If you say “We are invisible!” when you mean “We are invincible!” your audience will be confused. Or laugh at you. Or both.
Monday Muddle: invincible, invisible
Category: Monday Muddle
Monday Muddle: any more, anymore
It’s always nice to be correct, but sometimes it is important to avoid confusion and unwanted consequences. “I can’t love you anymore” does not mean the same thing as “I can’t love you any more”. (If you are saying that verbally rather than in writing, you might want to use different words to express your feelings.)
Remember that “any more” as two words relates to quantity, and “anymore” as one word relates to time.
“Any more” (as two words) is used in the same way in negative statements as “some more” (also two words, but seldom confused as one) is used in positive statements. Example: I want some more cake.
“Any more” always comes before a noun, although sometimes the noun is understood without being stated. Example: Would you like more cake? Yes, but I don’t need any more. It is understood from the question that what you don’t need any more of is cake.
“Anymore” always relates to a verb, indicating there is something that you don’t do any longer. Example: I’m on a diet, so I don’t eat cake anymore.
If you can substitute the words any longer, without changing the meaning, use one word. If you still aren’t sure which to use, use two words, because some people (primarily British) still accept the two-word version as correct for both meanings.
Monday Muddle: every day, everyday
Those who have been following me for a while might recognize this muddle. I’ve shared it before, but I thought it would be worth sharing again since I see this mistake so often. You might say that it’s an everyday occurrence.
Monday Muddle: compliment, complement
Here’s a trick to help you figure out which spelling you need. Complement, which means to complete, has the same first six letters as complete. Knowing that I should say nice things to people more often will help me remember that compliment has an i.
Monday Muddle: it’s, its
Here are a couple tips to help you know when you need the apostrophe. “Its” will be followed by a noun, though there might be a descriptive adjective (or several) before it. “It’s” might be followed by just an adjective. (e.g. It’s yellow.) But if “it’s” is followed by a noun, with or without a descriptive adjective, there will almost certainly be an article (a, an, the) or a possessive adjective before the noun. “It’s” might even be followed by “its”. For example: Why is there a bowl on the floor? It’s its usual location. It’s the dog’s food dish.
“Its” should never have an apostrophe after the s.
Autocorrect does not know the difference between “it’s” and “its”, so don’t trust it to choose for you.
Monday Muddle: collected, collective
Monday Muddle: bear, bare
The word “bear” can mean several different things depending on context. Conversely, “bare” really only means that there is nothing extra added.
The expression “bear with me” is asking for patience. The expression “bare with me” is asking for a whole lot more, and I always suggest that you want to be careful about when you use that one.
Monday Muddle: desert, dessert
There is an old expression: he got his just deserts. It is spelled with one S in the middle. However, if you are setting up a banquet hall, and you want a table reserved for just desserts, you would spell that with a double S in the middle. I always remember that dessert has two Ss because I will want two servings of it.
Just deserts—what you justly deserve, usually used in relation to punishment.
Just desserts—a selection of only sweet treats and nothing else.
If you want to talk about an unpopulated island where someone might be stranded—the setting of many hypothetical questions—you could call it a desert isle (as was the case with the uncharted one that Gilligan landed on), or a deserted isle. The first means dry and barren; the second means abandoned, so probably still pretty barren. If you saw the Monday Muddle on April 5, you will know that a deserted aisle is what you might find in a grocery store on a slow day. The dessert aisle is less likely to be deserted.
Monday Muddle: I’ll, ill
“I’ll” sounds like “aisle” and “isle” (see last week’s Monday Muddle), but it’s less likely to be mixed up with them unless you are using voice to text software of some sort. If you leave the apostrophe out, however, you will end up with “ill”, which is not generally something people want.
Monday Muddle: aisle, isle, aile
I regularly see “isle” when “aisle” is meant, but the funny thing about that (for me) is that aisles are more like the river that flows around the islands of shelves. So it’s all kinds of backwards.
An “aile” isn’t English, but it still gets thrown into the mix now and then.
