When I handed my novel over to my husband for a final proofread, this is one of the major issues he picked up on. Not surprisingly, this error had made it through my editor, and the other proofreaders (friends and family), who’d read the book. It’s an easy mistake to make, but also, an easy one to fix!
Bought is the past tense of buy. Neither word has an r in it. “Today I am going to buy a book.” v’s “Yesterday I bought a book.”
Brought is the past tense of bring. Both begin with br. “I am going to bring cupcakes to the party.” v’s “Yesterday I brought cupcakes to the party.”
Since Reckless Rescue is set on a planet with only about a hundred occupants, there aren’t any shops, and not much buying! My husband picked up almost all of the instances of bought instead of brought, but I went through and did a search just in case. (Manually, so I didn’t accidentally mix up the few instances where bought was correct.)
What words do you mix up? Any good tips for keeping them straight?
All this month I’m participating in the A-Z blogging challenge, writing a blog post for each letter of the alphabet, on every day of the month except Sundays. Check back regularly to see what else I have in store for you.
Wouldn’t the grammar world be an easier place if all verbs were regular?! Yesterday I buyed a book 😀
Grammar could be easier in so many ways!
You’ve pointed such a common error. It irks me no end when they are mixed up. Another one is ‘there’ and ‘their’. People using social media largely are giving up the ‘you’re’ for ‘your’. Sigh! I could go on and on.
Such a simple post, this, but so effective for appropriate speech. BTW, love the fresh feel of your blog. Very positive indeed.
Thank you! I wish I could take credit, but my sister helped me with all the graphics.
So many words get easily mixed up. I’m pretty good with their and there, and you’re and your, but I had forgotten about this one.
In helping students with papers, the most commonly confused words are “then” and “than.” Most colloquial dialects I run into pronounce them almost identically, which makes it very difficult for them to cognize the words as separate.
The trick I share is “thEn” relates to “timE,” while “than” is “compArison.” We’ll go there and thEn do this. I’d rather eat this thAn that. It seems to do the trick for kids.
Then and than, that’s a new one. But I can see how they could be easily confused.
It never fails that no matter how many times I’ve read and reread my book for errors, I still find them every time (and I am a proofreader for a living). I guess you become so familiar with your own words that it’s easy to gloss over things. Frustrating. Glad your hubby found that error for you. He’s worth his weight in gold.
Oh he definitely is. 🙂 Grammar is just one of his many talents, LOL.
Good post! I usually do a pretty good job keeping the many mix up words straight. But I must give the voices in my head all the credit for keeping me in-line! 🙂
ShirleyIsNotMyName
Yes, I’m sometimes as amazed at the words I manage to get right as the ones I get wrong. English is such a complicated language!
Hi, being a retired teacher/ librarian, seeing misused words and grammatical errors is one of my pet peeves. It really irritates me to be reading along in a story and see an obvious error. I would love to be a paid proofreader. Many times, it is a book by a well-known author. That makes me think that whoever does their editing and proof reading should be fired. Oops, I just wrote more than I intended to. Thanks for the interesting post. Best regards to you, my friend. Ruby
Lots of people would love to find a proofreader too. Now that people are self-publishing, there never seems to be enough editors/proofreaders. And a retired teacher/librarian would be a great qualification.
I don’t often find myself mixing up words but there are a few errors I’ve made over the years and they’re pretty ridiculous. For some reason I occasionaly misspell “sure” as shure, even though I’ve known since childhood how to spell it correctly. Secondly, I have been known to write the letter “f” instead of the number “5”. In my subconcious, I think I must see the word “five” and realize that it has to be much shorter than four letters in order to be a number, so I just stop at “f”. You wouldn’t believe how many times in my life this has happened. Is there any cure for overusers of the letter “f”?
Those sound far more amusing than my bought or brought. I love the idea of writing f instead of five.
I can never remember whether to use practice or practise. Apart from that, it’s usually just weird one off mistakes, such as the time I spelt head as “haid”!
Hmm, I have to admit that I hadn’t realised there was a difference! And apparently Americans only use practice. Those of us who use UK English though , apparently use one as a verb and one as a noun. Fascinating stuff.
I tend to have words that I always type wrong, even though I know how to spell them (and work as a proofreader/editor). I’ve already had to go back and change the ‘to’ as I nearly always write it as ot. Ha, just there too with always, it usually ends up as alwasy. And frineds instead of friends. This has actually taken me about an hour to write!
Great blog, by the way. Glad I found you through the A to Z challenge.
Luckily the spellchecker seems to automatically fix those for me. Those, and the spent teh!
P.S. ‘Could of’, instead of ‘could have’ makes me want to hit someone.
LOL. I could very well be guilty of that. I’ll be watching out for it now!
I also tend to mix up which of “practice” and “practise” is the noun and which is the verb. When I’m in a hurry, I just go with the American custom of using “practice” in either circumstance, but then I get crabby with myself for being lazy. Sigh.