The 35 words you’re (probably) getting wrong

Have you made a flagrant error, in confusing your alternative choices? The legendary Fleet Street editor Harold Evans proscribes this glossary to solve your language dilemmas

I freely acknowledge that, in a list of this sort, "glossary" is a fancy Latin word for a collection of pet peeves (noun, 1919), meaning an annoyance or irritation. One of my peeves is that, as a noun originating in America, it had not been admitted into the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1968) on my desk in London when I edited the Sunday Times. Now, it is recognised ("back-formation from peevish"). I admit I have no evidence for believing that the neglect of peeve is to blame for angering the poltergeist Peeves in the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Affect/Effect You can only affect something that already exists. When it does, you can effect, or bring about, a change in it. To say: "It effected a change in his attitude" is correct; so is: "It affected his attitude." To combine the two - "It affected a change in his attitude" - is silly.