Right writing (oi)

I ran across another great writing resource yesterday: Word Usage

One recent post is about commmonly misused or confusing words, like the old Lay vs Lie dilemma (I know it keeps me up nights...)

Lay/lie: Lay is a transitive verb and means to place or set down. Lie is an intransitive verb and means to be or stay at rest in a horizontal position. Use lay when you place the object down, lie when the object is already down.

Or the always devious:

Differ/different/vary/various: To differ is to be dissimilar in quality, amount, or form, or to be of opposing opinions. Different means to be dissimilar in quality, amount, or form. You say that something is different from something else, not different than. To vary is to make or cause changes in characteristics or attributes, to modify or alter. Various means to be of diverse kinds, unlike, or different—various is more similar to the word different than to the word vary. So when you propose that someone select from among thirty options, they are selecting from various options not different options. Oh, you might say differing options and I’d let you slide. But I would hope that the options were all different from each other. It would be silly to offer thirty options that were all the same, wouldn’t it?

Tricky, tricky, this language of ours...