Common spelling mistakes in English: life, live or lives.
You may recognise that a minor spelling mistake in an e-mail can quickly influence your perception of the sender. In business e-mail communication, you obviously want to appear professional, but a small mistake can quickly slip into your message.
However, you can avoid spelling mistakes if you pay extra attention to them.
We have listed a number of common spelling mistakes. If you become aware of these mistakes, you will be one step closer to professionalising your business English.
Life, live or lives
Should you write life, live or lives? As the spelling of these words with different grammatical functions and meanings is so similar and sometimes even the same, it can be very confusing and mistakes are often made.
Here is the difference:
- Life is a noun and means something like 'the state of being alive'. The sound of the vowel 'i' is long.
- Lives is the plural of 'life'. The sound of the vowel 'i' stays long.
- Live with a short sound of the vowel 'i' is a verb, 'to live'. This indicates the place where someone's home is or for example that someone is alive. Lives is also the third person singular of the verb 'to live', still pronounced with a short sound.
- Live with a long sound (sounds similar to 'life') is an adjective and means 'not recorded' (from radio or TV, for example) , or 'not dead'.
Examples
- Incorrect: *I life in Germany.
Correct: I live in Germany, and: he lives in Amsterdam. (short sound) - Incorrect: *There is live on Mars.
Correct: There is life on Mars. (long sound) - Incorrect: *Many lifes were lost.
Correct: Many lives were lost (plural of 'life', long sound) - Incorrect: *We’re going to watch him life in concert.
Correct: We’re going to watch him live in concert. (long sound) - Incorrect: *I found a life bat on my doorstep this week.
Correct: I found a live bat on my doorstep this week. (long sound)
More tips on English grammar and common mistakes in English? These articles might also interest you:
- English spelling: its or it's
- English spelling: full or ful
- English spelling: no, know or now
- English spelling: than or then
- English spelling: there, they're or their
- English spelling: to, two or too
- English spelling: your or you're
- English spelling: were, wear, where or we're
- English spelling: with, which or witch
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