It happens all the time. You’re writing a paper or texting a friend and have to ask yourself, “Is it affect or effect? Complimentary or complementary?”

Often languages can be quite tricky to deal with, even for a native speaker. The English language is no exception. Like these two examples above, there are certain words that sound and are spelled almost identically which makes the identification of these words difficult. 

Does that happen to you? Yes, I thought so! And because this is such a hot topic, I’ve decided to start a series of blogs treating each individual commonly confused words, in separate posts for easy search.

So whenever you get that nagging feeling and you need to check the correct spelling, you can quickly type in the blog search the pair you are interested in. That way you find what you are looking for straight away, without having to go through a whole article! You see? Here at English Connection I have your interest at heart. I know how busy you are and I am here to make life a little easier for you! 

I am going to call this series COMMONLY CONFUSED WORDS and if you take a moment to study them, you might be able to compose your next document, paper or text without having to stop and check in the future! In fact, why not leave a message below and share with the community your commonly confused words and add to list of this series?

Also, if you are not familiar with the meaning of certain vocabulary in my articles, you will find links to their definitions and synonyms so that you can quickly learn more vocabulary in context, and how to use the dictionary in a smart way to boot!

Some of the confusing pairs we will talk about are listed below:

Complementary/Complimentary

Affect/Effect

Stationery/Stationary

Envelop/Envelope

Dependent/Dependant

Advice/Advise 

Licence/License

Inquiry/Enquiry

Confidant/Confident

Than/Then

Toward/Towards 

Accept/Except 

Ensure/Insure/Assure

Enquire/Inquire 

Climactic/Climatic

Desert/Dessert

Past/Pass

Precede/Proceed

Principal/Principle 

Borrow/Lend

Historic/Historical 

Ingenious/Ingenuous 

Raise/Rise

Their/There/They’re 

Who/Whom

Who’s/Whose 

Defence/Defense

Gray/Grey

It’s/its

Lay/Lie

Lead/Led

Quiet/Quite

Write/Right

To/Two/Too

You’re/Your

Woman/Women

So without further ado, let’s have a look at the meaning and differences of the first two commonly confused words: complementary and complimentary.

But, before I go, remember to leave a message in the comment section below and help adding to the list of this series!

These bitesize mini-lessons are given to you complimentary when you sign up and join the English Connection community.