Talk:List of commonly misused English words

message: This seems to be more appropriate for Wiktionary.—Eloquence
:That may be true, though we do have lists of commonly misspelled words, and American and British English Differences and related stuff. I think this is pretty similar, but I do agree that it should probably be on Wiktionary unless there's a good foundation of etymology and other juicy descriptive stuff to go along with it.
:Another note - would it be appropriate to extend this article to include words which are used to mean something other than they're supposed to mean? For instance, Jay Leno's repeatedly incorrect usage of the word "irony" to mean anything at all which is coincidental, or the popular use (and mispronounciation) of the word "angst", used to mean "full of anger" or similar nonsense. Or phrases, such as begging the question. Could get lengthy :-) -- Wapcaplet 02:01, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: Irony should be on here - it's widely abused! Begging the Question is covered on its own page. I think this page is worth having, partly because there or other similar ones, but also it allows discussion of the misuse and a bit more explanation that a dictionary tends to. Also people (I think) use a dictionary differently from an encyclopaedia, and wouldn't pick up pointers on use/abuse in a dictionary. GRAHAMUK 05:36, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Appropriateness

message: I'm not a native English speaker, but I have a feeling that many English speaking people often confuse compliment and complement. I noticed this in magazines. Should it be added to this list? King Art 22:30, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a good one  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.171.128.189 (talk) 15:11, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Compliment/Complement 

message: I think the current criterion for inclusion on this page is problematic because it's hard to verify and it's not exactly neutral:
:The list that follows is meant to include only words whose misuse is deprecated by most usage writers, editors, and other arbiters of so-called "correct" English.
I intend to change this to:
:The list that follows includes only words who are frequently used in a sense that is not supported by any dictionary definitions and is deprecated by most usage writers, editors, and other arbiters of so-called "correct" English.
with a HTML comment telling potential contributors:

This way we can be sure that Wikipedia takes no stance on the issue of what's legitimate or not in English. With a page title like "list of frequently misused English words", we must restrict inclusion on this page to only those words that no major dictionary accepts can be used in a way in which it might be occasionally mistakenly used. Anything else is disputed and belongs on the disputed usage page.Nohat 17:55, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm...your minimum criteria is inclusion in one of two American dictionaries. What's your problem with, say, the OED? If M-W and American Heritage are your two benchmarks, then this article should be renamed to "List of frequently misused words in American English". SigPig 03:28, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Unfortunately, I don't think the OED is freely available online.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.22.208.134 (talk) 19:21, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It can be cited nonetheless. --Nricardo (talk) 05:52, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criterion for inclusion 

message: This is another candidate, made popular by computer programmers. Illegal specifically means "prohibited by law" in 'correct' English rather than indicating an incorrect or inappropriate request.
Incorrect: "Windows has performed an illegal operation" 
Correct: "Windows has performed an invalid operation'
Sadly computing people have enshrined the incorrect usage into several standards documents.
: Merriam-Webster says "not according to or authorized by law : UNLAWFUL, ILLICIT; also : not sanctioned by official rules (as of a game)"
: American Heritage Dictionary says "... Prohibited by official rules: an illegal pass in football.... Unacceptable to or not performable by a computer: an illegal operation."
: wordnet says "prohibited by law or by official or accepted rules; an illegal chess move" 
: Seems like an OK usage to me. None of those dictionaries had usage notes or anything either. Nohat 16:14, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Not really!  'Illegal' in the sense of a computer program is to say that the rules governing the internal operation of the computer itself have been breached, which is ok to use when programmers are talking to each other, which was the case before computers appeared in the home.  In the modern word though, telling a user that the computer has done something illegal might imply that the actual law of the land has been breached, causing panic.  So it's more a case of choosing the best word to communicate with a user, rather than a mistake in english. Anyway your example is a little pedantic, I'm not sure if your example about an illegal pass is supposed to be correct or incorrect.108.171.128.189 (talk) 15:05, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Illegal/Invalid 

