ACCEPT/EXCEPT If you offer me Godiva chocolates I will gladly accept them-except for the candied violet ones. Just remember that the "X" in "except" excludes things-they tend to stand out, be different. In contrast, just look at those two cozy "Cs" snuggling up together. Very accepting. And be careful; when typing "except" it often comes out "expect." ACCIDENTLY/ACCIDENTALLY You can remember this one by remembering how to spell "accidental." There are quite a few words like this with -ally suffixes (like incidentally) which have to be kept separate from words with -ly suffixes like independently. "Incidental" is a word, but "independental" is not. ACRONYMS AND APOSTROPHES One unusual modern use of the apostrophe is in plural acronyms, like "ICBM's" "NGO's" and "CD's". Since this pattern violates the rule that apostrophes are not used before an S indicating a plural, many people object to it. It is also perfectly legitimate to write "CDs," etc. See also 50's. Finally, note that "acronym" was used originally only to label pronounceable abbreviations like "NATO," but is now generally applied to all sorts of initialisms. ADAPT/ADOPT You can adopt a child or a custom or a law; in all of these cases you are making the object of the adoption your own, accepting it. If you adapt something, however, you are changing it. ADMINISTER/MINISTER You can minister to someone by administering first aid. Note how the "ad" in "administer" resembles "aid" in order to remember the correct form of the latter phrase. "Minister" as a verb always requires "to" following it. ADULTRY/ADULTERY "Adultery" is often misspelled "adultry," as if it were something every adult should try. This spelling error is likely to get you snickered at. ADVERSE/AVERSE The word "adverse" turns up most frequently in the phrase "adverse circumstances," meaning difficult circumstances, circumstances which act as an adversary; but people often confuse this word with "averse," a much rarer word, meaning having a strong feeling against, or aversion toward. ADVICE/ADVISE "Advice" is the noun, "advise" the verb. When Ann Landers advises people, she gives them advice. AFFECT/EFFECT There are four distinct words here. When "affect" is accented on the final syllable (a-FECT), it is a verb meaning "have an influence on": "The million-dollar donation from the industrialist did not affect my vote against the Clean Air Act." A much rarer meaning is indicated when the word is accented on the first syllable (AFF-ect), meaning "emotion." In this case the word is used mostly by psychiatrists and social scientists-people who normally know how to spell it. The real problem arises when people confuse the first spelling with the second: "effect." This too can be two different words. The more common one is a noun: "When I left the stove on, the effect was that the house was filled with smoke." When you affect a situation, you have an effect on it. The less common is a verb meaning "to create": "I'm trying to effect a change in the way we purchase widgets." No wonder people are confused. Hey, nobody ever said English was logical; just memorize it and get on with your life. AIN'T "Ain't" has a long and vital history as a substitute for "isn't," "aren't" and so on. It was originally formed from a contraction of "am not" and is still commonly used in that sense. Even though it has been universally condemned as the classic "mistake" in English, everyone uses it occasionally as part of a joking phrase or to convey a down-to-earth quality. But if you always use it instead of the more "proper" contractions you're sure to be branded as uneducated. ALL READY/ALREADY "All ready" is a phrase meaning "completely prepared," as in "As soon as I put my coat on, I'll be all ready." "Already," however, is an adverb used to describe something that has happened before a certain time, as in "What do you mean you'd rather stay home? I've already got my coat on." ALLUDE/REFER To allude to something is to refer to it indirectly, by suggestion. If you are being direct and unambiguous, you refer to the subject rather than alluding to it. ALLUSION/ILLUSION An allusion is a reference, something you allude to: "Her allusion to flowers reminded me that Valentine's Day was coming." A mirage, hallucination, or a magic trick is an illusion. (Doesn't being fooled just make you ill?) ALOT/A LOT Perhaps this common spelling error began because there does exist in English a word spelled "allot" which is a verb meaning to apportion or grant. The correct form, with "a" and "lot" separated by a space is perhaps not often encountered in print because formal writers usually use other expressions such as "a great deal," "often," etc. If you can't remember the rule, just remind yourself that just as you wouldn't write "alittle" you shouldn't write "alot." ALRIGHT/ALL RIGHT The correct form of this phrase has become so rare in the popular press that many readers have probably never noticed that it is actually two words. But if you want to avoid irritating traditionalists you'd better tell them that you feel "all right" rather than "alright." ALTAR/ALTER An altar is that platform at the front of a church or in a temple; to alter something is to change it. ALTERNATE/ALTERNATIVE In U.S. usage, "alternate" is frequently an adjective, substituted for the older "alternative": "an alternate route." "Alternate" can also be a noun; a substitute delegate is, for instance, called an "alternate." In the U.K., however, conservative authorities prefer that the adjective "alternate" be used only to mean "every other" as in "the club meets at the ice cream parlor on alternate Tuesdays." ALTOGETHER/ALL TOGETHER "Altogether" is an adverb meaning "completely," "entirely." For example: "When he first saw the examination questions, he was altogether baffled." "All together," in contrast, is an adjective phrase meaning "in a group." For example: "The wedding guests were gathered all together in the garden." ALUMNUS/ALUMNI We used to have "alumnus" (male singular), "alumni" (male plural), "alumna" (female singular) and "alumnae" (female plural); but the latter two are now popular only among older female graduates, with the first two terms becoming unisex. However, it is still important to distinguish between one alumnus and a stadium full of alumni. Never say "I am an alumni" if you don't want to cast discredit on your school. Many avoid the whole problem by resorting to the informal abbreviation "alum." AMATURE/AMATEUR Most of the words we've borrowed from the French which have retained their "-eur" endings are pretty sophisticated, like "restaurateur" (notice, no "N") and "auteur" (in film criticism), but "amateur" attracts amateurish spelling. AMBIGUOUS/AMBIVALENT Even though the prefix "ambi-" means "both," "ambiguous" has come to mean "unclear," "undefined," while "ambivalent" means "torn between two opposing feelings or views." If your attitude cannot be defined into two polarized alternatives, then you're ambiguous, not ambivalent. AMOUNT/NUMBER This is a vast subject. I will try to limit the number of words I expend on it so as not to use up too great an amount of space. The confusion between the two categories of words relating to amount and number is so pervasive that those of us who still distinguish between them constitute an endangered species; but if you want to avoid our ire, learn the difference. Amount words relate to quanities of things that are measured in bulk; number to things that can be counted. In the second sentence above, it would have been improper to write "the amount of words" because words are discrete entities which can be counted, or numbered. Here is a handy chart to distinguish the two categories of words: amount vs. number quantity vs. number little vs. few less vs. fewer much vs. many You can eat fewer cookies, but you drink less milk. If you eat too many cookies, people will probably think you've had too much dessert. If the thing being measured is being considered in countable units, then use number words. Even a substance which is considered in bulk can also be measured by number of units. For instance, you shouldn't drink too much wine, but you should also avoid drinking too many glasses of wine. Note that here you are counting glasses. They can be numbered. The most common mistake of this kind is to refer to an "amount" of people instead of a "number" of people. Just to confuse things, "more" can be used either way: you can eat more cookies and drink more milk. ANGEL/ANGLE People who want to write about winged beings from Heaven often miscall them "angles." A triangle has three angles. The Heavenly Host is made of angels. Just remember the adjectival form: "angelic." If you pronounce it aloud you'll be reminded that the E comes before the L. ANXIOUS/EAGER Most people use "anxious" interchangeably with "eager," but its original meaning had to do with worrying, being full of anxiety. Perfectly correct phrases like "anxious to please" obscure the nervous tension implicit in this word and lead people to say less correct things like "I'm anxious for Christmas morning to come so I can open my presents." Traditionalists frown on anxiety-free anxiousness. Say instead you are eager for or looking forward to a happy event. ANYMORE/ANY MORE In the first place, it's two words: "any more"; as in "We do not sell bananas any more." In the second place, it should not be used at the beginning of a sentence as a synonym for "nowadays." In certain dialects of English it is common to utter phrases like "anymore you have to grow your own if you want really ripe tomatoes," but this is guaranteed to jolt listeners who aren't used to it. Even if they can't quite figure out what's wrong, they'll feel that your speech is vaguely clunky and awkward. "Any more" always needs to be used as part of an expression of negation. Now you won't make that mistake any more, will you? ANYWAYS/ANYWAY "Anyways" at the beginning of a sentence usually indicates that the speaker has resumed a narrative thread: "Anyways, I told Matilda that guy was a lazy bum before she ever married him." It also occurs at the end of phrases and sentences, meaning "in any case": "He wasn't all that good-looking anyways." A slightly less rustic quality can be imparted to these sentences by substituting the more formal "anyway." Neither expression is a good idea in formal written English. The two-word phrase "any way" has many legitimate uses, however: "Is there any way to prevent the impending disaster?" APARTHEID Now that the era of apartheid (racial segregation) in South Africa is over, we hear this word less often; but American reporters continue to pronounce it as if it were a German word, as "apart-hide." Afrikaans is not pronounced like German, and the correct pronunciation is also a handy mnemonic: "apart-hate." APPRAISE/APPRISE When you estimate the value of something, you appraise it. When you inform people of a situation, you apprise them of it. APROPOS/APPROPRIATE "Apropos," (anglicized from the French phrase "a propos") means relevant, connected with what has gone before; it should not be used as an all-purpose substitute for "appropriate." It would be inappropriate, for example, to say "Your tuxedo was perfectly apropos for the opera gala." ARTIC/ARCTIC Although some brand names have incorporated this popular error, remember that the Arctic Circle is an arc. By the way, Ralph Vaughan Williams called his suite drawn from the score of the film "Scott of the Antarctic," the "Sinfonia Antartica," but that's Italian, not English.
AS FAR AS Originally people used to say things like "As far as music is concerned, I especially love Baroque opera." Recently they have begun to drop the "is concerned" part of the phrase. Perhaps this shift was influenced by confusion with a similar phrase, "as for." "As for money, I don't have any," is fine; "As far as money, I don't have any," is clumsy. AS OF YET/YET "As of yet" is a windy and pretentious substitute for plain old English "yet," an unjustified extension of the pattern in sentences like "as of Friday the 27th of May." AS PER/IN ACCORDANCE WITH "Enclosed is the shipment of #2 toggle bolts as per your order of June 14" writes the businessman, unaware that not only is the "as" redundant, he is sounding very old-fashioned and pretentious. The meaning is "in accordance with," or "in response to the request made;" but it is better to avoid these cumbersome substitutes altogether: "Enclosed is the shipment of bolts you ordered June 14." ASPECT/RESPECT When used to refer to different elements of or perspectives on a thing or idea these words are closely related, but not interchangeable. It's "in all respects," not "in all aspects." Similarly, one can say "in some respects" but not "in some aspects." One says "in this respect," not "in this aspect. " One looks at all "aspects" of an issue, not at all "respects." ASSURE/ENSURE/INSURE To "assure" a person of something is to make him or her confident of it. According to Associated Press style, to "ensure" that something happens is to make certain that it does, and to "insure" is to issue an insurance policy. Other authorities, however, consider "ensure" and "insure" interchangeable. To please conservatives, make the distinction. However, it is worth noting that in older usage these spellings were not clearly distinguished. European "life assurance" companies take the position that all policy-holders are mortal and someone will definitely collect, thus assuring heirs of some income. American companies tend to go with "insurance" for coverage of life as well as of fire, theft, etc. ASTERICK/ASTERISK Some people not only spell this word without the penultimate S, they say it that way too. It comes from Greek asteriskos: "little star." Tisk, tisk, remember the "-isk"; "asterick" is icky. ATM machine/ATM "ATM" means "Automated Teller Machine," so if you say "ATM machine" you are really saying, "Automated Teller Machine Machine." ATHLETE Tired of people stereotyping you as a dummy just because you're a jock? One way to impress them is to pronounce "athlete" properly, with just two syllables, as "ATH-leet" instead of using the common mispronunciation "ATH-uh-leet." AWHILE/A WHILE When "awhile" is spelled as a single word, it is an adverb meaning "for a time" ("stay awhile"); but when "while" is the object of a prepositional phrase, like "Lend me your monkey wrench for a while" the "while" must be separated from the "a." (But if the preposition "for" were lacking in this sentence, "awhile" could be used in this way: "Lend me your monkey wrench awhile.") AX/ASK The dialectical pronunciation of "ask" as "ax" is a sure marker of a substandard education, to be avoided in formal speaking situations. BACKSLASH/SLASH This is a slash: /. Because the top of it leans forward, it is sometimes called a "forward slash." This is a backslash: \. Notice the way it leans back, distinguishing it from the regular slash. Slashes are often used to indicate directories and subdirectories in computer systems such as UNIX and in World Wide Web addresses. Unfortunately, many people, assuming "backslash" is some sort of technical term for the regular slash, use the term incorrectly, which risks confusing those who know enough to distinguish between the two but not enough to realize that Web addresses never contain backslashes. Substituting one for the other makes the address inoperable. BARE/BEAR There are actually three words here. The simple one is the big growly creature (unless you prefer the Winnie-the-Pooh type). Hardly anyone past the age of ten gets that one wrong. The problem is the other two. Stevedores bear burdens on their backs and mothers bear children. Both mean "carry" (in the case of mothers, the meaning has been extended from carrying the child during pregnancy to actually giving birth). But strippers bare their bodies-sometimes bare-naked. The confusion between this latter verb and "bear" creates many unintentionally amusing sentences; so if you want to entertain your readers while convincing them that you are a dolt, by all means mix them up. The last of these meanings has an adjectival form: "The pioneers stripped the forest bare." BASICLY/BASICALLY There are "-ly" words and "-ally" words, and you basically just have to memorize which is which. But "basically" is very much overused and is often better avoided in favor of such expressions as "essentially," "fundamentally," or "at heart." BAZAAR/BIZARRE A "bazaar" is a market where miscellaneous goods are sold. "Bizarre," in contrast, is an adjective meaning "strange," "weird." Let all those As in "bazaar" remind you that this is an Arabic word denoting traditional markets. BEAUROCRACY/BUREAUCRACY The French bureaucrats from whom we get this word worked at their bureaus (desks) in what came to be known as bureaucracies. BECKON CALL/BECK AND CALL This is a fine example of what linguists call "popular etymology." People don't understand the origins of a word or expression and make one up based on what seems logical to them. "Beck" is just an old shortened version of "beckon." If you are at peoples' beck and call it means they can summon you whenever they want: either by gesture (beck) or speech (call). FROM THE BEGINNING OF TIME Stephen Hawking writes about the beginning of time, but few other people do. People who write "from the beginning of time" or "since time began" are usually being lazy. Their grasp of history is vague, so they resort to these broad, sweeping phrases. Almost never is this usage literally accurate: people have not fallen in love since time began, for instance, because people arrived relatively late on the scene in the cosmic scheme of things. When I visited Ferrara several years ago I was interested to see that the whole population of the old city seemed to use bicycles for transportation, cars being banned from the central area. I asked how long this had been the custom and was told "We've ridden bicycles for centuries." Since the bicycle was only invented in the 1890s, I strongly doubted this (no, Leonardo da Vinci did not invent the bicycle-he just drew a picture of what one might look like). If you really don't know the appropriate period from which your subject dates, you could substitute a less silly but still vague phrase such as "for many years," or "for centuries"; but it's better simply to avoid historical statements if you don't know your history. See "today's modern society." BEGS THE QUESTION An argument which improperly assumes as true the very point the speaker is trying to argue for is said in formal logic to "beg the question." Here is an example of a question-begging argument: "This painting is trash because it is obviously worthless." The speaker is simply asserting the worthlessness of the work, not presenting any evidence to demonstrate that this is in fact the case. Since we never use "begs" with this odd meaning ("to improperly take for granted") in any other phrase, many people mistakenly suppose the phrase implies something quite different: that the argument demands that a question about it be asked. If you're not comfortable with formal terms of logic, it's best to stay away from this phrase, or risk embarrassing yourself. BEHAVIORS "Behavior" has always referred to patterns of action, including multiple actions, and did not have separate singular and plural forms until social scientists created them. Unless you are writing in psychology, sociology, anthropology, or a related field, it is better to avoid the use of "behaviors" in your writing. See also "peoples." BETWEEN "Between 1939 to 1945" is obviously incorrect to most people-it should be "between 1939 and 1945"-but the error is not so obvious when it is written thus: "between 1939-1949." In this case, the "between" should be dropped altogether. Also incorrect are expressions like "there were between 15 to 20 people at the party." This should read "between 15 and 20 people." BIBLE Whether you are referring to the Jewish Bible (the Torah plus the Prophets and the Writings) or the Protestant Bible (the Jewish Bible plus the New Testament), or the Catholic Bible (which contains everything in the Jewish and Protestant Bibles plus several other books and passages mostly written in Greek in its Old Testament), the word "Bible" must be capitalized. Even when used generically, as in "the Qur'an is the Bible of the Muslims," the word is usually capitalized. Just remember that it is the title of a book, and book titles are normally capitalized. An oddity in English usage is, however, that "Bible" and the names of the various parts of the Bible are not italicized or placed between quotation marks. "Biblical" may be capitalized or not, as you choose (or as your editor chooses). Those who wish to be sensitive to the Jewish authorship of the Jewish Bible may wish to use "Hebrew Bible" and "Christian Scriptures" instead of the traditionally Christian nomenclature: "Old Testament" and "New Testament." Modern Jewish scholars sometimes use the Hebrew acronym "Tanakh" to refer to their Bible, but this term is not generally understood by others. BLATANT The classic meaning of "blatant" is "noisily conspicuous," but it has long been extended to any objectionable obviousness. A person engaging in blatant behavior is usually behaving in a highly objectionable manner, being brazen. Unfortunately, many people nowadays think that "blatant" simply means "obvious" and use it in a positive sense, as in "Kim wrote a blatantly brilliant paper." Use "blatant" or "blatantly" only when you think the people you are talking about should be ashamed of themselves. BORN OUT OF/BORN OF Write "my love of dance was born of my viewing old Ginger Rogers-Fred Astaire movies," not "born out of." The latter expression is probably substituted because of confusion with the expression "borne out" as in "my concerns about having another office party were borne out when Mr. Peabody spilled his beer into the fax machine." The only correct (if antiquated) use of "born out of" is in the phrase "born out of wedlock." BORROW/LOAN In some dialects it is common to substitute "borrow" for "loan" or "lend," as in "borrow me that hammer of yours, will you, Jeb?" In standard English the person providing an item can loan it; but the person receiving it borrows it. For "loan" vs. "lend, see "Non-Errors." BOTH/EACH There are times when it is important to use "each" instead of "both." Few people will be confused if you say "I gave both of the boys a baseball glove," meaning "I gave both of the boys baseball gloves" because it is unlikely that two boys would be expected to share one glove; but you risk confusion if you say "I gave both of the boys $50." It is possible to construe this sentence as meaning that the boys shared the same $50 gift. "I gave each of the boys $50" is clearer. BOUGHTEN/BOUGHT "Bought" is the past tense of "buy," not "boughten." "Store-bought," a colloquial expression for "not home-made," is already not formal English; but it is not improved by being turned into "store-boughten." BOURGEOIS In the original French, a bourgeois was originally merely a free inhabitant of a "bourg," or town. Through a natural evolution it became the label for members of the property-owning class, then of the middle class. As an adjective it is used with contempt by bohemians and Marxists to label conservatives whose views are not sufficiently revolutionary. The class made up of bourgeois (which is both the singular and the plural form) is the bourgeoisie. Shaky spellers are prone to leave out the "E" from the middle because "eoi" is not a natural combination in English; but these words have remarkably enough retained their French pronunciation: boorzhwah and boorzhwazee. The feminine form, "bourgeoise," is rarely encountered in English. BOUYANT/BUOYANT Buoys are buoyant. In the older pronunciation of "buoy" as "bwoy" this unusual spelling made more sense. Now that the pronunciation has shifted to "boy" we have to keep reminding ourselves that the U comes before the O. BRAND NAMES Popular usage frequently converts brand names into generic ones, with the generic name falling into disuse. Few people call gelatin dessert mix anything other than "Jell-O," which helps to explain why it's hard to find Nabisco's Royal Gelatin on the grocery shelves. All facial tissues are "Kleenex" to the masses, all photocopies "Xeroxes." Such commercial fame is, however, a two-edged sword: sales may be lost as well as gained from such over-familiarity. Few people care whether their "Frisbee" is the genuine Wham-O brand original or an imitation. Some of these terms lack staying power: "Hoover" used to be synonymous with "vacuum cleaner," and the brand name was even transmuted into a verb: "to hoover" (these uses are still common in the UK). Most of the time this sort of thing is fairly harmless, but if you are a motel operator offering a different brand of whirlpool bath in your rooms, better not call it a "Jacuzzi." BREACH/BREECH Substitute a K for the CH in "breach" to remind you that the word has to do with breakage: you can breach (break through) a