It’s back to school time. Sorry. I know we’re supposed to be more relaxed about spelling and grammar nowadays, but for a website to work to the max, it must avoid alienating its target audience. And some people get intensely annoyed by what they regard as sloppy writing. So here goes. Five common mistakes:

It’s/Its
Only use it’s with an apostrophe, when it represents a contraction of it is. It’s easy to remember. It’s = it is.

Any other use of its, and there’s no apostrophe:

The store opened its doors for the first time.
It’s going to be a hard winter.
The team presented its new players.
No doubt – it’s going to be a great season.

Spell checker hell
It’s something to do with fingers. When we use a keyboard sometimes our fingers consistently enter a word wrongly. Usually the spell checker spots the problem. But where the wrong word is a good word, no alarms ring. My problems are two little words. For, and from. Often I type them fro and form. So do others – it’s a mistake often seen. Learn what your problem words are and make a point of looking out for them when proofreading. Here are a few more:

One – On
Name – Mane
Red – Ref
Fade – Fads
Two – Tow

Same sound, different spelling, different meaning
Lots of examples – too many , but here are a few. This is where an online dictionary (or even a paper one) is your best friend. If you’re uncertain, look it up.

Discreet – Discrete
Principle – Principal
Stationary – Stationery
Their – There
Affect – Effect
Weather – Whether – Wether (that last one is definitely worth looking up, unless you were born on a farm)
Border – Boarder
Born – Borne
Berth – Birth
Etc.

To/Too/Two
There should be no excuse for confusing to and two, but poor old too often loses its last letter. If you’ve used to and you could substitute the word also then add an ‘o’. And her mother came too. But too is also used to mean an excess. He has too much talent. That use is easier to spot, and causes less mistakes, but when your fingers are really flying, look out for it.

Inconsistent numbering
There’s a writing convention. Numbers up to ten are spelt. Numbers over ten are shown in figures.

There were five staff in the store.
We are launching 43 new products.

If you use that rule keep it consistent. It trips the reader up to see ten in one place and 10 in another.

But what should you do if you have both a large and a small number appearing in the same sentence?

The ten syndicate members won £23,000 each.

Rearrange.

There were ten syndicate members. Each won £23,000.

And don’t forget. Proofread.

copy, Copywriting, grammatical errors, webcopy, writing