message: As far as I can see, many of so-called "non-standard" examples in this list are just plain old-fashioned WRONG. Calling them "non-standard" makes it sound as if there is some matter of opinion involved, when there is not. Some examples, picked at random are:
"I should of known that the store would be closed."
"The bicycle tire had lost all it's pressure."
"The rain effected our plans for the day."
In my view these are "non-standard" English in pretty much the same way as "2 + 3 = 6" is "non-standard" arithmetic. I am sorely tempted to go through this list changing many instances of "non-standard" to "incorrect". If there's any good reason why I shouldn't then please let me know! Matt 01:24, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Non-standard" is a better designation because there is serious dispute as to whether any English usage can be definitively described as correct and incorrect, especially widely-used ones. Besides, there is nothing inaccurate about calling them "non-standard," as they are indeed usages, and those usages are indeed not the standard ones. At worst it is an understatement.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.22.208.134 (talk) 19:29, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm with Matt, I think readers might be confused that "non-standard" means that they're acceptable in some circumstances. They're incorrect, not non-standard.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.198.126.52 (talk) 06:28, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Various non-standard usages of English are acceptable in some circumstances.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gomez2002 (talk • contribs) 15:16, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

text: I think using Disputed and Undisputed would allow for the fact that the language is constantly changing without suggesting that the Disputed use is correct in some circumstances. 129.237.28.201 (talk) 22:23, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Those are covered in List of English words with disputed usage. Mild Bill Hiccup (talk) 03:53, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Non-standard? 

message: I think it wuld make much more sense to move the article to "List of frequently confused English words", since every sinle instance involve the mix-up of similar words. Circeus 16:12, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  move 

message: At Merriam-Webster Online:
:"Main Entry: bar·bar·ic...3 : BARBAROUS 3 "
:which links to
:"Main Entry: bar·ba·rous...3 : mercilessly harsh or cruel" 
: i.e. Barbaric(3) = Barbarous(3) = "mercilessly harsh or cruel". No usage note, no "informal" or "non-standard" flag; thus, this is now a disputed usage. SigPig 03:51, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "Barbaric" vs "Barbarous"

message: I'm missing this. Can someone add this please?
77.22.106.173 (talk) 11:48, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: "State" vs. "Status"

message: I must state that the definition of adverse also states 
Acting or serving to oppose; antagonistic: adverse criticism.
in the American Heritage Dictionary (4ed).
This page needs to consider a broader range of definitions than those in the OED, as English is an evolving language and once a word becomes accepted in a dictionary as meaning something contrary to the beliefs of the lexicologists who patrol this page, it should be edited.
Also a note should be added as to the accuracy of this page, as it does contain points of view, primarily because the language interpretation functions in our brains are subjective, and because English has no central governing body on language.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.139.6.117 (talk) 00:36, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adverse and averse 

message: The explanation on the usage of the word "anarchy" (and "anarchist," etc) seems a bit biased. I feel its a political argument being made more than a neutral, encyclopedic explanation of word use. The links in the paragraph point readers toward articles about anarchist thought, etc. While this is somewhat relevant, I feel the scope of the definition is far too broad. I assume good faith in the definition and welcome comment. Yours, Auranor (talk) 11:54, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Anarchy Seems a Bit Weasely, No?

message: can 'Oppress, Suppress' be included?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tedzdog (talk • contribs) 14:25, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oppress suppress 

message: For the current one, someone could take "Heralds do not pun; they cant" to mean "Heralds do not pun; they cannot". I'm not sure how to use it well, so can anyone make a replacement? Halofan333 (talk) 02:57, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can we use a better example for cant? 

message: There seem to be a lot of entries in this list that are completely unsourced and do not appear to meet any sort of criteria for being "commonly misused" (like aggravate and mitigate?). Seems like a good sweeping of all non-sourced material is needed. There is also a lot of crossover with disputed usage. If the usage is disputed, it isn't being misused. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 13:51, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Unless of course, you were part of a group who was standing in an empty swimming pool, and you were waiting for a water source to fill it up so that you could swim together all day. In that case the rain could quite easily effect your plans for the day, rather than affect them. ;) --92.27.195.153 (talk) 17:21, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Have you been looking at http://xkcd.com/326/ by any chance?  You do realise this is meant as satire :-) Jowa fan (talk) 04:50, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

