Many people mispronounce and misspell “available” as “avaidable,” whose peculiar spelling seems to be influenced by “avoidable,” a word that has opposite connotations.

“Avaidable” is avoidable; avoid it.

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When you write the story of your own life, you write an autobiography; but when you write the story of someone else’s life, it’s just a plain old biography.

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An augur was an ancient Roman prophet, and as a verb the word means “foretell”—“their love augurs well for a successful marriage.” Don’t mix this word up with “auger,” a tool for boring holes. Some people mishear the phrase “augurs well” as “all goes well” and mistakenly use that instead.

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“Aural” has to do with things you hear, “oral” with things you say, or relating to your mouth.

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When trying to give credit to someone, say that you attribute your success to their help, not contribute. (Of course, a politician may attribute his success to those who contribute to his campaign fund, but probably only in private.)

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“Attain” means “reach” and “obtain” means “get.” You attain a mountaintop, but obtain a rare baseball card. “Attain” usually implies a required amount of labor or difficulty; nothing is necessarily implied about the difficulty of obtaining that card. Maybe you just found it in your brother’s dresser drawer.

Some things you obtain can also be attained. If you want to emphasize how hard you worked in college, you might say you attained your degree; but if you want to emphasize that you have a valid degree that qualifies you for a certain job, you might say you obtained it. If you just bought it from a diploma mill for fifty bucks, you definitely only obtained it.

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Tired of people stereotyping you as a dummy just because you’re a jock? One way to impress them is to pronounce “athlete” properly, with just two syllables, as “ATH-leet” instead of using the common mispronunciation “ATH-uh-leet.”

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“ATM” means “Automated Teller Machine,” so if you say “ATM machine” you are really saying, “Automated Teller Machine machine.”

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Some of us are irritated when a grocery checker asks “Do you want any help out with that at all?” “At all” is traditionally used in negative contexts: “Can’t you give me any help at all?” The current pattern of using the phrase in positive offers of help unintentionally suggests aid reluctantly given or minimal in extent. As a way of making yourself sound less polite than you intend, it ranks right up there with “no problem” instead of “you’re welcome.”

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No matter how you use it, the expression “as well” is always two words, despite the fact that many people seem to think it should be spelled “aswell.” Examples: “I don’t like plastic trees as well as real ones for Christmas.” “Now that we’ve opened our stockings, let’s open our other presents as well.”

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