Benefactors give benefits; beneficiaries receive them. We expect to hear of generous benefactors and grateful beneficiaries.

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When you bemuse someone, you confuse them, and not necessarily in an entertaining way. Don’t confuse this word with “amuse.”

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When calling your readers’ attention to an illustration or table further on in a text, the proper word order is not “the below table” but “the table below.”

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You may have a positive attitude toward an idea, but you have a belief in it.

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People can’t have religious “believes”; they have religious beliefs. If you have it, it’s a belief; if you do it, you believe.

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Using “being that” to mean “because” is nonstandard, as in “Being that the bank robber was fairly experienced, it was surprising that he showed the teller his ID card when she asked for it.” “Being as how” is even worse. If “because” or “since” are too simple for your taste, you could use “given that” or “in that” instead.

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In the Middle Ages “peoples” was not an uncommon word, but later writers grew wary of it because “people” has a collective, plural meaning which seemed to make “peoples” superfluous. It lived on in the sense of “nations” (“the peoples of the world”) and from this social scientists (anthropologists in particular) derived the extended meaning “ethnic groups” (“the peoples of the upper Amazon Basin”).

However, in ordinary usage “people” is usually understood to be plural, so much so that in the bad old days when dialect humor was popular having a speaker refer to “you peoples” indicated illiteracy. If you are not referring to national or ethnic groups, it is better to avoid “peoples” and use “people.”

The possessive form “people’s” is of course fine in sentences like “If elected, I will do the people’s will.”

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“Behavior” has always referred to patterns of action, including multiple actions, and did not have a separate plural form until social scientists created it. Unless you are writing in psychology, sociology, anthropology, or a related field, it is better to avoid the use of “behaviors” in your writing.

See also peoples.

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An argument that improperly assumes as true the very point the speaker is trying to argue for is said in traditional logic to “beg the question.” Here is an example of a question-begging argument: “This painting is trash because it is obviously worthless.” The speaker is simply asserting the worthlessness of the work, not presenting any evidence to demonstrate that this is in fact the case. Since we never use “begs” with this odd meaning (“to improperly take for granted”) in any other phrase, most people now suppose the phrase implies something quite different: that the argument demands that a question about it be asked—raises the question. Although using the expression in its original sense is now rare, using it in the newer sense will cause irritation among traditionalists.

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You beggar people by impoverishing them, reducing them to beggary. This term now survives mainly in metaphorical expressions such as “it beggars description” (exhausts my ability to describe it) or “it beggars belief” (exhausts my ability to believe it).

People who aren’t familiar with this meaning of the word “beggar” often substitute “beg,” saying of something implausible that it “begs belief.” This makes no sense, for it implies that the story is trying to persuade you to believe it.

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