text: What you mean is that usages like this are unequivocally wrong in every standard variety of English—therefore they are non-standard usages. That is the only NPOV way to describe it. nohat (talk) 21:49, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I mean exactly what I said. They are wrong in every variety of English. There is no variety of English in which they are correct. 86.184.108.192 (talk) 14:36, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Being "right" or "wrong" is something that would have to be declared by some authority. Since English has no such authority it makes no sense to talk of "correct" English—usages from native speakers are either standard or they're nonstandard. nohat (talk) 08:34, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Nonsense. Some things, including "The rain effected our plan", are simply wrong, wrong and wrong. 86.181.170.34 (talk) 04:00, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disputed 

message: One thing I have noticed a lot is that people tend to mix up good and well, primarily in saying "good" instead of "well", for example, in "you did good". This does not make sense, since good is not an adverb but is instead an adjective, and is very commonly used as such. Unless I am behind the times and such usage is now in fact correct, I feel this should be added. As a note, I haven't actually added it since I'm not entirely (only mostly) sure about the correctness of this.--99.24.162.139 (talk) 04:38, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good vs Well 

message: The main page states (without reference) that alternative is a noun and alternate is a verb.  I'm fairly sure (and OED seems to support me on this) that alternate can be used as verb, adjective or noun.  The use of alternate as synonomous with alternative is certainly a little uncommon, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it non-standard.  I suggest that we delete this section. Jowa fan (talk) 05:07, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: UK versus US English.  In US 'alernate' can also mean the same as the UK alternative.  As in Microsoft 'Please insert an alternate disk into drive a:', means put a different disc in, not swap them in an indefinite sequence.  That's why your OED backed you up there. 108.171.128.189 (talk) 15:39, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alternate vs Alternative? 

message: Farther is a distance as in: "Shall we walk farther?"  "A baseball pitcher could likely throw a baseball farther than I could."
Further indicates growth or taking something to a greater extent: "Students that study go further in their education."  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.240.68.39 (talk) 18:41, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Farther vs further 

message: I removed "peruse", "dilemma", and "literally" because they were all criticized for definitions which are supported by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, in contravention of the "major English dictionaries do not condone in any definition" criterion. I removed "adage" because there was no explanation for its being listed. nohat (talk) 01:14, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of "peruse", "dilemma", "adage", and "literally" 

message: I don't believe that dictionaries support the known/unknown distinction proposed here.  Also, I'm far from convinced by the two "non-standard" examples.  "Police are looking for three suspects...": for better or worse, this is a construction that is used widely by the media, so it's hard to call it non-standard.  "Witnesses said the suspect was tall and thin": I don't think many people would use the word "perpetrator" instead in this context.  I propose removing this entire entry. Jowa fan (talk) 04:47, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suspect vs perpetrator: propose remove 

message: If we're already including Alanis Morrisette's "rain on your wedding day" example of irony, would it be possible to incorporate Ed Byrne's comedic response?
The example is currently "It is raining on our wedding day! Is it not ironic?".  Could we add to the end "(Only if you're marrying a weatherman and he picks the date.)"?  There's the practical benefit of reinforcing the concept of irony by showing how the bad example could be turned into a good example, and the non-practical benefit of it being funny as heck.  
(Though I wouldn't know how to cite that or what sort of citation would be necessary)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.239.132.255 (talk) 22:13, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe Mr Byrne's words were "If your husband was a weatherman, and he predicted it wouldn't rain", although I'm quoting from memory.Nora nettlerash (talk) 16:58, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

text: Instead of making it into some sort of 'fan page' maybe you could explain why pouring rain on a wedding day isn't the opposite of what was fitting to the occasion.  The error in the word's mix-up doesn't really come across to me in the examples, making me wonder if there is such a problem at all.  I often wonder if the problem is due to a very precise literary use of the word trotted out by some people. I would ask who is being ironic and to whom.  Can god create an irony by making rain on a wedding day?  Or is it a random result of thermal activity and therefore not ever ironic?  In any case I'm the customer here, I'm confused by your examples, you've not explained it and the section is already a big enough failure - so lay off making it into another in-joke/in-story page.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gomez2002 (talk • contribs) 15:49, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Irony/Alanis Morrisette 

message: I don't have a perfect example but I do know this is one area that gets lumped together all the time. Every biting comment is called "sarcasm" and quite a lot of them are not, in fact, sarcastic. They are sardonic. Padillah (talk) 19:20, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The meanings of the two words are too similar for it to be relevant to the section.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.171.128.189 (talk) 15:35, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion: Sarcasm vs Sardonic comment 

