[Theforum] confidentiality of survey results

rudy r937 at interlog.com
Sat Dec 8 12:01:43 CST 2001


> Hey Rudy, what's the name for the phenomenon of accidently using
> similar-sounding words e.g., "no" instead of "know", "their" instead
> of "there",

and my favourite -- "your" instead of "you're" and vice versa

> even when you *know* the correct usage.

ah, but often, the person doesn't  ;o)

i did a quick search on google and right near the top of the results was
this page, which i had never been to before, but which i suspect is gonna
kill off the best part of my saturday --

  THE ALT.USAGE.ENGLISH FAQ FILE
   http://www.english-usage.com/faq.html

just a quick skim shows a motherlode of topics, including

  "could care less"
  "more/most/very unique"
  "that" vs "which"

and

    What is "ghoti"?

(which i remember from public school)

but alas, nothing that i could see about the name for our homophonic
misspellings...

ah, here it is -- "confusables"

   http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/notorious.htm

rudy





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