dam or breach (violate the terms of) a contract. As a noun, a breach is something broken off or open, as in a breach in a military line during combat. "Breech" however, refers to rear ends, as in "breeches" (slang spelling "britches"). Thus "breech cloth," "breech birth," or "breech-loading gun." "Once more into the breach, dear friends," means "let's fill up the gap in the line of battle," not "let's reach into our pants again." BREATH/BREATHE When you need to breathe, you take a breath. "Breathe" is the verb, "breath" the noun. BRING/TAKE When you are viewing the movement of something from the point of arrival, use "bring": "When you come to the potluck, please bring a green salad." Viewing things from the point of departure, you should use "take": "When you go to the potluck, take a bottle of wine." BUILD OFF OF/BUILD ON You build "on" your earlier achievements, you don't build "off of" them. BUTT NAKED/BUCK NAKED The standard expression is "buck naked," and the contemporary "butt naked" is an error that will get you laughed at in some circles. However, it might be just as well if the new form were to triumph. Originally a "buck" was a dandy, a pretentious, overdressed show-off of a man. Condescendingly applied in the U.S. to Native Americans and black slaves, it quickly acquired negative connotations. To the historically aware speaker, "buck naked" conjures up stereotypical images of naked "savages" or-worse-slaves laboring naked on planatations. Consider using the alternative expression "stark naked." CALLS FOR/PREDICTS Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare: Henry IV, Part 1 Newspeople constantly joke that the weather service is to blame for the weather, so we shouldn't be surprised when they tell us that the forecast "calls for rain" when what they mean is that it "predicts" rain. Remember, wherever you live, the weather is uncalled for. CALVARY/CAVALRY "Calvary," always capitalized, is the hill on which Jesus was crucified. It means "hill of skulls." Soldiers mounted on horseback are cavalry. CANON/CANNON "Canon" used to be such a rare word that there was no temptation to confuse it with "cannon": a large piece of artillery. The debate over the literary canon (a list of officially-approved works) and the popularity of Pachelbel's Canon (an imitative musical form like a round) have changed all that-confusion is rampant. Just remember that the big gun is a "cannon." All the rest are "canons." Note that there are metaphorical uses of "cannon" for objects shaped like large guns, such as a horse's "cannon bone." CAPITAL/CAPITOL A "capitol" is always a building. Cities and all other uses are spelled with an A in the last syllable. Would it help to remember that Congress with an O meets in the Capitol Building with another O? CARAMEL/CARMEL Take Highway 101 south from Monterey to reach the charming seaside town of Carmel, of which Clint Eastwood was formerly mayor. Dissolve sugar in a little water and cook it down until the sugar turns brown to create caramel. Unfortunately many people mispronounce the latter word as if it were the name of the town, and spell it that way too. A nationwide chain uses the illiterate spelling "Karmelkorn (tm)," which helps to perpetuate the confusion. CARAT/CARET/CARROT/KARAT "Carrots" are those crunchy orange vegetables Bugs Bunny is so fond of, but this spelling gets misused for the less familiar words which are pronounced the same but have very different meanings. Precious stones like diamonds are weighed in carats. The same word is used to express the proportion of pure gold in an alloy, though in this usage it is sometimes spelled "karat" (hence the abbreviation "20K gold"). A caret is a proofreader's mark showing where something needs to be inserted, shaped like a tiny pitched roof. It looks rather like a French circumflex, but is usually distinct from it on modern computer keyboards. Carets are extensively used in computer programming. Just remember, if you can't eat it, it's not a carrot. CD-ROM disk/CD-ROM "CD-ROM" stands for "compact disc, read-only memory," so adding another "disc" or "disk" is redundant. The same goes for "DVD" (originally "Digital Video Disc") even though manufacturers now claim the initials stand for "Digital Versatile Disc." Don't say "give me that DVD disk," just "give me that DVD." CEASAR/CAESAR Did you know that German "Kaiser" is derived from the Latin "Caesar" and is pronounced a lot more like it than the English version? We're stuck with our illogical pronunciation, so we have to memorize the correct spelling. (The Russians messed up the pronunciation as thoroughly as the English, with their "Czar.") Thousands of menus are littered with "Ceasar salads" throughout America-named after a Los Angeles restaurateur, not the emperor (but they both spelled their names the same way). Julius Caesar's family name was "Julius"; he made the name "Caesar" famous all by himself. CELIBATE/CHASTE Believe it or not, you can be celibate without being chaste, and chaste without being celibate. A celibate person is merely unmarried, usually (but not always) because of a vow of celibacy. The traditional assumption is that such a person is not having sex with anyone, which leads many to confuse the word with "chaste," denoting someone who does not have illicit sex. A woman could have wild sex twice a day with her lawful husband and technically still be chaste, though the word is more often used to imply a general abstemiousness from sex and sexuality. You can always amuse your readers by misspelling the latter word as "chased." CELTIC Because the Boston Celtics basketball team pronounces its name as if it began with an S, Americans are prone to use this pronunciation of the word as it applies to the Bretons, Cornish, Welsh, Irish and Scots; but the dominant pronunciation among sophisticated US speakers is "keltik." Just remember: "Celts in kilts." Interestingly, the Scots themselves often use the "S" pronunication, notably in referring to the soccer team, "Glasgow Celtic." CENTER AROUND/CENTER ON, REVOLVE AROUND Two perfectly good expressions-"center on" and "revolve around"-get conflated in this nonsensical neologism. When a speaker says his address will "center around the topic of" whatever, my interest level plummets. CHAISE LONGUE When English speakers want to be elegant they commonly resort to French, often mangling it in the process. The "entree" (with an acute accent over the second E), the dish served before the "plat," usurped the latter's position as main dish. And how in the world did French "lingerie" (meaning linen goods of all sorts, including underwear) pronounced-roughly-"lanzheree" come to be English "lawnzheray," meaning women's slinky underthings only? Quelle horreur! "Chaise longue" (literally "long chair"), pronounced-roughly-"shezz lohng" with a hard G on the end became in English "shayz long." Many speakers, however, confuse French "chaise" with English "chase" and French "longue" with English "lounge" (understandable since the article in question is a sort of couch or lounge), resulting in the mispronunciation "chase lounge." We may imagine the French as chasing each other around their lounges, but a chaise is just a chair. CHEMICALS Markets offering "organic" produce claim it has been raised "without chemicals." News stories fret about "chemicals in our water supply." This common error in usage indicates quite clearly the lamentable level of scientific literacy in our population. Everything on earth save a few stray subatomic particles and various kinds of energy (and-if you believe in it-pure spirit) is composed of chemicals. Pure water consists of the chemical dihydrogen oxide. Vitamins and minerals are chemicals. In the broadest sense, even simple elements like nitrogen can be called chemicals. Writers who use this term sloppily contribute to the obfuscation of public debate over such serious issues as pollution and malnutrition. CHUNK/CHUCK In casual conversation, you may get by with saying "Chuck [throw] me that monkey wrench, will you?" But you will mark yourself as illiterate beyond mere casualness by saying instead "Chunk me that wrench." This is a fairly common substitution in some dialects of American English. CITE/SITE/SIGHT You cite the author in an endnote; you visit a Web site or the site of the crime, and you sight your beloved running toward you in slow motion on the beach (a sight for sore eyes!). CLICHE/CLICHED One often hears young people say "That movie was so cliche!" "Cliche" is a noun, meaning an overfamiliar phrase or image. A work containing cliches is cliched. CLOSE/CLOTHES Because the TH in "clothes" is seldom pronounced distinctly, it is often misspelled "close." Just remember the TH in "clothing," where it is obvious. Clothes are made of cloth. Rags can also be cloths (without an E). COARSE/COURSE "Coarse" is always an adjective meaning "rough, crude." Unfortunately, this spelling is often mistakenly used for a quite different word, "course," which can be either a verb or a noun (with several different meanings). COMPARE AND CONTRAST Hey kids, here's a chance to catch your English teacher in a redundancy! To compare two things is to note their similarities and their differences. There's no need to add "and contrast." COMPRISED OF/COMPOSED OF Many people mistakenly suppose that "comprises" is synonymous with "constitutes"-hence their confusion. "The business comprises five branches" is correct, but uncommon. Never use "of" after any form of "comprise." If you are uncomfortable with the word, substitute "is composed of" or "is made up of." COMPTROLLER Although it is less and less often heard, the traditional pronunciation of "comptroller" is identical with "controller." The Oxford English Dictionary, indeed, considers "comptroller" to have begun as a misspelling of "controller"-back in the 16th century. CONCENSUS/CONSENSUS You might suppose that this word had to do with taking a census of the participants in a discussion, but it doesn't. It is a good old Latin word that has to do with arriving at a common sense of the meeting, and the fourth letter is an "S." CONCERTED EFFORT One cannot make a "concerted effort" all by one's self. To work "in concert" is to work together with others. The prefix "con-" means "with." CONFUSIONISM/CONFUCIANISM This spelling error isn't exactly an English error, but it's very common among my students. Confucius is the founder of Confucianism. His name is not spelled "Confucious," and his philosophy is not called "Confusionism." When you spot the confusion in the latter term, change it quickly to "Confucianism." CONGRADULATIONS/CONGRATULATIONS I fear that all too many people are being "congradulated" for graduating from high school who don't know that this word should be spelled "congratulations." Try a search for this misspelling on your favorite Web search engine and be prepared to be astonished. CONTINUAL/CONTINUOUS "Continuous" refers to actions which are uninterrupted: "My upstairs neighbor played his stereo continuously from 6:00 PM to 3:30 AM." Continual actions, however, need not be uninterrupted, only repeated: "My father continually urges me to get a job." CORE/CORPS/CORPSE Apples have cores. A corps is an organization, like the Peace Corps. A corpse is a dead body, a carcass. COLLABORATE/CORROBORATE People who work together on a project "collaborate" (share their labor); people who support your testimony as a witness "corroborate" (strengthen by confirming) it. COLONS/SEMICOLONS Colons have a host of uses, but they mostly have in common that the colon acts to connect what precedes it with what follows. Think of the two dots of a colon as if they were stretched out to form an equal sign, so that you get cases like this: "he provided all the ingredients: sugar, flour, butter, and vanilla." There are a few exceptions to this pattern, however. One unusual use of colons is in between the chapter and verses of a Biblical citation, for instance, "Matthew 6:5." In bibliographic citation a colon separates the city from the publisher: "New York: New Directions, 1979." It also separates minutes from hours in times of day when given in figures: "8:35." It is incorrect to substitute a semicolon in any of these cases. Think of the semicolon as erecting a little barrier with that dug-in comma under the dot; semicolons always imply separation rather than connection. A sentence made up of two distinct parts whose separation needs to be emphasized may do so with a semicolon: "Mary moved to Seattle; she was sick of getting sunburned in Los Angeles." When a compound sentence contains commas within one or more of its clauses, you have to escalate to a semicolon to separate the clauses themselves: "It was a mild, deliciously warm spring day; and Mary decided to walk to the fair." The other main use of semicolons is to separate one series of items from another-a series within a series, if you will: "The issues discussed by the board of directors were many: the loud, acrimonious complaints of the stockholders; the abrupt, devastating departure of the director; and the startling, humiliating discovery that he had absconded with half the company's assets." Any time the phrases which make up a series contain commas, for whatever reason, they need to be separated by semicolons. Many people are so terrified of making the wrong choice that they try to avoid colons and semicolons altogether, but I'm afraid this just can't be done. Formal writing requires their use, and it's necessary to learn the correct patterns. CONTRASTS/CONTRASTS/WITH "With" must not be omitted in sentences like this: "Julia's enthusiasm for rugby contrasts with Cheryl's devotion to chess." COULD CARE LESS/COULDN'T CARE LESS Cliches are especially prone to scrambling because they become meaningless through overuse. In this case an expression which originally meant "it would be impossible for me to care less than I do because I do not care at all" is rendered senseless by being transformed into the now-common "I could care less." Think about it: if you could care less, that means you care some. People who misuse this phrase are being careless. COULD OF, SHOULD OF, WOULD OF/COULD HAVE, SHOULD HAVE, WOULD HAVE This is one of those errors typically made by a person more familiar with the spoken than the written form of English. A sentence like "I would have gone if anyone had given me free tickets" is normally spoken in a slurred way so that the two words "would have" are not distinctly separated, but blended together into what is properly rendered "would've." Seeing that V tips you off right away that "would've" is a contraction of "would have." But many people hear "would of" and that's how they write it. Wrong. COUNCIL/COUNSEL An official group which deliberates, like the Council on Foreign Relations, is a "council"; all the rest are "counsels": your lawyer, advice, etc. CRITERIA/CRITERION There are several words with Latin or Greek roots whose plural forms ending in A are constantly mistaken for singular ones. See, for instance, data and media. You can have one criterion or many criteria. Don't confuse them. CRUCIFICTION/CRUCIFIXION One might suppose that this common misspelling was a product of skepticism were it not for the fact that it most often occurs in the writings of believers. The word should make clear that Jesus was affixed to the cross, not imply that his killing is regarded as a fiction. CURRANT/CURRENT "Current" is an adjective having to do with the present time, and can also be a noun naming a thing that, like time, flows: electrical current, currents of public opinion. "Currant" refers only to little fruits. DATA/DATUM There are several words with Latin and Greek roots whose plural forms ending in A are constantly mistaken for singular ones. See, for instance, criteria and media. "Datum" is so rare now in English that people may assume "data" has no singular form. Fortunately, you seldom need to use the word in the singular. Just remember to say, "the data are printed on page 27 of the report," and you'll be all right. "Data," though it is increasingly treated as singular by scientists and computer scientists, is allowed by the most conservative authorities only when it's a character from "Star Trek: The Next Generation." DECIMATE/ANNIHILATE, SLAUGHTER, ETC. This comes under the heading of the truly picky. Despite the fact that most dictionaries have caved in, some of us still remember that when the Romans killed one out of every ten (decem) soldiers in a rebellious group as an example to the others, they decimated them. People sensitive to the roots of words are uncomfortably reminded of that ten percent figure when they see the word used instead to mean "annihilate," "obliterate," etc. You can usually get away with using "decimate" to mean "drastically reduce in numbers," but you're taking a bigger risk when you use it to mean "utterly wipe out." DEEP-SEEDED/DEEP-SEATED Those who pine for the oral cultures of Ye Olden Dayes can rejoice as we enter an era where many people are unfamiliar with common expressions in print and know them only by hearsay.* The result is mistakes like "deep seeded." The expression has nothing to do with a feeling being planted deep within one, but instead refers to its being seated firmly within one's breast: "My aversion to anchovies is deep-seated." Compounding their error, most people who misuse this phrase leave the hyphen out. Tennis players may be seeded, but not feelings. *The notion that English should be spelled as it is pronounced is widespread, but history is against the reformers in most cases. Pronunciation is often a poor guide to spelling. The veneration of certain political movements for the teaching of reading through phonics is nicely caricatured by a t-shirt slogan I've seen: "Hukt awn fonix." DEFENCE/DEFENSE If you are writing for an English publication, use "defence," but the American "defense" has the advantages of greater antiquity, similarity to the words from which it was derived, and consistency with words like "defensible." DEFINATE/DEFINITE Any vowel in an unstressed position can sometimes have the sound linguists call a "schwa": "uh." The result is that many people tend to guess when they hear this sound, but "definite" is definitely the right spelling. DEFUSE/DIFFUSE You defuse a dangerous situation by treating it like a bomb and removing its fuse; to diffuse, in contrast, is to spread something out: "Bob's cheap cologne diffused throughout the room, wrecking the wine-tasting." DEGRADE/DENIGRATE/DOWNGRADE Many people use "downgrade" instead of "denigrate" to mean "defame, slander." "Downgrade" is entirely different in meaning. When something is downgraded, it is lowered in grade (usually made worse), not just considered worse. "When the president of the company fled to Rio with fifteen million dollars, its bonds were downgraded to junk bond status." "Degrade" is much more flexible in meaning. It can mean to lower in status or rank (like "downgrade") or to corrupt or make contemptible; but it always has to do with actual reduction in value rather than mere insult, like "denigrate." Most of the time when people use "downgrade" they would be better off instead using "insult," "belittle" or "sneer at." DEJA VU In French "deja vu" means literally "already seen" and usually refers to something excessively familiar. However the phrase, sans accent marks, was introduced into English mainly as a psychological term indicating the sensation one experiences when feeling that something has been experienced before when this is in fact not the case. If you feel strongly that you have been previously in a place where you know for a fact you have never before been, you are experiencing a sensation of deja vu. English usage is rapidly sliding back toward the French meaning, confusing listeners who expect the phrase to refer to a false sensation rather than a factual familiarity, as in "Congress is in session and talking about campaign finance reform, creating a sense of deja vu." In this relatively new sense, the phrase has the same associations as the colloquial "same old, same old" (increasingly often misspelled "sameo, sameo" by illiterates). Baseball player Yogi Berra famously mangled this expression in his redundant expression "It seems like it's deja vu all over again." Over the ensuing decades clever writers would allude to this blunder in their prose by repeating the phrase "deja vu all over again," assuming that their readers would catch the allusion and share a chuckle with them. Unfortunately, in the nineties the phrase has been worn to a frazzle and become all but substituted for the original, so that not only has it become a very tired joke indeed-a whole generation has grown up thinking that Berra's malapropism is the correct form of the expression. Give it rest, folks! DESERT/DESSERT Perhaps these two words are confused partly because "dessert" is one of the few words in English with a double S pronounced like Z ("brassiere" is another). That impoverished stretch of sand called a desert can only afford one S. In contrast, that rich gooey extra thing at the end of the meal called a dessert indulges in two of them. DIETIES/DEITIES This one is always good for a laugh. The gods are deities, after the Latin "deus," meaning "god." DIFFERENT THAN/ DIFFERENT FROM/TO Americans say "Scuba-diving is different from snorkeling," the English sometimes say "different to" and those who don't know any better say "different than." The only sort of sentence in which "different than" makes sense is exemplified by the following: "His nose looks different than it did before the big fight." DIFFER/VARY People often say "our opinions vary" when what they mean is "our opinions differ." If something is undergoing change, then it varies. If some items or ideas are different from others, without in themselves undergoing change, they differ. The confusion probably arises because we can say that people have a wide variety of ideas, or various interpretations. But "opinions vary" means "opinions change," not "we disagree among ourselves." This confusion raises the question, does "your mileage may vary" mean "you may get better mileage sometimes and worse mileage other times" or "you may get different mileage than we got in our controlled tests"? DISCREET/DISCRETE The more common word is "discreet," meaning "prudent, circumspect": "When arranging the party for Agnes, be sure to be discreet; we want her to be surprised." "Discrete" means "separate, distinct": "He arranged the guest list into two discrete groups: meat-eaters and vegetarians." Note how the T separates the two Es in "discrete." DISCUSSED/DISGUST "Discussed" is the the past tense of the verb "discuss." Don't substitute for it the noun "disgust" in such sentences as "The couple's wedding plans were thoroughly discussed." DISINTERESTED/UNINTERESTED A bored person is uninterested. Do not confuse this word with the much rarer "disinterested," which means "objective, neutral". DISRESPECT The hip-hop subculture has revived the use of "disrespect" as a verb. In the meaning to have or show disrespect, this usage has been long established, if unusual. However, the new street meaning of the term, ordinarily abbreviated to "dis," is slightly but significantly different: to act disrespectfully, or-more frequently-insultingly toward someone. In some neighborhoods "dissing" is defined as merely failing to show sufficient terror in the face of intimidation. In those neighborhoods, it is wise to know how the term is used; but an applicant for a job who complains about having been "disrespected" elsewhere is likely to incur further disrespect . . . and no job. Street slang has its uses, but this is one instance which has not become generally accepted. DOLLY/HANDCART A dolly is a flat platform with wheels on it, often used to make heavy objects mobile, or by an auto mechanic lying on one under a car body. Many people mistakenly use this word to designate the vertically oriented two-wheeled device with upright handles and horizontal lip which is more properly called a "handcart" or "handtruck." DOMINATE/DOMINANT The verb is "dominate"; the adjective is "dominant." The dominant chimpanzee tends to dominate the others. DOUBLE NEGATIVES It is not true, as some assert, that double negatives are always wrong; but the pattern in formal speech and writing is that two negatives equal a mild positive: "he is a not untalented guitarist" means he has some talent. In informal speech, however, double negatives are intended as negatives: "he ain't got no talent" means he is a lousy musician. People are rarely confused about the meaning of either pattern, but you do need to take your audience into account when deciding which pattern to follow. One of the funniest uses of the literary double negative is Douglas Adams' description of a machine dispensing "a substance almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea." DOWNFALL/DRAWBACK A downfall is something that causes a person's destruction, either literal or figurative: "expensive cars were Fred's downfall: