Words that can make smart people look dumb

[LONDONER]

Much more common that you might believe:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1k02dA/:16...-look-dumb

"Loose" and "Lose" is another example.

[princealbertofb]

You are right, but even the most finicky writer might get his or her letters mixed up on these new writing media (especially the mobiles with their predictive texting) You get some really funny things sometimes just from that problem.

[TwisttheLeaf]

Mine has always been the "Affect vs. Effect". No matter how many times it's explained to me, no matter how simply or complex the explanation.... I just can't seem to get that one right in my head.

[LONDONER]

Mine has always been the "Affect vs. Effect". No matter how many times it's explained to me, no matter how simply or complex the explanation.... I just can't seem to get that one right in my head.

How about trying to remember something like: "The shocking effect of the news affected me"

[mrex]

Affect or effect

"The sunny weather had a huge effect on sales.”

As a non-native-english speaker i have always thought that "affect" is used as a verb while "effect" is used like "have an effect on smt" or as a noun.

So... Can the quote above be written on this way?

"The sunny weather affected sales and the effect was huge."

[mrex]

Bring and take

So this is incorrect?
"I will bring it to you tomorrow!"

[Pix]

I get so many brain farts that it's frustrating. It's not that I don't know, it's just my brain doesn't care (at least not all of it). For example, I might mention someone "having a bear." Why did I spell it "bear" rather than "beer"? Because a brain fart, that's why, not because I don't know the difference. And what's worse, I can read it several times and still not catch it (spell check certainly won't).

I can also get ahead of myself, but offhand I can't remember examples. But sometimes I can scramble words that actually mean something (just not what I intend) because I hit the space bar at the wrong moment.

Oh! And the most infuriating to me is when I type the opposite. For example, if it mean to say such a person cannot, then I'll type "can." Or I mean to type "will" but instead type "won't." Why? I have no idea! Luckily, I'll usually catch this on proofreading, but I think this brain fart is the one that pisses me off the most at myself, because at least the other brain farts can usually be understood in spite of itself. Furthermore, this type of brain fart baffles me the most. At least I can understand the other kinds, but I can't think of any excuse for why my brain fucks up in this way.

That said, it's usually obvious when professional authors don't have editors due to all the errors, so maybe I should cut myself some slack. (It's especially obvious when most of the book is about perfect, but the last few chapters are rife with misspellings, grammatical errors, even using the wrong names for characters, in which I thought those must've been turned in on the last day with no time for proper proofreading and editing.)

[mrex]

I usually do lots of errors with words he and she when speaking... We dont have both of them, only one word meaning the 3rd person and im very often use "he" meaning "she".

Funny that i dont have the same problem with swedish (han/hon) or german (er/sie).

[InbetweenDreams]

Well I make a lot of typos, sometimes I leave words out...comma splices, my obsession with ellipsis and so on... Not intentional of course but I do it in my emails and on here, thankfully I don't speak like how I type.

I don't know why I do that, other than just making typing errors but I can't say that I have always done that with typing (or perhaps I have and never was aware of all the errors I make). I don't type all too fast...I probably average between 40-50 wpm, sometimes I'm a bit faster. It also has been a while since I have took a typing test to see how fast I can type. I think it has something to do with me thinking out things faster than I can type...perhaps that explains the leaving out words and whatnot.