common error

hors d'oeuvres
If you knew only a little French, you might interpret this phrase as meaning "out of work," but in fact it means little snack foods served before or outside of (hors) the main dishes of a meal (the oeuvres). English speakers have trouble mastering the sounds in this phrase, but it is normally rendered "or-DERVES," in a rough approximation of the original. Mangled spellings like "hors' dourves" are not uncommon. Actually, many modern food writers have decided we needn't try to wrap our tongues around this peculiar foreign phrase and now prefer "starters." They are also commonly called "appetizers."

sowcow/salchow
There's a fancy turning jump in ice skating named after Swedish figure skater Ulrich Salchow, but every Winter Olympics millions of people think they hear the commentators saying "sowcow" and that's how they proceed to misspell it.

right of passage/rite of passage
The more common phrase is "rite of passage"-a ritual one goes through to move on to the next stage of life. Learning how to work the combination on a locker is a rite of passage for many entering middle school students. A "right of passage" would be the right to travel through a certain territory, but you are unlikely to have any use for the phrase.bullion/bouillon
Gold bricks are bullion. Boil down meat stock to get bouillon. It's an expensive mistake to confuse bouillon with bullion in a recipe.

pompom/pompon
To most people that fuzzy ball on the top of a knit hat and the implement wielded by a cheerleader are both "pompoms," but to traditionalists they are "pompons," spelled the way the French-who gave us the word-spell it. A pompom, say these purists, is only a sort of large gun. Though you're unlikely to bother many people by falling into the common confusion, you can show off your education by observing the

distinction.staid/stayed
"Staid" is an adjective often used to label somebody who is rather stodgy and dull, a stick-in-the-mud. But in modern English the past tense of the verb "stay" is "stayed": "I stayed at the office late hoping to impress my boss."

still in all/still and all
The phrase "still and all" means something like "all things considered." Now ("still"), after having taken all relevant facts into account. . . . So it's not "still in all" but "still and all."drownding/drowning
Before you are drowned, you are "drowning," without the extra D. Later, you have not "drownded." You've "drowned."

hangar/hanger
You park your plane in a hangar but hang up your slacks on a hanger.untracked/on track
When things begin running smoothly and successfully, they get "on track." Some people oddly substitute "untracked" for this expression, perhaps thinking that to be "tracked" is to be stuck in a rut.