Examples Of Word Crimes

Writing has always been difficult for me, especially since grammar was never a major subject taught in my school. Due to these unfortunate circumstances, I am not innocent of committing word crimes. However, in the song, “Word Crimes”, many of the examples given are crimes I do not commit. The only example, that was given, that I do commit is in the case of using who or whom. I know in writing that I have never actually used the word whom, even though it was the correct form to use. I never learned why whom would be used over who, so I never made the connection of when to switch over. Now, I am committed to using the right form since the song taught me when it is correct to use whom. Though I only found one example in the song that I am guilty of carrying out, I know of many more. The four biggest word crimes I commit are: mixing up affect and effect, mixing up irony and coincidence, using since and because interchangeably, and using in to versus into.
Affect and effect, to me, is the hardest word crime to steer away from.
I never fully grasped why one was used over the other and so I continually made the mistake of using the incorrect one. Just last semester, I wrote a paper where I had, “The decline of religion effected medicine in a major way.” It was not until recently that I learned effect should be used as a noun, and I should have used affected in my paper. Though I do not always make the mistake of mixing up the words irony and coincidence, it does happen. I had a misconstrued idea of what irony meant. I did not realize that irony was not the word used to describe when it rained on your wedding day, like Alanis Morissette sang.If it rains on your wedding day, it is not ironic, just a coincidence. It would be ironic if you had the wedding in the winter so that it did not rain on that day, and then it did. Even though I am consciously aware of the difference, I still make the mistake every now and
then. On the other hand, it was not until I researched word crimes for this paper that I realized my error in using since and because interchangeably. I have wrote many sentences like, “She decided to read a book since it was raining.” I never knew that was incorrect. After doing the research, I now know that since refers to time, and I should have used because instead. Lastly, I make the mistake of using into and in to at the wrong times. I also did not know this was incorrect until this paper. I have on multiple occasions wrote sentences like, “He went in to the room.” I did not know that since the sentence implies movement, the correct usage would be into. That is something I will now keep in mind when writing. I commit word crimes occasionally and I have no one to blame but myself. Even if I was never taught the proper way to use multiple words, I should have researched common grammatical errors a lot sooner. I did not fully grasp how easy it was to make a grammatical error, so I never felt the need to try and change my writing habits. I feel that since writing this paper, I am more aware of the mistakes I make and I am dedicated to correcting my faults. In order to keep myself in check, I will continue to research grammar and always keep what I have learned in the front of my mind while I write.