Grammar

thank you raggygranny

Me too, Annobel; it's bred in the bone!

"Moot" and "mute" confused too!

And I am constantly shouting at the radio when people who should know better confuse 'appraise' and 'apprise'.

"Different to" gets on my nerves!

syberia, 'uninterested means 'having no interest in', 'disinterested' means 'impartial'.
I am completely uninterested in football.
A football umpire needs to be disinterested.

Tabloid editors exploit the confusion between two meanings of 'interest'. They defend publishing some piece of gossip on the grounds that it is 'in the public interest', which should mean 'the public will benefit from knowing this', but actually means 'the public is greedy for this sort of rubbish and will pay good money to read about it'.

I sometimes wonder if I'll ever give up being an English teacher.

Agreed!

Language changes with time, but when there are two different words (uninterested and disinterested) with quite different meanings, it's a shame to lose the distinction.

Children were told off so often for saying "Can I ..." instead of "May I ..." that they used to overcompensate by saying things like "May you pass me the butter, please"

I also get riled at "That begs the question" which I always thought meant "That avoids asking the question "in the sense that it makes it unnecessary but most people take to mean "asks/poses the question" so I looked it up and it can be used both ways. Still niggles though.

Ok, I admit it, I don't know the difference between the two....

snube, that drives me mad too but I'm beginning to think it's a lost cause because even people one would expect to know the difference use the term disinterested when they mean uninterested.

"May" when you mean "might" as in "the outcome may have been different if..."

Oh yes, Nsube - one of my pet hates!

Disinterested instead of uninterested

Effect is most usually a noun

eg: George Clooney has a funny effect on me.
But can be a a verb as in the phrase 'to effect a change', meaning 'to bring about a change'

Affect is a verb:

eg; George Clooney affects me deeply.

Not to be confused with infect....

I never know when to use 'effect' or 'affect'. It's bothered me for years.

'Off of it'
'less' when it should be 'fewer'.I can still hear my English mistress saying' Less money,Fewer coins'

And 'hone in on' instead of home! Grrr

And the same with "could of" rather than "could have".