he spent his entire inheritance on them and went bankrupt." A drawback is not nearly so drastic, just a flaw or problem of some kind, and is normally applied to plans and activities, not to people: "Gloria's plan to camp on Mosquito Island had just one drawback: she had forgotten to bring her insect repellent." DRANK/DRUNK Many common verbs in English change form when their past tense is preceded by an auxiliary ("helping" verb): "I ran, I have run." The same is true of "drink." Don't say "I've drank the beer" unless you want people to think you are drunk. An even more common error is "I drunk all the milk." It's "I've drunk the beer" and "I drank all the milk." DUAL/DUEL "Dual" is an adjective describing the two-ness of something-dual carburetors, for instance. A "duel" is a formal battle intended to settle a dispute. E.G./I.E. When you mean "for example," use e.g. It is an abbreviation for the Latin phrase exempli gratia. When you mean "that is," use "i.e." It is an abbreviation for the Latin phrase id est. Either can be used to clarify a preceding statement, the first by example, the second by restating the idea more clearly or expanding upon it. Because these uses are so similar, the two abbreviations are easily confused. If you just stick with good old English "for example" and "that is" you won't give anyone a chance to sneer at you. If you insist on using the abbreviation, perhaps "Example Given" will remind you to use e.g. EACH "Each" as a subject is always singular: think of it as equivalent to "every one." The verb whose subject it is must also be singular. Some uses, like "to keep them from fighting, each dog has been given its own bowl," cause no problem. No one is tempted to say "have been given." But when a prepositional phrase with a plural object intervenes between subject and verb, we are likely to be misled into saying things like "Each of the children have to memorize their own locker combinations." The subject is "each," not "children." The tendency to avoid specifying gender by using "their" adds to pressure toward plurality; but the correct version of this sentence is "Each of the children has to memorize his or her own locker combination." One can avoid the entire problem by pluralizing throughout: "All the children have to memorize their own locker combinations" (but see the entry on singular "they"). In many uses, however, "each" is not the subject, as in "We each have our own favorite flavor of ice cream" which is correct because "we" and not "each" is the subject of the verb "have". "Each other" cannot be a subject, so the question of verb number does not arise; but the number of the possessive creates a problem for some writers. "They gazed into each other's eyes" is correct and "each others'" is incorrect because "each other" is singular. Reword to "each gazed into the other's eyes" to see the logic behind this rule. "Each other" is always two distinct words separated by a space although it functions grammatically as a sort of compound word. ECT./ETC. "Etc." is an abbreviation for the Latin phrase "et cetera," meaning "and others." ("Et" means "and" in French too.) Just say "et cetera" out loud to yourself to remind yourself of the correct order of the "t" and "c." Also to be avoided is the common mispronunciation "excetera." ELAPSE/LAPSE Both these words come from a Latin root meaning "to slip." "Elapse" almost always refers to the passage of time. "Lapse" usually refers to a change of state, as in lapsing from consciousness into unconsciousness. Here are examples of the correct uses of these words you might get in the mail: "Six months have elapsed since your last dental appointment" and "You have allowed your subscription to Bride Magazine to lapse." Occasionally "lapse" can be used as a synonym of "elapse" in the sense "to slip away." Substituting one for the other is dangerous, however, if you are a lawyer. Insurance policies and collective bargaining agreements do not elapse when they expire, they lapse. ELICIT/ILLICIT The lawyer tries to elicit a description of the attacker from the witness. "Elicit" is always a verb. "Illicit," in contrast, is always an adjective describing something illegal or naughty. EMBARESS/EMBARRASS You can pronounce the last two syllables as two distinct words as a jog to memory, except that then the word may be misspelled "embareass," which isn't right either. You also have to remember the double R: "embarrass." EMERGENT/EMERGENCY The error of considering "emergent" to be the adjectival form of "emergency" is common only in medical writing, but it is becoming widespread. "Emergent" properly means "emerging" and normally refers to events that are just beginning-just noticeable rather than catastrophic. "Emergency" is an adjective as well as a noun, so rather than writing "emergent care," use the homely "emergency care." EMIGRATE/IMMIGRATE To "emigrate" is to leave a country. The E at the beginning of the word is related to the E in other words having to do with going out, such as "exit." "Immigrate," in contrast, looks as if it might have something to do with going in, and indeed it does: it means to move into a new country. The same distinction applies to "emigration" and "immigration." Note the double M in the second form. A migrant is someone who continually moves about. EMINENT/IMMINENT/IMMANENT By far the most common of these words is "eminent," meaning "prominent, famous." "Imminent," in phrases like "facing imminent disaster," means "threatening." It comes from Latin minere, meaning "to project or overhang." Think of a mine threatening to cave in. The rarest of the three is "immanent," used by philosophers to mean "inherent" and by theologians to mean "present throughout the universe" when referring to God. It comes from Latin manere, "remain." Think of God creating man in his own image. ENORMITY/ENORMOUSNESS Originally these two words were synonymous, but "enormity" got whittled down to meaning "monstrous" or "outrageous." Don't wonder at the "enormity" of the Palace of Versailles unless you wish to express horror at this embodiment of Louis XIV's ego. "Enormity" can also be used as a noun meaning "monstrosity." ENVELOP/ENVELOPE To wrap something up in a covering is to envelop it (pronounced "enVELLup"). The specific wrapping you put around a letter is an envelope (pronounced variously, but with the accent on the first syllable). ENVIROMENT/ENVIRONMENT The second N in "environment" is seldom pronounced distinctly, so it's not surprising that is often omitted in writing. If you know the related word "environs" it may help remind you. EPIGRAM/EPIGRAPH/EPITAPH/EPITHET An epigram is a pithy saying, usually humorous. Mark Twain was responsible for many striking, mostly cynical epigrams, such as "Always do right. That will gratify some of the people, and astonish the rest." Unfortunately, he was also responsible for an even more famous one that has been confusing people ever since: "Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody." It's true that the moon keeps one side away from the earth, but-if you don't count the faint glow reflected from the earth-it is not any darker than the side that faces us. In fact, over time, the side facing us is darkened slightly more often because it is occasionally eclipsed by the shadow of the earth. An epigraph is a brief quotation used to introduce a piece of writing or the inscription on a statue or building. An epitaph is the inscription on a tombstone or some other tribute to a dead person. In literature, an epithet is a term which replaces or is added to the name of a person, like "clear-eyed Athena," in which "clear-eyed" is the epithet. You are more likely to encounter the term in its negative sense, as a term of insult or abuse: "the shoplifter hurled epithets at the guard who had arrested her." EPITOMY/EPITOME Nothing makes you look quite so foolish as spelling a sophisticated word incorrectly. Taken directly from Latin, where it means "abridgement," this word is now most often used to designate an extremely representative example of the general class: "Snow White is the epitome of a Disney cartoon feature." Those who don't misspell this word often mispronounce it, misled by its spelling, as "EP-i-tohm," but the proper pronunciation is "ee-PIT-o-mee." EVERYDAY "Everyday" is a perfectly good adjective, as in "I'm most comfortable in my everyday clothes." The problem comes when people turn the adverbial phrase "every day" into a single word. It is incorrect to say "I take a shower everyday." It should be "I take a shower every day." EXHILERATION/EXHILARATION "Exhilaration" is closely related to "hilarious," whose strongly accented A should help remind you of the correct spelling. EXPRESSES THAT/SAYS THAT "In her letter Jane expresses that she is getting irritated with me for not writing" should be corrected to "In her letter Jane says that. . . " You can express an idea or a thought, but you can't ever express that. In technical terms, "express" is a transitive verb which requires an object. EXPRESSO/ESPRESSO I've read several explanations of the origin of this word: the coffee is made expressly for you upon your order, or the steam is expressed through the grounds, or (as most people suppose-and certainly wrongly) the coffee is made at express speed. One thing is certain: the word is "espresso," not "expresso." While you're at an American espresso stand, you might muse on the fact that both "biscotti" and "panini" are plural forms, but you're likely to baffle the barista if you ask in correct Italian for a biscotte or a panino. IN THE FACT THAT/BY THE FACT THAT The correct phrase is "by the fact that," not "in the fact that." While we're at it, "infact" is not a word; "in fact" is always a two-word phrase. FARTHER/FURTHER Some authorities (like the Associated Press) insist on "farther" to refer to physical distance and on "further" to refer to an extent of time or degree, but others treat the two words as interchangeable except for insisting on "further" for "in addition," "moreover." You'll always be safe in making the distinction; some people get really testy about this. FATAL/FATEFUL A "fatal" event is a deadly one; a "fateful" one is determined by fate. If there are no casualties left lying at the scene-whether mangled corpses or failed negotiations-the word you are seeking is "fateful." The latter word also has many positive uses, such as "George fondly remembered that fateful night in which he first met the woman he was to love to his dying day." FAZE/PHASE "Faze" means to embarrass or disturb, but is almost always used in the negative sense, as in "the fact that the overhead projector bulb was burned out didn't faze her." "Phase" is a noun or verb having to do with an aspect of something. "He's just going through a temperamental phase." "They're going to phase in the new accounting procedures gradually." Unfortunately, Star Trek has confused matters by calling its ray pistols phasers. Too bad they aren't fazers instead. FEARFUL/FEARSOME To be "fearful" is to be afraid. To be "fearsome" is to cause fear in others. Remember that someone who is fierce is fearsome rather than fearful. FEBUARY/FEBRUARY Few people pronounce the first R in "February" distinctly, so it is not surprising that it is often omitted in spelling. This poor month is short on days; don't further impoverish it by robbing it of one of its letters. FIREY/FIERY It's "fire," so why isn't it "firey?" It just isn't. It's "fiery." 50s There's no need for the apostrophe before the S in decade names like 50s and 60s, since there are no omitted letters. The term may be written '50s since "19" is being omitted, but "50s" is fine too. Writers who wish to have their references to decades clearly understood in the 21st century would be well advised not to omit the first two digits. FISCAL/PHYSICAL The middle syllable of "physical" is often omitted in pronunciation, making it sound like the unrelated word "fiscal." Sound that unaccented "I" distinctly. FLAIR/FLARE "Flair" is conspicuous talent: "She has a flair for organization." "Flare" is either a noun meaning "flame" or a verb meaning to blaze with light or to burst into anger. FLAUNT/FLOUT To flaunt is to show off: you flaunt your new necklace by wearing it to work. "Flout" has a more negative connotation; it means to treat with contempt some rule or standard. The cliche is "to flout convention." Flaunting may be in bad taste because it's ostentatious, but it is not a violation of standards. FLESH OUT/FLUSH OUT To "flesh out" an idea is to give it substance, as a sculptor adds clay flesh to a skeletal armature. To "flush out" a criminal is to to drive him or her out into the open. The latter term is derived from bird-hunting, in which one flushes out a covey of quail. If you are trying to develop something further, use "flesh"; but if you are trying to reveal something hitherto concealed, use "flush." FLOUNDER/FOUNDER As a verb, "founder" means "to fill with water and sink." It is also used metaphorically of various kinds of equally catastrophic failures. In contrast, to flounder is to thrash about in the water (like a flounder), struggling to stay alive. "Flounder" is also often used metaphorically to indicate various sorts of desperate struggle. If you're sunk, you've foundered. If you're still struggling, you're floundering. FOR/FORE/FOUR The most common member of this trio is the preposition "for," which is not a problem for most people. "Fore" always has to do with the front of something (it's what you shout to warn someone when you've sent a golf ball their way). "Four" is just the number "4." FOR ALL INTENSIVE PURPOSES/FOR ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES Another example of the oral transformation of language by people who don't read much. "For all intents and purposes" is an old cliche which won't thrill anyone, but using the mistaken alternative is likely to elicit guffaws. FORBIDDING/FOREBODING/FORMIDABLE "Foreboding" means "ominous," as in "The sky was a foreboding shade of gray" (i.e. predictive of a storm). The prefix "fore-" with an E, often indicates futurity, e. g. "forecast," "foreshadowing" and "foreword" (a prefatory bit of writing at the beginning of a book, often misspelled "forword"). A forbidding person or task is hostile or dangerous: "The trek across the desert to the nearest latte stand was forbidding." The two are easily confused because some things, like storms, can be both foreboding and forbidding. "Formidable," which originally meant "fear-inducing" ("Mike Tyson is a formidable opponent") has come to be used primarily as a compliment meaning "awe-inducing" ("Gary Kasparov's formidable skills as a chess player were of no avail against Deep Blue"). See also "fearful/fearsome." FOREGO/FORGO The E in "forego" tells you it has to do with going before. It occurs mainly in the expression "foregone conclusion," a conclusion arrived at in advance. "Forgo" means to abstain from or do without. "After finishing his steak, he decided to forgo the blueberry cheesecake." FORMALLY/FORMERLY These two are often mixed up in speech. If you are doing something in a formal manner, you are behaving formally; but if you previously behaved differently, you did so formerly. FORSEE/FORESEE "Foresee" means "to see into the future." There are lots of words with the prefix "fore-" which are future-oriented, including "foresight," "foretell," "forethought," and "foreword," all of which are often misspelled by people who omit the E. Just remember: what golfers shout when they are warning people ahead of them about the shot they are about to make is "fore!" FORTE In music, "forte" means "loud," from the Italian word for "strong," and it is pronounced "FOR-tay." However, there is a completely different word which is spelled exactly the same and used in such expressions as "playing the piano is not my forte." This is a French word, meaning something one is good at; and in French final Es are not pronounced unless they are marked with an accent, and this one is not, so the word should be pronounced exactly like English "fort." FORTUITOUS/FORTUNATE "Fortuitous" events happen by chance; they need not be fortunate events, only random ones: "It was purely fortuitous that the meter reader came along five minutes before I returned to my car." Although fortunate events may be fortuitous, when you mean "lucky," use "fortunate." FOUL/FOWL A chicken is a fowl. A poke in the eye is a foul. FRACTION To say that "only a fraction of the students has* received their financial aid" is to give no idea of how many are still waiting. The proper expression is "small fraction." Ninety-nine one-hundredths is a fraction-a very large one. The same warning applies to "percentage." *Of course, those who use this expression would probably use "have" instead of "has," incorrectly supposing that "students" rather than "fraction" is the subject of the verb. FRANKENSTEIN "Frankenstein" is the name of the scientist who creates the monster in Mary Shelley's novel. The monster itself has no name, but is referred to popularly as "Frankenstein's monster." FRANKLY Sentences beginning with this word are properly admissions of something shocking or unflattering to the speaker; but when a public spokesperson for a business or government is speaking, it almost always precedes a self-serving statement. "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" is correct; but "Frankly, I think the American people can make their own decisions about health care" is an abuse of language. The same contortion of meaning is common in related phrases. When you hear a public figure say, "to be completely honest with you," expect a lie. FRENCH DIP WITH AU JUS This diner classic consists of sliced roast beef on a more or less firm bun, with a side dish of broth in which to dip it. "Au jus" means "with broth"; so adding "with" to "au jus" is redundant. In fancier restaurants, items are listed entirely in French with the English translation underneath: Tete de cochon avec ses tripes farcies Pig's head stuffed with tripe Mixing the languages is hazardous if you don't know what the original means. "With au jus broth" is also seen from time to time. People generally know what a French dip sandwich is, and they'll see the broth when it comes. Why not just call it a "French dip?" FROM . . . TO "From soup to nuts" makes sense because soup was the traditional first course in a formal meal, nuts the last. Similarly "from A to Z" makes sense because these are the first and last letters of the alphabet. But this construction which identifies the extremes of a spectrum or range is often improperly used when no such extremes are being identified, as in "She tried everything from "penicillin to sulfa drugs." These are not extremes, just examples of different sorts of drugs. Even worse is "he gave his daughter everything from a bicycle to lawn darts to a teddy bear." A range can't have more than two extremes. "He gave his daughter everything from paper dolls to a Cadillac" conveys the notion of a spectrum from very cheap to very expensive, and is fine. Often when people are tempted to use "from . . . to" they would be better off using a different expression, as, for example, in this sentence: "She tried all sorts of medicines, including pencillin and sulfa drugs." MOUNT FUJIYAMA/FUJIYAMA "Yama" means "mountain" in Japanese, so when you say "Mount Fujiyama" you are saying "Mount Fuji Mountain." The Japanese usually say "Fuji-san"; but just "Fujiyama," or "Mount Fuji" is standard in English-just be aware that both sound "foreign" to Japanese native speakers. FULSOME Because its most common use is in the phrase "fulsome praise," many people suppose that this word means something like "generous" or "whole-hearted." Actually, it means "disgusting," and "fulsome praise" is disgustingly exaggerated praise. GAMUT/GAUNTLET To "run a gamut" is to go through the whole scale or spectrum of something. To "run the gauntlet" (also gantlet) is to run between two lines of people who are trying to beat you. And don't confuse "gamut" with "gambit," a play in chess, and by extension, a tricky maneuver of any kind. GAURD/GUARD Too bad the Elizabethan "guard" won out over the earlier, French-derived spelling "garde"; but the word was never spelled "gaurd." The standard spelling is related to Italian and Spanish "guarda," pronounced "gwarda." GHANDI/GANDHI Mohandas K. Gandhi's name has an H after the D, not after the G. Note that "Mahatma" ("great soul") is a an honorific title, not actually part of his birth name. GIBE/JIBE/JIVE "Gibe" is a now rare term meaning "to tease." "Jibe" means "to agree," but is usually used negatively, as in "the alibis of the two crooks didn't jibe." The latter word is often confused with "jive," which derives from slang which originally meant to treat in a jazzy manner ("Jivin' the Blues Away") but also came to be associated with deception ("Don't give me any of that jive"). GOD When "God" is the name of a god, as in Judaism, Christianity and Islam ("Allah" is just Arabic for "God," and many modern Muslims translate the name when writing in English), it needs to be capitalized like any other name. When it is used as a generic term, as in "He looks like a Greek god," it is not capitalized. GOES "So he goes 'I thought your birthday was tomorrow,' and I'm-like-'well, duh!'" Perhaps this bizarre pattern developed in analogy to childish phrases such as "the cow goes 'moo'" and "the piggy goes 'oink, oink'." Is there any young person unaware that the use of "go" to mean "say" drives most adults crazy? Granted, it's deliberate slang rather than an involuntary error; but if you get into the habit of using it all the time, you may embarrass yourself in front of a class by saying something witless like "So then Romeo goes 'A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.'" GOOD/WELL "Good" is the adjective, "well" is the adverb. You do something well, but you give someone something good. The exception is verbs of sensation in phrases such as "the pie smells good," or "I feel good." Despite the arguments of nigglers, this is standard usage. Saying "the pie smells well" would imply that the pastry in question had a nose. "I feel well" is also generally acceptable; but it is not the only correct usage. GOT/GOTTEN In sentences like "I've gotten tired of laugh tracks on situation comedies" "gotten" is the past participle of "get." Casual speakers in the U.S. often substitute "got"; but if you are striving for formal correctness, stick with "gotten." In British English, however, "got" is standard, and the older "gotten" has died, though not the related forms "forgotten" and "begotten." GRAMMER/GRAMMAR It's amazing how many people write to thank me for helping them with their "grammer." It's "grammar." GRATIS/GRATUITOUS If you do something nice without being paid, you do it "gratis." Technically, such a deed can also be "gratuitous"; but if you do or say something obnoxious and uncalled for, it's always "gratuitous," not "gratis." GRISLY/GRIZZLY "Grisly" means "horrible"; a "grizzly" is a bear. "The grizzly left behind the grisly remains of his victim." "Grizzled," means "having gray hairs," not to be confused with "gristly," full of gristle. GROUND ZERO "Ground zero" refers to the point at the center of the impact of a nuclear bomb. It is thus the point at which the maximum destruction has taken place; so it is improper to talk about "building from ground zero" as if it were a place of new beginnings. You can start from scratch, or begin at zero, but if you're at ground zero, you're at the end. HIV VIRUS "HIV" stands for "human immunodeficiency virus," so adding the word "virus" to the acronym creates a redundancy. "HIV" is the name of the organism which is the cause of AIDS, not a name for the disease itself. A person may be HIV-positive (a test shows the person to be infected with the virus) without having yet developed AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). HIV is the cause, AIDS the result. HANGED/HUNG Originally these words were pretty much interchangeable, but "hanged" eventually came to be used pretty exclusively to mean "executed by hanging." Does nervousness about the existence of an indelicate adjectival form of the word prompt people to avoid the correct word in such sentences as "Lady Wrothley saw to it that her ancestors' portraits were properly hung"? Nevertheless, "hung" is correct except when capital punishment is being imposed. HEAR/HERE If you find yourself writing sentences like "I know I left my wallet hear!" you should remind yourself that "hear" has the word "ear" buried in it and let that remind you that it refers only to hearing and is always a verb (except when you are giving the British cheer "Hear! Hear!"). "I left my wallet here" is the correct expression. HE DON'T/ HE DOESN'T In formal English, "don't" is not used in the third person singular. "I don't like avocado ice cream" is correct, and so is "they don't have their passports yet " and "they don't have the sense to come in out of the rain"; but "he