Think of them as the present and the past. For example, if you say, “The accident involved two cars. Someone may have been killed,” you are saying that there definitely was an accident, but you don’t know for certain whether or not someone was killed, though it is a distinct possibility. In this case you are talking in the present about something that has happened in the here and now.

If you say, “The accident involved two cars. Someone might have been killed,” you are saying that the accident happened in the past, and you are implying that no one was killed. However, the accident was of a nature where the possibility of someone being killed was high - they might have been killed were it not for some factor that saved them, in other words.

Use “may have” when you are uncertain about the outcome of something in the present, and use “might have” when something didn’t happen, but it could easily have done so.

May on its own is generally used for permission, as in, “May I come in?” It also is used to suggest a possibility, as in, “We may have some sunshine later.” We can use might in a similar way to denote a possibility, as in, “I might take you up on that offer.” Saying instead, “I may take you up on that offer,” is equally acceptable.

Interchanging may and might on their own is usually acceptable, but when “have” is added the meaning changes and the two should always be used in the correct way if you wish to convey the right information.

Want to make sure you get it right every time? I can help.

This rule works fine for words like “belief” and “grief.” If you look you will probably find dozens more too. And when the ‘C’ is brought into the equation, as in “receipt” for example, it works great too. But alas (I think that’s the first time I’ve ever written “alas”), there are a few exceptions.

This is not an extensive list. I’m sure there are others, but here are some of the exception I found: beige, cleidoic, codeine, conscience, deify, deity, deign, dreidel, eider, eight, either, feign, feint, feisty, foreign, forfeit, freight, gleization, gneiss, greige, greisen, heifer, heigh-ho, height, heinous, heir, heist, leitmotiv, neigh, neighbour/neighbor, neither, peignoir, prescient, rein, science, seiche, seidel, seine, seismic, seize, sheik, society, sovereign, surfeit, teiid, veil, vein, weight, weir and weird.

You may now be wondering why this rule was ever brought up when there are so many exceptions - and remember, this is not a complete list either. It’s a good question, but there is a kind of an answer. The answer should have been written into the original rule. That would have made it better, in my opinion, but it wasn’t. In fact, I’ve never heard anyone mention the exceptions and why they are exceptions to the rule.

Here’s an amended rule: “‘I’ before ‘E’ except after ‘C’ and except when the word is pronounced with an ‘A’ sound, as in ‘neighbour’ and ‘weigh.’ Additionally, when the word has an ‘I’ sound, as in ‘height’ and heist,’ the rule doesn’t apply. Also, when a word ends in ‘cy’ and the plural is made by adding ‘ies,’ as in ‘vacancies’ and ‘fallacies,’ the rule generally doesn’t apply either. But, when the word is pronounced with an ‘E’ sound, as in ‘belief’ and ‘grief’ the rule generally does apply (yippee!).”

For a foreign person trying to learn English, this must be very confusing. It’s almost as confusing for those who grew up with English, but there’s no getting away from it. You really just have to learn it and hope for the best. Bear in mind though that this is a rule that very often doesn’t follow the rule. Confused? You will be…

If you need high quality writing from someone who understands English - and who can make it interesting and search engine friendly too - take a look at the rest of the website.

Try it and see for yourself with your own writing. It not only tightens up the writing and makes it neater, it somehow also makes it less clumsy and more professional.

Here’s an example of what I mean: “He said that he would return the next day.” This sentence can have the “that” dropped and still make perfect sense: “He said he would return the next day.”

Of course, there is a place for the “that.” You can’t just remove them all from your writing as it will change the sense of some bits. The best advice is to notice every time you use “that” and try writing the sentence without it. If it still makes sense, and most of the time it will, then leave it out. If it doesn’t make sense, then leave it in.

It isn’t just for the sake of being tidy either. The “that” often (usually) creates a sharp interference in a sentence. It just doesn’t run as smoothly when there’s a “that” in it. Take this example: “He was so tired that he almost fell asleep at the dinner table.” Try it without the “that” and see how it flows much better: “He was so tired he almost fell asleep at the dinner table.”

See what I mean?

