These are a class of mistake mainly made by native English speakers, but I've ended up using words like "irregardless" and "misunderestimated" unironically because I used them ironically for so long that I forgot
Along similar lines, expect a spelling convergence of "wary" and "weary" in the next 5-10 years due to so many people not knowing the difference between the two, not bothering to check, and perpetuating confusion by using the wrong one in their own writing.
"Envious" has all but completely been absorbed by "jealous" in the vernacular. People just use "jealous" for both things. Good thing there can never be any ambiguity about which sense is intended.
"To comprise" is deployed incorrectly more often than correctly. Which is silly since, when used incorrectly, you could have simply used "to be composed of" (which is the thing people are confusing it for)—there's no benefit to using "comprised" there, all its elegance and subtle shade of meaning are lost anyway when you jam it into that clunky phrase as a perfect synonym for "composed". I think that's one of those fake-fancy abuses of language from business folks, leeching into everyday language. What synergy!
The apt adjective, rather than various words and modifiers expressing degrees of good or badness—many of which used to express more, but no longer do, as "massive" or "awesome"—seems to be an endangered species.
Awkward use of "less than" inexplicably replacing the word "inferior" in some circles. "We must ensure none of the children feel 'less than'". In the words of my generation: "LOL WTF?"
Anyone have handy any studies on vocabulary among Americans? It looks to have markedly decreased over the last few decades, but I worry I may be falling for the same kind of bias that seems to make everyone think everything's getting worse all the time. Popular writing gives me the impression it's written for an audience with a smaller vocabulary than in, say, the 1950s or 1960s, though.
Sure, it has a history. Any use that is described as incorrect has a history, else it wouldn't come up. Is it distracting? Is there another word that perfectly replaces it, is understood by practically all English speakers, and that's not distracting? Yes and yes, so: "to be composed of" should be preferred. I further doubt, very much, that the choice to substitute "to be comprised of" is an informed one in very nearly all cases—its presence is a "smell", if you will, which does mean it conveys some information, but most of the time that information is not something that the person using it is trying to express, which makes it a mistake.
I care less about this one than others, though, since there's little risk of this replacing the ordinary use of the word and making the language less expressive (as in the case of "envious" vs "jealous"). "Avoid doing this" remains good advice, but it's not so bad as errors go. I mainly brought it up as an example of incorrect use surpassing correct use.
It's in a similar class to using "X and I" where it should be "X and me". It causes little harm, most of the time, as far as hindering communication, but getting it right is still preferable to getting it wrong, which means that any decent guide will classify it as a mistake, unless (as is always the case) one means to commit the error, for some reason. That's the case despite the incorrect-I error having, I'm sure, a longer and more widespread history than "to be comprised of"—the history doesn't save it from being something to avoid. Maybe some day it will.
Cool. Words are defined by how people use them, not the other way around. People have been using it enough for the "official" definition to have expanded to include your pet peeve usage, and is undeniably actually correct usage no matter how many paragraphs you type out having no relevance to the matter. Complaining about it won't accomplish anything, it's over. Unless your goal is to try to change the definition of "incorrectly" to mean "in ways I don't like", which would be really surprising given the rest of your comments.
Merriam Webster are the arch-descriptivists. If a usage is attested anywhere, MW lists it as correct. Basically, they don't believe that any usage attested anywhere can be incorrect. If you want to know whether a usage is correct or not, don't ask MW.
Descriptivist dictionaries aren't about giving advice on usage that best communicates, so consulting them as a usage guide is usually not the best idea. They're to help one understand unfamiliar words or usage—including common but maybe-not-great ones!—not to use as a guide to what's best. Finding a definition in a dictionary isn't enough to justify a choice, aside from confirming that one has not done something entirely novel.
It's weird how people mix these up, I think it's due to incorrectly assuming it's related to the verb "to wear".
While we're on the subject - more then and less then are becoming very common due to the similarity in how than/then are pronounced in US accented English.
I wonder if this particular mixup is due to people using voice dictation instead of typing. iOS makes that particular error all the time when I dictate.
This particular spelling mixup seems unlikely to persist because people know and understand both words, and it's considered basic knowledge, like your/you're, and I would expect similar memes and derision for people who don't attempt to distinguish them.
You'd think so, but I've when I've brought this up (and weary/wary) people often do the "languages evolve" thing. It's happened before with things like "colour" and "aluminium" so I don't think we can rule it out again.
My understanding is that chitterlings is the correct spelling and chitlins is the correct pronunciation, but so many people spell it chitlins that it has become an acceptable form of the written word.
"Perpetrate" and "perpetuate" are two words frequently confused by native speakers (in this context, you could have meant either, and I assume you meant "perpetuate").