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I stumbled across a post about 16 words that may not mean what you think they mean. While I knew most of them, I did learn a few things, including:
“Less is often confused with fewer. Use less to refer to quantities that can’t be counted and fewer to refer to numbers. There were less people in the office today is incorrect, because people can be counted. Instead say: There were fewer people in the office today.”
“Poisonous—often confused with venomous—means a plant, animal, or substance capable of causing death or illness if taken into the body. Venomous means capable of injecting venom. A rattlesnake is not itself poisonous, because if you eat one it won’t poison you. A blowfish will kill you if you eat it, so it is poisonous, but not venomous.”
And on a random side note, I found this while looking for Inigo Montoya images and it cracked me up how well it fit.
Any other words that you frequently hear misused?
-Eliabeth
Ermilia 
Great stuff that I can never remember when I need to..
i always have trouble with lay and lie and as a result, I use them less or fewer than I should because I might chose the wrong word and have it come back to bite me in a poisonous or venomous manner – and I wouldn’t lay or lie about that.
😉 Randy
Oh I hate lay and lie. I use those less as well. There was a nerd girl problem (I believe) about using a different word because you can’t spell the word you want. Well, this is sorta the same idea lol.
Thing is the less/fewer thing is just prescriptive grammarians telling people how they should say things. If people use less and fewer interchangeably and everyone understands then I don’t really see what the problem is. Isn’t language about communication after all?
That’s a good point. We’re always making new words and changing definitions. So long as it is widely accepted and you’re not writing an academic paper, I would agree that majority say goes.
Only if it doesn’t lead to ambiguity. I use ‘less’ and ‘fewer’ in their ‘proper’ ways. I just do. I was taught it years ago and it comes naturally to me, as does never writing a sentence with a misrelated participle. But that’s just what is now my ‘native language’, and I’ll keep on speaking it.
Horses for courses. If I’m buying a dozen eggs in a shop, all I need to do is get across the fact that I need a dozen eggs. If I’m drafting a law, I need to know the precise, definable meaning of every word and phrase.
Exactly
Ask the Editor: “less” and “literally”…
hanged/hung
Part of me wants to swim in a sea of pedantry, but the kinder part of me wants to say “What difference does it make as long as we know what is meant?”
sneaked/snuck?
Oh dear. You know, for every ‘misuse’ of a word or phrase, I can certainly find examples from Chaucer and Shakespeare. Not only that, in my home area of Northern England, shall and will are used interchangeably, or to be more precise, as synonyms. It’s part of the local dialect. Context makes the exact meaning clear without loss of accuracy. Having said that, there are certain common forms which make me cringe, probably because I feel ‘That’s not the way I say it, and my way must therefore be right’. Please have sympathy with my efforts to learn Finnish, where grammar is as important as tones in Mandarin.
Sympathy and empathy
Lay and lie.
Those jack up me up often.
Though I often use words in the wrong way cause they tell a different story depending on the reader.
When someone reads and thinks “what the hell? That doesn’t go there!” Then that entertains me cause they must read deeper into the meaning of not only the word but the context.
very entertaining. and i would so love to have a shirt with that saying on it. inigo montoya is the best!