One Missed Letter - When "Friends" Becomes "Fiends"

One missed letter can change a word entirely.

Like when "r" is missing from the word "friends."

I was reading a recap article of a popular show and read the sentence, "Why has he been a guy who doesn't have a lot of fiends?" Those two words are the complete opposite! ... But we all know what the author meant (this time!).

Confession of a Proofreader

A moment ago I became paranoid that, when wanting to write about a punctuation mark, I'd end up using the word for a very sad medical problem! Is it "comma" or "coma"? It's funny how one letter difference can be a completely different thing. I had it right this time—"comma."

Recently I noticed someone in a forum unintentionally writing "defiantly" when he meant to write "definitely."

I mention this not because I care if people make spelling errors (well, except for at work when I am asked to find those), I just love to marvel at how language works, origins of words, and how that influences things. For instance, in Roy Peter Clark's book The Glamour of Grammar, he mentions how both words "glamour" and "grammar" derive from the same word.