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ecstatic
ECSTATIC
Pronounced “eck-sta-tic,” not “ess-ta-tic.”
List of errors
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ect.
ECT.
ETC.
“Etc.” is an abbreviation for the Latin phrase et cetera, meaning “and others.” (Et means “and” in French too.) Just say “et cetera” out loud to yourself to
remind yourself of the correct order of the “T” and “C." Also to be avoided is the common mispronunciation “excetera.” “And etc.” is a redundancy.
List of errors
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-ed/-t
-ED/-T
You have learnt your lessons only in U.K influenced countries, you’ve learned them in the U.S.
There are several common verbs which often have “T” endings in Britain which seem a little quaint
and poetic in American English, where we prefer “-ED.” Other examples: “dreamt/dreamed,” “dwelt/
dwelled,” “leant/leaned,” “leapt/leaped,” and “spelt/spelled.” However, the following alternatives are
both common in the U.S.: "burned/burnt” and “kneeled/knelt.”
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-ed/-ing
-ED/-ING
In some dialects it is common to say “my shoes need shined” instead of the standard “my shoes need
shining” or “my shoes need to be shined.”
List of errors
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ei/ie
EI/IE
The familiar rule is that English words are spelled with the “I” before the “E” unless they follow a
“C,” as in “receive.” But it is important to add that words in which the vowel sound is an “A” like

“neighbor” and “weigh” are also spelled with the “E” first. And there are a few exceptions like
“counterfeit,” “seize,” and “weird.”
List of errors
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either
EITHER
“Either” often gets misplaced in a sentence: “He either wanted to build a gambling casino or a
convent” should be “He wanted to build either a gambling casino or a convent.” Put “either” just
before the first thing being compared.
List of errors
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either are/either is
EITHER ARE/EITHER IS
As a subject, “either” is singular. it’s the opposite of “both,” and refers to one at a time: “Either
ketchup or mustard is good on a hot dog.” But if “either” is modifying a subject in an “either . . . or”
phrase, then the number of the verb is determined by the number of the second noun: “Either the
puppy or the twins seem to need my attention every other minute.”
List of errors
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eighteen hundreds/nineteenth century
EIGHTEEN HUNDREDS/NINETEENTH
CENTURY
"Eighteen hundreds,” “sixteen hundreds” and so forth are not exactly errors; the problem is that they
are used almost exclusively by people who are nervous about saying "nineteenth century” when, after
all, the years in that century begin with the number eighteen. This should be simple: few people are
unclear about the fact that this is the twenty-first century even though our dates begin with twenty.
Just be consistent about adding one to the second digit in a year and you’ve got the number of its
century. It took a hundred years to get to the year 100, so the next hundred years, which are named
“101,” “102,” etc. were in the second century. This also works BC. The four hundreds BC are the
fifth century BC. Using phrases like “eighteen hundreds” is a signal to your readers that you are weak

in math and history alike.
List of errors
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electrocute/shock
ELECTROCUTE/SHOCK
To electrocute is to kill using electricity. If you live to tell the tale, you’ve been shocked, but not
electrocuted. For the same reason, the phrase “electrocuted to death” is a redundancy.
List of errors
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elicit/illicit
ELICIT/ILLICIT
The lawyer tries to elicit a description of the attacker from the witness. “Elicit” is always a verb.
“Illicit,” in contrast, is always an adjective describing something illegal or naughty.
List of errors
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ellipses
ELLIPSES
Those dots that come in the middle of a quotation to indicate something omitted are called an
“ellipsis” (plural “ellipses”): “Tex told Sam to get the . . . cow out of the bunk house.” Here Tex’s
language has been censored, but you are more likely to have a use for ellipses when quoting some
source in a paper: “Ishmael remarks at the beginning of Moby Dick, ‘some years ago . . . I thought I
would sail about a little’ —a very understated way to begin a novel of high adventure.” The three
dots stand for a considerable stretch of prose that has been omitted. If the ellipsis ends your sentence,
some editorial styles require four dots, the first of which is a period: From the same paragraph in
Moby Dick: “almost all men . . . cherish very nearly the same feelings. . . .” Note that the period in the
second ellipsis has to be snug up against the last word quoted, with spaces between the other dots.
Some modern styles do not call for ellipses at the beginning and ending of quoted matter unless not
doing so would be genuinely misleading, so check with your teacher or editor if you’re uncertain
whether to use one in those positions. It is never correct to surround a quoted single word or short
phrase with ellipses: “Romeo tells Juliet that by kissing her again his ’sin is purged’” (note, by the

way, that I began the quotation after the first word in the phrase “my sin is purged” in order to make
it work grammatically in the context of the sentence).
When text is typeset, the spaces are often but not always omitted between the dots in an ellipsis.
Since modern computer printer output looks much more like typeset writing than old-fashioned
typewriting, you may be tempted to omit the spaces; but it is better to include them and let the
publisher decide whether they should be eliminated.
An ellipsis that works perfectly well on your computer may “break” when your text is transferred to
another if it comes at the end of a line, with one or more of the dots wrapping around to the next line.
To avoid this, learn how to type “non-breaking spaces” between the dots of ellipses: in Word for
Windows it’s Control-Shift-Spacebar; on a Mac, it’s Option-Spacebar.
When writing HTML code to create a Web page, make a nonbreaking space with this code:
 
List of errors
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