Jude's Forum

I know when I first started writing, I had a lot of problems with certain words and constantly confusing them.  Here are a few of the more common words I constantly mixed up:

than/then
affect/effect
further/farther

There are a few tricks to keep them straight in your mind.  When needing to use than or then, the first is a comparison and the second is a point in time.  If you need to compare two different things, always use than:
I like her better than him.

If the object of your sentence is a dealing with a specific point in time, always use then:
It was then that I realized I could never go back home.

Using affect and effect can be a bit tricky, since under some circumstances, they can be swapped.  But the safest bet to using either is effect is a noun and affect is a verb.

I'm not sure I like the final effect.
Cutting the wood wrong will affect the final outcome.

The main thing I can say about using further and farther is that while they both mean distance of some kind, only farther is used when that distance can be measured.
Push yourself further than you ever thought you could go.
Just a few blocks farther and you'll be done.

I'll try to post these types of helpful hints every week.  More often if there is interest.

Good tips. I've certainly been guilty of several of those.

I think we've all been guilty a time or two.  LOL

Here's another that I see on Facebook all the time:

There/Their/They're

I don't ever have a problem with these, but I think a bit of a refresher is in order for those who constantly confuse them.

There - this is used when talking about places or a particular object.  There is something I would like to talk to you about.  I thought I saw him just over there.

Their - this is a possessive pronoun and should only be used when talking about something that belongs to either a group of people or someone whose gender is unknown.  Their car is parked in that lot. I'm not sure who this lunchbox belongs to, but their meal will go bad soon.

They're - this is a contraction of "they" and "are" and should never be used unless you can use those two options interchangably.  "They're the kids I saw running past a moment ago" or "They are the kids I saw running past a moment ago." I can't tell you how many times I've seen it like "They're kid is always in trouble."  Since "They are kid is always in trouble." does not make sense, clearly they're should not be used.  "Their kid is always in trouble," since a possessive pronoun is needed in that instance.

Hope it helps.

There are too many ways they're doing this wrong on their facebook page.  hehe ;-)

I see what you did there.  LOL Bravo!

Sight/Site/Cite

Not sure if any of you have a problem with this, but I sometimes see them getting confused.

Sight - this is something you can see with your eyes.

Site - A physical place, like a website or a dig cite.

Cite - A reference, like when you do research and cite a page from a book.