adverse/averse
“Adverse” means unfavorable. “Averse” means reluctant.

accept/except
“Accept” means to to receive with consent.”Except” means With the exclusion of.

affect/effect
“To affect” means to influence, change or produce an effect “To effect” means to accomplish, complete, cause, make possible or carry out. If you’re looking for a noun, you’re probably looking for “effect.” If you’re using a verb, you’re safest with “affect.”

allude/refer
“To allude” means to speak of without mentioning. “To refer” means to speak of directly.

As most of you know, QWERTY is the name for the keyboard layout that is the standard in the United States. QWERTY was created in the 1860’s with the invention of the first typewriter. At first, logically, the letters were arranged in alphabetical order. This, however, began to present a problem as typists gained speed and proficiency. When typing at faster speeds, the bars of the letters that were located close together became stuck, slowing down the typist and marking up their paper. The solution to this problem was to space letters commonly used together at a distance from each other to avoid the bars sticking together. This was an excellent solution for the typewriter, but as computers replaced typewriters, the QWERTY standard transferred to modern keyboards even though the bar-sticking problem had been eliminated. The QWERTY keyboard was optimized to solve the letter sticking problem not for speed, accuracy, or comfort. This has resulted in unnecessary lost productivity, typing mistakes, and repetitive use injuries over the past 30 or so years.

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe.

Attribution for this simple yet amazing quote goes to the one and only Oprah via my friend and colleague Denise Dorman of Write Brain Media.

I have been burned lately, both in business and personally, and you know what?

It’s all my fault.

I take full responsibility and after I pay for it, I will move on, better, stronger and greater than I was before.

Just as downloading music for free (i.e., illegally) isn’t so difficult, so too is it pretty easy to copy and paste someone’s words. That doesn’t make it right, though. It actually makes it stealing. So not cool and it happens ALL the time. Lying, stealing, cheating — all is NOT fair in love and war. So the next time someone suggests going to a website and “borrowing” their copy or they show you a competitor’s brochure and ask you to “model” your copy after it, please think twice and ask them to do the same. We wouldn’t steal your work, so don’t steal ours.