This was spotted today at our local coffee shop.
Premises is used for a single house or location, and premise is used as a term in logic, meaning something assumed or taken as a given. Premise is not the singular form of premises.
Many English words look or sound alike but have very different meanings, such as premise and premises. Often spell checkers can’t really help and it’s easy to get them confused.
Here are 15 pairs of words that cause people problems taken from a bigger Oxford Dectionaries list
Word 1 | Meaning | Word 2 | Meaning |
| accept | to agree to receive or do | except | not including |
| advice | recommendations about what to do | advise | to recommend something |
| affect | to change or make a difference to | effect | a result; to bring about a result |
| all together | all in one place, all at once | altogether | completely; on the whole |
| bare | naked; to uncover | bear | to carry; to put up with |
| complement | to add to so as to improve; an addition that improves something | compliment | to praise or express approval; an admiring remark |
| desert | a waterless, empty area; to abandon someone | dessert | the sweet course of a meal |
| disinterested | impartial | uninterested | not interested |
| elicit | to draw out a reply or reaction | illicit | not allowed by law or rules |
| imply | to suggest indirectly | infer | to draw a conclusion |
| loose | to unfasten; to set free | lose | to be deprived of; to be unable to find |
| practice | the use of an idea or method; the work or business of a doctor, dentist, etc. | practise | to do something repeatedly to gain skill; to do something regularly |
| premise | a term in logic meaning something assumed or taken as given in making an argument | premises | a single house or other piece of property |
| principal | most important; the head of a school | principle | a fundamental rule or belief |
| stationary | not moving | stationery | writing materials |
Here’s a great page with even more, including ‘everyday’ and ‘every day’ 🙂
“Everyday” is a perfectly good adjective, as in “I’m most comfortable in my everyday clothes.” The problem comes when people turn the adverbial phrase “every day” into a single word. It is incorrect to write “I take a shower everyday.” It should be “I take a shower every day.”
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