don't have no money," though common in certain dialects, is nonstandard on two counts: it should be "he doesn't" and "any money." The same is true of other forms: "she don't" and "it don't" should be "she doesn't" and "it doesn't." HEIGHTH/HEIGHT "Width" has a "TH" at the end, so why doesn't "height"? In fact it used to, but the standard pronunciation today ends in a plain "T" sound. People who use the obsolete form misspell it as well, so pronunciation is no guide. By the way, this is one of those pesky exceptions to the rule, "I before E except after C," but the vowels are seldom switched, perhaps because we see it printed on so many forms along with "age" and "weight." HELP THE PROBLEM People say they want to help the problem of poverty when what they really mean is that they want to help solve the problem of poverty. Poverty flourishes without any extra help, thank you. I guess I know what a "suicide help line" is, but I'd rather it were a "suicide prevention help line." I suppose it's too late to ask people to rename alcoholism support groups as sobriety support groups, but it's a shoddy use of language. HEROIN/HEROINE Heroin is a highly addictive opium derivative; the main character in a narrative is a heroine. Because "hero" and "heroine" are considered old-fashioned labels denoting a certain kind of romantic figure, modern literary criticism prefers the gender-neutral "protagonist," meaning "the figure at the center of the action of a narrative." If you are writing about a romantic opera, however, you may still comfortably refer to the "heroine." HIPPIE/HIPPY A long-haired 60s flower child was a "hippie." "Hippy" is an adjective describing someone with wide hips. The IE is not caused by a Y changing to IE in the plural as in "puppy" and "puppies." It is rather a dismissive diminutive, invented by older, more sophisticated hipsters looking down on the new kids as mere "hippies." Confusing these two is definitely unhip. AN HISTORIC/A HISTORIC You should use "an" before a word beginning with an H only if the H is not pronounced: "an honest effort"; it's "a historic event." HOI POLLOI "Hoi polloi" is Greek for "the common people," but it is often misused to mean "the upper class" (does "hoi" make speakers think of "high"?). Some urge that since "hoi" is the article "the hoi polloi" is redundant; but the general rule is that articles such as "the" and "a" in foreign language phrases cease to function as such in place names, brands, and catch phrases except for some of the most familiar ones in French and Spanish, where everyone recognizes "la"-for instance-as meaning "the." "The El Nino" is redundant, but "the hoi polloi" is standard English. HOLD YOUR PEACE/SAY YOUR PIECE Some folks imagine that since these expressions are opposites, the last word in each should be the same; but in fact they are unrelated expressions. The first means "maintain your silence," and the other means literally "speak aloud a piece of writing" but is used to express the idea of making a statement. HOME PAGE On the World Wide Web, a "home page" is normally the first page a person entering a site encounters, often functioning as a sort of table of contents for the other pages. People sometimes create special pages within their sites introducing a particular topic, and these are also informally called "home pages" (as in "The Emily Dickinson Home Page"); but it is a sure sign of a Web novice to refer to all Web pages as home pages. HORS D'OEUVRES If you knew only a little French, you might interpret this phrase as meaning "out of work," but in fact it means little snack foods served before or outside of ("hors") the main dishes of a meal (the "oeuvres"). English-speakers have trouble mastering the sounds in this phrase, but it is normally rendered "or-DERVES," in a rough approximation of the original. Mangled spellings like "hors' dourves" are not uncommon. Actually, many modern food writers have decided we needn't try to wrap our tongues around this peculiar foreign phrase and now prefer "starters." HYPHENATION The Chicago Manual of Style contains a huge chart listing various sorts of phrases which are or are not to be hyphenated. Consult such a reference source for a thorough-going account of this matter, but you may be able to get by with a few basic rules. An adverb/adjective combination in which the adverb ends in -LY is never hyphenated: "His necktie reflected his generally grotesque taste." Other sorts of adverbs are followed by a hyphen when combined with an adjective: "His long-suffering wife finally snapped and fed it through the office shredder." Adjectives combined with nouns having an -ED suffix are hyphenated: "Frank was a hot-headed cop." Hyphenate ages when they are adjective phrases involving a unit of measurement: "Her ten-year-old car is beginning to give her trouble." A girl can be a "ten-year-old" ("child" is implied). But there are no hyphens when outside of such an adjectival phrase: "Her car is ten years old." Fractions are almost always hyphenated: "He is one-quarter Irish and three-quarters Nigerian." The exception is when the numerator is already hyphenated, as in "ninety-nine and forty-four one hundredths." A phrase composed of a noun and a present participle ("-ing" word) must be hyphenated: "The antenna had been climbed by thrill-seeking teenagers who didn't realize the top of it was electrified." These are the main cases in which people are prone to misuse hyphens. If you can master them, you will have eliminated the vast majority of such mistakes in your writing. Some styles call for space around dashes (a practice of which I strongly disapprove), but it is never proper to put space around hyphens. HYPHENS & DASHES Dashes are longer than hyphens, but since many browsers do not reliably interpret the code for dashes, they are usually rendered on the Web as they were on old-fashioned typewriters, as double hyphens-like that. Dashes tend to separate elements and hyphens to link them. Few people would substitute a dash for a hyphen in an expression like "a quick-witted scoundrel," but the opposite is common. In a sentence like "Astrud-unlike Inger-enjoyed vacations in Spain rather than England," one often sees hyphens incorrectly substituted for dashes. When you are typing for photocopying or direct printing, it is a good idea to learn how to type a true dash instead of the double hyphen (computers differ). In old-fashioned styles, dashes (but never hyphens) are surrounded by spaces-like this. With modern computer output which emulates professional printing, this makes little sense. Skip the spaces unless your editor or teacher insists on them. HYPOCRITICAL "Hypocritical" has a narrow, very specific meaning. It describes behavior which is intended to make one look better or more pious than one really is. It is often wrongly used to label people who are merely narrow-minded or genuinely pious. Do not confuse this word with "hypercritical," which describes people who are picky. I/ME/MYSELF In the old days when people studied traditional grammar, we could simply say, "The first person singular pronoun is 'I' when it's a subject and 'me' when it's an object," but now few people know what that means. Let's see if we can apply some common sense here. The misuse of "I" and "myself" for "me" is caused by nervousness about "me." Educated people know that "Jim and me is goin' down to slop the hogs," is not elegant speech, not "correct." It should be "Jim and I" because if I were slopping the hogs alone I would never say "Me is going . . ." So far so good. But the notion that there is something wrong with "me" leads people to overcorrect and avoid it where it is perfectly appropriate. People will say "The document had to be signed by both Susan and I" when the correct statement would be, "The document had to be signed by both Susan and me." Trying even harder to avoid the lowly "me," many people will substitute "myself," as in "The suspect uttered epithets at Officer O'Leary and myself." "Myself" is no better than "I" as an object. "Myself" is not a sort of all-purpose intensive form of "me" or "I." Use "myself" only when you have used "I" earlier in the same sentence: "I am not particularly fond of goat cheese myself." "I kept half the loot for myself." All this confusion can easily be avoided if you just remove the second party from the sentences where you feel tempted to use "myself" as an object or feel nervous about "me." You wouldn't say, "The IRS sent the refund check to I," so you shouldn't say "The IRS sent the refund check to my wife and I" either. And you shouldn't say "to my wife and myself." The only correct way to say this is, "The IRS sent the refund check to my wife and me." Still sounds too casual? Get over it. On a related point, those who continue to announce "It is I" have traditional grammatical correctness on their side, but they are vastly outnumbered by those who proudly boast "It's me!" There's not much that can be done about this now. Similarly, if a caller asks for Susan and Susan answers "This is she," her somewhat antiquated correctness is likely to startle the questioner into confusion. * IC In the Cold War era, anti-socialists often accused their enemies of being "socialistic" by which they meant that although they were not actually socialists, some of their beliefs were like those of socialists. But the "-ic" suffix is recklessly used in all kinds of settings, often without understanding its implications. Karl Marx was not "socialistic," he was actually socialist. IDEA/IDEAL Any thought can be an idea, but only the best ideas worth pursuing are ideals. IF I WAS/IF I WERE The subjunctive mood, always weak in English, has been dwindling away for centuries until it has almost vanished. According to traditional thought, statements about the conditional future such as "If I were a carpenter . . ." require the subjunctive "were"; but "was" is certainly much more common. A quick check of the Web shows "if I was" to be used approximately one hundred times more often than "if I were." Still, if you want to impress those in the know with your usage, use "were." IMMACULATE CONCEPTION/VIRGIN BIRTH The doctrine of "immaculate conception" (the belief that Mary was conceived without inheriting original sin) is often confused with the doctrine of the "virgin birth" (the belief that Mary gave birth to Jesus while remaining a virgin). IMPACT One (very large) group of people thinks that using "impact" as a verb is just nifty: "The announcement of yet another bug in the software will strongly impact the price of the company's stock." Another (very passionate) group of people thinks that "impact" should only be used as a noun and considers the first group to be barbarians. Although the first group may well be winning the usage struggle, you risk offending more people by using "impact" as a verb than you will by substituting more traditional words like "affect" or "influence." IMPERTINENT/IRRELEVANT "Impertinent" looks as if it ought to mean the opposite of "pertinent," and indeed it once did; but for centuries now its meaning in ordinary speech has been narrowed to "impudent," specifically in regard to actions or speech toward someone regarded as socially superior. Only snobs and very old-fashioned people use "impertinent" correctly; most people would be well advised to forget it and use "irrelevant" instead to mean the opposite of "pertinent." IMPLY/INFER These two words, which originally had quite distinct meanings, have become so blended together that most people no longer distinguish between them. If you want to avoid irritating the rest of us, use "imply" when something is being suggested without being explicitly stated and "infer" when someone is trying to arrive at a conclusion based on evidence. "Imply" is more assertive, active: I imply that you need to revise your paper; and, based on my hints, you infer that I didn't think highly of your first draft. IN REGARDS TO/WITH REGARD TO Business English is deadly enough without scrambling it. "As regards your downsizing plan . . ." is acceptable, if stiff. "In regard to . . ." is also correct. But don't confuse the two by writing "In regards to." INCIDENCE/INCIDENTS/INSTANCES These three overlap in meaning just enough to confuse a lot of people. Few of us have a need for "incidence, " which most often refers to degree or extent of the occurrence of something ("the incidence of measles in Whitman County has dropped markedly since the vaccine has been provided free"). "Incidents," which is pronounced identically, is merely the plural of "incident," meaning "occurrences" ("police reported damage to three different outhouses in separate incidents last Halloween"). Instances are examples ("semicolons are not required in the first three instances given in your query"). Incidents can be used as instances only if someone is using them as examples. INCREDIBLE The other day I heard a film reviewer praise a director because he created "incredible characters," which would literally mean unbelievable characters. What the reviewer meant to say, of course, was precisely the opposite: characters so lifelike as to seem like real people. Intensifiers and superlatives tend to get worn down quickly through overuse and become almost meaningless, but it is wise to be aware of their root meanings so that you don't unintentionally utter absurdities. "Fantastic" means "as in a fantasy" just as "fabulous" means "as in a fable." A "wonderful" sight should make you pause in wonder (awe). Some of these words are worn down beyond redemption, however. For instance, who now expects a "terrific" sight to terrify? INDEPTH/IN DEPTH You can make an "in-depth" study of a subject by studying it "in depth," but never "indepth." Like "a lot" this is two words often mistaken for one. The first, adjectival, use of the phrase given above is commonly hyphenated, which may lead some people to splice the words even more closely together. "Indepth" is usually used as an adverb by people of limited vocabulary who would be better off saying "profoundly" or "thoroughly." Some of them go so far as to say that they have studied a subject "indepthly." Avoid this one if you don't want to be snickered at. INFAMOUS/NOTORIOUS "Infamous" means famous in a bad way. It is related to the word "infamy." Humorists have for a couple of centuries jokingly used the word in a positive sense, but the effectiveness of the joke depends on the listener knowing that this is a misuse of the term. Because this is a very old joke indeed you should stick to using "infamous" only of people like Hitler and Billy the Kid. "Notorious" means the same thing as "infamous" and should also only be used in a negative sense. INFLAMMABLE "Inflammable" means the same thing as "flammable": burnable, capable of being ignited or inflamed. So many people mistake the "in-" prefix as a negative, however, that it has been largely abandoned as a warning label. UNIVERSITY OF INDIANA There is no such place as "the University of Indiana"; it's "Indiana University." I should know; I went there. INFACT/IN FACT "In fact" is always two words. INFINITE When Shakespeare's Enobarbus said of Cleopatra that "age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety" he was obviously exaggerating. So few are the literal uses of "infinite" that almost every use of it is metaphorical. There is not an infinite number of possible positions on a chessboard, nor possible shades of color, nor number of stars in the universe. To say of snowflakes that the possible variety of their shape is infinite is incorrect: surely one can calculate the maximum possible size of something one could justly call a "snowflake," calculate the number of molecules possible in that volume, and the number of possible arrangments of those molecules. The result will be a very large number, but not an infinity. Things can be innumerable (in one sense of the word) without being infinite; in other words, things which are beyond the human capacity to count them can still be limited in number. "Infinite" has its uses as a loose synonym for "a very great many," but it is all too often lazily used when one doesn't want to do the work to discover the order of magnitude involved. When you are making quasi-scientific statements you do a disservice to your reader by implying infinity when mere billions are involved. INSTALL/INSTILL People conjure up visions of themselves as upgradable robots when they write things like "My Aunt Tillie tried to install the spirit of giving in my heart." The word they are searching for is "instill." You install equipment, you instill feelings or attitudes. INTENSIFIERS People are always looking for ways to emphasize how really, really special the subject under discussion is. (The use of "really" is one of the weakest and least effective of these.) A host of words has been worn down in this service to near-meaninglessness. It is well to remember the etymological roots of such words to avoid such absurdities as "fantastically realistic," "absolutely relative," and "incredibly convincing." When you are tempted to use one of these vague intensifiers consider rewriting your prose to explain more precisely and vividly what you mean: "Fred's cooking was incredibly bad" could be changed to "When I tasted Fred's cooking I almost thought I was back in the middle-school cafeteria." See "Incredible." INTERPRETATE/INTERPRET "Interpretate" is mistakenly formed from "interpretation," but the verb form is simply "interpret." See also "orientate." INTO/IN TO "Into" is a preposition which often answers the question, "where?" For example, "Tom and Becky had gone far into the cave before they realized they were lost." Sometimes the "where" is metaphorical, as in "he went into the army" or "she went into business." It can also refer by analogy to time: "the snow lingered on the ground well into April." In old-fashioned math talk, it could be used to refer to division: "two into six is three." In other instances where the words "in" and "to" just happen to find themselves neighbors, they must remain separate words. For instance, "Rachel dived back in to rescue the struggling boy." Here "to" belongs with "rescue" and means "in order to," not "where." (If the phrase had been "dived back into the water," "into" would be required.) Then there is the 60s colloquialism which lingers on in which "into" means "deeply interested or involved in": "Kevin is into baseball cards." This is derived from usages like "the committee is looking into the fund-raising scandal." The abbreviated form is not acceptable formal English, but is quite common in informal communications. Try speaking the sentence concerned aloud, pausing distinctly between "in" and "to." If the result sounds wrong, you probably need "into." IRONICALLY/COINCIDENTALLY An event that is strikingly different from or the opposite of what one would have expected, usually producing a sense of incongruity, is ironic: "The sheriff proclaimed a zero-tolerance policy on drugs, but ironically flunked his own test." Other striking comings-together of events lacking these qualities are merely coincidental: "the lovers leapt off the tower just as a hay wagon coincidentally happened to be passing below." IRREGARDLESS/REGARDLESS Regardless of what you have heard, "irregardless" is a redundancy. The suffix "-less" on the end of the word already makes the word negative. It doesn't need the negative prefix "ir-" added to make it even more negative. IS, IS In speech, people often lose track in the middle of a sentence and repeat "is" instead of saying "that": "The problem with the conflict in the Balkans is, is the ethnic tensions seem exacerbated by everything we do." This is just a nervous tic, worth being alert against when you're speaking publicly. Of course, I suppose it all depends on what you think the meaning of "is" is. ISLAMS/MUSLIMS Followers of Islam are called "Muslims," not "Islams." (Although the Associated Press still does not accept it, "Muslim" is now widely preferred over the older and less phonetically accurate "Moslem.") ISREAL/ISRAEL To remember how to spell "Israel" properly, try pronouncing it the way Israelis do: "ISS-rah-el." ITS/IT'S First let's all join in hearty curse of the grammarians who inserted the wretched apostrophe into possessives in the first place. It was all a mistake. Our ancestors used to write "Johns hat" meaning "the hat of John" without the slightest ambiguity. However, some time in the Renaissance certain scholars decided that the simple "s" of possession must have been formed out of a contraction of the more "proper" "John his hat." Since in English we mark contractions with an apostrophe, they did so, and we were stuck with the stupid "John's hat." Their error can be a handy reminder though: if you're not sure whether a noun ending in "s" should be followed by an apostrophe, ask yourself whether you could plausibly substitute "his" or "hers" for the "s." Get this straight once and for all: when the "s" is added to a word simply to make it a plural, no apostrophe is used. Why can't we all agree to do away with the wretched apostrophe? Because its two uses-contraction and possession-have people so thoroughly confused that they are always putting in apostrophes where they don't belong, in simple plurals ("cucumber's for sale") and family names when they are referred to collectively ("the Smith's"). People often misspell my last name as "Brian's." It is not uncommon to see the S wrongly apostrophized even in verbs, as in the mistaken "He complain's a lot." The exception to the general rule that one should use an apostrophe to indicate possession is in possessive pronouns. Some of them are not a problem. "Mine" has no misleading "s" at the end to invite an apostrophe. And few people are tempted to write "hi's," though the equally erroneous "her's" is fairly common, as are "our's" and "their's."