message: It is common, and wrong, to use "range" to mean "two random examples of a large variety". For instance, "The buffet was extensive, with foods ranging from fruit salad to fried fish" or whatever.
But there is no scale on which "fruit salad" is on one end and "fried fish" is on another. And that is correct use of "range" -- when there is some quality of the items discussed such that they can be arranged along a scale with the two examples given at the extreme ends. "Ranging from very small to very large" is correct and so forth. 
I put this in but it was reverted, which is OK. Maybe it doesn't belong. Maybe it's not common (I think it obviously is). Or maybe it's so common that this is indeed the standard usage. Or maybe it's too tricky to adequately describe succinctly ("A plethora of fruits, ranging from blueberries to watermelon" is arguably correct, for instance, if the speaker is emphasizing size, which he probably isn't). I think it maybe ought to go in, though. Herostratus (talk) 19:28, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I reverted it because I checked some dictionaries and couldn't find any support for the idea that it's wrong.  "Range" can indeed be used for items varying along a measurable scale, but it can also be used in other ways. Jowa fan (talk) 22:50, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: OK. Herostratus (talk) 17:34, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Range 

message: I've seen many people get tangled up in these.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.141.208.103 (talk) 20:53, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Drug, Drugged, Drag, Dragged 

message: I removed the entry for quartary vs. quaternary, because the term quartary is not normally used in English. See "quartary, adj." in the OED Online,  (accessed 2012-01-26). The idea that it should be used as the "correct" successor of tertiary seems to be original research, and the references were not about English usage, but instead came from a Latin dictionary. The OED's entry "quaternary, n. and adj." at  includes the definition "Of or belonging to the fourth order or rank; fourth in a series." Ardric47 (talk) 15:56, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quartary/quaternary 

message: contrary to what this article now says, MW  says novitiate can refer to people. Kdammers (talk) 05:42, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  novitiate 

message: eg a baby. Kittybrewster  ☎ 19:44, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: expect vs anticipate

message: There is a glaring grammatical error in the first line of this article. It says "This is a list of English words which are commonly misused". It should say "This is a list of English words that are commonly misused". It is a restrictive clause and therefore the use of "which" is generally regarded as being incorrect. There are countless examples of the same error in the talk pages so I am guessing that some people will disagree with me. A brief check of the most authoritative grammar pages on the internet will explain relevant grammar rules to you.http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/which-versus-that.aspx Considering this is an article about misuse of words the fact that it contains an error rather detracts from its reliability. Hawys (talk) 10:39, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The restrictive clause that/which distinction is not a real rule of English. It is a made-up rule promulgated by grammar nazis and their ilk. See e.g. http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001461.html http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/78/when-is-it-appropriate-to-use-that-as-opposed-to-which http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jlawler/aue/xmasthat.html and so on... Nohat (talk) 19:20, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Error in first line of the article! 

message: Some of these examples, such as "can't" and "cant", "levee" and "levy", "rein" and "reign", are really just commonly misspelled words, not commonly misused words. For example, no one actually confuses "can't" with the real word "cant". Instead, people simply misspell "can't". In fact, most people who can't spell "can't" probably don't even know that the separate word "cant" exists. One might just as well include "dont", "shant", "doesnt", etc. The fact that there is no actual word "dont" is fairly irrelevant (since the existence of an actual word "cant" has no bearing on people misspelling "can't"). 86.181.174.116 (talk) 02:38, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: This comment strikes me as mere cant ("affected whining") -- must we really now debate whether substitution of cant for can't is best classified as a misuse versus a misspelling?  Does it matter?  BTW the difference between cant and dont is that cant (being an actual word) isn't flagged by spellcheckers. But so what? EEng (talk) 16:27, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misspelled words 

message: I'm not familiar with the standards of this list but per the intro, I'm thinking of moving 'revert' to the other list as the usage meaning someting similar to reply is now accepted by some sources. E.g. Collins Advanced Oxford Learners, also  . Interesting enough although a number of commentators and three of those RS I found suggest the wording is only common in South Asia, SEA and some other developing semi-anglophone regions like parts of the Carribean, Africa and possibly Fiji, (although some sources in such places also consider the usage incorrect, e.g.  others suggest the usage has been common in legal circles, in the UK, Ireland and Australia and possibly the US for ages although I haven't found good sources discussing this aspect. Anyway can I remove 'revert' without being reverted :-P Nil Einne (talk) 17:11, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can I remove 'revert'? 

