Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Ack! I found one!!! Piece of mind?

I haven't constructed a new blog... yet... but I couldn't resist sharing this common spelling error I found today. Read the following phrase from an (unnamed) online article:
"...[being debt free] gave him the piece of mind he wanted."

Did you catch it? "piece of mind?"... If someone gives you a piece of their mind, it is usually unwanted! The phrase the article is going for here is "peace of mind." So, now let's review:

Piece: a part or fragment of a whole. Examples: a piece of pie, a piece of string...
Peace: a state of tranquility or quiet, absence of quarrels or war.

Amazingly, the spelling of piece is correct in the article, as many people cannot get the "i before e except after c" jingle straight in their head. A Google search of the anomalous letter assemblage "peice" yielded over 7 million results! Atrocious!

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