-all wrong, wrong, wrong. The problem with avoiding "it's" as a possessive is that this spelling is perfectly correct as a contraction meaning "it is." Just remember two points and you'll never make this mistake again. (1) "It's" always means "it is" or "it has," and nothing else. (2) Try changing the "its" in your sentence to "his"; and if it doesn't make sense, then go with "it's." JEWELRY To remember the correct pronunciation, just say "jewel" and add "-ree" on the end. "Jool-er-ee" is wrong. JUDGEMENT/JUDGMENT In Great Britain and many of its former colonies, "judgement" is still the correct spelling; but ever since Daniel Webster decreed the first E superfluous, Americans have omitted it. Many of Webster's crotchets have faded away (each year fewer people use the spelling "theater," for instance); but even the producers of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, chose the traditional American spelling. If you write "judgement" you should also write "colour," "tyre," and "gaol." KOALA BEAR/KOALA A koala is not a bear. People who know their marsupials refer to them simply as "koalas." LAISSEZ-FAIRE The mispronunciation "lazy-fare" is almost irresistible in English, but this is a French expression meaning "let it be" or, more precisely, "the economic doctrine of avoiding state regulation of the economy," and it has retained its French pronunciation (though with an English R): "lessay fare." It is most properly used as an adjective, as in "laissez-faire capitalism," but is also commonly used as if it were a noun phrase: "the Republican party advocates laissez faire." LARGE/IMPORTANT In colloquial speech it's perfectly normal to refer to something as a "big problem," but when people create analogous expressions in writing, the result is awkward. Don't write "this is a large issue for our firm" when what you mean is "this is an important issue for our firm." Size and intensity are not synonymous. LAY/LIE You lay down the book you've been reading, but you lie down when you go to bed. If the subject is acting on some other object, it's "lay." If the subject is lying down, then it's "lie." This distinction is often not made in informal speech, partly because in the past tense the words sound much more alike: "He lay down for a nap" but "he laid down the law." If the subject is already at rest, you might "let it lie." LEAD/LED When you're hit over the head, the instrument could be a "lead" pipe. But when it's a verb, "lead" is the present and "led" is the past tense. The problem is that the past tense is pronounced exactly like the above-mentioned plumbing material ("plumb" comes from a word meaning "lead"), so people confuse the two. In a sentence like "She led us to the scene of the crime," always use the three-letter spelling. LIABLE/LIBEL If you are likely to do something you are liable to do it; and if a debt can legitimately be charged to you, you are liable for it. A person who defames you with a false accusation libels you. There is no such word as "lible." LIBARY/LIBRARY The first R in "library" is often slurred or omitted in speech, and it sometimes drops out in writing as well; and "librarian" is often turned into "libarian." LIGHT-YEAR "Light-year" is always a measure of distance rather than of time; in fact it is the distance that light travels in a year. "Parsec" is also a measure of distance, equalling 3.26 light-years, though the term was used incorrectly as a measure of time by Han Solo in "Star Wars." LIKE Since the 1950s, when it was especially associated with hipsters, "like" as a sort of meaningless verbal hiccup has been common in speech. The earliest uses had a sort of sense to them in which "like" introduced feelings or perceptions which were then specified: "When I learned my poem had been rejected I was, like, devastated." However, "like" quickly migrated elsewhere in sentences: "I was like, just going down the road, when, like, I saw this cop, like, hiding behind the billboard." This habit has spread throughout American society, affecting people of all ages. Those who have the irritating "like" habit are usually unaware of it, even if they use it once or twice in every sentence: but if your job involves much speaking with others, it's a habit worth breaking. Recently young people have extended its uses by using "like" to introduce thoughts and speeches: "When he tells me his car broke down on the way to my party I'm like, 'I know you were with Cheryl because she told me so.'" To be reacted to as a grown-up, avoid this pattern. (See also "goes.") LISTSERV "LISTSERV" is the brand name of one kind of electronic mail-handling software for distributing messages to a list of subscribers. Other common brand names are "Majordomo" and "Listproc". You can subscribe to the poodle-fluffing list, but not the LISTSERV. People at my university, where only Listproc is used, often (and erroneously) refer to themselves as managers of "listservs." English teachers are frequently tripped up when typing "listserv" as part of a computer command; they naturally want to append an E on the end of the word. According to L-Soft, the manufacturer of LISTSERV, the name of their software should always be capitalized. See their Web site for the details: http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8d/user/user.html#1.1 "LITE" SPELLING Attempts to "reform" English spelling to render it more phonetic have mostly been doomed to failure-luckily for us. These proposed changes, if widely adopted, would make old books difficult to read and obscure etymological roots which are often a useful guide to meaning. A few, like "lite" for "light," "nite" for "night," and "thru" for "through" have attained a degree of popular acceptance, but none of these should be used in formal writing. "Catalog" has become an accepted substitute for "catalogue," but I don't like it and refuse to use it. "Analog" has triumphed in technical contexts, but humanists are still more likely to write "analogue." LITERALLY Like "incredible," "literally" has been so overused as a sort of vague intensifier that it is in danger of losing its literal meaning. It should be used to distinguish between a figurative and a literal meaning of a phrase. It should not be used as a synonym for "actually" or "really." Don't say of someone that he "literally blew up" unless he swallowed a stick of dynamite. LOSE/LOOSE This confusion can easily be avoided if you pronounce the word intended aloud. If it has a voiced Z sound, then it's "lose." If it has a hissy S sound, then it's "loose." Here are examples of correct usage: "He tends to lose his keys." "She lets her dog run loose." LUSTFUL/LUSTY "Lusty" means "brimming with vigor and good health" or "enthusiastic." Don't confuse it with "lustful," which means "filled with sexual desire." MARSHALL/MARSHAL You may write "the Field Marshal marshalled his troops," but you cannot spell his title with a double "L." A marshal is always a marshal, never a marshall. MAUVE "Mauve" (a kind of purple) is pronounced to rhyme with "grove," not "mawv." MAY/MIGHT Most of the time "might" and "may" are almost interchangeable, with "might" suggesting a somewhat lower probability. You're more likely to get wet if the forecaster says it may rain than if she says it might rain; but substituting one for the other is unlikely to get you into trouble-so long as you stay in the present tense. But "might" is also the past tense of the auxiliary verb "may," and is required in sentences like "Chuck might have avoided arrest for the robbery if he hadn't given the teller his business card before asking for the money." When speculating that events might have been other than they were, don't substitute "may" for "might." As an aside: if you are an old-fashioned child, you will ask "may I go out to play?" rather than "can I go out to play?" Despite the prevalence of the latter pattern, some adults still feel strongly that "may" has to do with permission whereas "can" implies only physical ability. But then if you have a parent like this you've had this pattern drilled into your head long before you encountered this page. MEDIA/MEDIUM There are several words with Latin roots whose plural forms ending in A are constantly mistaken for singular ones. See, for instance, "criteria" and "media." Radio is a broadcast medium. Television is another broadcast medium. Newspapers are a print medium. Together they are media. Following the tendency of Americans to abbreviate phrases, with "transistor radio" becoming "transistor," (now fortunately obsolete) and "videotape" becoming "video," "news media" and "communications media" have been abbreviated to "media." Remember that watercolor on paper and oil on black velvet are also media, though they have nothing to do with the news. When you want to get a message from your late Uncle Fred, you may consult a medium. The word means a vehicle between some source of information and the recipient of it. The "media" are the transmitters of the news; they are not the news itself. MEDIEVAL AGES/MIDDLE AGES The "eval" of "Medieval" means "age" so by saying "Medieval Ages" you are saying "Middle Ages Ages." Medievalists also greatly resent the common misspelling "Midevil." MEDIOCRE Although some dictionaries accept the meaning of this word as "medium" or "average," in fact its connotations are almost always more negative. When something is distinctly not as good as it could be, it is mediocre. If you want to say that you are an average student, don't proclaim yourself mediocre, or you'll convey a worse impression of yourself than you intend. MIC/MIKE Until very recently the casual term for a microphone was "mike," not "mic." Young people now mostly imitate the technicians who prefer the shorter "mic" label on their soundboards, but it looks distinctly odd to those used to the traditional term. There are no other words in English in which "-ic" is pronounced to rhyme with "bike"-that's the reason for the traditional "mike" spelling in the first place. MISCHIEVIOUS/MISCHIEVOUS The correct pronunciation of this word is "MISS-chuh-vuss," not "miss-CHEE-vee-uss." Don't let that mischievous extra "I" sneak into the word. MISNOMER A misnomer is mistake in naming a thing; calling a debit card a "credit card" is a misnomer. Do not use the term more generally to designate other sorts of confusion, misunderstood concepts, or fallacies, and above all do not render this word as "misnamer." MORAL/MORALE If you are trying to make people behave properly, you are policing their morals; if you are just trying to keep their spirits up, you are trying to maintain their morale. "Moral" is accented on the first syllable, "morale" on the second. MORE IMPORTANTLY/MORE IMPORTANT When speakers are trying to impress audiences with their rhetoric, they often seem to feel that the extra syllable in "importantly" lends weight to their remarks: "and more importantly, I have an abiding love for the American people." However, these pompous speakers are wrong. It is rarely correct to use this form of the phrase because it is seldom adverbial in intention. Say "more important" instead. The same applies to "most importantly"; it should be "most important." MUCH DIFFERENTLY/VERY DIFFERENTLY Say "We consistently vote very differently," not "much differently." But you can say "My opinion doesn't much differ from yours." MUSIC/SINGING After my wife-an accomplished soprano-reported indignantly that a friend of hers had stated that her church had "no music, only singing," I began to notice the same tendency among my students to equate music strictly with instrumental music. I was told by one that "the singing interfered with the music" (i.e., the accompaniment). In the classical realm most listeners seem to prefer instrumental to vocal performances, which is odd given the distinct unpopularity of strictly instrumental popular music. People rejoice at the sound of choral works at Christmas but seldom seek them out at other times of the year. Serious music lovers rightly object to the linguistic sloppiness that denies the label "music" to works by such composers as Palestrina, Schubert, and Verdi. From the Middle Ages to the late eighteenth century, vocal music reigned supreme, and instrumentalists strove to achieve the prized compliment of "sounding like the human voice." The dominance of orchestral works is a comparatively recent phenomenon. In contrast, my students often call instrumental works "songs," being unfamiliar with the terms "composition" and "piece." All singing is music, but not all music is singing. MUTE POINT/MOOT POINT "Moot" is a very old word related to "meeting," specifically a meeting where serious matters are discussed. Oddly enough, a moot point can be a point worth discussing at a meeting (or in court)--an unresolved question-or it can be the opposite: a point already settled and not worth discussing further. At any rate, "mute point" is simply wrong. MYRIAD OF/MYRIAD Use no "of" after "myriad." The word is originally Greek, meaning 10,000, but now usually means "a great many." Its main function is as a noun, and the adjective derived from it shows its origins by being reluctant to behave like other nouns expressing amount, like "ton" as in "I've got a ton of work to do." In contrast: "I have myriad tasks to complete at work." NAUSEATED/NAUSEOUS Many people say, when sick to their stomachs, that they feel "nauseous" (pronounced "NOSH-uss" or "NOZH-uss") but traditionalists insist that this word should be used to describe something that makes you want to throw up: something nauseating. They hear you as saying that you make people want to vomit, and it tempers their sympathy for your plight. Better to say you are "nauseated," or simply that you feel like throwing up. Note that the English use "sick" exclusively for vomiting; when Americans say they feel sick, the English say they feel ill. Americans visiting Great Britain who tell their hosts they feel sick may cause them to worry needlessly about the carpeting. NEICE/NIECE Many people have trouble believing that words with the "ee" sound in them should be spelled with an "IE." The problem is that in English (and only in English), the letter I sounds like "aye" rather than "ee," as it does in the several European languages from which we have borrowed a host of words. If you had studied French in high school you would have learned that this word is pronounced "knee-YES" in that language, and it would be easier to remember. Americans in particular misspell a host of German-Jewish names because they have trouble remembering that in that language IE is pronounced "ee" and EI is pronounced "aye." The possessors of such names are inconsistent about this matter in English. "Wein" changes from "vine" to "ween," but "Klein" remains "kline." NIEVE/NAIVE People who spell this French-derived word "nieve" make themselves look naive. In French there is also a masculine form: "naif"; and both words can be nouns meaning "naive person" as well as adjectives. "Nieve" is actually the Spanish word for "snow." "Naivete" is the French spelling of the related noun in English. If you prefer more nativized spelling, "naivety" is also acceptable. EIGHTEEN HUNDREDS/NINETEENTH CENTURY "Eighteen hundreds," "sixteen hundreds" and so forth are not exactly errors; the problem is that they are used almost exclusively by people who are nervous about saying "nineteenth century" when, after all, the years in that century begin with the number eighteen. This should be simple: few people are unclear about the fact that this is the twentieth century even though our dates begin with nineteen. Just be consistent about adding one to the second digit in a year and you've got the number of its century. It took a hundred years to get to the year 100, so the next hundred years, which are named "101," "102," etc. were in the second century. This also works BC. The four hundreds BC are the fifth century BC. Using phrases like "eighteen hundreds" is a signal to your readers that you are weak in math and history alike. On a related point, because our calendar started with the year 1 instead of a year zero, the third millennium of the Common Era will not begin until January 1, 2001. The year 2000 is the last year of the second millennium, not the first of the third. But because people get all excited by Big Round Numbers, the turn of the millennium will be celebrated a year early no matter how many of us point out the erroneous calculation involved. NONPLUSSED "Nonplussed" means to be stuck, often in a puzzling or embarrassing way, unable to go further ("non"="no" + "plus"="further"). It does not mean, as many people seem to think, "calm, in control." NOONE/NO ONE Shall we meet at Ye Olde Sandwyche Shoppe at Noone? "No one" is always two separate words, unlike "anyone" and "someone." NOTORIOUS "Notorious" means famous in a bad way, as in "Nero was notorious for giving long recitals of his tedious poetry." Occasionally writers deliberately use it in a positive sense to suggest irony or wit, but this is a very feeble and tired device. Nothing admirable should be called "notorious." NUCLEAR This isn't a writing problem, but a pronunciation error. President Eisenhower used to consistently switch the two middle syllables, leading many journalists to imitate him and say "nuk-yuh-lar" instead of the correct "nuk-lee-ar." The confusion extends also to "nucleus." Many people can't even hear the mistake when they make it, and only scientists and a few others will catch the mispronunciation; but you lose credibility if you are an anti-nuclear protester who doesn't know how to pronounce "nuclear." Here's one way to remember: we need a "new, clear" understanding of the issues; let's stop saying "Nuke you!" OFTEN People striving for sophistication often pronounce the "T" in this word, but true sophisticates know that the masses are correct in saying "offen." ONE-DIMENSIONAL/TWO-DIMENSIONAL Once upon a time most folks knew that "three-dimensional" characters or ideas were rounded, fleshed out, complex, and "two-dimensional" ones were flat and uninteresting. It seems that the knowledge of basic geometry has declined in recent years, because today we hear such characters and ideas described as "one-dimensional." According to Euclid, no object can be one-dimensional (of course, according to modern physics, even two-dimensionality is only an abstract concept). If you are still bothered by the notion that two dimensions are one too many, just use "flat." ONE IN THE SAME/ONE AND THE SAME The old expression "they are one and the same" is now often mangled into the roughly phonetic equivalent "one in the same." The use of "one" here to mean "identical with each other" is familiar from phrases like "Jane and John act as one." They are one, they are the same. ONE OF THE ONLY/ONE OF THE FEW "Only" has its root in "one," as should be obvious from looking at it. But we lose sight of this because of phrases like "only a few" and "only some," which lead in turn to the mistaken "one of the only." "The only" always refers to one item only; so the correct expression is "one of the few." Compare with the similarly mistaken "very unique." ONLY Writers often inadvertently create confusion by placing "only" incorrectly in a sentence. It should go immediately before the word or phrase which it modifies. "I lost my only shirt" means that I had but one to begin with. "I lost only my shirt" means I didn't lose anything else. "Only I lost my shirt" means that I was the only person in my group to lose a shirt. Strictly speaking, "I only lost my shirt" should mean I didn't destroy it or have it stolen-I just lost it; but in common speech this is usually understood as being identical with "I lost only my shirt." Scrutinize your uses of "only" to make sure you are not creating unwanted ambiguities. ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE Many pretentious writers have begun to use the expression "orders of magnitude" without understanding what it means. The concept derives from the scientific notation of very large numbers in which each order of magnitude is ten times the previous one. When the bacteria in a flask have multiplied from some hundreds to some thousands, it is very handy to say that their numbers have increased by an order of magnitude, and when they have increased to some millions, that their numbers have increased by four orders of magnitude. Number language generally confuses people. Many seem to suppose that a 100% increase must be pretty much the same as an increase by an order of magnitude, but in fact such an increase represents merely a doubling of quantity. A "hundredfold increase" is even bigger: one hundred times as much. If you don't have a firm grasp on such concepts, it's best to avoid the expression altogether. After all, "Our audience is ten times as big now as when the show opened" makes the same point more clearly than "Our audience has increased by an order of magnitude." Compare with "quantum leap." ORDINANCE/ORDNANCE A law is an ordinance, but a gun is a piece of ordnance. ORGANIC The word "organic" is used in all sorts of contexts, often in a highly metaphorical manner; but the subject here is its use in the phrase "organic foods" in claims to superior healthfulness. There is no legally agreed-upon standard for "organic" food; but generally the label is applied to foods which have been grown without artificial chemicals or pesticides. Literally, of course, the term is a redundancy: all food is composed of organic chemicals (complex chemicals containing carbon). There is no such thing as an inorganic food (unless you count water as a food). Natural fertilizers and pesticides may or may not be superior to artificial ones, but the proper distinction is not between organic and inorganic. Many nitrogen-fixing plants like peas do a great job of fertilizing the soil with plain old inorganic atmospheric nitrogen. When it comes to nutrition, people are quick to generalize rashly from a narrow scientific basis. After a few preservatives were revealed to have harmful effects in some consumers, many products were proudly labelled "No Preservatives!" I don't want harmful preservatives in my food, but that label suggests to me a warning: "Deteriorates quickly! May contain molds, fungus, and other kinds of rot!" Salt is a preservative. ORIENTATE/ORIENT Although some dictionaries have now begun to accept it, "orientate" was mistakenly formed from "orientation," but the verb form is simply "orient." Similarly, "disorientated" is an error for "disoriented." See also "interpretate." OVER-EXAGGERATED/EXAGGERATED "Over-exaggerated" is a redundancy. If something is exaggerated, it's already overstressed. PALATE/PALETTE/PALLET Your "palate" is the roof of your mouth, and by extension, your sense of taste. A "palette" is that flat board which an artist mixes paint on. A "pallet" is either a bed (now rare) or a flat platform onto which goods are loaded. PARALLELISM IN A SERIES When you use a number of phrases in a series separated by commas or conjunctions they must all have the same grammatical form. "They loved mountain-climbing, to gather wild mushrooms, and first aid practice" should be corrected to something like this: "They loved to climb mountains, gather wild mushrooms, and practice first aid" (all three verbs are dependent on that initial "to"). Fear of being repetitious often leads writers into awkward inconsistencies when creating such series. PARAMETERS/PERIMETERS When parameters were spoken of only by mathematicians and scientists, the term caused few problems; but now that it has become widely adopted by other speakers, it is constantly confused with "perimeters." A parameter is a quantity or constant which varies depending on the instance being examined. The parameters of distance between the axles of a car and its turning radius are related. The perimeter of something is its boundary. The two words shade into each other because we often speak of factors of an issue or problem being parameters, simultaneously thinking of them as limits; but this is to confuse two distinct, if related ideas. A safe rule is to avoid using "parameters" altogether unless you are confident you know what it means. PARENTHESES The most common error in using parenthesis marks (besides using them too much) is to forget to enclose the parenthetical material with a final, closing parenthesis mark. The second most common is to place concluding punctuation incorrectly. The simplest sort of example is one in which the entire sentence is is enclosed in parentheses. (Most people understand that the final punctuation must remain inside the closing parenthesis mark, like this.) More troublesome are sentences in which only a clause or phrase is enclosed in parentheses. Normally a sentence's final punctuation mark-whether period, exclamation point, or question mark-goes outside such a parenthesis (like this). However, if the material inside the parenthesis requires a concluding punctuation mark like an exclamation point or question mark (but not a period!), that mark is placed inside the closing mark even though another mark is outside it. This latter sort of thing is awkward, however, and best avoided if you can help it. For some reason, many writers have begun to omit the space before a parenthetic page citation, like this:(p. 17). Always preserve the space, like this: (p. 17). PASSED/PAST If you are referring to time or distance, use "past": "the team performed well in the past," "the police car drove past the suspect's house." If you are referring to the action of passing, however, you need to use "passed": "when John passed the gravy, he spilled it on his lap," "the teacher was astonished that none of the students had passed the test." PEACE/PIECE It's hard to believe many people really confuse the meaning of these words; but the spellings are frequently swapped, probably out of sheer carelessness. "Piece" has the word "pie" buried in it, which should remind you of the familiar phrase, "a piece of pie." Classical scholars will note that "pax" is the Latin word for peace, suggesting the need for an "A" in the latter word. PEAK/PEEK/PIQUE It is tempting to think that your attention might be aroused to a high point by "peaking" your curiosity; but in fact, "pique" is a French word meaning "prick," in the sense of "stimulate." The expression has nothing to do with "peek," either. Therefore the expression is "my curiosity was piqued." PEASANT/PHEASANT When I visited the former Soviet Union I was astonished to learn that farmworkers were still called "peasants" there. In English-speaking countries we tend to think of the term as belonging strictly to the feudal era. However you use it, don't confuse it with "pheasant," a favorite game bird. Use the sound of the beginning consonants to remind you of the difference: pheasants are food, peasants are people. PENULTIMATE/NEXT TO LAST To confuse your readers, use the learned term "penultimate," which means "next to last," but which most people assume means "the very last." And if you really want to baffle them, use "antepenultimate" to mean "third from the end." PEOPLES In the Middle Ages "peoples" was not an uncommon word, but later writers grew wary of it because "people" has a collective, plural meaning which seemed to make "peoples" superfluous. It lived on in the sense of "nations" ("the peoples of the world") and from this social scientists (anthropologists in particular) derived the extended meaning "ethnic groups" ("the peoples of the upper Amazon Basin"). However, in ordinary usage "people" is usually understood to be plural, so much so that in the bad old days when dialect humor was popular having a speaker refer to "you peoples" indicated illiteracy. If you are not referring to national or ethnic groups, it is better to avoid "peoples" and use "people." See also "behaviors." PEROGATIVE/PREROGATIVE "Prerogative" is frequently both mispronounced and misspelled as "perogative." It may help to remember that the word is associated with PRivileges of PRecedence. PERSONAL/PERSONNEL Employees are personnel, but private individuals considered separately from their jobs are persons. PERSPECTIVE/PROSPECTIVE "Perspective" has to do with sight, as in painting, and is usually a