Words people get wrong or mix-up

Affect and Effect

Affect is to influence – Effect is a result

The weather affected my plans and therefore, the effect was disappointing.

Moot and Mute

Moot – as in ‘The argument is moot’ means it is up for debate or dispute, it is uncertain.

Mute is to stop sound, muffle – or someone that is unable to speak.

The argument is still moot and therefore, ongoing because someone pressed the ‘Mute’ button on the television just as the relevant facts were announced, leaving the poor newsreader as if she was a mute.

Peek, Peak and Pique

In order:
To look at, or ‘sneak a peek’, the top of something - ‘mountain peak’ or peak of physical fittness and to ‘pique your interest’ is to excite you about something.

He took a sneaky peek through the window when he should have been concentrating. The view of the mountain peaks and the storm rolling over them piqued his interest and the lecture was forgotten.

Flout and Flaunt

These words are entirely different. If someone ‘flouts the law’ they are in complete disregard for the law. If they then go on to ‘flaunt’ that fact, they are deliberately drawing attention to it.

They flout the law and then flaunt the fact and were surprised when they were arrested.

This one is ‘flout’

Pour and Pore

To pour is to empty a liquid out of a bottle. ‘To pore’ is to examine or study closely and a pore is a minute opening in a surface (often skin).

He poured the milk onto his breakfast, then he pored over the newspaper article of a study on the skin’s pores.

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After perusing Facebook where it would appear there’s a competition to see who can reverse human evolution furthest and fastest, I saw these ‘gems’.

‘In the spare of the moment’ – Surely you mean ‘spur’?

An opinion on a serious crime where a Shetland pony was brutally slain:

(Yes, this was a direct quote… stunning, isn’t it?)

Bet it muslin killing . every muslin teenager must kill a animal to prove they are a man to god . cat ,dogs sheep, camels cows pony's . As long as its a clean throat .if it`s been stab all over its body ,then it just a sick cunt that need a brick to his head

Why on earth does only one of those words ‘deserve’ an apostrophe and if it deserved an apostrophe, shouldn’t it at least be spelled correctly?

Every plural ending in S on Facebook seems to need an erroneous apostrophe. Dog’s, kid’s, car’s pony’s and yet, if it actually warrants an apostrophe, we get… tumbleweed.

I’ve given up on editing Facebook. The pay is rubbish and the clients don’t appreciate me ;)

Pictures from Google