We’ve been covering some heavy topics over the last couple of weeks in WorkPuzzle.  So, I thought I’d lighten things up today.

Don’t stop working on finding and implementing that one great idea that will launch your company to the next level and distinguish you from your competitors.

It’s important work.

But do so with the knowledge that it’s important to sound grammatically correct along the way.  After all, most of us spend our days talking and writing (especially emails).  As knowledge workers, it’s the most frequent task we do in our day-to-day work.

Shouldn’t we being doing it well?

Jeff Hayden, a professional writer at Inc. magazine, thinks so.  But unfortunately, a bunch of us are doing it wrong, or at least we make a common set of mistakes.

He recently compiled (from a business perspective) a set of 39 incorrectly used words he often sees people use.

We won’t have time to cover all 39 words, but I selected 5 word pairs I thought were interesting (and sometimes trip me up).   By the way, these mistakes would not have been picked up by a spell checker.

Well and good

Anyone who has children uses good more often than he or she should. Since kids pretty quickly learn what good means, “You did good, honey” is much more convenient and meaningful than “You did well, honey.”

But that doesn’t mean good is the correct word choice.

Good is an adjective that describes something; if you did a good job, then you do good work. Well is an adverb that describes how something was done; you can do your job well.

Aggressive and enthusiastic

Aggressive is a very popular business adjective: aggressive sales force, aggressive revenue projections, aggressive product rollout. But unfortunately, aggressive means ready to attack, or pursuing aims forcefully, possibly unduly so.

So do you really want an “aggressive” sales force?…  Consider using words like enthusiastic, eager, committed, dedicated, or even (although it pains me to say it) passionate.

Continuously and continually

Both words come from the root continue, but they mean very different things. Continuously means never ending. Hopefully your efforts to develop your employees are continuous, because you never want to stop improving their skills and their future.

Continual means whatever you’re referring to stops and starts. You might have frequent disagreements with your co-founder, but unless those discussions never end (which is unlikely, even though it might feel otherwise), then those disagreements are continual.

Impact and affect

Many people (including until recently me) use impact when they should use affect. Impact doesn’t mean to influence; impact means to strike, collide, or pack firmly.

Affect means to influence: “Impatient investors affected our rollout date.”

So stop saying you’ll “impact sales” or “impact the bottom line.” Use affect.

Everyday and every day

Every day means, yep, every day–each and every day. If you ate a bagel for breakfast each day this week, you had a bagel every day.

Everyday means commonplace or normal. Decide to wear your “everyday shoes” and that means you’ve chosen to wear the shoes you normally wear. That doesn’t mean you have to wear them every single day; it just means wearing them is a usual occurrence.

Other similar examples: along and a long, a while and awhile, and any way and anyway.

If you’re in doubt, read what you write out loud. It’s unlikely you’ll think “Is there anyway you can help me?” sounds right.

Do any of these trip you up?  Hopefully you learned something today and you’ll become a better writer as a result.  If you want to learn more, read the rest of Jeff’s article.  It’s good stuff.

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