The removal of all the unnecessary instances of “that” actually streamlines a sentence. However, as mentioned before, don’t just dump the “that” and assume it’s all right. Read the edited sentence after removing the “that” and if it doesn’t make sense, put it back in.

Did you notice “that” being used in the first sentence of this post? This is how it read: “There’s a common word in the English language that can very often be dropped from a sentence…” If you drop the “that” in this case it doesn’t make sense: “There’s a common word in the English language can very often be dropped from a sentence…” That is an example of where the “that” should not be removed. The first word in the last sentence is another example, incidentally.

There is a place for “that,” just not as many places as most of us think there are. And that’s that!

If you want to be sure (that) the writing on your website flows easily and reads well, I can help.

The product may well be a good one that you want to buy, and despite the medicore sales letter, you may even go ahead, but somehow you feel cheated. You want to experience that zing, that magic something that makes your pulse race and gets your emotions jumping. Maybe you can’t really afford to buy the product, but when a sales letter gets your heart thumping and your mind racing with thoughts of how good it will feel to own it, you just have to buy.

Why can one sales letter be so different from another?

It’s all down to your emotions. That’s how you buy. You don’t buy with logic, you buy with emotion. Later on you justify your purchase with logic, but when you are in the buying zone, it’s your emotions that are the driving force, every time. That brings us rather neatly on to features and benefits.

The features of a product are basically its description. The benefits of a product answer the question, “What’s in it for me?” Take a small drill bit, for example. A DIY enthusiast doesn’t buy the drill because it’s black, 1/8 of an inch in diameter, well sharpened and made from high speed steel. No, he buys a hole! That’s what the benefit of getting the drill is - to have a hole.

You can take that a whole step further too. You don’t buy the drill or even the hole, but you buy the satisfaction and pleasure you get from looking at your child in the framed picture that’s hanging on a hook that’s screwed into the hole that the drill made. That’s how benefits work! The drill is simply a means to get to the underlying benefit that your emotions want.

Think about that next time you sell something. Maybe it will be your old car in the classified ads of your local newspaper. Sure, you could describe it as a five-year-old Ford in very good condition with below average mileage, and that would probably sell it. But you could do so much better if you lay all the benefits on thick while barely mentioning that it’s a five-year-old Ford in very good condition with below average mileage.

You might even get a better price for it too!

That’s what quality writing can do for you and your business as well. If your web pages are filled with mediocre claptrap that couldn’t excite a monkey, don’t expect your potential customers to get excited either. The right words can create the right kind of buying emotion. Can you write like that?

I can!

I hope not…

Think about it. What is a choice but an “either or” situation. You either choose one or the other. Carrying this to its logical conclusion, two choices would presumable be four options. You either choose one or the other, or the next one or the next other.

Does that sound silly? It does to me too.

You see, all too often we confuse “choice” with “option.” A sales page, or indeed any other piece of written text, that tells you, “You now have two choices…” is really trying to say, “You now have two options…” At least, they should be saying that.

So, what’s the difference between a choice and two options? Not much, really. It’s pretty much the same thing. A choice implies having two options, while saying you have two options simply spells it out.

Of course, you may be thinking that saying, “You now have two choices…” is how most people say it, and if you say something different you won’t communicate as well. I would argue that it’s not so. Correct English, grammar and syntax is never wrong.

Think of it this way: If the same sales letter says, “You now have a choice…,” wouldn’t you understand what they meant? Of course you would! And if it went on to say, “You can either choose A or choose B,” there would be no lack of communication, would there?

Unfortunately, this kind of thing can become very persistent. Someone who doesn’t know better starts saying something in the wrong way. It may sound logical, but it is still wrong, and before you know where you are, everyone is saying too.

It’s still wrong though!

And now you know better!

Want to get your choices and options right every time? I can help.

I started by looking at all the providers who are offering writing services. I was simply curious to see who is out there and who is charging what. On this particular site, one of the top rated ones, there was someone who had an interesting statement in their profile. I won’t print it word for word, but it went something like this:

“Your success is important to my team and I.”

Now, you are either smiling because this top-ranked writer made a silly, but common mistake, or you are puzzled because you don’t see anything wrong with the statement.

