Common Errors Activity:

Wrong Word

Wrong word errors take a number of forms. They may convey a slightly different meaning than you intend (compose instead of comprise) or a completely wrong meaning (prevaricateinstead of procrastinate). They may also be as simple as a wrong preposition or other type of wrong word in an idiom.

Use your thesaurus and spell checker with care. If you select a word from a thesaurus without knowing its precise meaning or allow a spell checker to correct spelling automatically, you may make wrong-word errors. If prepositions and idioms are tricky for you, look up the standard usage.

Here are a couple of wrong word examples:

Did you catch my illusion to the Bible?

Illusion means "an erroneous perception of reality." In the context of this sentence, allusion was needed because it means "reference."

Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene is a magnificent sixteenth-century allergy.

A spell checker replaced allegory with allergy.

Requirement:  In your own words: (a) write a definition of the error, and (b) describe how you will locate such errors in your own writing.

To help you define the error, you can use other resources, like the Purdue Online Writing Lab. You will find suggestions for how to locate errors at the bottom of each page on the Everyday Writer website.