Rules that confuse

There are some rules in English language that are hard to understand and remember, but can really annoy your knowing readers if you get them wrong. These are a few that people have asked me about recently. Please feel free to add or argue.

Some of this is simply about whether you use UK English or US English.

Less and fewer Less of one thing. Fewer of several things. Less cheese. Fewer slices of cheese. That's why people complain about “Less than 9 items in your basket”.

: and ; The colon : is the one to use if you're introducing a bullet list. Use semi-colons ; for the middle of sentences. Even better, avoid using semi-colons at all. They’re just joining up two thoughts and in marketing writing you want to keep your sentences short.

-ise and –ize on the end of verbs Check if you’ve got a house style and go with that. If you haven’t just be consistent. Common practice is –ise in the UK and –ize in the US. On the other hand I was once told that actually –ize is the original old English, so just make your choice and keep to it.

Apostrophes It’s not easy. There's absolutely no need for an apostrophe if you’re just making a word plural. If you’re missing out some letters to join two words together, that’s the right time to use an apostrophe (it's, that's, you're etc). The tougher one is if you’ve got one thing owning another – the cat’s mother or even the cats’ mothers if you've got several cats.

More apostrophes On the same topic, there’s no need to put an apostrophe in a decade. The 1970s is fine.

Programme Where are you? If you’re in a US English territory, you may be perplexed by this spelling of the word because you probably always use program. If you’re in the UK, you’d use programme for a series of events, the brochure at the theatre and just about everything else - except a computer program.

Say “comprises of” out loud. Ugly isn’t it? Best to say “consists of” or “comprises”, especially as they’re grammatically correct.

Unless your products are actually being extraordinarily nice to each other, the likelihood is that they're complementary, not complimentary.

And here's one I've just seen at Hallmark, which really should know better. Baby stationary has come to a standstill, while baby stationery is something to write home about.