Correct Grammar Staples to Use for People Who Want to Sound Smarter ...

Hopefully officially means ‘in a hopeful’ manner, so if you say “hopefully we get tickets for the concert”, it technically does not mean the same as “I hope we get tickets for the concert”!

A building might have a ramp and wheelchair accessible, whereas the same building might be assessable by the county that taxes it, the words mean two different things!

You might see badly if you have poor vision, but if you have been mean to someone, you don’t feel badly, you just feel plain bad!

In most cases the ‘as’ is redundant: for example, a perfectly correct sentence would be “I speak English and Spanish equally well” rather than “equally as well”. “As” comes into play when you’re comparing such as, “I speak English and Spanish equally well as my native French”.

Lay and lie are definitely not interchangeable. You can say “I need to lie down”, but when an object enters the equation then you need to change it to “I need to lay my head on a pillow”.

Lots of people tend to get this wrong when spelling out the French term for the fancy chair; you might lounge on it, but its spelled chaise longue!

Adding the ‘machine’ on the end of ATM is redundant, as the M in ATM stands for machine anyway! You are basically saying automated teller machine machine, and that makes no sense!

Something is historic if it becomes significant (like an election), whereas something can be termed as historical you are describing a link between famous history, like the world wars for example.

This one is easy: a human is always who, and inanimate objects are always that!

The thing to remember here is that ‘could of’ is NEVER the correct option. It only became a way of writing because of the way some people quickly pronounce ‘could have’!

The most is completely redundant. If you really do mean everyone then that single word is enough, if you don’t, then ‘most people’ is a more fitting description.

In strict terms, you are nauseated if you are feeling sick, but you are a nauseous person if you happen to inflict hate on others.

The word unique by its very nature connotes something extraordinary, so in this case the ‘very’ is completely redundant.

This is another case of people just mishearing the phrase. The correct thing to say is for all “intents and purposes”.

The overuse and misuse of the word literally is rife in modern society. If you literally laughed your head off, you’d be dead wouldn’t you!?

The word merge in itself describes the process of two things coming together, so to add another ‘together’ on the end of the phrase is totally pointless.

People tend to use these words interchangeably, but the truth is that orientate officially only means ‘to face east’, so in most cases it’s the wrong thing to say!

Saying “off of’ might feel nice in the mouth but it’s another redundant term. Just saying off without the second follow up is the correct way to go about it.

There is a difference in tone and seriousness with these two. For example, Madonna is famous, but a serial killer like Jack the Ripper is infamous! There is a certain notoriety attached to the word infamous.

If you evoke something, you are creating a reminder of it, but if you invoke something, you are calling on a higher spirit or higher power for influence.

If you renounce something you are giving it up, but if you denounce something you are publically and formally condemning it.

Uninterested has crept in to public speech around the English speaking world, but that doesn’t stop disinterested from the being the correct way to say that you aren’t interested in something! The same applies to unorganized – the correct word is disorganized.

People sometimes get in a muddle about which means which. Former relates to something before, and latter always relates to something, well, after or later!