A lot (not "alot") of the time online (or should it be "on line?") typos occur or words are slangily shortened ("u r" for "you are") in "teen text" language or in other internet posting. That's understandable. I just hope the trend doesn't lead to new generations not being able to understand "adult-generated" text passages in things like books and newspapers.

But a lot the word mix-ups described here are genuine misunderstandings of what some words mean or how to spell some common words.

One of the ones that irks me is the confusion of "jibe" and "jive."   It's correct to say "My recollection of the event jibes with yours."   Not correct to say "The two accounts of the story jive with each other" (unless maybe they inspired some hot jazz or dancing!).


Also, someone mentioned the ellipse (or it it "ellipsis?"). I say go ahead and use as many as you like, but use them properly. They indicate that words have been omitted from a quotation or - I believe this is also acceptable - a considerble pause in the sentence.   They are not supposed to be substitutes for commas, semicolons, periods, or dashes.

The problem with so many people misusing the "..." is that now, when you quote part of an article or utterance and you indicate missing parts by "...," I'll bet half the readers don't understand that words have been omitted."
In cyberspace, people have begun using "" in pace of "..." when portions of a quoted article have been omitted. But that's kind of a pain in the arse in handwriting."
And, since that's become common only fairly recently, will people soon forget how to interpret "..." when they read a an article written before 2000?