Have you ever come across a word you’ve used incorrectly for too long and you become so embarrassed you wonder what else to do with your life? We all have. More often than not, these words look like the opposite of what they mean, or sound like what they are not.
Let’s go through these eleven words we might use incorrectly our entire lives if we don’t get them right once and for all:
1. Bogus (adjective): If you think this word means ‘massive’ or something close to that, you are wrong. It means ‘not genuine or true’, ‘counterfeit’, ‘illegal’, etc.
Examples:
i. He brought some bogus documents to the meeting and couldn’t defend himself.
ii. We didn’t pay her because the estimate was bogus.
2. Dupe (verb or noun): The action aspect of this word is not the problem, but the noun form. If you think a dupe is a person who deceives another, sorry, you are wrong. A dupe is the victim of deception.
Examples:
i. He thought he was smart until he became the dupe.
ii. When they realized they were dupes, they wept bitterly.