Monday, April 13, 2009

Commonly misused/misspelled words and phrases (Part 81)

Time for some more words to watch out for:

Till vs. ‘Til

Wrong
: He won’t be back till later.

Right
: He won’t be back ‘til later.


Till
is an erroneous contraction of until. The correct contraction is ‘til.


Skew vs. SKU

Wrong: We need to move some skews today, people!

Right: We need to move some SKUs today, people!


An SKU is a stock keeping unit, or inventory item. This noun is often pronounced skew (sk-yoo) for brevity. Unfortunately, the similarity in pronunciation with the verb skew (to take an oblique course, look askance, or distort from a true value or symmetrical shape) produces confusion in spelling for those who don’t know the origin of the acronym. So don’t let a confusion with SKU skew your spelling.


More next time.


Mark.

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