Words That Confuse Me

I really loved this weeks topic of choosing the right words! I always love it when I choose the correct homonyms when wiritng or when I catch an error when someone used a wrong one. However, even though this is a topic I really enjoy, I still struggle with it! This week as I was doing the “Right Words” assignment, I realized that there are many words that I mess up every time, no matter how much I study them. I feel like these ones are commonly misused by many, not just me.

Affect vs. Effect:

                I used grammar girl’s “quick and dirty tips” website to help me understand these two better this week. Affect with an a is typically used as a verb and effect with an e is used as a noun. Affect means “to influence.” Effect means “a result”, like cause and effect.

Mantle vs. Mantel

                Grammarist.com helped me to differentiate between these two homonyms. A mantel is something that you hang stockings on during christmas time. A mantle has many meanings; it can refer to a cloak, something that covers, a layer of the earth, or the cerebral cortex. The way I remember this one is a little funny; “a man never tells children when Santa has come to fill their stockings.”

The grammar mistake I found this week has to deal with homonyms and choosing the right word. A friend of mine has a child who is a brand rep for a children’s clothing company and she posted a picture on instagram of her in a romper with tights. The caption read, “How cute is this romper when you pear it with tights?!” The “pear” she used is referring to a fruit. She meant to use “pair”, meaning to join or connect to form a pair.