noun. "Prospective" generally has to do with the future (compare with "What are your prospects, young man?") and is usually an adjective. But beware: there is also a rather old-fashioned but fairly common meaning of the word "prospect" which has to do with sight: "as he climbed the mountain, a vast prospect opened up before him." PERUSE This word, which means "examine thoroughly" is often misused instead to mean "glance over hastily." PHENOMENA/PHENOMENON There are several words with Latin or Greek roots whose plural forms ending in "A" are constantly mistaken for singular ones. See, for instance, "criteria" and "media" and "data." It's "this phenomenon," but "these phenomena." PICARESQUE/PICTURESQUE "Picaresque" is a technical literary term you are unlikely to have a use for. It labels a sort of literature involving a picaro (Spanish), a lovable rogue who roams the land having colorful adventures. A landscape that looks as lovely as a picture is picturesque. PIN number/PIN Those who object to "PIN number" on the grounds that the N in "PIN" stands for "number" in the phrase "personal identification number" are quite right, but it may be difficult to get people to say anything else. "PIN" was invented to meet the objection that a "password" consisting of nothing but numbers is not a word. Pronouncing each letter of the acronym as "P-I-N" blunts its efficiency. Saying just "PIN" reminds us of another common English word, though few people are likely to think when they are told to "enter PIN" that they should shove a steel pin into the terminal they are operating. In writing, anyway, PIN is unambiguous and should be used without the redundant "number." The same goes for "VIN number"; "VIN" stands for "Vehicle Identification Number." PLAYWRITE/PLAYWRIGHT It might seem as if a person who writes plays should be called a "playwrite"; but in fact a playwright is a person who has wrought words into a dramatic form, just as a wheelwright has wrought wheels out of wood and iron. All the other words ending in "-wright" are archaic, or we'd be constantly reminded of the correct pattern. PLEASE RSVP/ PLEASE REPLY R.S.V.P. stands for the French phrase "Repondez s'il vous plait" ("reply, please"), so it doesn't need an added "please." However, since few people seem to know its literal meaning, and fewer still take it seriously, it's best to use plain English: "Please reply." And for those of you receiving such an invitation: yes, you have to let the host know whether you're coming or not, and no, you can't bring along the kids or other uninvited guests. PLUG-IN/OUTLET That thing on the end of an electrical cord is a plug, which goes into the socket of the wall outlet. POINT IN TIME This redundancy became popular because it was used by astronauts seeking to distinguish precisely between a point in time and a point in space. Since most people use the expression in contexts where there is no ambiguity, it makes more sense to say simply "at this point" or "at this time." PODIUM/LECTERN Strictly speaking, a podium is a raised platform on which you stand to give a speech; the piece of furniture on which you place your notes and behind which you stand is a lectern. POLE/POLL A pole is a long stick. You could take a "poll" (survey or ballot) to determine whether voters want lower taxes or better education. POMPOM/POMPON To most people that fuzzy ball on the top of a knit hat and the implement wielded by a cheerleader are both "pompoms," but to traditionalists they are "pompons," spelled the way the French-who gave us the word-spell it. A pompom, say these purists, is only a sort of large gun. Though you're unlikely to bother many people by falling into the common confusion, you can show off your education by observing the distinction. PORE/POUR When used as a verb, "pore" has the unusual sense of "scrutinize," as in "She pored over her receipts." If it's coffee or rain, the stuff pours. PRACTICE/PRACTISE In the United Kingdom, "practice" is the noun, "practise" the verb; but in the U.S. the spelling "practice" is commonly used for both, though the distinction is sometimes observed. "Practise" as a noun is, however, always wrong in both places: a doctor always has a "practice," never a "practise." PRACTICLE/PRACTICAL Some words end in "-icle" and others in "-ical" without the result being any difference in pronunciation. But when you want somebody really practical, call on good old AL. PRAY/PREY If you want a miracle, pray to God; but if you're a criminal you prey on your victims. Incidentally, it's "praying mantis," not "preying mantis." The insect holds its forefeet in a position suggesting prayer. PRECEDE/PROCEED "Precede" means "to go before." "Proceed" means to go on. Let your companion precede you through the door, then proceed to follow her. Interestingly, the second E is missing in "procedure." PRECIPITATE/PRECIPITOUS Both of these adjectives are based on the image of plunging over the brink of a precipice, but "precipitate" emphasizes the suddenness of the plunge, "precipitous," the steepness of it. If you make a "precipitate" decision, you are making a hasty and probably unwise one. If the stock market declines "precipitously," it goes down sharply. PREDOMINATE/PREDOMINANT "Predominate" is a verb: "In the royal throne room, the color red predominates." "Predominant" is an adjective: "The predominant view among the touts is that Fancy Dancer is the best bet in the third race." PREDOMINATELY/PREDOMINANTLY "Predominantly" is formed on the adjective "predominant," not the verb "predominate." PREEMPTORY/PEREMPTORY "Peremptory " (imperative) is often misspelled and mispronounced "preemptory" through confusion caused by the influence of the verb "preempt," whose adjectival form is actually "preemptive." There is no such word as "preemptory." PREMIER/PREMIERE These words are, respectively, the masculine and feminine forms of the word for "first" in French; but they have become differentiated in English. Only the masculine form is used as an adjective, as in "Tidy-Pool is the premier pool-cleaning firm in Orange County." The confusion arises when these words are used as nouns. The prime minister of a parliamentary government is known as a "premier." The opening night of a film or play is its "premiere." PREPONE South Asian speakers have evolved the logical word "prepone" to mean the opposite of "postpone": to move forward in time. It's a handy word, but users of it need to keep in mind that those unfamiliar with their dialect will be baffled by it. PRESCRIBE/PROSCRIBE You recommend something when you prescribe it, but you forbid it when you proscribe it. The usually positive function of "pro-" confuses many people. PRIMER When this word is used in the U.S.to mean "elementary textbook" it is pronounced with a short "I": "primmer" (rhymes with "dimmer"). All other meanings are pronounced with a long "I": "prymer" (rhymes with "timer"). PRINCIPAL/PRINCIPLE Generations of teachers have tried to drill this one into students' heads by reminding them, "The principal is your pal." Many don't seem convinced. "Principal" is a noun and adjective referring to someone or something which is highest in rank or importance. (In a loan, the principal is the more substantial part of the money, the interest is-or should be-the lesser.) "Principle" is only a noun, and has to do with law or doctrine: "The workers fought hard for the principle of collective bargaining." PRIORITY It is common to proclaim "in our business, customer service is a priority," but it would be better to say "a high priority," since priorities can also be low. PROBABLY The two Bs in this word are particularly difficult to pronounce in sequence, so the word often comes out as "probly" and is even occasionally misspelled that way. When even the last B disappears, the pronunciation "prolly" suggests drunken slurring or, at best, an attempt at humor. AS TIME PROGRESSED/AS TIME PASSED Events may progress in time, but time itself does not progress-it just passes. PROPHECY/PROPHESY "Prophecy," the noun, (pronounced "PROF-a-see") is a prediction. The verb "to prophesy" (pronounced "PROF-a-sigh") means to predict something. When a prophet prophesies he or she utters prophecies. PRONOUNCIATION/PRONUNCIATION "Pronounce" is the verb, but the "O" is omitted for the noun: "pronunciation." This mistake ranks right up there in incongruity with "writting." PROSTATE/PROSTRATE The gland men have is called the prostate. "Prostrate" is an adjective meaning "lying face downward." PROTRAY/PORTRAY There are a lot of words in English that begin in "pro-." This is not one of them. When you make a portrait, you portray someone. QUALITY "Quality" is not by itself a synonym for "good." Don't write "We do quality work here" when what you mean is "We do high-quality work here." Quality may also be low. QUANTUM LEAP The thing about quantum leaps is that they mark an abrupt change from one state to a distinctly different one, with no in-between transitional states being possible; but they are not large. In fact, in physics a quantum leap is one of smallest sorts of changes worth talking about. Leave "quantum leap" to the subatomic physicists unless you know what you're talking about. QUIET/QUITE This is probably caused by a slip of the fingers more often than by a slip of the mental gears, but one often sees "quite" (very) substituted for "quiet" (shhh!). This is one of those common errors your spelling checker will not catch, so look out for it. QUOTE A passage doesn't become a quote (or-better-"quotation") until you've quoted it. The only time to refer to a "quote" is when you are referring to someone quoting something. When referring to the original words, simply call it a passage. QUOTATION MARKS The examples below are set off in order to avoid confusion over the use of single and double quotation marks. There are many ways to go wrong with quotation marks. They are often used ironically: She ran around with a bunch of "intellectuals." The quotation marks around "intellectuals" indicate that the writer believes that these are in fact so-called intellectuals, not real intellectuals at all. The ironic use of quotation marks is very much overdone, and is usually a sign of laziness indicating that the writer has not bothered to find the precise word or expression necessary. Advertisers unfortunately tend to use quotation marks merely for emphasis: "FRESH" TOMATOES 59 CENTS A POUND The influence of the more common ironic usage tends to make the reader question whether these tomatoes are really fresh. Underlining, bold lettering, all caps-there are several less ambiguous ways to emphasize words than placing them between quotation marks. In American usage, single quotation marks are used normally only for quoted words and phrases within quotations. British usage tends to reverse this relationship, with single quotation marks (or "inverted commas") being standard and double ones being used only for quotations within quotations. Single quotation marks are also used in linguistic, phonetic, and philosophical studies to surround words and phrases under discussion; but the common practice of using single quotation marks for short phrases and words and double ones for complete sentences is otherwise an error. Block quotations like this should not be surrounded by any quotation marks at all(though a passage this short should not be rendered as a block quotation; you need at least three lines of verse or five lines of prose to justify block quotation). When quoting a long passage involving more than one paragraph, quotation marks go at the beginning of each paragraph, but at the end of only the final one. Dialogue in which the speaker changes with each paragraph has each speech enclosed in its own quotation marks. Titles of books and other long works which might be printed as books are usually italicized (except, for some reason, in newspapers); but the titles of short poems, stories, essays, and other works which would be more commonly printed within larger works (anthologies, collections, periodicals, etc.) are enclosed in quotation marks. There are different patterns for regulating how quotation marks relate to other punctuation. Find out which one your teacher or editor prefers and use it, or choose one of your own liking, but stick to it consistently. According to the "Chicago Manual of Style," commas are placed inside quotation marks: I spent the morning reading Faulkner's "Barn Burning," which seemed to be about a pyromaniac. Periods are also normally placed inside quotation marks (with the exception of terms being defined (see above). Colons and semicolons, however, are preceded by quotation marks. If the quoted matter ends with a question mark or exclamation point, it is placed inside the quotation marks: John asked, "When's dinner?" But if it is the enclosing sentence which asks the question, then the question mark comes after the quotation marks: What did she mean, John wondered, by saying "as soon as you make it"? Similarly: Fred shouted, "Look out for the bull!" but When I was subsequently gored, all Timmy said was "this is kinda boring"! Finally, I must lament that many standard character sets, including ASCII and basic HTML, lack true quotation marks which curl to enclose the quoted matter, substituting instead ugly "inch" or "ditto" marks. As far as I am concerned, there is not a single proper quotation mark on this page. Some browsers can translate the code for a true quotation mark (and true, curled apostrophes), but many cannot. RAN/RUN Computer programmers have been heard to say "the program's been ran," when what they mean is "the program's been run." RAVAGING/RAVISHING/RAVENOUS To ravage is to pillage, sack, or devastate. The only time "ravaging" is properly used is in phrases like "when the pirates had finished ravaging the town, they turned to ravishing the women." Which brings us to "ravish": meaning to rape, or rob violently. A trailer court can be ravaged by a storm (nothing is stolen, but a lot of damage is done) but not ravished. The crown jewels of Ruritania can be ravished (stolen using violence) without being ravaged (damaged). To confuse matters, people began back in the fourteenth century to speak metaphorically of their souls being "ravished" by intense spiritual or esthetic experiences. Thus we speak of a "ravishing woman" (the term is rarely applied to men) today not because she literally rapes men who look at her but because her devastating beauty penetrates their hearts in an almost violent fashion. Despite contemporary society's heightened sensitivity about rape, we still remain (perhaps fortunately) unconscious of many of the transformations of the root meaning in words with positive connotations such as "rapturous." Originally, "raven" as a verb was synonymous with "ravish" in the sense of "to steal by force." One of its specialized meanings became "devour," as in "the lion ravened her prey." By analogy, hungry people became "ravenous" (as hungry as beasts), and that remains the only common use of the word today. If a woman smashes your apartment up, she ravages it. If she looks stunningly beautiful, she is ravishing. If she eats the whole platter of hors d'oeuvres you've set out for the party before the other guests come, she's ravenous. REACTIONARY/REACTIVE Many people incorrectly use "reactionary" to mean "acting in response to some outside stimulus." That's "reactive." "Reactionary" actually has a very narrow meaning; it is a noun or adjective describing a form of looking backward that goes beyond conservatism (wanting to prevent change and maintain present conditions) to reaction-wanting to recreate a lost past. The advocates of restoring Czarist rule in Russia are reactionaries. While we're on the subject, the term "proactive" formed by analogy with "reactive" seems superfluous to many of us. Use "active," "assertive," or "positive" whenever you can instead. REAL/REALLY The correct adverbial form is "really" rather than "real"; but even that form is generally confined to casual speech, as in "When you complimented me on my speech I felt really great!" To say "real great" instead moves the speaker several steps downscale socially. However "really" is a feeble qualifier. "Wonderful" is an acceptable substitute for "really great" and you can give a definite upscale slant to your speech by adopting the British "really quite wonderful." Usually, however, it is better to replace the expression altogether with something more precise: "almost seven feet tall" is better than "really tall." To strive for intensity by repeating "really" as in "that dessert you made was really, really good" demonstrates an impoverished vocabulary. REALTOR For some reason, this word is often mispronounced as "real-a-ter" instead of the proper "ree-ul-ter." Incidentally, realtors insist that this is a term trademarked by the National Association of Real Estate Boards, that it must be capitalized, and that all non-members of that association are mere real estate agents. Common usage, however, normally ignores the distinction, despite their protests. REASON BECAUSE We often hear people say things like, "the reason there's a hole in the screen door is because I tripped over the cat on my way out." The phrase "is because" should be "is that." If you wanted to use "because," the sentence should be phrased, "There's a hole in the screen door because I tripped over the cat." Using both is a redundancy, as is the common expression "the reason why." REBELLING/REVOLTING Even though "rebel" and "revolt" mean more or less the same thing, people who are revolting are disgusting, not taking up arms against the government. REBUT/REFUTE When you rebut someone's argument you argue against it. To refute someone's argument is to prove it incorrect. Unless you are certain you have achieved success, use "rebut." RECENT/RESENT There are actually three words to distinguish here. "Recent," always pronounced with an unvoiced hissy S and with the accent on the first syllable, means "not long ago," as in, " I appreciated your recent encouragement." "Resent" has two different meanings with two different pronunciations, both with the accent on the second syllable. In the most common case, where "resent" means "feel bad about," the word is pronounced with a voiced Z sound: "I resent your implication that I gave you the chocolates only because I was hoping you'd share them with me." In the less common case, the word means "to send again," and is pronounced with an unvoiced hissy S sound: "The e-mail message bounced, so I resent it." So say the intended word aloud. If the accent is on the second syllable, "resent" is the spelling you need. RECUPERATE/RECOUP If you are getting over an illness, you are recuperating; but if you insist on remaining at the roulette table when your luck has been running against you, you are seeking to recoup your losses. REDUNDANCIES There are many examples of redundancies on these pages: phrases which say twice what needs to be said only once. Advertisers are particularly liable to redundancy in hyping their offers: "as an added bonus" (as a bonus), "preplan" (plan), and "free gift" (but look out for the shipping charges!). Two other common redundancies which are clearly errors are "and plus" (plus) and "end result" (result). Some other redundancies are contained in phrases sanctioned by tradition: "safe haven." REEKING HAVOC/WREAKING HAVOC The verb "wreak" and its relatives ("wrought" and "wright") have almost died out in English, so it is not surprising that many folks don't know what to make of this expression when they hear it. "Reeking" means "smelling strongly," so that can't be right. The phrase simply means "creating great destruction." "Havoc" has always referred to general destruction in English, but one very old phrase incorporating the word was "cry havoc," which meant to give an army the signal for pillage. To "play havoc with" means the same thing as to "wreak havoc." REGRETFULLY/REGRETTABLY Either word can be used as an adverb to introduce an expression of regret, though conservatives prefer "regrettably" in sentences like "Regrettably, it rained on the 4th of July." However, within a sentence "regretfully" may be used only to describe the manner in which someone does something: "John had to regretfully decline his beloved's invitation to go hang-gliding because he was terrified of heights." If no specified person in the sentence is doing the regretting, but the speaker is simply asserting "it is to be regretted," the word is "regrettably": "Their boss is regrettably stubborn." REIGN/REIN A king or queen reigns, but you rein in a horse. The expression "to give rein" means to give in to an impulse as a spirited horse gives in to its impulse to gallop when you slacken the reins. RELIGION Protestants often refer to "the Catholic religion." Catholicism is a faith or a church. (Only Protestants belong to "denominations.") Both Catholics and Protestants follow the Christian religion. RELUCTANT/RETICENT "Reticent" denotes only reluctance to speak; do not use it for any other form of reluctance. REMOTELY CLOSE "Not even remotely close" is a fine example of an oxymoron. An idea can be "not even remotely correct," but closeness and remoteness are opposites; and it doesn't make sense to have one modify the other. There are lots of lists of oxymorons on the Web, but they mostly mix jokey editorializing ("military intelligence" and "Microsoft Works") with true oxymorons. Good for a laugh, but not providing much guidance to writers. If there's a truly helpful oxymoron site you know of, I'd like to hear about it. REMUNERATION/RENUMERATION Although "remuneration" looks as if it might mean "repayment" it usually means simply "payment." In speech it is often confused with "renumeration," re-counting (counting again). REOCCURRING/RECURRING It might seem logical to form this word from "occurring" by simply adding a RE- prefix-logical, but wrong. The word is "recurring." The root form is "recur," not "reoccur." For some reason "recurrent" is seldom transformed into "reoccurrent." REPEL/REPULSE In most of their meanings these are synonyms, but if you are disgusted by someone, you are repelled, not repulsed. The confusion is compounded by the fact that "repellent" and "repulsive" mean the same thing. Go figure. RIO GRANDE RIVER/RIO GRANDE "Rio" is Spanish for "river," so "Rio Grande River" is a redundancy. Just write "Rio Grande." Non-Hispanic Americans have traditionally failed to pronounce the final "E" in "Grande", but they've learned to do it to designate the large size of latte, so perhaps it's time to start saying it the proper Spanish way: "REE-oh GRAHN-day." ROLE/ROLL An actor plays a role. Bill Gates is the entrepreneur's role model. But you eat a sausage on a roll and roll out the barrel. SAFETY DEPOSIT BOX/SAFE-DEPOSIT BOX "Safety" is rarely pronounced very differently from "safe-D" so it is natural that many people suppose they are hearing the word at the beginning of this phrase, but the correct expression is in fact "safe-deposit box." SAIL/SALE/SELL These simple and familiar words are surprisingly often confused in writing. You sail a boat which has a sail of canvas. You sell your old fondue pot at a yard sale. SALSA SAUCE/SALSA "Salsa" is Spanish for "sauce," so "salsa sauce" is redundant. Here in the U.S., where salsa now outsells ketchup (or catsup, if you prefer), few people are unaware that it's a sauce. Anyone so sheltered as not to be aware of that fact will need a fuller explanation: "chopped tomatoes, onions, chiles and cilantro." SATELLITE Originally a satellite was a follower. Astronomers applied the term to smaller bodies orbiting about planets, like our moon. Then we began launching artificial satellites but since few people were familiar with the term in its technical meaning, the adjective "artificial" was quickly dropped in popular usage. So far so bad. Then television began to be broadcast via satellite. Much if not all television now wends its way through a satellite at some point, but in the popular imagination only broadcasts received at the viewing site via a dish antenna aimed at a satellite qualify to be called "satellite television." Thus we see motel signs boasting: AIR CONDITIONING* SATELLITE People say things like "the fight's going to be shown on satellite." The word has become a pathetic fragment of its former self. The technologically literate speaker will avoid these slovenly abbreviations. *At least motels have not yet adopted the automobile industry's truncation of "air conditioning" to "air." SAW/SEEN The dialectical use of "seen" as the simple past tense of "see" gives the impression of illiteracy. Instead of "I seen the game on TV" say "I saw the game on TV." "Seen" requires a helping verb like "have": "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord." SCI-FI "Sci-fi," the widely used abbreviation for "science fiction," is objectionable to most professional science fiction writers, scholars, and many fans. Some of them scornfully designate alien monster movies and other trivial entertainments "sci-fi" (which they pronounce "skiffy") to distinguish them from true science fiction. The preferred abbreviation in these circles is "SF." The problem with this abbreviation is that to the general public "SF" means "San Francisco." "The Sci-Fi Channel" has exacerbated the conflict over this term. If you are a reporter approaching a science fiction writer or expert you immediately mark yourself as an outsider by using the term "sci-fi." SEAM/SEEM "Seem" is the verb, "seam" the noun. Use "seam" only of things like the line produced when two pieces of cloth are sewn together or a thread of coal in a geological formation. SHRIMP SCAMPI Almost every pretentious restaurant's menu these days features a dish called "shrimp scampi," which is meant to imply some vaguely Italian recipe for shrimp. "Scampi" are a sort of "shrimp" in Italian,* so "shrimp scampi" is a redundancy. What's next-"veal vitello" and "cheese formaggio?" *Specifically prawns, which are only a largish variety of shrimp. You wouldn't call a dish "shrimp prawns" now, would you? SCHIZOPHRENIC In popular usage, "schizophrenic" (and the more slangy and now dated "schizoid") indicates "split between two attitudes." This drives people with training in psychiatry crazy. "Schizo-" does indeed mean "split," but is used here to mean "split off from reality." Someone with a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality is suffering from "multiple personality disorder" (or, more recently "dissociative identity disorder"), not "schizophrenia." SEA CHANGE In Shakespeare's Tempest, Ariel deceitfully sings to Ferdinand: Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. This rich language has so captivated the ears of generations of writers that they feel compelled to describe as "sea changes" not only alterations that are "rich and strange," but, less appropriately, those that are simply large or sudden. Always popular, this cliche has recently become so pervasive as to make "sea" an almost inextricable companion to "change" whatever its meaning. In its original context, it meant nothing more complex than "a change caused by the sea." Since the phrase is almost always improperly used and is greatly over-used, it has suffered a swamp change into something dull and tiresome. Avoid the phrase; otherwise you will irritate those who know it and puzzle those who do not. SECOND OF ALL/SECOND "First of all" makes sense when you want to emphasize the primacy of the first item in a series, but it should not be followed by "second of all," where the expression serves no such function. And "secondly" is an adverbial form which makes no sense at all in enumeration (neither does "firstly"). As you go through your list, say simply "second," "third," "fourth," etc. SELF-WORTH/SELF-ESTEEM To say that a person has a low sense of self-worth makes sense, though it's inelegant; but people commonly truncate the phrase, saying instead, "He has low self-worth." This would literally mean that he isn't worth much rather than that he has a low opinion of himself. "Self-esteem" sounds much more literate. SHERBERT/SHERBET The name for these icy desserts is derived from Turkish/Persian "sorbet," but the "R" in the first syllable seems to seduce many speakers into adding one in the second, where it doesn't belong. A California chain called "Herbert's Sherbets" had me confused on this point for years when I was growing up. SILICON/SILICONE Silicon is a chemical element, the basic stuff of which microchips are made. Sand is largely silicon. Silicones are plastics and other materials containing silicon, the most commonly-discussed example being silicone breast implants. Less used by the general public is "silica": the oxide of silicon. SIMPLISTIC "Simplistic" means "overly simple," and is always used negatively. Don't substitute it when you just mean to say "simple." SINGLE QUOTATION MARKS In standard American writing, the only use for single quotation marks is to designate a quotation within a quotation. Students are exposed by Penguin Books and other publishers to the British practice of using single quotes for normal quotations and become confused. Some strange folkloric process has convinced many people that while entire sentences and long phrases are surrounded by conventional double quotation marks, single words and short phrases take single quotation marks. "Wrong," I insist. SNUCK/SNEAKED When Huckleberry Finn "snuck" out of a house he was acting according to his character-and dialect. This is one of many cases in which people's humorously self-conscious use of dialect has influenced others to mistakenly adopt it as standard. The correct word is "sneaked." SO FUN/SO MUCH FUN Strictly a young person's usage: "That party was so fun!" If you don't want to be perceived as a gum-chewing airhead, say "so much fun." SOCIAL/SOCIETAL "Societal" as an adjective has been in existence for a couple of centuries, but has become widely used only in the recent past. People who imagine that "social" has too many frivolous connotations of mere partying often resort to it to make their language more serious and impressive. It is best used by social scientists and others in referring to the influence of societies: "societal patterns among the Ibo of western Nigeria." Used in place of "social" in ordinary speech and writing it sounds pretentious. SOMEWHAT OF A/SOMEWHAT, SOMETHING OF A This error is the result of confusing two perfectly good usages: "She is somewhat awkward," and "He is something of a klutz." Use one or the other instead. SOUP DU JOUR OF THE DAY/SOUP OF THE DAY "Soupe du jour" (note the "E" on the end of "soupe") means "soup of the day." If you're going to use French to be pretentious on a menu, it's important to learn the meaning of the words you're using. Often what is offered is potage, anyway. Keep it simple, keep it in English, and you can't go wrong. STATIONARY/STATIONERY When something is standing still, it's stationary. That piece of paper you write a letter on is stationery. STEREO "Stereo" refers properly to a means of reproducing sound in two or more discrete channels to create a solid, apparently three-dimensional sound. Because in the early days only fanciers of high fidelity (or hi-fi) equipment could afford stereophonic sound, "stereo" came to be used as a substitute for "high fidelity," and even "record player." Stereo equipment (for instance a cheap portable cassette player) is not necessarily high fidelity equipment. Visual technology creating a sense of depth by using two different lenses can also use the root "stereo" as in "stereoscope." STRAIGHTJACKET/STRAITJACKET The old word "strait" ("narrow, tight") has survived only as a noun in geography referring to a narrow body of water ("the Bering Strait") and in a few adjectival uses such as "straitjacket" (a narrowly confining garment) and "strait-laced" (literally laced up tightly, but usually meaning narrow-minded). Its unfamiliarity causes many people to mistakenly substitute the more common "straight." Incidentally, the "street called Strait" in the King James Version of the Bible was narrow rather than free of bends. SUBSTANCE-FREE An administrator at our university announced recently that his goal was a "substance-free" campus, which I suppose fits in with the growing fad of "virtual education." What he really meant was, of course, a campus free of illegal drugs and alcohol, designated "controlled substances" in the law. This is a very silly expression, but if he'd just said "sober and straight" he would have sounded too censorious. How about "drug- and alcohol-free"? SUMMARY/SUMMERY When the weather is warm and summery and you don't feel like spending a lot of time reading that long report from the restructuring committee, just read the summary. SUPERCEDE/SUPERSEDE "Supersede," meaning to replace, originally meant "to sit higher" than, from Latin sedere, "to sit." In the Eighteenth Century, rich people were often carried about as they sat in sedan chairs. Don't be misled by the fact that this word rhymes with words having quite different roots, such as "intercede." SUPPOSE TO/SUPPOSED TO Because the D and the T are blended into a single consonant when this phrase is pronounced, many writers are unaware that the D is even present and omit it in writing. You're supposed to get this one right if you want to earn the respect of your readers. See also "use to." SURFING THE INTERNET "Channel-surfing" developed as an ironic term to denote the very unathletic activity of randomly changing channels on a television set with a remote control. Its only similarity to surfboarding on real surf has to do with the esthetic of "going with the flow." The Internet could be a fearsomely difficult place to navigate until the World Wide Web was invented; casual clicking on Web links was naturally quickly compared to channel-surfing, so the expression "surfing the Web" was a natural extension of the earlier expression. But the Web is only one aspect of the Internet, and you label yourself as terminally uncool if you say "surfing the Internet." (Cool people say "Net" anyway.) It makes no sense to refer to targeted, purposeful searches for information as "surfing"; for that reason I call my classes on Internet research techniques "scuba-diving the Internet." However, Jean Armour Polly, who claims to have originated the phrase "surfing the Internet" in 1992, maintains that she intended it to have exactly the connotations it now has. See her page on the history of the term: (http://www.netmom.com/about/surfing_main.htm). TAKE A DIFFERENT TACT/TAKE A DIFFERENT TACK This expression has nothing to do with tactfulness and everything to do with sailing, in which it is a direction taken as one tacks-abruptly turns-a boat. To "take a different tack" is to try another approach. TAUNT/TAUT I am told that medical personnel often mistakenly refer to a patient's abdomen as "taunt" rather than the correct "taut." "Taunt" ("tease") can be a verb or noun, but never an adjective. "Taut" means "tight, distended," and is always an adjective. TENANT/TENET These two words come from the same Latin root, tenere, meaning "to hold"; but they have very different meanings. "Tenet" is the rarer of the two, meaning a belief that a person holds: "Avoiding pork is a tenet of the Muslim faith." In contrast, the person leasing an apartment from you is your tenant. (She holds the lease.) THAN/THEN When comparing one thing with another you may find that one is more appealing "than" another. "Than" is the word you want when doing comparisons. But if you are talking about time, choose "then": "First you separate the eggs; then you beat the whites." Alexis is smarter than I, not "then I." THAT/WHICH I must confess that I do not myself observe the distinction between "that" and "which." Furthermore, there is little evidence that this distinction is or has ever been regularly made in past centuries by careful writers of English. However, a small but impassioned group of authorities has urged the distinction; so here is the information you will need to pacify them. If you are defining something by distinguishing it from a larger class of which it is a member, use "that": "I chose the lettuce that had the fewest wilted leaves." When the general class is not being limited or defined in some way, then "which" is appropriate: "He made an iceberg lettuce Caesar salad, which didn't taste right." THESE ARE THEM/THESE ARE THEY Although only the pickiest listeners will cringe when you say "these are them," the traditionally correct phrase is "these are they," because "they" is the predicate nominative of "these." However, if people around you seem more comfortable with "it's me" than "it's I," you might as well stick with "these are them." THEY'RE/THEIR/THERE Many people are so spooked by apostrophes that a word like "they're" seems to them as if it might mean almost anything. In fact, it's always a contraction of "they are." If you've written "they're," ask yourself whether you can substitute "they are." If not, you've made a mistake. "Their" is a possessive pronoun like "her" or "our": "They eat their hotdogs with sauerkraut." Everything else is "there." "There goes the ball, out of the park! See it? Right there! There aren't very many home runs like that." "Thier" is a common misspelling, but you can avoid it by remembering that "they" and "their" begin with the same three letters. Another hint: "there" has "here" buried inside it to remind you it refers to place, while "their" has "heir" buried in it to remind you that it has to do with possession. THEIRSELVES/THEMSELVES There is no such word as "theirselves" (and you certainly can't spell it "theirselfs" or "thierselves"); it's "themselves." And there is no correct singular form of this non-word; instead of "theirself" use "himself" or "herself." THERE'S People often forget that "there's" is a contraction of "there is" and mistakenly say "there's three burrs caught in your hair" when they mean "there're" ("there are"). Use "there's" only when referring to one item. THESE KIND/THIS KIND In a sentence like "I love this kind of chocolates," "this" modifies "kind" (singular) and not "chocolates" (plural), so it would be incorrect to change it to "I love these kind of chocolates." Only if "kind" itself is pluralized into "kinds" should the pronoun shift to "these": "You keep making these kinds of mistakes!" THESE ONES/THESE By itself, there's nothing wrong with the word "ones" as a plural: "surrounded by her loved ones." However, "this one" should not be pluralized to "these ones." Just say "these." THEY/THEIR (SINGULAR) Using the plural pronoun to refer to a single person of unspecified gender is an old and honorable pattern in English, not a newfangled bit of degeneracy or a PC-plot to avoid sexism (though it often serves the latter purpose). People who insist that "Everyone has brought his own lunch" is the only correct form do not reflect the usage of centuries of fine writers. A good general rule is that only when the singular noun does not specify an individual can it be replaced plausibly with a plural pronoun: "Everybody" is a good example. We know that "everybody" is singular because we say "everybody is here, " not "everybody are here" yet we tend to think of "everybody" as a group of individuals, so we usually say "everybody brought their own grievances to the bargaining table." "Anybody" is treated similarly. See an exhaustive essay on the subject by Henry Churchyard: http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~churchh/austheir.html. However, in many written sentences the use of singular "their" and "they" creates an irritating clash even when it passes unnoticed in speech. It is wise to shun this popular pattern in formal writing. Often expressions can be pluralized to make the "they" or "their" indisputably proper: "All of them have brought their own lunches." "People" can often be substituted for "each." Americans seldom avail themselves of the otherwise very handy British "one" to avoid specifying gender because it sounds to our ears rather pretentious: "One's hound should retrieve only one's own grouse." If you decide to try "one," don't switch to "they" in mid-sentence: "One has to be careful about how they speak" sounds absurd because the word "one" so emphatically calls attention to its singleness. The British also quite sensibly treat collective bodies like governmental units and corporations as plural ("Parliament have approved their agenda") whereas Americans insist on treating them as singular. THRONE/THROWN A throne is that chair a king sits on, at least until he gets thrown out of office. TIME PERIOD The only kinds of periods meant by people who use this phrase are periods of time, so it's a redundancy. Simply say "time" or "period." TO/TOO/TWO People seldom mix "two" up with the other two; it obviously belongs with words that also begin with a TW, like "twice" and "twenty" that involve the number 2. But the other two are confused all the time. Just remember that the only meanings of "too" are "also" ("I want some ice cream too") and "in excess" ("Your walkman is playing too loudly.") Note that extra O. It should remind you that this word has to do with adding more on to something. "To" is the proper spelling for all the other uses. TODAY'S MODERN SOCIETY/TODAY People seeking to be up-to-the-minute often indulge in such redundancies as "in today's modern society" or "in the modern society of today." This is empty arm-waving which says nothing more than "now" or "today." A reasonable substitute is "contemporary society." Such phrases are usually indulged in by people with a weak grasp of history to substitute for such more precise expressions as "for the past five years" or "this month." See "since the beginning of time." TONGUE AND CHEEK/TONGUE IN CHEEK When people want to show they are kidding or have just knowingly uttered a falsehood, they stick their tongues in their cheeks, so it's "tongue in cheek," not "tongue and cheek." TRADEGY/TRAGEDY Not only do people often misspell "tragedy" as "tradegy," they mispronounce it that way too. Just remember that the adjective is "tragic" to recall that it's the G that comes after the A. TROOP/TROUPE A group of performers is a troupe. Any other group of people, military or otherwise, is a troop. TRACK HOME/TRACT HOME Commuters from a tract home may well feel that they are engaged in a rat race, but that does not justify them in describing their housing development as a "track." "Tract" here means an area of land on which cheap and uniform houses have been built. TRY AND/TRY TO Although it is common in colloquial speech and will usually pass unremarked there, in writing try to remember to use "try to" instead of "try and." UNCONSCIENCE/UNCONSCIOUS Do people confuse the unconscious with conscience because the stuff fermenting in one's unconscious is often stuff that bothers one's conscience? Whatever the cause, there is no such word as "unconscience." And while we're on the subject, Freudian psychology does not use "subconscious" which implies something that is merely not consciously thought of, rather than something that is suppressed. VERY UNIQUE/UNIQUE "Unique" singles out one of a kind. That "un" at the beginning is a form of "one." A thing is unique (the only one of its kind) or it is not. Something may be almost unique (there are very few like it), but nothing is "very unique." UPMOST/UTMOST The word is "utmost," and is related to words like "utter," as in "The birthday party was utter chaos." "Upmost" may seem logical, but it's a sure sign of a person who knows spoken English better than written English. USE TO/USED TO Because the D and the T are blended into a single consonant when this phrase is pronounced, many writers are unaware that the D is even present and omit it in writing. See also "suppose to." VICIOUS/VISCOUS CIRCLE/CYCLE The term "vicious circle" was invented by logicians to describe a form of fallacious circular argument in which each term of the argument draws on the other: "Democracy is the best form of government because democratic elections produce the best governments." The phrase has been extended in popular usage to all kinds of self-exacerbating processes such as this: poor people often find themselves borrowing money to pay off their debts, but in the process create even more onerous debts which in their turn will need to be financed by further borrowing. Sensing vaguely that such destructive spirals are not closed loops, the folk process transmuted "vicious circle" into "vicious cycle." The problem with this perfectly logical change is that a lot of people know what the original "correct" phrase was and are likely to scorn users of the new one. They go beyond scorn to contempt however toward those poor souls who render the phrase as "viscous cycle." Don't use this expression unless you are discussing a Harley-Davidson in dire need of an oil change. VIDEO/FILM Many of us can remember when portable transitorized radios were ignorantly called "transistors." We have a tendency to abbreviate the names of various sorts of electronic technology (see "stereo" and "satellite"), often in the process confusing medium with content. Video is the electronic reproduction of images, and applies to broadcast and cable television, prerecorded videocassette recordings (made on a videocassette recorder, or VCR), and related technologies. MTV appropriated this broad term for a very narrow meaning: "videotaped productions of visual material meant to accompany popular music recordings." This is now what most people mean when they speak of "a video," unless they are "renting a video," in which case they mean a videocassette or DVD recording of a film. One also hears people referring to theatrical films which they happened to have viewed in videotaped reproduction as "videos." This is simply wrong. A film is a film (or movie), whether it is projected on a screen from 35 or 70 mm film or broadcast via the NTSC, SECAM or PAL standard. Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" is not now and never will be a "video." VINAGARETTE/VINAIGRETTE Naive diners and restaurant workers alike commonly mispronounce the classic French dressing called "vinaigrette" as if it were "vinegarette." To be more sophisticated, say "vin-uh-GRETT" (the first syllable rhymes with "seen"). VITAE/VITA The scholarly term in Latin for a resume is "curriculum vitae," which means "course of one's life" (often abbreviated "CV"). The "-ae" ending indicates the genitive (possessive) in this case. But when people drop the the "curriculum" part, "vitae" creates the impression that another use of the "-ae" ending in Latin is at work: the plural. Unless you are going to claim credit for accomplishments in previous incarnations, you should refer to your "vita," not your "vitae." Because "vita" has now entered into standard English usage, its plural is "vitas." "Resume," by the way, is a French word with both "Es" accented, and literally means "summary." In English one often sees it without the accents, or with only the second accent, neither of which is a serious error; but if you're trying to show how multilingual you are, remember the first accent. VIOLA/VOILA A viola is a flower or a musical instrument. The expression which means "behold!" is "voila." It comes from a French expression literally meaning "look there!" In French it is spelled with a grave accent over the A, but when it was adopted into English, it lost its accent. Such barbarous misspellings as "vwala" are even worse, caused by the reluctance of English speakers to believe that "OI" can represent the sound "wah," as it usually does in French. VOLUMPTUOUS/VOLUPTUOUS Given the current mania for slim, taut bodies, it is understandable-if amusing-that some folks should confuse voluptuousness with lumpiness. In fact, "voluptuous" is derived from Latin "voluptas," which refers to sensual pleasure and not to shape at all. A voluptuous body is a luxurious body. WARY/WEARY/LEERY People sometimes write "weary" (which means "tired") when they mean "wary" (which means "cautious") which is a close synonym with "leery" which in the psychedelic era was often misspelled "leary"; but since Timothy Leary faded from public consciousness, the correct spelling has prevailed. WASH In my mother's Oklahoma dialect, "wash" was pronounced "warsh," and I was embarrassed to discover in school that the inclusion of the superfluous "R" sound was considered ignorant. This has made me all the more sensitive now that I live in Washington to the mispronunciation "Warshington." Some people tell you that after you "warsh" you should "wrench" ("rinse"). WEATHER/WETHER/WHETHER The climate is made up of "weather"; whether it is nice out depends on whether it is raining or not. A wether is just a castrated sheep. WERE/WHERE Sloppy typists frequently leave the "H" out of "where." Spelling checkers do not catch this sort of error, of course, so look for it as you proofread. WET YOUR APPETITE/WHET YOUR APPETITE It is natural to think that something mouth-watering "wets your appetite," but actually the expression is "whet your appetite"-sharpen your appetite, as a whetstone sharpens a knife. WHEAT/WHOLE WHEAT Waiters routinely ask "Wheat or white?" when bread is ordered, but the white bread is also made of wheat. The correct term is "whole wheat," in which the whole grain, including the husk, has been used to make the flour. "Whole wheat" does not necessarily imply that no white flour has been used in the bread; most whole wheat breads incorporate some white flour. WHEREABOUTS ARE/WHEREABOUTS IS Despite the deceptive "S" on the end of the word, "whereabouts" is normally singular, not plural. "The whereabouts of the stolen diamond is unknown." Only if you were simultaneously referring to two or more persons having separate whereabouts would the word be plural, and you are quite unlikely to want to do so. WHERE IT'S AT This slang expression gained widespread currency in the sixties as a hip way of stating that the speaker understood the essential truth of a situation: "I know where it's at." Or more commonly: "You don't know where it's at." It is still heard from time to time with that meaning, but the user risks being labelled as a quaint old Boomer. However, standard usage never accepted the literal sense of the phrase. Don't say, "I put my purse down and now I don't know where it's at" unless you want to be regarded as uneducated. "Where it is" will do fine; the "at" is redundant. WHIMP/WIMP The original and still by far the most common spelling of this common bit of slang meaning "weakling, coward," is "wimp." If you use the much less common "whimp" instead people may regard you as a little wimpy. WHO'S/WHOSE This is one of those cases where it is important to remember that possessive pronouns never take apostrophes, even though possessive nouns do (see it's/its). "Who's" always and forever means only "who is," as in "Who's that guy with the droopy mustache?" or "who has," as in "Who's been eating my porridge?" "Whose" is the possessive form of "who" and is used as follows: "Whose dirty socks are these on the breakfast table?" WHO/WHOM "Whom" has been dying an agonizing death for decades-you'll notice there are no Whoms in Dr. Seuss's Whoville. Many people never use the word in speech at all. However, in formal writing, critical readers still expect it to be used when appropriate. The distinction between "who" and "whom" is basically simple: "who" is the subject form of this pronoun and "whom" is the object form. "Who was wearing that awful dress at the Academy Awards banquet?" is correct because "who" is the subject of the sentence. "The MC was so startled by the neckline that he forgot to whom he was supposed to give the Oscar" is correct because "whom" is the object of the preposition "to." So far so good. Now consider this sort of question: "Who are you staring at?" Although strictly speaking the pronoun should be "whom," nobody who wants to be taken seriously would use it in this case, though it is the object of the preposition "at". (Bothered by ending the sentence with a preposition? See my "Non-Errors" section.) "Whom" is very rarely used even by careful speakers as the first word in a question; and many authorities have now conceded the point. Another sort of question in which "whom" appears later in the sentence: "I wonder whom he bribed to get the contract?" This may seem at first similar to the previous example, but here "whom" is not the subject of any verb in the sentence; rather it is part of the noun clause which itself is the object of the verb "wonder." Here an old gender-biased but effective test for "whom" can be used. Try rewriting the sentence using "he" or "him." Clearly "He bribed he" is incorrect; you would say "he bribed him." Where "him" is the proper word in the paraphrased sentence, use "whom." Instances in which the direct object appears at the beginning of a sentence are tricky because we are used to having subjects in that position and are strongly tempted to use "who": "Whomever Susan admired most was likely to get the job." (Test: "She admired him." Right?)
