British English

[dtaai-maai]

Just a comment....I've noticed a lot of people using the word 'to' instead of 'too' as it applies to 'also' or a higher degree of something. Is that a British thing and 'too' is not used? Pete

'too' is used by people who can write English correctly. Many can't.

I have to check my daughter's Oxford Press readers again as she comes home with them. I swore I also saw 'to' in there instead of 'too' which got me thinking initially about the use of 'too' in British English. Some forum usage just reminded me of it. Pete

I think Johnny's right, though I haven't noticed this example before. One spelling error that I see a lot (among native speakers) is the word 'lose' being spelt as 'loose'.

[Spitfire]

Punctuation, in general, seems to be an issue too for native or non-native folks and in many cases proves to be almost nonexistent in writing altogether.

Strangely, it seems to be largely absent from lessons in many Thai high schools/colleges etc and all I generally receive are blank faces when I talk about it. Even if they do do a bit of it then it's not what I'd call adequate considering how important it is to expressing yourself properly or inferring/understanding something correctly from the written word.

OK, I'm not talking about something like the many rules of the use of a hyphen or another complicated rule like that, but just the basic simple stuff. A bit of punctuation makes script a whole lot more readable and some examples I witness are simply woeful.

This applies to native and non-native speakers, although I'm much more forgiving of the non-native speakers as many have been badly taught, or not at all on this one.

[hhfarang]

I think a lot of that "to vs too", as well as hundreds of other similar sounding (but with a different usage and spelling) words are just typos as we have become over dependent on spell checkers which will not catch usage errors like that.

[PeteC]

The one I have to think about and probably will have to for the duration is affect and effect. The affect can have an effect don't ya know. Pete

[Arcadian]

What about accept/except, and the overuse of apostrophies?

[barrys]

What about accept/except, and the overuse of apostrophies?

I presume you meant apostrophes

[dtaai-maai]

What about ... the overuse of apostrophe's?

Yes, its very irritating, isnt it?

[tuppence]

Surely the Americans "talk at" you rather than to you. Plus sheeps in plural is common in wales, as in " i humped two sheeps last night"

[dtaai-maai]

TWO?? Heavens, I can see why they call you tuppence...

[tuppence]

Was going TO attempt TWO more but I was TOO tired

[Dr Mike]

I have the right to write right, right?

[Arcadian]

I have the right to write right, right?

Especially if it`s about a rite.

[johnnyk]

Groan! If I were to be punished for every pun I shed.....

[PeteC]

Opinions please: "At least I will have learnt something new...." or, is 'learned something new' just as acceptable? Pete

[Spitfire]

Both acceptable and correct, both past simple/past participle of the verb learn. The verb learn is an irregular verb in British English and the past tense is with a 't' whilst in American English the verb learn is a regular verb and the past form is 'ed'. Learnt is more common with British English and learned is more common in American English.

It is suggested, when writing, not to mix them up and interchange a lot with consistency of using one or the other being encouraged.

Other examples - spoiled/spoilt, burned/burnt, smelled/smelt etc.

Edit - However, to get unnecessarily technical, learned could refer to a person to describe them thus as an adjective. Learnt could refer to an activity some person has done, thus a verb. Some people also say that a basic rule for this is use learned for things near in time and use learnt for things further in time. I'll leave it there.