Language Arts - Word Analysis
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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.
ANSWERS: 1) diary, 2) soup, 3) dessert, 4) then

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.
The problem here is that both a desert and a dessert could be hot and dry. For instance, we know that Death Valley is both hot and dry. We also can imagine a hot, dry, crispy cookie, for example.

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
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