Common English usage misconceptions

This list comprises widespread modern beliefs about English language usage that are documented by a reliable source to be misconceptions.

With no authoritative language academy, guidance on English language usage can come from many sources. This can create problems, as described by Reginald Close:

Teachers and textbook writers often invent rules which their students and readers repeat and perpetuate. These rules are usually statements about English usage which the authors imagine to be, as a rule, true. But statements of this kind are extremely difficult to formulate both simply and accurately. They are rarely altogether true; often only partially true; sometimes contradicted by usage itself. Sometimes the contrary to them is also true.

Many usage forms are commonly perceived as nonstandard or errors despite being either widely used or endorsed by authoritative descriptions.^[a]

Perceived violations of correct English usage elicit visceral reactions in many people, or may lead to a perception of a writer as careless, uneducated, or lacking attention to detail. For example, respondents to a 1986 BBC poll were asked to submit "the three points of grammatical usage they most disliked". Participants said their points "'made their blood boil', 'gave a pain to their ear', 'made them shudder', and 'appalled' them".