THE WORLD IS FULL OF CRITICS

THE WORLD IS FULL OF CRITICS

People like criticizing. Someone should do this according to their profession, but others do it just for pleasure. There are average readers who search for the writer’s mistakes first and then pay attention to the plot. It is a great pleasure for them to demonstrate how smart they are. To correct is easier than to create. However, writers should pay more attention to their mistakes.

What Are Gremlins?

Many will remind the film Gremlins (1984). It is about amazing creatures, which resemble koalas. The lesson of the successful movie was to never misuse things and it had some relation to another meaning of this word, which will be discussed today. It is the authors’ gremlins or misuse of the words. Yes, they happen very often and the main reason is that these words are very similar in writing and sounding. Yet, if you are going to write, you should take them into consideration, as readers will leave no excuses for such a misuse.

The Most Common Gremlins

Affect & Effect

They differ by one letter and meaning. ‘Affect’ means to influence on somebody. For example, “His news affected me much”. ‘Effect’ is a synonym for to do. Example “The President effected many social changes”.

Altogether & All Together

The only difference in this pair is a space, as they sound and look the same. However, ‘altogether’ means completely, totally, on the whole. The sentence “He is not altogether sure about right decision” can be an example of its usage, when ‘all together’ means all in one place “They came all together”.  

Infer & Imply

This pair is confusing because they can be used in the same situation, but words will point at things from different angles. The first word means deduce or conclude. The example of its usage can be “We can infer from his report that crime is rising in our country”. ‘Imply’, on the contrary, means suggest, for example, “Is she implying that her mother is mad?”

Lay & Lie

They have so close meanings. Moreover, the past form of ‘lie’ is ‘lay’, what makes them even more confusing. Yet, lay means to put something in a horizontal position, for example, “She is laying a baby in the cot”. ‘Lie’ means to be in such a horizontal position, as “I had to lie down as I felt sick”.

Disinterest & Uninterested

The prefix plays a great role here. ‘Disinterested’ emphasizes more on the neutral attitude and the lack of as interest, as dislike, when ‘uninterested’ has a more exact shade and underlines the complete lack of interest. Examples, “His mother was so disinterested in his learning that she only visited the school once” and “He was totally uninterested in politics”.

These 5 gremlins start the long list. To become a good writer, you should exercise to make all of them familiar to you.Neither readers, nor your professors will excuse the misuse in your writing pieces.