To wonder why accept and except are such a problem.

[heartstornastray]

I know it's not a big deal and it shouldn't affect/effect (another one) me but it does. I don't think there's a day goes by when I'm not irritated by it. So many people are using the word "except" in place of "accept". Anyone else get irritated angered by it?

Pacific and specific.
Genuinely and generally.
There is lots that grate on me but can't think of them right now.

So no, YADNBU

Ooh my pet hates. affect/effect, their/they're/there... Pacific/specific. Chester drawers. Towed the line.

I now live abroad and non native speakers Do NOT make these mistakes. I think a lot of it is down to poor teaching, laziness and lack of reading. If you read something in print a billion times it sticks. So many of these mistakes are homophones and that leads me to suspect people are just not seeing them written down. If you find this a problem, you need to read more.

Obviously things like dyslexia get a free pass, but this is way too prevalent to all be explained by dyslexia. It's mainly just the terrible standards of written English that seem to be ok in schools and Unis. I am forever cringing at emails sent in my company by native speakers. The standard of written English is appalling.

ALL of these drive me insane but particularly would of/ could of and your instead of you're. IT'S NOT DIFFICULT people- children of around 8 will be taught it at school.
Affect/ effect very annoying but lots of people tell me they weren't taught it.
En route/ on route and pacific / specific are terrible since one doesn't exist and one is an ocean with a capital letter!
I shouldn't judge when I read any of these, but I'll admit I do.
Don't get me started on apostrophes- I have been known to correct ones on signs/ posters with a ink pen I know I'm sad but I can't help it

But I do find affect and effect confusing. I'd welcome a simple easy to remember explanation please.

I was taught that you remember 'effect' is the noun (usually!) by putting 'the' in front.

'The effect' - 'the' ends in e and 'effect' starts with e, so they 'match, so you know 'effect' is the noun.

A bit convoluted.

Of course this only works when you're using effect as semi-synonymous with 'impact'.

Oh haha Chester drawers! Yes that's a funny one

The purpose of language is to communicate. If anyone would genuinely be confused by the use of the near homophones (in spoken or written English) then the problem is more to do with them than the person who said or wrote it incorrectly.

The people who tend to know the rules of grammar best (linguists) are the last to care when one of these rules changes or someone makes a mistake.

'Nice', 'awful' and 'silly' were all, until relatively recently, antinomous.

'Literally' being entered into the OED as its own antonym a few years ago may have had the OP losing sleep but I and many others found it fascinating and certainly didn't feel frustrated by or look down on those who brought about the change.

KweenOfFarts

have, not of in both cases.

Notevilstepmother

'affect' is usually a verb, 'effect' usually a noun.

"I text him and .."

*texted. You texted him.."

Arrrrgggghhh.

I have been known to correct apostrophes too and I am not ashamed. It seems to be very uncool these days to have even a whiff of correct grammar.

Quite and quiet also
I'm defiantly going to go to the shop today.

I agree with Anatidae - more reading helps with spelling and grammar.

I don't recall many of my English lessons at school (and only learned about the correct use of apostrophes when I attended a word processing course a few years later) but I was a reader from a young age.

DS was the same - in fact he has the opposite problem - in that he can spell a word, understand the meaning but cannot pronounce it as has not heard it in daily use.

I saw a note on the self-checkout at Asda recently - "this machine does not except the new £1 coin."

Grrr.

solaris I'm an English teacher and do not find it fascinating.

Ooh yes - to text and texted.

I stick to my guns with that one. I either write texted, or sent a text.

This one does make me chuckle though.

All of the above do my nut in, plus 'as/has', and 'definitely/defiantly'.

And I've recently read a blurb from our local authority that mentions 'prostrate' cancer. Aaarrgghhh....

Anatidae

New verb forms tend to be regular and intransitive. Having said that, the word was first cited in 1600 meaning 'inscribe' and in every OED citation since, the past and past participle take the suffix -ed. Mirriam Webster agrees.

