Who done it?

Me too, Emelle19. I rang H&M the other day and was most amused at their recorded greeting message. I often smile at the memory of my then 9 year old DD who (prior to an optician's appointment) I (gently)coached how to pronounce 'aitch'. Upon reaching the character she paused took a deep breath and said haitch and promptly blushed - I should add that people now often compliment her on how nicely spoken she is. Gosh I'm now worrying about any faux pas I might have made in this posting.

I think I said on another thread that my mother used to say to us:
You munna say wunna, it inna polite

wunna being Midlands dialect for wouldn't or would not
You can work the rest out!

and she used to get very annoyed if anyone said 'I borrowed him my pen' or 'I lent his pen from him'
(not that we said that as it was instilled in us from an early age)

Christine yes I agree with you! Crossed post!

The one I never understand is when to use due to and owing to? Perhaps someone can help.

For oractice and practise I always compare to advice /advise which is easier as it is pronounced differently.
So advise somone and I practise the piano. I ask for advice and I do my Practice! To license and a licence follow the same rule.

Regarding the hotel thing I always thought it was because 'hotel' was a french word and the aitch was silent, thus 'an otel '. Wrong again Christine

It IS 'an hotel' because the h in hotel is silent as it is a French word. The English word is Inn or hostel.
We say 'see you in an hour' not 'a hour' as the h is silent. I always say an hotel as I was brought up to, but it has fallen out of usage recently and my grown up children laugh at me.
I was taught 'i before e when the sound is ee! ' So vein is not an exception as it has a different sound.
Another useful mnemonic is 'it is necessary to have one collar but two socks' ie one c and two s's!
Accommodation is often spelt wrong : if you have two cots you need two mattresses (two cs and two ms)

Misuse of practice (the noun) and practise (the verb) are my bugbears.

I also agree that using pacific instead of specific is irritating.

My 'Scream at the TV' is 'Haitch' - It's becoming more and more common and it drives me senseless!! People who should know better say 'Haitch'!! Why does nobody correct them? I agree with you, grandMattie - 'an hotel' or 'an horrific' sends me into a frenzy. I would like all these people to go to the Frank Gardner School of Diction!!

My husband has a prostate problem. He is not prostrate.

My father used to use this sentence to demonstrate how words with the same ending are pronounced differently:
The soil was so tough that the plough would not go through it.

My bugbear is 'less' and 'fewer' which are always being used incorrectly e.g.tills in supermarkets with a notice '5 items or less'. The rule is simple enough: if you can count them it's 'fewer' and if you can't count them it's 'less' e.g 'less milk' and 'fewer bottles of milk'. I am always shouting at the tv over that one.

Yes Yggdrasil the rule about i before e only makes sense if you apply it to the 'ee' sound.

Another one that irks me is misuse of 'stationery' and 'stationary' - It is easy enough to use the correct spelling by remembering ' E for envelopes'.

People who say 'pacific' instead of 'specific' also grate on me and as for incorrect use of the apostrophe, don't get me started!

heteronyms

jakubmarian.com/english-words-spelled-the-same-but-pronounced-differently/

Must be really hard for someone learning to speak English.

EmilyHarburn what about: I lay down the law? :-)

"If the sound rhymes with bee, I before E except after C."

Whilst I agree with all the above,the one that constantly annoys me is, "of" used instead of "have". For example "I could of" instead of "I could have"! How it grates on my nerves.

I before E except after C, but people forget this only refers to the 'ee' sound, not any other vowel.
So you have ceiling, and siege, but not beige, because the vowel sound there is 'ay' not 'ee'

My particular bugbear at the moment is myself when it should be me, so many are misusing it at the moment. I find myself (correct usage) shouting at the tv......

Useful tip spelling 'separate' think of the middle of the word, and only 'a rat' would get it wrong! :-) Grit my teeth at the number of 'seperate's you see!

Brought is part of the verb 'to bring'; bought is part of the verb 'to buy'. So brought = bringing something; bought = buying something.

Brought and bought how to use them,

I was taught I before e except after c!

Hens lay eggs. I lie down.

I still get confused about lie and lay. My Mum used to say 'Im going for a lay down'. It was never explained to me as a child what the correct word and I still find myself saying the wrong thing sometimes. Can anyone make it clearer for me please?

The rule is "I before E except after C!" as Witzend said. So that would exclude "receive".

We always had to analyse sentences in English at school, so we were quite aware of nominative, accusative and dative (subject, direct and indirect objects). (This was very useful when learning other languages later on, where the differences are very important). I always thought people were being facetious when they said things like "He spoke to you and I" - I couldn't understand that they didn't know it was wrong. (you wouldn't say "He spoke to I".)