I suppose most of us would have grown up reading the classic castaway tale of Robinson Crusoe, written by Daniel Defoe i

In September 1704, the ship stopped for water at an island in the Juan Fernandez Archipelago that was completely devoid of human life. Here was when Selkirk got into an argument with Stradling over the seaworthiness of the ship. As per Selkirk, the ship was in bad shape and would sink at any time. In the heat of the moment, he told that he would prefer staying on the desolate island rather than going back to the ship.,Compliment is used both as a verb and a noun. As a verb, it means to praise. As a noun, it’s the expression of praise. The conference organizer gave me a high compliment when she took time to compliment my presentation.,Selkirk was put ashore with his bedding, a musket, pistol, gunpowder, hatchet, knife, his navigation tools, a pot for boiling food, two pounds of tobacco, some cheese and jam, a flask of rum, and his Bible. He pleaded to the captain but Stradling was hell-bent on taking revenge as he sailed away with the rest of the crew leaving Selkirk high and dry in isolation.,Alexander Selkirk was born in 1676 as the 7th child of a poor cobbler. As he grew older, he took to the sea and soon became a buccaneer, which essentially meant an English-government authorized legal pirate at that time.,Unlike Crusoe, Selkirk was deliberately marooned on the island as a punishment for his ‘insolent’ behavior. Selkirk pleaded with the captain Thomas Stradling to be allowed back but the captain was hell-bent on setting an example. Selkirk finally resigned to his fate expecting another ship to take him back within a few days.,But not many know that Daniel Defoe’s classic was loosely based on the life of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish sailor and Royal Navy officer who was marooned alone on one of the islands of Juan Fernández for four years and four months from 1704 to 1709.,In addition to homophones, some words are used interchangeably when they have different meanings. They can trip up the best, most professional writer since either our brains trick us into assuming the words are correct when they aren’t, or we don’t grasp the nuances of their meanings.,Selkirk soon became the sailing master of a ship called Cinque Ports, serving under a 21-year-old Captain, Thomas Stradling. Stradling was supposed to be an egoistic, arrogant captain and he instantly took a dislike in the ‘insolent’, ‘devil-may-care’ attitude of Selkirk who soon became his sworn enemy.,Alternate as a verb means to go back and forth. My parents alternate holiday dinners between me and my sister. They visit me in even years, and my sister gets them in odd years.,We can’t rely on spell and grammar checkers to find these mistakes since their usage can be tricky. We have to dig into the work to find them when we proofread. While some of these words are used so interchangeably they are moving into common usage, we have an obligation to our readers to use precise language that ensures clarity and truly expresses our ideas.,After an initial few days of loneliness and melancholy with Selkirk even attempting to commit suicide, he resigned to his fate and started making the best use of the island’s resources.,Recently archaeologists have even identified the island based on the remains of a campsite that is said to belong to Alexander Selkirk. The island is now called Robinson Crusoe’s Island and is a minor tourist attraction for people wanting to go off the beaten track.,(“The suggestion that The Bee is tying journalists’ pay to clicks is inaccurate,” Lauren Gustus, the editor of the Bee, told the Sacramento Business Journal. “We are proposing performance metrics that measure readership and engagement to better serve our communities. This is a concept both parties agreed to in prior sessions and is one component of a comprehensive performance management process that measures performance against standards and goals.”),He fished, caught lobsters, milked goats, and foraged for wild turnips, cabbage, and pepper berries. He even created a new knife out of barrel hoops he found on the beach after his original blade dulled and broke. He chopped down two pepper trees and made two huts, one for himself and the other for his food supplies.,Writing is a process that starts with planning and ends with proofreading, which, for some of us, is the most challenging step. It’s hard to proofread our own work because by the time we get to this step, we have edited and revised the piece multiple times. We are so familiar with it that we no longer can see mistakes. The solution is to let the final revision get cold, so we see it with fresh eyes. Even then, some types of errors can still slip by us. The common culprits are homophones — sneaky words that sound the same, but have different meanings and may have different spellings.