperative that you proofread every email you send. Put yourself in the position of your new boss or a client you are communicating with for the first time. Imagine receiving an email with three spelling mistakes in the copy. It looks sloppy, rushed and carefree, not an impression you want to make.

If your words are riddled with grammatical mistakes, misused words, poorly written sentences, and typographical errors, you will develop a reputation as someone with poor writing skills, not an easy reputation to shake off. It isn’t kind to laugh at people who can’t write or spell well, but in an work environment this is often the case. Don’t let your co-workers have a laugh at your expense by sending out emails with misspelt words.

Oh lordy, if ever there were three words people get confused over when writing the English language it is there, their and they’re. Even seasoned writers such as myself get into a pickle with these at times, having to think twice as we write, and often noticing upon editing the piece that we have unconsciously made the dreaded mistake of confusing one for the other.

For newcomers to the English language this is a minefield of confusion. When speaking these three words they sound the same, yet when writing it becomes a different story.  And so today I will put down some examples to display clearly how there, their, and they’re should be used properly.

There

We use “there” to indicate a place, a location. It is sometimes used with the verb to be as an idiom. It is spelled like here which means “this location.”

• I was there yesterday
• He wanted to be there
• Hey, look over there.
• It’s there on the table, I told you that five minutes ago

Their

“Their” is a possessive pronoun and is used to describe the noun. It indicates plural possession (more than one person). Note the spelling of their. It comes from the word they, so the e comes before the i.

• It was their choice to get divorced
• Their taste in curtains is outrageous
• I gave them their rucksacks and they headed off into the jungle

They’re

“They’re” is a contraction of “they are.” Note the spelling: The a from are is replaced by an apostrophe.

• They’re going to the shop
• They’re a mean bunch of people
• I can’t believe they’re going to leave their mother to clear up that mess. 

Poor spelling plagues some people forever, and really there is no excuse. With a little effort and dedication , you can improve your spelling within a few weeks. Follow these essential tips for a pathway to spot-on spelling!

1. Read, Read, Read…

First and foremost you need to start reading. Reading and spelling are intrinsically linked and it is impossible to be a good speller without being a regular reader.

2. Expose Yourself to a Variety of Text

Vary the text you read to heighten your exposure to a variety of spellings. Read newspapers, novels, blogs, even billboards to help your brain memorize spelling patterns.

3. Write Every Day

Writing every day with exponentially improve your spelling. Set aside at least 15 minutes writing time a day to practice writing difficult words you have trouble spelling.

4. Play Spelling Games With Friends and Family

Make spelling fun by playing spelling games > I made up a fun spelling game you can try here.

5. Familiarize yourself with traditional spelling rules such as:

• “i before e except after c”
• “The letter y preceded by a consonant changes to i before a suffix”
• “Most words drop the final silent e before a suffix beginning with a vowel”
• “When adding a suffix to a word that ends with a single consonant after a single vowel and stressing the last syllable in the pronunciation of the word, the final consonant is doubled.”

Let me tell you straight off the bat that English words do not usually end in “u,” and when I saw this spelling of through (thru) for the first time, I was quite literally disgusted at such an abuse of the English language.

However, the spelling thru has an entry in the very tolerant Merriam-Webster that leads to through. On the other hand, the more sensible OED has no entry for thru, although the spelling is listed alongside other historical variations of the word through.

In recent years, Thru has established itself as a modern spelling of through, and is often associated with the online world where the term “click thru” – a click through to a website – is preferred to “click through.” It has, however, resisted the efforts of various organizations such as newspapers and people in high places to get it accepted for general usage. And with that it mind you shouldn’t use it in professional writing.

There is a history of trying to get this variation of through accepted, and The Chicago Tribune started using thru in 1934, but finally gave up in 1975 and went back to through. Through was also on reform lists issued by the National Education Association in 1898, and the Simplified Spelling Board in 1906. But it never did make it thru for reform.

With the evolving “SMS language” creeping into everyday usage it is quite feasible that variations of words such as thru may be accepted into all areas of everyday writing in the next 10 or so years. But for now, where professional writing matters are concerned, you should use through.

PC spell checkers catch words that spell no word at all but let slip homonyms like site/sight. Computers are good but not great like the human brain when it comes to spotting errors, and the problem with homonyms like site/sight is that they don’t jump out at you when proofreading your work. Often bother versions of the usage can make sense, therefore making it harder to spot the mistake, for example; “tourist sight” or “tourist site.” To make sure you don’t embarrass yourself with these two often confused homonyms, let’s define each one with examples:

Site is an area, a piece of ground, a place. An easy way to remember this in the modern day is to think of the word “website.” A website is a place on the web, a “site” located in cyberworld.

• A prehistoric site where Dinosaurs roamed
• This is the site where the castle once stood
• I am going to the work site in the morning
• This site is perfect for building a house 

Sight is the sense of vision, or something seen. An easy way to remember this is to think of the word “eyesight”. Eyesight is vision, to see.

• He lost his sight at an early age
• Keep the enemy in sight
• She is a sight for sore eyes (a pleasant sight)
• Lawrence went over the hill, into the woods, and out of sight

This is a particular problem for non-native English speakers who struggle to get to grips with associating the sound of a word with the correct article. The rule is to use a before words beginning with a consonant sound and an before words beginning with a vowel sound:

Here are some examples to help you get to grips with the rule:

• A cat
• A dog
• A snake
• A frappe
• An egg
• An hour
• An example
• An elephant

Confusion exists with certain words beginning with “h”. This is because not everyone pronounces the “h” at the beginning of certain words. For example, depending upon the person speaking, one might hear either “a historic occasion” or “an historic occasion.” Either is correct in writing, although most Americans

would probably say “a historic.”

There are some common English “h” words that require an such as heir, heiress, heirloom, honest, honor, honorable and hour:

• an honorable woman
• an heir to the throne
• an hour before
• an honest man

Where abbreviations, numerals and symbols are concerned it depends upon pronunciation. For example, some examples from the Chicago Manual of Style are as follows:

• a URL
• an @ sign
• an NBC anchor
• a CBS anchor

Where letters are pronounced one at a time use the consonant/vowel rule: for example you would write “an SUV” because SUV is pronounced one letter at a time and the sound of S is “ess.” On the other hand you would write “a JCB” because JCB is pronounced one letter at a time and the sound of J is “jay.”