I love Fark. If you haven’t read their “news” stories, you really should. You are in for a treat. Diverging from their normal “news of the weird” types of posts, Fark links to this Lit Reactor post by John Gingerich entitled 20 Common Grammar Mistakes that (Almost) Everyone Makes. To encourage you to hit the link and read the gems, I am not going to copy here the usage rules, but I will point you in the right direction with the instances of grammar danger, a few of which hit my pet peeve list:

Who and Whom

Which and That

Lay and Lie

Moot

Continual and Continuous

Envy and Jealousy

Nor

May and Might

Whether and If

Fewer and Less

Farther and Further

Since and Because

Disinterested and Uninterested

Anxious

Different Than and Different From

Bring and Take

Impactful (*hint: it isn’t a word and neither is irregardless)

Affect and Effect

Irony and Coincidence

Nauseous

Perhaps my favorite part of the article is Gingerich’s acknowledgement that grammar is an “ultra-micro component in the larger picture.” However, it is worth paying attention to the rules when your audience may demand such attention or when failure to fix may distract attention in unintended ways. How’s that for a mouthful?