I Feel Quilty

It’s time for another collection of words that are often amusingly confused and misused. These errors aren’t the sort that make me want to poke my eyes out; they just make me chuckle.

First off, we have “quilt” substituting for “guilt”:

He was tried and found quilty. (I hereby sentence you to five years in prison for being warm and snuggly!)

The quilt drove him to despair. (Some quilts, apparently, are just bad.)

Then there is the distressing confusion between “bowel” and “bowl”:

The explorer devoured a bowel of cereal before setting off to explore the bowls of the earth. (Ick. Okay, this one could force me to poke out my eyes; and stop eating cereal.)

“Brake” and “break” consistently cause confusion:

He watched the waves braking against the shore. (This one almost makes sense, since the water does slow and stop briefly before flowing out again. Still, I’ll stick with “breaking.”)

She quickly put her foot on the break. (Trying to prevent more breaks from forming, perhaps? If she’s trying to stop her car, she should really use the brake.)

And let’s not forget “bear” and “bare,” two old favorites:

The hapless hiker was mauled by a bare. (A bare what? A hairless mountain lion, perhaps?)

He gave her a big bare hug. (In this case, context is everything. If the hug occurs at a family reunion, it’s probably a “bear” hug; however, if the reunion takes place at a nudist resort, you should query the author—tactfully.)

As always, the amusingly misused words are actual errors I have seen in unedited manuscripts. The amusing sentences in which they appear, however, are my own.