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Language Arts - Word Analysis - Confused Words
Confused Words
Certain words are often the victims of mistaken identity. They look or sound a lot like other words and so people sometimes confuse them. Here are a few such words:
than/then farther/further quiet/quit/quite loose/lose empire/umpire desert/dessert your/you're personal/personnel medal/metal human/humane fury/furry device/devise dairy/diary soup/soap
Words such as dessert and desert are confused because they are spelled almost the same (the only difference being a single "s").
Other words, such as device and devise, sound a lot alike and for some people this may be the main reason they are confused. Remember that different words are confusing to different people. A couple of words which you do not ever confuse, may be often confused by another person.
Select the correct word from the pairs presented in parentheses:
1) Jill wrote about the wedding in her (dairy/diary). 2) Jack ate two bowls of (soap/soup). 3) Jack always eats two servings of (desert/dessert). 4) Jill did her homework and (then/than) she went out to play.
Sometimes it's really hard to figure out which confusing word should be used in a sentence. Consider this example:
The (desert/dessert) is hot and dry.
Here are a few more frequently confused words:
advice/advise casual/causal
coma/comma a lot/allot
are/our angle/angel
cease/seize choose/chose
costume/custom unit/unite
to/too/two stationary/stationery
principle/principal breath/breathe
affect/effect pour/pore
four/fore/for cite/site/sight
cereal/serial accept/except
waist/waste ware/wear/where