message: "Anniversary" surely can only mean an annual event. "First Anniversary" is a proper term; "One-year anniversary", while unambiguous, is redundant. But "six-week anniversary" is all too common and is a self-contradiction, and absurd.
=====Nuance 4 03:50, 27 Nov 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add "anniversary" 

message: Scribendi's definition of copyright is incorrect: "A copyright consists of select privileges that legally protect a work and prohibit its duplication without a reference." Actually "a copyright consists of select privileges that legally protect a work and prohibit its duplication."  Plagiarism would be the use of excerpts from that work without a reference.  Setting aside the question of fair use/fair dealing... if you duplicate an entire work, even with attribution, you are still violating copyright.  I am not a lawyer so I did not make this change directly.
DeweyQ (talk) 17:57, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Copyright

message: I've never seen them mixed up, but surely we should therefore list numerous other words, starting with man and men most notably.  Men is pretty much a way of pluralising various words, at least as common as -um and -a for example.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.171.128.189 (talk) 15:26, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Woman versus Women - Seriously?

message: That one makes no sense, the 'conflicting' definitions given are pretty much the same and use the same words in similar ways.  'Doctor Livingstone, I assume?' would have been OK wouldn't it?  
'Absence of proof to the contrary', well if that isn't the case then the person is believing a fallacy, so that statement must apply in both cases (as neither word implies knowingly wrong).  
In both cases we have no proof that the notion is true, otherwise it could be neither an assumption nor presumption, it would be factual knowledge.  
So in both words I've shown that there is absence of proof to the contrary and no proof of truthfulness.
QED - hey I'm going to delete it108.171.128.189 (talk) 16:02, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Assume versus Presume

message: precede, proceed -- something about how Americans slang it to "pruh-seed", then use it wrong. i can't cite source, so me no add into article. me english poor, too.
pretain, protain, pertain -- something i hear peoples says. me english poor still.
Okay, seriously, sorry for the poorly written silliness. Still, yes, I hear these, but I don't have a source. Since this website needs sources, don't add these to the article without a properly legit citation. 70.173.63.62 (talk) 03:30, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not here . . . 

message: Past can also be an adverb:
Standard: "He went past my house..." or "He passed my house...". 
I suggest editing the article to take this into account. GilesW (talk) 20:03, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Past and Passed - proposed amendment 

message: (N.B. I wrote this before I saw the previous thread above! I tend to agree with the writer above. And here I was only concerned about one doubling-down word!) Herostratus (talk) 13:29, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: But this isn't true. It might have been true a century ago. Language has moved on and "shall" and "will" are interchanged much more loosely, and in particular will for the first person has replaced use of shall so a considerable degree: "I think I will fail the test" is common and no longer means "I am determined to fail the test". 
Shall is generally used less across the board and is becoming archaic really, but constructions such as "They shall probably meet us at the game" are not risible and do not denote some imputed special effort of will be involved.
The difference between a misuse and just language in the process of changing is a difficult line to see, but I think that use of will and shall has evolved so that it's simply false to add the word "only" to that definition. Herostratus (talk) 13:27, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

text: Then we will require an authoratative reference that the language has moved on and that 'only' can be replaced by a less restrictive word or phrase, given that a reference supporting 'only' has been supplied (and now we have two including the one I found above). 185.69.144.204 (talk) 14:11, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Wait, this isn't even an article. Why does this page even exist? Is it supposed to be a guide for editors or something? At any rate, could we perhaps move it to Wikipedia:Pedant's guide to mid-20th-century British English? Herostratus (talk) 16:30, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: It used to be an article until it was determined that since pedants with axes to grind and who know nothing about modern linguistics would be continuously filling it with their personal pet peeves (as we have here), it was moved out of the article namespace. I would say outright deleting this page is a perfectly reasonable way forward. In any case, a neutral description of the dispute about "shall" and "will" could be added to List of English words with disputed usage. Nohat (talk) 14:15, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Further, we already have an entire article devoted to the topic: Shall and will, which has an extensive section discussion the prescriptive rule about the shall/will distinction by person. Covering it here on this page in such a one-sided, narrow-minded way seems redundant and misleading. Nohat (talk) 14:43, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shall and will 