It’s the old one about whether to use “my team and I” or “my team and me.” Most people perversely think that saying “my team and I” is correct, regardless of the circumstances, which this writer obviously thought too.

It is not.

The simple way to know whether to use “I” or “me” is to split the statement and see how it sounds. You do it like this… “Your success is important to my team.” That sounds fine, but when we try the other part, “Your success is important to I,” it doesn’t sound quite so fine. The correct statement should have read, “Your success is important to my team and me.”

When we split it again you can see that, “Your success is important to my team” sounds right, and “Your success is important to me” also sounds right.

The Queen of Britain is famous for saying in speeches, “My husband and I would like to thank…” That’s correct. Split it and see. She would never say, “Your success is important to my husband and I!”

OK, it’s just a little thing, but when you plaster your profile on a top-ranking site in the hope of eliciting writing work, the little things matter. That is why I posted this article; your success is important to me. And if you need any help with grammar, or just writing in general, I’m here to help!

I decided to do something about it…

Someone, coincidentally about this time, let me in to a HUGE secret that I will share with you: go where the money is. I know, that seems too easy and it doesn’t explain enough. OK, let me expand… When reporter, Mitch Ohnstad, asked serial bank robber, William Sutton, on his capture why he robbed banks, Sutton reportedly replied, “because that’s where the money is!”

Most article writers go to elance, guru, rentacoder and others to seek work. There they usually find webmasters needing articles for their web sites. So far so good. However, the average webmaster needs articles for his site because he hopes to make a lot of money from them some day.

The important words to note here are, “some day.” The average webmaster is not rich. He or she hopes to be, but until they are, they can’t afford to pay $25, $35, $50 an article. They are looking for reasonable quality articles costing no more than about $5 a piece. They find plenty of people willing to write them for that, because everyone thinks that’s the going rate. It is not.

Thinking along the lines of bank robber William Sutton who went where the money was, and who stole some $2 million in his time, who has the money, and who doesn’t mind spending it? That’s the question you should be asking yourself. And the answer is…

Well, there’s no single place, but how about the SEO companies for a start? They get clients with deep pockets who want their sites ranked at the top for their keywords. Most SEO companies will employ a number of strategies to achieve this, one of which may be web content, or SEO articles. Most SEO companies who seek out web content writers are looking for people who are a notch or three above the $5 an article mentality, and they will be willing to pay them higher rates too.

Of course, you have to position yourself as a quality writer. You have to get rid of the $5 an article mentality, and believe that you are worth $25 or more an article. The money is there, believe me, but are YOU there? Put up a web site advertising your service. Have plenty of good quality samples in it along with a rates and services page. Testimonials from previous satisfied clients is great too, but don’t make them up!

The bottom line is this: if you spend a week or two marketing yourself effectively, and if you believe in your abilites, then you will find good paying work. You will find clients who recognize you as an expert and who respect your abilities. Writing will become fun again. This is exactly what I did just a few months ago. It works, plain and simple. Good luck!

Thomas Edison rather famously considered the light bulb “an invention with 1,000 steps” when asked by a reporter how he felt about having 1,000 attempts to create it that all ended in failure. We only remember the fact that he was eventually successful. That’s certainly turning failure into success. Next time you flick a switch, remember all the failures that went into the wonderful success that gives us instant light.

Charles Darwin evolved from mediocrity into success, as is evidenced by this passage in his autobiography: “I was considerd by all my masters, and my father, a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard of intellect.” His theories of evolution changed the world.

A young boy who seemed unable to speak until he turned four years old, and who didn’t know how to read until he was seven years old, went on to become famous, despite his teachers reporting that he was, “…mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in foolish dreams.” However, those foolish dreams resulted in an equation that most of us are familiar with, even if we don’t quite understand it: E=MC2. Albert Einstein is now considered by many to have been one of the finest minds operating in the 20th century.

Michael Jordan is a well known and highly successful sportsman. It hasn’t always been so, however. He once admitted, “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

A young man working for a newspaper was fired by his boss who claimed that “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.” He did better later on, even though he went bankrupt several times. He had an idea for a park attraction, but the governing council of the planned area initially turned him down, claiming that his idea would “only attract rifraff.” However, his park went on to be rather successful with several more parks opening, as well as the dozens of films he made. All of them carried the name of their creator, Walt Disney.

