Because hoo, boy, am I feeling peevish at the moment.
Peeve the first: taught versus taut.
Taught is a verb; it’s the past tense of teach: Jack taught Joe how to tie knots.
Taut is an adjective, meaning stretched or pulled tight, the opposite of slack: Joe pulled the line taut.
Peeve the second: Will somebody please ask all the budding fantasy writers out there to stop having their colorful secondary characters speak in generic rural bumpkin/hearty seafarer/urban rogue dialect while their main characters speak in standard English?
Honestly, writing dialect is difficult (and problematic) enough when you’re dealing with an actual known real-world example. Most of the time, dealing with a made-up dialect only compounds the problems. (The usual “if you’re a stylistic genius with a golden ear” exception applies, of course. But most of us don’t qualify for that one.)
And that’s quite enough peevishness for one day, I think.
Dr. Doyle's Blog 
Reblogged this on Madhouse Manor and commented:
And it’s “sleight of hand,” not “slight of hand.”