Your vocabulary could be your downfall

I’m quick to point out the pitfalls of English. It’s a difficult language to master, what with all the words that sound similar. If you’re not careful, you could end up like this writer for Yahoo! News:

A limited vocabulary may just be his downfall.

About that alter

An article was recently published on Yahoo! Shine about the TV series “Friends.” The article contains lots of minor and major errors (no surprise), and if I can ever force myself to write about them, it will make for a lengthy TW post. I don’t have the time (or will) for that, so I’ll just serve up one example that can serve as a reminder to all about the importance of word choice:

The whole paragraph is kinda a jumbled mess, but that last part is the worst. It alleges that a character on “Friends,” Rachel, dumped her husband at the “alter,” which I take to be a misspelling of altar. Rachel did run out on her wedding — but that was before the actual wedding ceremony. She dumped her fiancé at the altar.

What do you mean by that?

What does it mean to be a Holocaust survivor? That’s the question I’m left with after reading this on Yahoo! News:

If by “Holocaust survivor” the writer means he was alive during the time of the Holocaust, then yes, he is a survivor. If the writer means he survived being sent to a Nazi extermination camp — which is what most people mean — then no, he is not a Holocaust survivor. I have no idea where the writer came up with that “fact.”

Take a peak

Take a peak. Really, any peak. Everest. Kilimanjaro. Rainier. Fuji. Pick one. And then take a peek at this homophonic error on Yahoo! Movies: