Every week I demonstrate an example of poor English where a different word is used from the word intended. Usually, this creates a grammatically incorrect sentence and sometimes it sounds amusing, other times it sounds embarrassing. Unfortunately, the mistake is 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.
Allowed / Aloud
This is another “Facebook English” confusion and I’m sure people only use the latter because it’s quicker to type than the former. They do, of course, have very different meanings even though are pronounced in exactly the same way.
Allowed: Referring to permission, it is generally the past tense of allow, “My teacher said because of my bad cough I wasn’t allowed to go to football training tonight”, but can also be used in the present tense, “mobile phones are not allowed in the exam”.
Aloud: adverb meaning out loud as in “Do you mind not reading aloud? This is a library after all.” Easy way to remember is to remove the a so it becomes loud