message: I have removed the entry for titular and placed it here, since it doesn't really meet the standard expressed at the top of the page: "The words listed below are frequently used in ways that major English dictionaries do not condone in any definition."
* titular means 'had by virtue of possessing a title', where title refers to a rank in the peerage, clergy, military, etc. It does not mean 'concerning a title', as might apply to a book, film, etc.
** Non-standard: In The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins is the titular character.
** Standard: Among Lord Somerton's titular possessions was a stone cottage on the hillside.
The first dictionary I looked in gives for sense 3 of titular: "of, relating to, or constituting a title <the titular hero of the play>" Nohat (talk) 17:26, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  titular 

message: I have removed the entry for salutation and placed it here, since it doesn't really meet the standard expressed at the top of the page: "The words listed below are frequently used in ways that major English dictionaries do not condone in any definition."
* salutation means a greeting, such as "hello" or "good evening" and does not mean a title, such as "Mister" or "Doctor" or a title's abbreviation, such as "Mr" or "Dr".
The first dictionary I looked in gives for sense 2 of salutation: "the word or phrase of greeting (as Gentlemen or Dear Sir or Madam) that conventionally comes immediately before the body of a letter" Nohat (talk) 17:30, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  salutation 

message: I have removed the entry for alternately and alternatively and placed it here, since it doesn't really meet the standard expressed at the top of the page: "The words listed below are frequently used in ways that major English dictionaries do not condone in any definition."
* alternately and alternatively. Alternately is an adverb that means in turn; one after the other. Alternatively is an adverb that means on the other hand; one or the other. The corresponding distinction applies to the adjectives "alternate" and "alternative". The concept of "alternative reality" is often mislabelled "alternate reality".
** Standard: We alternately spun the wheel in the game.
** Standard: You can choose a large bookcase or, alternatively, you can buy two small ones.
The first dictionary I looked in gives for sense 4 of alternate: "constituting an alternative <took the alternate route home>"Nohat (talk) 17:35, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: If you are right, these three entries should be moved to the article about disputed English usage. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) (talk) 10:31, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  alternately and alternatively 

message: The closer at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2017 July 1#Easily confused words said that "Easily confused words" can't be redirected to a project namespace and suggested that the AfD discussion be reviewed at DRV. I talked to the original closer about this, but he provided "no opinions" about this. I could take the AfD discussion to DRV, but I felt it's too premature without asking here first. I've not contributed to the page before, so I'd like opinions please. Thanks. --George Ho (talk) 22:43, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  DRV suggestion 

message: A discussion is taking place to address the redirect :MOS:ARABIC. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 November 16#MOS:ARABIC until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion.  —AFreshStart (talk) 21:42, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  "MOS:ARABIC" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]] 

message: , a redirect to this page, has been nominated at RfD. In the discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 February 1#Easily confused words it has been suggested that this page (Wikipedia:List of commonly misused English words) be moved to articlespace. You are invited to comment in the linked discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 18:08, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Notice of relevant discussion

message: I've removed a number of entries that lacked citations and whose presence was not justified by common sense. Long-term, of course, "common sense" is not a good citation, but for now at least it was a good place to start. If anyone would like to "rescue" any of the sources I removed, please take a look at the diff, and at my edit summaries in the page history. Thanks.  -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 23:16, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Various entries removed 

message: The number of people who refer to “breaks” and “peddles” is almost enough to drive one to drink. Mr Larrington (talk) 18:13, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  On Bicycles… 

message: Are prosecute and persecute another pair of commonly misused words? Windywendi (talk) 00:50, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: I've never seen them conflated myself, but it warrants inclusion if there's a reliable source showing that they are. Justin Kunimune (talk) 12:51, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: 'Prosecute' vs. 'Persecute' - Merriam-Webster Is that a reliable source for you? Windywendi (talk) 21:40, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure, seems reasonable to me. Justin Kunimune (talk) 22:22, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prosecute and persecute