Examples Of Word Crimes

Writing has always been difficult for me, especially since grammar was never a major subject taught in my school. Due to these unfortunate circumstances, I am not innocent of committing word crimes. However, in the song, “Word Crimes”, many of the examples given are crimes I do not commit. The only example, that was given, that I do commit is in the case of using who or whom. I know in writing that I have never actually used the word whom, even though it was the correct form to use. I never learned why whom would be used over who, so I never made the connection of when to switch over. Now, I am committed to using the right form since the song taught me when it is correct to use whom. Though I only found one example in the song that I am guilty of carrying out, I know of many more. The four biggest word crimes I commit are: mixing up affect and effect, mixing up irony and coincidence, using since and because interchangeably, and using in to versus into.
I never fully grasped why one was used over the other and so I continually made the mistake of using the incorrect one. Just last semester, I wrote a paper where I had, “The decline of religion effected medicine in a major way.” It was not until recently that I learned effect should be used as a noun, and I should have used affected in my paper. Though I do not always make the mistake of mixing up the words irony and coincidence, it does happen. I had a misconstrued idea of what irony meant. I did not realize that irony was not the word used to describe when it rained on your wedding day, like Alanis Morissette sang.If it rains on your wedding day, it is not ironic, just a coincidence. It would be ironic if you had the wedding in the winter so that it did not rain on that day, and then it did. Even though I am consciously aware of the difference, I still make the mistake every now and