Commonly Misused Words: Quiet, Quite, and Quit

There are a lot of generally misused words. These words usually have exactly similar spelling  with different meaning (homograph), similar pronunciation with different spelling (homophone), or similar spelling and pronunciation with different meaning (homonym). They may cause trouble for either a novice or an advanced learner.

Here are some examples:

• Similar spelling but carrying different meaning (homograph) e.g. 'fair' (adj) may mean 'not excessive/ extreme' or 'very pleasing to the eyes' or 'lacking exceptional ability/ quality'.
  
• Similar pronunciation with different spelling (homophone) e.g. 'bear' and 'bare' (both are pronounced /behr/)
  
• Similar spelling and pronunciation with different meaning (homonym) e.g. 'fair' (adj), chest (noun) which may mean 'part of human torso' or 'a box with a lid', or 'furniture with drawers for keeping clothes'.

The first case study of the tricky words I'd like to present now is differentiating among quiet, quite and quit.

Here's the explanation of each:

1. QUIET /kwaiet/ : This is an adjective (meaning 'serene', 'without noise').
   
2. QUITE /kwait/ : This is an adverb which means 'completely' or 'somewhat/ rather'.
   
3. QUIT /kwit/ : This is a verb which is synonymous with 'stop'.It is worth noting that in American English, 'quit' is a irregular verb with no change (quit-quit-quit). On the contrary, in British English this verb is considered regular (quit-quitted-quitted).
   

These are the sentences in which all the words above are used in an appropriate manner:

• At midnight, I was standing alone on the street. Everyone in the neighborhood was sleeping like a log. It was so quiet (=serene) that I could even clearly hear a pin dropped.
• Despite his respectable educational background, Prof. McCarthy is not quite   (=completely, entirely, fully) capable of managing his own department.
• Having gone hiking with some pals all day long, Andrew now gets quite (=somewhat/rather) tired.
• Long before the 2009 global economic recession, Charlotte had quit (=retired from a position) her job as a supervisor at a major company in Memphis, Tennessee. She has been running her own micro business ever since.