List of the most common misuses of English by web authors.
10. Who, which or that?
“Who” (or “whom”) refers to persons. “Which” refers to animals or things, never to persons. “That” can refer to either persons or things.
Examples:
The girl who was hungry.
9. Anyone vs any one
“Anyone” means “any person,” not necessarily any specific person. It could refer to multiple people simultaneously.
8. Commonly misspelled words
All right
Dependable
Independent
Recommend
Responsible
Separate
7. Don’t put punctuation at the end of a URL
While not technically an English grammatical error, don’t put a period or anything immediately after a URL reference. Doing so will usually invalidate the URL. You might call this an internet grammatical rule.
6. Software not softwares
“Software” can be singular or plural. Never use “softwares.”
5. Do the quotes go after or before the period?
Put quotes after a period or comma. Put quotes before a colon. Put quotes after a question mark unless the entire sentence is a question. This is a US English standard. British English usage can differ.
Examples:
He asked, “Are you hungry?”
4. There, their, or they’re
“There” is used in two ways. It can specify a place. It can also be used as an expletive or empty word to start a sentence.
3. Powerful
Too many developers describe their software as, ” easy-to-use, … .” I searched and found 2149 descriptions or titles of software containing the word “powerful.”
2. Site or sight
A “site” is a place.
“Sight” refers to your sense of vision
1. Its or It’s
Use “it’s” only when it means “it is.” Unless you can replace “it’s” with “it is,” use “its.” Never use “its’.”
Examples:
It’s raining today.
The dog wagged its tail.
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