There are so many words in English which are very similar and we often confuse and make some mistakes which are sometimes very serious. So it is very important to know about the difference that these words and how they change the meaning by just changing one or few letters of the word. It is very important to know these differences as there are so many words that are pronounced same but differ in spelling.
- Affect and effect: these two words are often confusing so many don’t know that difference between these two words. The word “Affect” is something that occurs before and the result of that is “effect”. If something affects us, it had an effect on us.
- Amoral and immoral: Amoral means without morals and immoral is breaking the moral code. For a baby, the wrong things they do are amoral but if a criminal does a wrong thing then he is immoral.
- Adherence and adhesion: Adherence is giving support regarding a belief or opinion. Adhesion is physical sticking of one thing to another. Gum has the property of adhesion.
- Childish and childlike: “childlike” is an emotional neutral term which is praise. Childish on the other hand implies that the person is concerned about the knowledge of the person which has a pejorative meaning.
- Compliment and complement: There is a small difference between these two words. “i” is replaced with “e” but this makes a large difference. Compliment is similar to a commend or praise officially. Complement is to complete or fill. Adding a leader complements the team.
- Continuous, contiguous and contagious: Continuous is nothing but persisting in work or activity. Contiguous is next or together in sequence. Contagious is spreading directly or indirectly. Example of contiguous is “Himalayas are contiguous mountains”. Example of contagious is “cholera is a contagious disease”.
- Discreet and discrete: This is an important difference to identify as they are pronounced similarly. Discrete is nothing but not continuous and occurs in certain intervals. Discreet is used to refer to a person who keeps his work secret and doesn’t want to show or display to the world and make everyone to know about what he is doing.
