Apr 16, 2007 -- /prbuzz/ -- Ever wonder what are the most common mistakes people make while writing? Well, we’ve been mulling over the numbers, and the results might interest you. The powerful WhiteSmoke English grammar software suite analyzes one million sentences a month for users. So we thought it’d be fun to analyze the errors a bit. What do you think is near the top of our top-ten list?
If you guessed spelling is near the top, you’d be right. Actually, general spelling errors are the most common type we found. Things like aritcal for article, desicions for decisions, and so many different ways to spell different you wouldn’t believe it!
But some special types of spelling errors come out near the top, too. Number four in the top-ten types of errors there are what specialists call aural errors. These are sound-alike words: weather and whether, right and write. However, the most common of these is “of” for the contraction “’ve” (for have), as in “could of” instead of “could’ve” or “would of” instead of “would’ve.” These mistakes are caused in part when someone spells “be ear,” which is why they are called aural errors.
The single most common aural error, which gets its own category, is mistaking their (possessive) for there (the place). Lots of people do it, even professional writers who know to look for the mistake when editing. So, if professional writers know to look for these aural errors, it behooves you to look for them in your writing, too. Or…
…have WhiteSmoke look for these kinds of errors for you! Other spell checking software won’t catch aural errors
if they result, as they usually do, in another correctly spelled word (could of, their / there, weather / whether). However, WhiteSmoke has a great contextual spell checker that actually can find this type of spelling error as well. The competition can’t say that!
So, wonder what other types of grammar errors are in the top ten? How about prepositions? These pesky little words are difficult to master for non-native speakers, but even native speakers often get confused. Are you “scared from”? Know, you’re actually “scared of” -- perhaps scared of grammar errors? Do we “think on”? Well, some of us think while sitting on something, but usually it should be “think about” or “think of.” These are just some examples of preposition errors that we’ve helped users of WhiteSmoke fix.
And this blog just “wouldn’t go nowhere” without mentioning (or is it with mentioning?) double negatives. Double negatives, logically and grammatically, make a positive. While informally they might be used for an effect such as humor, generally they should be avoided. Yet, it’s the third most common type of error writers are making. This one surprised us. Don’t people know no better than to use double negatives?
Well, WhiteSmoke knows better. That’s why we catch these errors and correct them for you. How do we do it? Using a natural language approach and artificial intelligence algorithms, WhiteSmoke took four years to carefully develop its software. At the heart of our unique software is a database derived from carefully chosen real-world writing.
The result provides contextual spelling (unlike others, its spell checker often catches correctly spelled words in the wrong context, such as the aforementioned weather for whether) and unparalleled English grammar checking. WhiteSmoke is the most powerful writing software on the market, working better than products bundled with word processors, and, unlike those, working with any other software.
Using our large fount of data from actual users (don’t worry, we don’t know which mistakes you make -- just altogether what types get corrected), we developed our top-ten list of error types.
Okay. We’ve mentioned spelling errors, prepositions, and double negatives. Here’s the whole list now -- the rank, the type of error, and the percentage of top-ten errors made that are that type. The last column shows whether the type of error results is a category of spelling mistakes.
Rank Type of error % Spelling
1 spelling 24.3% X
2 preposition 16.2%
3 double neg 15.3%
4 aural 13.5% X
5 slang form / 9.0%
non-standard
6 compound word 6.3% X
7 contractions 4.5% X
7 their/there 4.5% X
9 word choice 3.6%
10 verb form 2.7%
Totals 100% 53.2%
Slang form / non-standard usage might be a result of using email and text-message shorthand. Some examples of that are “cuz” for “because,” “gonna” for “going to,” and “til” for “until.” Do you write your business email or memo like an email to a friend? That might not get you promoted, you know! Watch out for those types of mistakes. They’re quite common, but often leave a bad impression with customers, teachers, and bosses. Your friends probably don’t mind, though.
Word choice is more difficult to catch on your own. WhiteSmoke’s writing enhancement tool, its large dictionary, and its powerful thesaurus together will help you make sure you make the exact right word choice. It’s the ninth most common error we catch -- where someone has chosen the wrong word for the context, the wrong word for the intended meaning, or the wrong word altogether.
Verb forms have to do with tense, mostly. It’s another area where WhiteSmoke leaves the competition in the dust, by the way. One way to catch the mistake on your own is to read your writing to yourself aloud. Often hearing the verb form helps. (This might help with word choice, too.)
However, for a lot of your writing reading aloud might not be practical. Your co-workers might not like it, for instance. So, let WhiteSmoke read your writing for you -- and help you correct all of these top-ten types of error and more.
By the way, we have a list of over ten-thousand of the common specific errors that WhiteSmoke catches for writers. That one might not have as many zeros following it as the one of one-million sentences that we check each month, but it’s still a lot for “common” errors. We’ll keep analyzing them, though, in order to help you write better.
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About the Press Release
Findings from recent research on the most common English grammar errors might surprise educators and researchers.
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