These two words may be pronounced the same but they have different meanings.
Discreet means ‘tactful, careful, prudent and trustworthy’ (in regards to people) and ‘unlikely to attract attention’ (in regards to actions).
Discrete means ‘separate’ or ‘individually distinct’.
I originally titled this post ‘Just ‘desserts” but I decided it would seem like I was trying to be clever.
Anyway, I expect that the misuse of either of these words is down to not knowing how many s’s to spell it with. The meanings are as follows:
Dessert: The sweet course of a meal, or
a pudding.
Desert: Wastelands or a barren area of land; to abandon somebody or something (including military duties without leave); or to get what you deserve/be treated as you deserve (e.g. ‘just deserts’).
If it is a sweet food then use two s’s. If it is any of the other options, just use the one s.
Sources:
I prefer to eat food like cake.
Does this mean ‘food, for example, cake’ or ‘food that is similar to cake’?
The ambiguity can be solved by using ‘like’ to introduce a comparison and ‘such as’ to introduce an example. This usage of ‘like’ is perfectly acceptable in many contexts as long as the difference in meaning is recognised.
However, it should be avoided in formal writing; there are more appropriate, and clearer, alternatives.
Source:
It is easy to get these two confused if you aren’t really concentrating or if you are distracted (perhaps by watching Daredevil, eating cake, or eating cake while watching Daredevil*).
However, the difference is fairly simple to understand:
If it helps, only proceed can be followed by to and another verb: He proceeded to eat my cake.
*I would never be distracted by this. I am a professional.
Source:
Most English speakers will use the correct indefinite article (or determiner, if you prefer) without even thinking about it.
If you find yourself worrying, this is how to know which is correct:
A precedes words that begin with consonant sounds (letters that are not a, e, i, o or u).
An precedes words that begin with the vowel sounds a, e, i and o.
The letter u is different depending on the sound. If the beginning of the word sounds like ‘you’ (or ‘yoo’), use a. If the word begins with ‘uh’, use an.
The letter h may also vary depending on sound. If the word starts with a hard h sound, use a. If the word starts with a silent letter h, use an.
It is the sound that determines which indefinite article you should choose: a eucalyptus tree; a one-off; an understandable choice; an honourable man. Let the sound guide you when applying to single letters or groups of letters: an FAQ; an SAS unit; an MA; a B road; a TUC member; a UFO.
Sources:
I was sat, bleary-eyed, reading the i (a British newspaper) this morning. In it, there was a list of the top ten CV spelling mistakes. The original source for the feature can be found here. Almost one-third of CVs contain at least one spelling error.
The number one most frequently misspelt word is responsibility, followed by liaise and university. The list doesn’t give examples of the incorrect spellings that were found in order to form the top ten.
There are some other examples of misspellings on the website, and I have had a look at what Microsoft Word makes of them. They are all subject to a red squiggly line or to automatic correction (apart from travelling – the spellchecker, my dictionary and I disagree with Adzuna: the legitimate British spelling is with two ls). My advice, therefore, is to make sure you take note of what your spellchecker is trying to tell you.
However, I wouldn’t rely on your spellchecker completely. It can tell you if the word is spelled incorrectly, but it can’t tell you if it is the appropriate word. It isn’t going to pick up on the correct usage of their or there, your or you’re, and its or it’s. It might not recognise the correct spelling of an unusual word. And I’m not even going to mention the poor grammatical suggestions spellchecker makes…
Make sure you are thorough when you read what you have written. Read for sense as well as for the errors. If the work is of importance, get someone else to look at it for you. When it is your own writing, it is hard to read what is there instead of what you expect to be there.
Your CV is of great importance. It is a potential employer’s first introduction to you. Take that extra time and make the extra effort. It’ll be worth it.
Hannah McCall 