Every week I will demonstrate an example of poor English where a different word is used from the one intended. Sometimes this creates a grammatically incorrect sentence. Unfortunately, the mistake is usually so pervasive that we all do it and such errors are usually made by those who should know better – journalists working for national or global media outlets such as newspapers and television.
Hoard / Horde
This is one that gets confused so easily because the words are pronounced the same way and both refer to a collection or a group of something. The only real difference is that “hoard” refers to a collection of inanimate objects (noun), or the process of collection items (verb). “Horde” only refers to a group of people so it is always a noun.
The existence of gold hoards (noun) from Anglo-Saxon England is the result of Priests hoarding (verb) and then hiding their gold from the Viking hordes.
I’m pretty sure horde is also a verb although usually in the past tense as in the Vikings horded together…
That would make sense! In the same way that “text” became a verb 10 years ago.
Well it is pretty easy to verb a noun when Englishing ;)
That sounded ruder than it should have done ;)
:D
Oooh, yes, that’s an easy one to get mixed up. I recently did the hurdle/hurtle mistaken. Ug.