beside / besides Some people argue that these two words should be kept distinct when they
are used as prepositions. By this thinking, you should use beside only to
mean “at the side of,” as in There was no one in the seat beside me. For
the meanings “in addition to” and “except for” you should use besides:
Besides replacing the back stairs, he fixed the broken bannister. No one
besides Smitty would say a thing like that. But this distinction is often
ignored by widely respected writers. While it’s true that besides can never
mean “at the side of,” you will often see beside used in place of besides in
print. Watch out for ambiguity when using beside in this way. The sentence
There was no one beside me at the table could mean that you had the
table to yourself or that the seats next to you were not occupied

better and best

Which do you think is best? The chocolate chip or the mocha supreme?
between and among Between is used for two, and among for more than two.” This decree of
grammar may still echo in your old classroom, but you would be wise to
consider other reverberations as well. It is true that between is the only
choice when exactly two entities are specified. For example, you must say

should be held “twice a month” and a semiweekly “twice a week.” That’s
should. These words are often confused, and to spare nervous attendees
the suspense, the only decent thing to do is to use substitute expressions
like every two months or twice a month.
In the publishing world, where confusion is a rarity, a bimonthly always
comes out every two months, and a biweekly every two weeks boast Some have objected to the use of boast as a transitive verb meaning “to
possess or own a desirable feature,” as in This network boasts an audience
with a greater concentration of professionals and managers than any other
network

born / borne These words are both past participles of bear. Here’s how to sort them out.
Use born only in passive constructions referring to birth: I was born in
Chicago. For all other uses, including active constructions referring to birth,
use borne: She has borne both her children at home. I have borne his
insolence with the patience of a saint both Both indicates that the action or state denoted by the verb applies
When touring the capital, why not visit the capitol? Capital and capitol are
terms that are often confused, mainly because they refer to things that are
in some ways related. The term for a town or city that serves as a seat of
government is spelled capital. The term for the building in which a
legislative assembly meets is spelled capitol
careen / career That sportscar went careering down the road. Or did it careen? Careen
comes to us via Middle French from the Latin word carina, which meant
“the keel of a ship.” The original sense of the English verb was nautical and
referred to the way a ship would lean to one side when sailing in windy
conditions. Today, when used as a verb of motion, careen typically implies
high speed. It often but not always entails a sideways motion or wavering.
This sense probably came from the application of the nautical sense of the
word to automobiles, which usually only careen, that is, lurch or tip over,
when driven at high speeds
Career, on the other hand, has always been on dry land. It comes from
Middle French carriere, “race course,” which comes from Latin carrarria,
“carriageway,” and ultimately from Latin carrum, “cart, car.” (The
“occupation” sense is an extension of the “race course” meaning, although
many might find this metaphor a bit of a stretch today.) As a verb, career
originally meant “to move over a course.” In the verb’s first recorded usage,
the course was the lane for each horse at a jousting tournament. But the
kinds of courses and agents of motion soon proliferated, and the verb now