Concerning the Lead Content of LEDs, Laying Layers of Lies, and Lying Down Beside the Point · 8:53pm Feb 3rd, 2014
That's right! I'm utterly bored, don't feel like reading or writing much, and thus, it's time to go over another batch of these.
Yup. Common Errors. The bane of every writer, and, more importantly, of me, whenever I read through the writings of these writers. The stuff I see the most highly rated and famed authors still doing wrong. And so, we get to another batch of self-editing hints! As always, Twist is ready to serve as bullet point in the list! 
This one is a bit more elaborate than the previous one, since I actually go deeper into the "why" of each one of them.
Oh, and if you missed the previous one, it's right here.
Laying versus Lying. This is actually an interesting one. Loads of people get this wrong, and it's not surprising, either.
So first of all, the difference. "lying" means simply "[being / moving into] in prone position", while "laying" means "[getting / putting] something into prone position". This means you lie down, but you lay down something.
Now, the big annoyance with this is not only in making the difference between these two, but also the odd little fact that the past tense of "to lie" is "I lay". The past of "to lay", however, is "I laid". For example, for 'lying', you can say "she lay on the floor". Not "laid" because, that's an action, not "lied", because, that's telling untruth. For 'laying', you'd say something like "I laid down the knife".
And yes, this explains the expression "getting laid" as "a person who is laid down, by someone else", meaning it is, in fact, grammatically correct 
If you're ever confused, you can find a nice overview table of the tenses right here.
Led versus Lead. There's really only one thing to say about this: the only "lead" that's pronounced as "led" is the metal. The verb form, when written "lead", is always pronounced as "leed". So if you got a verb form that'd be pronounced as "led", you should in fact write it "led".
Beside versus Besides. I struggled with this one myself, and have done a whole ton of unnecessary edits and re-edits because of this thing. Basic rule: "beside" means literally "next to" in space, whereas "besides" means "in addition to (that)" or "aside from". Generally, unless you are using the word literally, you usually need "besides".
An odd exception to this is the expression "beside the point", where the use is figurative, but it still indicates that something is not quite on the point, but beside it. So yeah, for some odd reason, that one does use "beside". English, ain't it fascinating? (Answer: No. Yuck.)
Example:
He stood beside his mysterious ally, but besides their current common interest, he really felt no kinship with the cloaked person. Besides, the hooded bastard was probably the one who killed his brother.
And finally, Awhile. Oh sweet Celestia, "awhile". First of all, yes, spelling correctors do say it is a correct word. Secondly, if you use it from a combination of laziness that makes you type one less space and that aforementioned fact, then no, I do not think it means what you think it means. In fact, I'm sure it doesn't.
"Awhile" is, in fact, a rather archaic form of "for a while". As in, "I've been standing here awhile" and "I'm going to lie down awhile". So, yeah, it sounds kinda... old. You can not use it in sentences like "They arrived awhile later" or "we waited for awhile". The word "awhile" is a time span, so you can't use it for "a while later", since that indicates a point in time, and if you use "for awhile" you're really saying "for for a while". So, unless you're purposely trying to sound archaic... don't use it, period.
That's it for now! I hope you just got a little smarter.
And, always remember the wise words of my grandmother, when it comes to the English Language:
"Write it London, and pronounce it Liverpool."
Nyerguds, out 
Peeve #4: All right. Gdocs seems to think "All right" is in fact, not all right. If you write, "Alright, who threw that?" you have used alright correctly (I think) but if you say "Is everybody alright in there?" it's wrong.
I always try to use a word that does *not* get mangled by misinterpretation and therefore needs to be more active, so "She lay down in front of the fireplace" gets turned into "She flopped down in front of the fireplace and regarded the flames with envy."
For the most part, I'm still working on these rules:
Sentence + phrase = OK (I'm still working on these rules for the most part)
Phrase + , + Sentence = OK (as above)
Sentence + phrase + , + phrase (I'm still working on these rules for the most part, with certain exceptions)
and so on...
My biggest pet peeve is then vs than.
In some places these words are pronounced the same, so many people do not realize that the word "than" exists. Then is used when referring to a sequence of events. Then is also used after the word "if" to describe the consequence of the if actually happening. Than is always used for comparisons.
Examples:
I read Nyerguds' blog post, then I understood grammar.
If I study grammar, then my fanfic might be approved by EQD.
Twilight Sparkle is more powerful than Trixie Lulamoon.
I know more grammar today than I knew yesterday. ("Than" is comparing myself today with myself yesterday)
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Heh. 's Why I still just write in Wordpad. Pure and simple, never crashes, only the barest of text markup, and none of that extra crap I never asked for. MS Word also has stuff like that... "double word detection". Sometimes, these two words are just meant to be there. I just stay away from it all. Better to train myself in getting it right without getting it pointed out every time
As for the laying/lying thing, sometimes you really can't get around it, you know... "His wrench was lying on the ground, but there was no trace of the man himself." You'd be surprised how many manage to mangle a simple thing like that, even without involving these problematic tenses where the two start to mix.
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in the previous blog, really. That's basically the "list of words people mix up out of sheer ignorance". 
Maybe I should go and add it, since I still link people to that on a pretty regular basis.
*shudder* That one belongs in Twist Bullet Point Two
[edit]
Added it
I still have to look up lay vs lie every time I use one.
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Not too surprising... those verbs are a mess