25 Frequently Misspelled & Misused Words That Haunt PR Pros

It's often the most routine and commonly used words
and phrases that can ruin your PR copy.

No professional communicator—no matter how experienced—is immune from the pain and downright embarrassment of spelling or word usage errors. Spell-check can only go so far and, in fact, can be a dangerous crutch (it won't catch homophones).

To help you remain vigilant, we asked the PR News community to share some misspelled and misused words that have burned them in the past:

Homophones (and near homophones):

Band/banned
Colombia/Columbia
Complimentary/complementary
Fare/fair
Forth/fourth
Insure/ensure
Its/it's
Principal/principle
Right/write
Sale/sail
Scene/seen
Seam/seem
Sight/site
Their/they're/there
Then/than
We're/were
Whose/who's
Worse/worst
You're/your

Common misspellings:
Public (pubic)
Tomorrow (tomorow)
February (Febuary)
Wednesday (Wendesday)
Definitely (definitly)
Received (recieved)

Which misspelled and misused words haunt your dreams?

Follow Bill Miltenberg: @bmiltenberg

13 responses to “25 Frequently Misspelled & Misused Words That Haunt PR Pros”

weather/whether

Frequently used incorrectly in technology: Premise/Premises. See the correct usage here: http://writinghightech.typepad.com/blog/2007/06/premise_vs_prem.html

lose/loose

I’m good for the ‘tot he’ typo instead of ‘to the’

judgment (judgement)

weather/whether/wether
accommodate
vise/vice

Complimentary/complementary; Wednesday (Wendesday); Whose/who’s – all make me want to scream! Just when I think I’ve ovrcome….I find the nightmare continues (LOL).