A director at MGM wrote a memo after a screen test in 1933 that read, “Can’t act. Can’t sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little.” The man who was the subject of the memo later kept it framed above the fireplace at his Beverley Hills home. That was after Fred Astaire had shown the world that he was actually not too bad at acting and singing, despite the slight baldness, and of course, his dancing improved too.

There are hundreds of similar stories, all of them quite true. So, if you are just starting out, or even if you’ve already given it your best shot and failed, don’t despair - your moment may be just around the corner. As Sir Winston Churchill, another one-time failure who went on to do rather well, once said, “Never give up!”

PS: here are a few more of life’s well-known “failures:

Louis Pasteur - born a poor farmer’s son, came close to last in his class of undergraduate studies in chemistry.

Henry Ford - went penniless five times before finally turning a profit.

R.H. Macy - failed at making a go of his store in New York seven times before he turned the corner and became a success.

Babe Ruth - once held the record for strikeouts.

Sidney Poitier - told by a casting director, “…stop wasting people’s time … become a dishwasher or something.”

Jerry Seinfeld - booed off the stage on his first professional appearance.

Michael Caine - his headmaster at school told him, “You will be a laborer all your life.”

Charlie Chaplin - initially rejected by Hollywood because his comedy routines were considered “nonsense.”

Enrico Caruso - as a child his music teacher told him he couldn’t sing and his parents wanted him to become an engineer.

Elvis Presley - told by the manager of the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, “You ain’t goin’ nowhere, son!”

Ludwig van Beethoven - his teacher told him he was “hopeless as a composer.” He did quite well though and even wrote five of his symphonies while stone deaf!

James Joyce - his book, The Dubliners, was rejected 22 times.

Marilyn Monroe - told by a modeling agency, “You’d better learn secretarial work, or else get married.”

Abraham Lincoln - demoted in war, failed in business, unsuccessful lawyer, defeated in politics several times, then became President of the USA!

English classes at school were probably boring for you. They were for me, and yet I always loved the written word. It has always amazed me how it’s possible to combine words in so many ways to bring out emotion in people. It’s a powerful thing. Yet it’s so easy to destroy the magic. Just one wrongly spelt word, an incorrect punctuation or some bad grammar can ruin the whole effect.

The mistake that I see most often on the Internet is the confusion between “loose” and “lose.” I read sales letters that tell me I can’t loose on this great deal. Hmmm… maybe I could tighten though… The difference is simple: if your pants keep falling down, they are loose; and if you gamble and you don’t win, you lose.

If the way you are pronouncing the two words, “loose” and “lose,” is the thing that is confusing you, then this is how you should pronounce each word. Pronounce “loose” with a short “oo” sound, and pronounce “lose” with a long “oooooo” sound, a bit like the wind wailing at night. It does seem a bit illogical I admit, but that’s how it goes.

The other words commonly confused include “its” and “it’s.” Here’s a simple way to determine which is right. Try saying the phrase with “it is” instead. If it sounds right, then it probably is right. If not, then it’s probably wrong. For example, “It’s a nice day.” Saying, “It is a nice day” works fine, so “it’s” is the one to use. However, “The dog wags its tail” sounds wrong when you say, “The dog wags it is tail,” so “its” without an apostrophe “s” is the one to use there.

The use of the apostrophe in the case of “it’s” denotes a contraction of the two words, “it is.” On the other hand, “its,” without the apostrophe, denotes possession, as in the earlier example of the dog wagging its tail; the tail is owned (possessed) by the dog.

Another couplet that often confuses is “their” and “there.” This one is easier. If you want to indicate where something is located, you could say, “It’s over there.” If you want to indicate that some people own something, you could say, “It’s their car/house/dog/etc.”

The apostrophe is also used to denote possession as in, “Tom’s book.” There is often confusion over where the apostrophe should go when the word ends in “s.” To be fair, this is not an easy one to get right.

Place the apostrophe before the “s” if you are dealing with singular possession, as in the earlier example of “Tom’s book.” There is only one Tom and it’s his book, so it’s singular possession.