If you accept 'texting' then other regular inflections appear to be correct.

You're wrong.

what was that about a whiff of grammar?

We were not given any grammar lessons at school at all - bloody permissive 70s/80s methods.

I'm less likely to judge someone who knows a word but not it's pronunciation- after all they learned if from reading :)

Less and fewer, another one that's annoying.

I accept that grammar and language changes over time. It's a fascinating subject. At the same time, people need to be aware that they will be judged in some situations for poor use of language.
A CV littered with such mistakes is not getting through my filter. A lot of my job relies on scientific and accurate communication - we work globally and so there is a lot of tolerance for different languages etc, however, I do not see non native speakers making these errors.
I cannot send an email to a client if it's littered with poor English, text speak or overly familiar. Language is important, in content and in tone, and we do not do young people any favours by sending them out into the professional world unable to write in professional English.

wildbhoysmama

My first job was writing code for parsing and do / did. What's your point?

Latin etymology helps here:

'affect' and 'accept' both have the prefix ad which means 'to'

'affect' means 'do something to you', 'accept' means 'take something to you'

'effect' and 'except' have the prefix ex which means 'out of, from'

'effect' means 'what comes out of a certain action'; 'except' means 'taking away'

Note that in both 'affect' and 'effect', there is the same second bit (fect), which means 'do'; 'accept' and 'except' have the same second bit (cep) which means 'take'.

SO: This situation affects me ('does something to me') and as an effect ('what comes out of me, my reaction') I am handing in my resignation.

AND: I accept ('take to me') your proposal as long as we except ('take out of the equation') the clause about EU workers.

Once you've started this etyomology game you can go on looking. If 'admit' means 'to let in', what does 'emit' (a truncated ex here) mean?

For some people there will be an underlying cause such as dyslexia, but for the majority it's lack of reading, leading to unfamiliarity with how the correct word/phrase should be written (and therefore how it should be spoken). Also leads to a more limited vocabulary overall.

(As an aside, twice this week on mn I have seen gawdy rather than gaudy - made me twitch each time...)

It also annoys me (even when I do it myself ) when people refer to it as 'Tesco's'. Like "Shall we go to Tesco's"? or "It was on offer in Tesco's". No other supermarket gets the same treatment. I never hear "Let's go to Aldi's" or "There's some great offers on in Waitrose's". Tesco is a shop, not a person!

I text him (I shall text him, I am currently texting him right this very moment.) Fine

I text him last Saturday - needs an ed.

You can't argue that a verb form from 1600 is allowed because it's from 1600 whilst simultaneously arguing language has changed since 1600 and thus everything goes. :) or we'd all still be calling young people of either sex 'girls.'

Kids are going out into the working environment woefully unprepared to communicate correctly. I work across countries and no one expects absolutely spot on perfect language but they DO expect certain skills. And those skills are lacking in about 70% of the young graduates we get. No native speaker should be getting through a degree and being unable to use their/there and they're correctly. Regardless of semantics, it's doing them a massive disservice.

Thank you all for replies to my post.

I do much better when someone explains rather that just be a tit posting correcting my grammar in bold.

Stationery and Stationary. I was taught when I was eight that stationAry things stAnd still but you write lEtters on stationEry.

Current and currant - I have no mnemonic for that.

And mind those capital letters

Help your Uncle Jack off his horse
Help your uncle jack off his horse

Insure vs ensure drive me insane.

You need to ensure you insure your car.

Also, Johnny and I used incorrectly really grate. It's like people have been corrected so much for using Johnny and me incorrectly that they presume the "and" changes the "me" to an "I" automatically. A simple way to know which to use is to remove Johnny from the equation so if it's me without Johnny, then it's me with Johnny. E.g. Come with me, come with Johnny and me. I am going there. Johnny and I are going there.

oh one which is tbh unreasonable of me: 'walla' instead of 'voila'.