To tell you that it's "rein" not "reign".

[FlyingElbows]

Because it is and it's doing my tits in!!

Rein. Rein. Rein. Rein. Rein.

Free rein. It's an equestrian term meaning to give the horse freedom of movement.

It is NOT reign. That's what the Queen does.

It's right up there with "intensive purposes" and "doggy dog world"!!

Hear, hear

(Not here, here). See what I did there?

Very interesting read - but.....
I am the only person who gets confused if someone tells me I might be getting something wrong.
I could always spell separate without thinking until I found out that it is often misspelt and now I dither about it. Also necessary.
Also true of licence and license...
And my latest one - effect and affect (please don't explain it to me - it makes it no clearer) - I am pretty sure I always used it correctly but now I dither and then try to use a different word because I am no longer sure.
After it comes up on MN all the time I get a wobble about using 'of' in some contexts - not wanting to make the 'could of' mistake ...even though I don't even speak like that!

Whoops that should have Am I ....not I am - see I know I'm in the lions' den hear

Unlucky: a handy tip for words like "license" is that where there is a choice between /-se/ or /-ce/, the /se/ ending usually denotes a verb and /ce/ a noun, see also advice (n)/ advise (v), practice/ practise etc.

I spend lots of time correcting licence and license - my job is to draft licences to license content. If I get in a muddle, I replace licence/ license with advice/ advise.

unlucky83

No, I've got to try!

Affect is the cause, effect is the result.

Because the trains were affected badly by the snow, the main effect was that everyone was two hours late for work

See? Bad sentence, but you should get the drift.

Thank you OP and PP, I love English language threads.

Am currently disliking "sat" for sitting and also get aerated when people pronounce tuRmeric as "tumeric".

Free rei(g)n drives me crazy too.

Dreamed and dreamt always get me. Neither seems correct at times.

It's spit and image not spitting image

Huh??

What I find now as well at the grand old age of 41, is that my mind plays tricks on me. I knew very well things like their/there when I was six or seven years old but occasionally write the wrong one on the internet without noticing, and only see it if I read over my post later. Also I forget how to spell words and second guess myself.

Nanny - I think I get it...but then I doubt myself
So eg the test may affect your vision
the test may have an effect on your vision...but I had to write a similar sentence earlier and I dithered like mad....(used impact instead....)
Now I am doubting myself again.

actually I didn't my last attempt was using 'impair' not impact ...but still affect/effect would have been better...

Unlucky: a handy tip for words like "license" is that where there is a choice between /-se/ or /-ce/, the /se/ ending usually denotes a verb and /ce/ a noun, see also advice (n)/ advise (v), practice/ practise etc.

Or just do away with the distinctions altogether as we have done in the US. We still distinguish advice/advise, though, and to confuse matters "license" is both noun and verb, but "practice" (with the c) is both noun and verb.

Seems pertinent...

My company enforces US spellings in our interfaces and documentation, but my machine has a proper English UK spell checker.

I am so pleased I was born in this country imagine having to learn English when it's not your native tongue. Reign, rein or rain. So many of the words we use sound the same but are spelt differently and mean different things.

Nothing is more irritating to me than "his" rather than "he's" e.g. "His not feeling too well." Arghhhhhhhhhhh!

Chester draws drives me mad too! Its chest OF drawers! On route is another 😠 There are things ive said wrong alll my life though 😂 like "high rate"

Ect drives me bonkers, no one appears to get it right anymore.

I'm working on being less picky.
I have a dyslexic daughter and suddenly understand a lot more about how odd some spellings really are - but poor spelling (or a spellchecker substituting the wrong word) can confuse the meaning of a post.
I would personally edit for spelling by preference.

Oh God, 'free reign' pisses me right off!

Also 'tumeric'. Why do so many people think there's no 'r' in the middle of this word?

And the old favourites 'your' and 'you're', of course.

I rather like the historical present, though. Or whatever it's called.

Their, their - your worrying about nothing. My advise two ewe is too try not worrying about it. Its not worth being stressed over. Their are more important thing's in life aunt they're?

I read 'lack toast and tolerant' the other day on a FB parenting page

My per hate is from the song "we wish you a merry Christmas" it's to you and your kin (meaning family) not king.

I've kept off here, because blood pressure, but I've just yelled at three bbc newscasters who said ambalance instead of ambulance. .

Thank you! I have had this discussion with a number of people and have been laughed out of the house.