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palate, pallet or palette?
A palate is what you taste food with, a pallet is what boxes are transported on and a palette is the wooden plate that painters use to mix colours with, as well as being a range of colours.
parallel or paralell?
Parallel.
parallelling or paralleling?
Paralleling.
parallelled or paralleled?
Paralleled.
parent's worst nightmare
And you thought that the world was running out of cliches. Best avoided, no need to state the obvious.
par excellance or par excellence?
The correct spelling is par excellence, despite the the "-unce" sound.
Partake in or partake of?
The in kind follows the same usage as take part in an event or activity such as He was the only one present who partook in the burglary. The of variety is the more lofty kind, as in to partake of my favourite tipple.
patients or patience?
Patients have doctors, and people waiting in queues have patience.
patients
A prisoner is released from custody; but patients aren’t ‘released’ from hospital, they are discharged.
pedaller, peddler or pedlar?
A pedaller is a cyclist, a peddler a drug dealer and a pedlar someone selling door to door.
people or persons?
Never persons, always people, unless for legal contexts.
per
There is a view by some that per is more formal and/or superior than the more simple a. While Latinisms may be given more formal treatment in English than Anglo-Saxon words, this is nothing but snobbery. More important, however, is using per in the correct way. Being a Latin preposition, per needs a Latin word following. You might want to write ‘£45,000 per annum’ not ‘£45,000 a year’, that’s your choice, but don’t go writing ‘£45,000 per year’. If you want to choose Latinisms, stick to them.
The general stock Latinisms for per include: per annum, per se and per capita. This includes per cent (percent US).
Other examples of common usage include using 'per head' for per capita and 100 miles per hour for an hour (but mph/kph is acceptable).
Also, the same applies to as per usual, which is no different from as usual.
per se
Some people find the use of per se, meaning 'by or in itself', as stuffy. It is not. This useful adverb is perhaps tarnished by being associated with stuffy usage of the preposition per (see above). The only thing to look out for is to not spell it 'per say' or 'persay', whih is how it is pronounced.
The Latin per se is also much used in legal terminology ('illegal per se', 'negligence per se' and 'malum in se' etc) but the rules in this area aren't applicable to everyday English usage.
percent or per cent?
it's per cent, 100%. Only Americans write percent, well, maybe not just Americans.
percentage cuts
How many time do we hear or read about a drop in interest rates from 3% to 2% as being a 1% decrease? It’s actually a 33% decrease, as well as being a 1 percentage-point decrease or a 1-point decrease in interest rates. The main point is to remember to take care before stating percentage falls or increases.
persons or people?
Never persons, always people, unless for in certain legal contexts.
phoney or phoney?
The British spelling is phoney and the American spelling is phony.
pixelated or pixilated?
Pixelated is the computer-screen type. Don’t spell it pixilated, which means being drunk and has nothing to do with pixies.
playwrite or playwright?
Always spell it playwright.
pleaded or pled?
You can be forgiven for thinking that criminals in American movies have always “pled guilty”, because in the movies they often do. The correct past tense form of plead is pleaded. Guilty your honour.
plough or plow?
The British spelling is plough and the American spelling is plow. (snowplough UK and snowplow US)
political correctness (PC)
Avoid. We’ve come to the point where even the term political correctness is out of bounds for a lot of people.
Post Modern or postmodern?
depends: Actually, when talking about any form of art with Post Modern characteristics, the capitalised, spaced version is the only correct one – unless you want to describe your postmodern lifestyle or attitude, which requires the latter form.
practice or practise?
In the US the correct spelling is practice in all instances. (Contrary to popular belief, practise is an alternative US spelling but considered incorrect.) The noun/verb distinction is not made in the US as far as spelling goes.
In the UK (British English) there is a distinction between practice (noun) and practise (verb). This can prove to be quite a chestnut for people to know which is which. Repetitious rehersal is practise and most other instances are practice (best practice). Doctors and lawyers practice law/medicine.
practising homosexual
This is a strange term, because it doesn't convey when the practising stops and the real work starts. Practising surely means you aren’t really doing something fully, doesn’t it? What about practising heterosexuals? What they all about? On a more serious note, this term is both idiotic and – to borrow an overused phrase – not fit for purpose. The same goes for active homosexual. If it must be said, use the correct gay.
pre-
The prefix pre- has been sprouting up a lot in the past few years. I blame advertisers and marketing teams for this one, adding pre- to words that simply don’t need it: pre-booked, pre-installed, pre-loaded, pre-ordered, pre-rehearsed and so on. Why oh why? Did you book? Was it installed? Is it loaded? Did you order? Is a pre-order a first run before actually making the order at a later stage?
preloaded
One of my recent pet hates is the word preloaded. Fair enough, you can buy a computer with no software on it, which means that you will have to get it on there yourself. That's not the problem. When was the last time you saw a file on the software disc called load.exe? No? That's because it is always install.exe, from the verb usually associated with computer software. A computer will or will not come with software already installed -- or pre-installed. It is never preloaded, unless you are shopping for guns, so why do companies insist on trying to make it so?.
presently
Use currently for now and soon instead of presently, to avoid confusion.
President or president?
depends: If you want to write about the 'president of France' use a lower-case p; if you write about the 'French President' use the upper-case P.
press
The press is, but the media are. Don’t forget it.
Prime Minister or prime minister?
Depends: See President/president.
principal or principle?
Principal is most important or senior; principle is to do with ethics.
prise open or pry open?
The British spelling is prise open and the American spelling is pry open.
proactive
A lot of people spit the dummy over this one. It remains fashionable and overused, despite being coined in the 1930s. It is the kind of empty word used to have the appearance of meaning when it doesn’t have any. What’s wrong with using initiative rather than ‘being proactive’?
profile
Profile is best kept a noun an not a verb.
pro-life or anti-abortion?
Protesters and campaigners of this variety are against abortion, therefore anti-abortion.
protester
This word is often incorrectly spelt ‘protestor’.
proven or proved?
Stay well clear of ‘proven’ unless as an adjective ("proven ability") as well as ryhming “pro-ven” with "woven". Somehow this seems to be spreading unchecked among people trying to be haughty. Unless you are in court, in Scotland (where not proven is used), the past tense of prove is, and always will be, proved and “prooved”.
provided that or providing that?
Use provided that, not 'providing'. I will give you the money provided that you can assure me it will be spent wisely.
Ps and Qs or P's and Q's?
Ps and Qs:
Public schools or Private schools?
In the UK, public schools are private schools. Why not just say private school? It certainly sounds more exclusive: public library/private library, public bar/private bar, public transport etc.
push(ing) the envelope
Can we please stop using the overused and (often) meaningless phrase?