One of the beautiful things about the Internet is the way people can form communities around specific topics. (It’s also one of the toxic things, but let’s focus on the positive here…) You may not have a large community in real life that wants to hear all the details about your running hobby, but online, you can find tons of people to discuss it with, down to the tiniest of details. Back in 2008, there was a large community of running bloggers, and I made great friends through that.

Many of these communities are now firmly rooted in social media or discussion platforms like Reddit or Discord. They’re still out there. And no matter where they migrate to, there are some common spelling issues that I’ve seen repeatedly… so let’s clear some of these up.

It’s Chafing, not Chaffing

When people get a little hotspot because sports bras or running shoes have rubbed some skin off, that is called chafing. C-H-A-F-I-N-G, it only has one F in the word.

The root of this word is “chafe”, which means: to rub so as to wear away.

Often, I see people post that they experienced C-H-A-F-F-I-N-G on a run. Probably not, though.

If you use it with the -ing suffix, it’s a verb and could mean good-natured teasing.

The root of the word “chaff” is the covering on a seed, essentially the “garbage” part that surrounds a seed that we don’t want to keep. It’s often used in discussions around farming and threshing grain.

So, one F if you’ve got a hotspot, okay?

Heal your Heel

I see these two words mixed up all the time. If someone posts that they had “pain in their heal” all run, NOPE!

The heel is the back of a human foot.

Heal is when an injury or illness is getting better.

I mean, I guess you could say that you had pain in your heal, meaning you didn’t let yourself heal long enough to improve, but it’s just wrong.

When talking about your foot, use two E’s.

When talking about getting better, use one E and one A.

Affect an Effect

People mix these words up all the time, not just when it comes to running. But here’s the gist… affect is a verb, meaning it is making an impact on something, and effect is a noun used when a change has happened due to something else. 

Wearing hoodies in the summer will negatively affect your comfort. 

or

The women’s hoodies had no effect against the chill in the air.

—

Voilà! Now you can…

Wait, we need to look at that word too. 

Voilà, not Viola

This last one is a real pet peeve of mine… do you know how often I see people write the word “viola” in posts? And I am 100% positive they are not just suddenly exclaiming the name of their favorite string instrument.

Voilà is a French word that basically means “there something is”, but by extension, it’s used similarly to “There you go!” and “Ta-da!” I’m pretty sure most people know this when they are using it. But so many of you write “viola”. So many of you!

So TA-DA! Now you can post about your running online without some of the most common spelling and grammar mistakes I see.