If the person owning the book, as in this example, has a name that already ends in “s” then you can either place the apostrophe after the “s” only, or place it after the “s” and add another “s”.

That is a bit complicated, so let me show you what I mean. If the book belongs to Iris, then you can say either, “Iris’ book,” or “Iris’s book.” The choice here works only for singular possession where the name of the person or thing possessing ends in an “s.”

When the person or thing owning something has a name that ends in “s,” and it is plural possession, then an apostrophe only is added to the end of the word. For example, “The workers’ shovels.” There is more than one worker owning a shovel, therefore it is plural possession. If you said, “The worker’s shovels,” you would be saying that one (singular) worker has lots of shovels. But saying, “The workers’ shovels” means that you are referring to lots of workers who each have at least one shovel.

There are exceptions to the plural possession rule, however. If the person or thing owning something is plural, but the word does not end in an “s,” then the word becomes apostrophe “s.” Here’s an example: “The children’s toys.” The word “children” is plural as it denotes more than one child. It doesn’t end in an “s,” so you have to add an apostrophe “s” to the end of it.

There’s a syndrome sometimes known as the “greengrocer’s apostrophe.” This is because greengrocers are often the worst offenders when it comes to confusing possession with a plural situation. They write things like, “We have carrot’s, turnip’s and onion’s” when they simply mean to express that they have these items in quantity.

Think of it this way; the carrot isn’t owning (possessing) anything. The turnip and the onion isn’t either, so why have an apostrophe “s” after those words? The greengrocer in this example is actually trying to say that he or she has a plural amount of the vegetables mentioned. The message should have been written like this: “We have carrots, turnips and onions.” One carrot, lots of carrots; one turnip, lots of tunrips; and one onion, but lots of onions. It’s as easy as that.

My favorite mis-use of an apostrophe? It comes from the wonderful book, “Eats, Shoots and Leaves.” Someone called Gladys signed herself as, “Glady’s.” Now, that’s someone who is really working hard to get it wrong!

One grammar mistake that really annoys me is the incorrect use of “I” and “me.” I know people who use “I” simply because they think it’s the proper way to speak, when in fact they are wrong and should be using “me.” The Queen of Britain often says something like, “My husband and I are very pleased…” in speeches. That is correct grammar. On the other hand, I’ve heard people say something like, “Our house is just right for Betty and I.” That is bad grammar.

Let me explain… The easiest way to test whether or not you are right is to split the sentence into two parts and see if each part sounds right. In the example of the Queen, if you say, “My husband is very pleased…” and “I am very pleased…” it shows you that she is using good grammar; it makes sense and sounds right. However, in the other example, saying, “Our house is just right for Betty” and “Our house is just right for I” clearly shows that “me” should have been used instead of “I,” as in, “Our house is just right for Betty and me.”

In America over the years it has become almost normal to use “off” twice consecutively in certain circumstances. This is wrong. An example is an old 50s country song entitled, “I Can’t Get You Off Off My Mind.” That’s bad grammar. OK, it works great in the song, but it’s still bad grammar. Only one “off” should be used - every single time.

Split infinitives! They sound really complicated, but they are not. The classic example of a split infinitive is in the Star Trek opening sequence where the narrator, William Shatner, says, “To boldly go where no man has gone before.” That’s a split infinite. Correct grammar would dictate that it should be, “To go boldly where no man has gone before.”

The infinitive in this example is, “to go.” The adverb “boldly” splits it by coming in between: “to boldly go.” It’s that simple! However, I am happy to cheerfully concede that “To boldly go” has more impact and sounds just right for what the producers of Star Trek were trying to achieve, and it is therefore a good example of when it can be right to break the rules.

I could go on for hours writing about this, but I won’t. Someone will probably be delighted to happily go on record as being the one to point out a mistake I have made somewhere. That’s OK, it simply proves that I am human, and who knows, I may have made the mistake (or mistakes) deliberately, but I do try to write properly as much as possible, and you should too.

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I specialize in writing, SEO articles, blog posts, press releases - you name it really. If you have any need for a high quality writing service, you can contact me through the contact form on my blog here at http://www.WriteSystem.com/