Where things get really messy is in statements in which the object or subject status of the pronoun is not immediately obvious. Example: "The police gave tickets to whoever had parked in front of the fire hydrant." The object of the preposition "to" is the entire noun clause, "whoever had parked in front of the fire hydrant," but "whoever" is the subject of that clause, the subject of the verb "had parked." Here's a case where the temptation to use "whomever" should be resisted. Confused? Just try the "he or him" test, and if it's still not clear, go with "who." You'll bother fewer people and have a fair chance of being right. A WHOLE 'NOTHER/A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT It is one thing to use the expression "a whole 'nother" as a consciously slangy phrase suggesting rustic charm and a completely different matter to use it mistakenly. The "A" at the beginning of the phrase is the common article "a" but is here treated as if it were simultaneously the first letter of "another," interrupted by "whole." WOMAN/WOMEN The singular "woman" probably gets mixed up with the plural "women" because although both are spelled with an O in the first syllable, only the pronunciation of the O really differentiates them. Just remember that this word is treated no differently than "man" (one person) and "men" (more than one person). A woman is a woman-never a women. WRITTING/WRITING One of the comments English teachers dread to see on their evaluations is "The professor really helped me improve my writting." When "-ing" is added to a word which ends in a short vowel followed only by a single consonant, that consonant is normally doubled, but "write" has a silent E on the end to ensure the long I sound in the word. Doubling the T in this case would make the word rhyme with "flitting." YOUR/YOU'RE "You're" is always a contraction of "you are." If you've written "you're," try substituting "you are." If it doesn't work, the word you want is "your." Your writing will improve if you're careful about this. YOU'VE GOT ANOTHER THING COMING/YOU'VE GOT ANOTHER THINK COMING Here's a case in which eagerness to avoid error leads to error. The original expression is the last part of a deliberately ungrammatical joke: "If that's what you think, you've got another think coming." NON-ERRORS: (Those usages people keep telling you are wrong but which are actually standard in English.) Split infinitives For the hyper-critical, "to boldly go where no man has gone before" should be " to go boldly. . . ." It is good to be aware that inserting one or more words between "to" and a verb is not strictly speaking an error, and is often more expressive and graceful than moving the intervening words elsewhere; but so many people are offended by split infinitives that it is better to avoid them except when the alternatives sound strained and awkward. Ending a sentence with a preposition A fine example of an artificial "rule" which ignores standard usage. As Winston Churchill said, "This is the sort of English up with which I cannot put." See "The American Heritage Book of English Usage" at http://www.bartleby.com/64/C001/050.html. Jack Lynch has some sensible comments on this issue: http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/p.html#prepend. Beginning a sentence with a conjunction It offends those who wish to confine English usage in a logical straitjacket that writers often begin sentences with "and" or "but." True, one should be aware that many such sentences would be improved by becoming clauses in compound sentences; but there are many effective and traditional uses for beginning sentences thus. One example is the reply to a previous assertion in a dialogue: "But, my dear Watson, the criminal obviously wore expensive boots or he would not have taken such pains to scrape them clean." Make it a rule to consider whether your conjunction would repose more naturally within the previous sentence or would lose in useful emphasis by being demoted from its position at the head of a new sentence. Using "between" for only two, "among" for more The "-tween" in "between" is clearly linked to the number two; but, as the Oxford English Dictionary notes, "In all senses, between has, from its earliest appearance, been extended to more than two." We're talking about Anglo-Saxon here-early. Pedants have labored to enforce "among" when there are three or more objects under discussion, but largely in vain. Even the pickiest speaker does not naturally say, "A treaty has been negotiated among England, France, and Germany." Over vs. more than. Some people insist that "over" cannot be used to signify "more than," as in "Over a thousand baton-twirlers marched in the parade.""Over," they insist, always refers to something physically higher: say, the blimp hovering over the parade route. This absurd distinction ignores the role metaphor plays in language. If I write 1 on the blackboard and 10 beside it, 10 is still the "higher" number. "Over" has been used in the sense of "more than" for over a thousand years. Feeling bad "I feel bad" is standard English, as in "This t-shirt smells bad" (not "badly"). "I feel badly" is an incorrect hyper-correction by people who think they know better than the masses. People who are happy can correctly say they feel good, but if they say they feel well, we know they mean to say they're healthy.
Forward vs. forwards Although some style books prefer "forward" and "toward" to "forwards" and "towards," none of these forms is really incorrect, though the forms without the final "S" are perhaps a smidgen more formal. The spelling "foreword" applies exclusively to the introductory matter in a book. Gender/sex Feminists eager to remove references to sexuality from discussions of females and males not involving mating or reproduction revived an older meaning of "gender" which had come to refer in modern times chiefly to language, as a synonym for "sex" in phrases such as "Our goal is to achieve gender equality." Americans, always nervous about sex, eagerly embraced this usage, which is now standard. In some scholarly fields, "sex" is used to label biologically determined aspects of maleness and femaleness (reproduction, etc.) while "gender" refers to their socially determined aspects (behavior, attitudes, etc.); but in ordinary speech this distinction is not always maintained. It is disingenuous to pretend that people who use "gender" in the new senses are making an error, just as it is disingenuous to maintain that "Ms." means "manuscript" (that's "MS"). Nevertheless, I must admit I was startled to discover that the tag on my new trousers describes not only their size and color, but their "gender." Using "who" for people, "that" for animals and inanimate objects. In fact there are many instances in which the most conservative usage is to refer to a person using "that": "All the politicians that were at the party later denied even knowing the host" is actually somewhat more traditional than the more popular "politicians who." An aversion to "that" referring to human beings as somehow diminishing their humanity may be praiseworthily sensitive, but it cannot claim the authority of tradition. In some sentences, "that" is clearly preferable to "who": "She is the only person I know of that prefers whipped cream on her granola." In the following example, to exchange "that" for "who" would be absurd: "Who was it that said, 'A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle'?"* *Commonly attributed to Gloria Steinem, but at least one source says she was quoting Irina Dunn. "Since" cannot mean "because." "Since" need not always refer to time. Since the 14th century, when it was often spelled "syn," it has also meant "seeing that" or "because." Hopefully This word has meant "it is to be hoped" for a very long time, and those who insist it can only mean "in a hopeful fashion" display more hopefulness than realism. Momentarily "The plane will be landing momentarily" says the flight attendant, and the grumpy grammarian in seat 36B thinks to himself, "So we're going to touch down for just a moment?" Everyone else thinks, "Just a moment now before we land." Back in the 1920s when this use of "momentarily" was first spreading on both sides of the Atlantic, one might have been accused of misusing the word; but by now it's listed without comment as one of the standard definitions in most dictionaries. Lend vs. loan "Loan me your hat" was just as correct everywhere as "lend me your ears" until the British made "lend" the preferred verb, relegating "loan" to the thing being lent. However, as in so many cases, Americans kept the older pattern, which in its turn has influenced modern British usage so that those insisting that "loan" can only be a noun are in the minority. Scan vs. skim Those who insist that "scan" can never be a synonym of "skim" have lost the battle. It is true that the word originally meant "to scrutinize," but it has now evolved into one of those unfortunate words with two opposite meanings: to examine closely (now rare) and to glance at quickly (much more common). It would be difficult to say which of these two meanings is more prominent in the computer-related usage, to "scan a document." Near miss It is futile to protest that "near miss" should be "near collision." This expression is a condensed version of something like "a miss that came very near to being a collision," and is similar to "narrow escape." Everyone knows what is meant by it and almost everyone uses it. It should be noted that the expression can also be used in the sense of almost succeeding in striking a desired target: "His Cointreau souffle was a near miss." "None" singular vs. plural Some people insist that since "none" is derived from "no one" it should always be singular: "none of us is having dessert." However, the earliest form in English is "nan" and "none" is in fact most often treated as a plural. "None of us are having dessert" will do just fine. Off of For most Americans, the natural thing to say is "Climb down off of [pronounced "offa"] that horse, Tex, with your hands in the air;" but many people urge that the "of" should be omitted as redundant. It may well be superfluous, but common usage has rendered "off of" so standard as to generally pass unnoticed. "Gotten" should be "got." In England, the old word "gotten" dropped out of use except in such stock phrases as "ill-gotten" and "gotten up," but in the U.S. it is still considered interchangeable with "got" as the past participle of "get." Persuade vs. convince Some people like to distinguish between these two words by insisting that you persuade people until you have convinced them; but "persuade" as a synonym for "convince" goes back at least to the 16th century. It can mean both to attempt to convince and to succeed. It is no longer common to say things like "I am persuaded that you are an illiterate fool," but even this usage is not in itself wrong. "Preventive" is the adjective, "preventative" the noun. I must say I like the sound of this distinction, but in fact the two are interchangeable as both nouns and adjectives, though many prefer "preventive" as being shorter and simpler. "Preventative" used as an adjective dates back to the 17th century, as does "preventive" as a noun. People are healthy; vegetables are healthful. Logic and tradition are on the side of those who make this distinction, but I'm afraid phrases like "part of a healthy breakfast" have become so widespread that they are rarely perceived as erroneous except by the hyper-correct. On a related though slightly different subject, it is interesting to note that in English adjectives connected to sensations in the perceiver of an object or event are often transferred to the object or event itself. In the 19th century it was not uncommon to refer, for instance, to a "grateful shower of rain," and we still say "a gloomy landscape," "a cheerful sight" and "a happy coincidence." Dinner is done; people are finished. I pronounce this an antiquated distinction rarely observed in modern speech. Nobody really supposes the speaker is saying he or she has been roasted to a turn. In older usage people said, "I have done" to indicate they had completed an action. "I am done" is not really so very different. "You've got mail" should be "you have mail." The "have" contracted in phrases like this is merely an auxiliary verb indicating the present perfect tense, not an expression of possession. It is not a redundancy. Compare: "You've sent the mail." It's "cut the muster," not "cut the mustard." This etymology seems plausible at first. Its proponents often trace it to the American Civil War. We do have the analogous expression "to pass muster," which probably first suggested this alternative; but although the origins of "cut the mustard" are somewhat obscure, the latter is definitely the form used in all sorts of writing throughout the twentieth century. Common sense would suggest that a person cutting a muster is not someone being selected as fit, but someone eliminating the unfit. Here is the article on "cut the mustard" from the "faq" (frequently asked questions list) of the UseNet newsgroup alt.usage.english: This expression meaning "to achieve the required standard" is first recorded in an O. Henry story of 1902: "So I looked around and found a proposition [a woman] that exactly cut the mustard." It may come from a cowboy expression, "the proper mustard", meaning "the genuine thing", and a resulting use of "mustard" to denote the best of anything. O. Henry in Cabbages and Kings (1894) called mustard "the main attraction": "I'm not headlined in the bills, but I'm the mustard in the salad dressing, just the same." Figurative use of "mustard" as a positive superlative dates from 1659 in the phrase "keen as mustard", and use of "cut" to denote rank (as in "a cut above") dates from the 18th century. Other theories are that it is a corruption of the military phrase "to pass muster" ("muster", from Latin _monstrare_="to show", means "to assemble (troops), s for inspection"); that it refers to the practice of adding vinegar to ground-up mustard seed to "cut" the bitter taste; that it literally means "cut mustard" as an example of a difficult task, mustard being a relatively tough crop that grows close to the ground; and that it literally means "cut mustard" as an example of an easy task (via the negative expression "can't even cut the mustard"), mustard being easier to cut at the table than butter. The more-or-less synonymous expression "cut it" (as in "'Sorry' doesn't cut it") seems to be more recent and may derive from "cut the mustard". It's "carrot on a stick," not "carrot or stick." Authoritative dictionaries agree, the original expression refers to offering to reward a stubborn mule or donkey with a carrot or threatening to beat it with a stick and not to a carrot being dangled from a stick. The Usenet Newsgroup alt.usage.english has debated this expression several times. No one there presented definitive evidence, but dictionaries agree the proper expression is "the carrot or the stick". One person on the Web mentions an old "Little Rascals" short in which an animal was tempted to forward motion by a carrot dangling from a stick. I think the image is much older than that, going back to old magazine cartoons (certainly older than the animated cartoons referred to by correspondents on alt.usage.english); but I'll bet that the cartoon idea stemmed from loose association with the original phrase "the carrot or the stick" rather than the other way around. An odd variant is the claim broadcast on National Public Radio March 21, 1999 that one Zebediah Smith originated this technique of motivating stubborn animals. This is almost certainly an urban legend. Note that the people who argue for "carrot on a stick" never cite any documentable early use of the supposed "correct" expression. For the record, here's what the Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary has to say on the subject: "carrot, sb. Add: 1. a. fig. [With allusion to the proverbial method of tempting a donkey to move by dangling a carrot before it.] An enticement, a promised or expected reward; freq. contrasted with "stick" (=punishment) as the alternative." [Skipping references to uses as early as 1895 which refer only to the carrot so don't clear up the issue.] "1948 Economist 11 Dec. 957/2 The material shrinking of rewards and lightening of penalties, the whittling away of stick and carrot. [Too bad the Economist's writer switched the order in the second part of this example, but the distinction is clear.] "1954 J. A. C. Brown Social Psychol.of Industry i. 15 The tacit implication that . . .most men . . . are . . . solely motivated by fear or greed (a motive now described as 'the carrot or the stick') "1963 Listener 21 Feb. 321/2 Once Gomulka had thrown away the stick of collectivization, he was compelled to rely on the carrot of a price system favourable to the peasant." The debate has been confused from time to time by imagining one stick from which the carrot is dangled and another kept in reserve as a whip; but I imagine that the original image in the minds of those who developed this expression was a donkey or mule laden with cargo rather than being ridden, with its master alternately holding a carrot in front of the animal's nose (by hand, not on a stick) and threatening it with a switch. Two sticks are too many to make for a neat expression. For me, the clincher is that no one actually cites the form of the "original expression." In what imaginable context would it possibly be witty or memorable to say that someone or something had been motivated by a carrot on a stick? Why not an apple on a stick, or a bag of oats? Boring, right? Not something likely to pass into popular usage. This saying belongs to the same general family as "you can draw more flies with honey than with vinegar." It is never used except when such contrast is implied. This and the above popular etymologies fit under the heading aptly called by the English "too clever by half." People should say a book is titled such-and-such rather than "entitled." No less a writer than Chaucer is cited by the Oxford English Dictionary as having used "entitled" in this sense, the very first meaning of the word listed by the OED. It may be a touch pretentious, but it's not wrong. "Spitting image" should be "spit and image." According to the Oxford English Dictionary the earlier form was "spitten image," which may indeed have evolved from "spit and image." It's a crude figure of speech: someone else is enough like you to have been spat out by you, made of the very stuff of your body. In the early 20th century the spelling and pronunciation gradually shifted to the less logical "spitting image," which is now standard. It's too late to go back. There is no historical basis for the claim sometimes made that the original expression was "spirit and image." "Connoisseur" should be spelled "connaisseur." When we borrowed this word from the French in the 18th century, it was spelled "connoisseur." Is it our fault the French later decided to shift the spelling of many OI words to the more phonetically accurate AI? Of those Francophone purists who insist we should follow their example I say, let 'em eat "bifteck." OTHER COMMONLY MISSPELLED WORDS Here is a list of some of the most commonly misspelled words in English which I consider not interesting enough to write up as separate entries. These are the correct spellings. Reading over the list probably won't improve your spelling much, but choosing a few which you find troublesome to write out correctly a few times may. absence, abundance, accessible, accidentally, acclaim, accommodate, accomplish, accordion, accumulate, achievement, acquaintance, across, address, advertisement, aggravate, alleged, annual, apparent, appearance, argument, atheist, athletics, attendance, auxiliary, balloon, barbecue, barbiturate, bargain, basically, beggar, beginning, believe, biscuit, bouillon, boundary, Britain, business, calendar, camouflage, cantaloupe, cemetery, chagrined, challenge, characteristic, changing, chief, cigarette, climbed, collectible, colonel, colossal, column, coming, committee, commitment, comparative, competent, completely, concede, conceive, condemn, condescend, conscientious, consciousness, consistent, continuous, controlled, coolly, corollary, convenient, correlate, correspondence, counselor, courteous, courtesy, criticize, deceive, defendant, deferred, dependent, descend, description, desirable, despair, desperate, develop, development, difference, dilemma, dining, disappearance, disappoint, disastrous, discipline, disease, dispensable, dissatisfied, dominant, drunkenness, easily, ecstasy, efficiency, eighth, eligible, enemy, entirely, equipped, equivalent, escape, especially, exaggerate, exceed, excellence, excellent, exhaust, existence, expense, experience, experiment, explanation, extremely, exuberance, fallacious, fallacy, familiar, fascinate, February, fictitious, finally, financially, forcibly, foreign, forfeit, formerly, forty, fourth, fulfill, fundamentally, gauge, generally, genius, government, governor, grievous, guarantee, guerrilla, guidance, handkerchief, happily, harass, height, heinous, hemorrhage, heroes, hesitancy, hindrance, hoarse, hoping, humorous, hypocrisy, hypocrite, ideally, idiosyncrasy, ignorance, imaginary, immediately, implement, incidentally, incredible, independence, independent, indicted, indispensable, inevitable, influential, information, inoculate, insurance, intelligence, intercede, interference, interpret, interrupt, introduce, irrelevant, irresistible, island, jealousy, jewelry, judicial, knowledge, laboratory, legitimate, leisure, length, lenient, license, lieutenant, lightning, likelihood, likely, loneliness, losing, lovely, luxury, magazine, maintain, maintenance, manageable, maneuver, marriage, mathematics, medicine, millennium, millionaire, miniature, minutes, mischievous, missile, misspelled, mortgage, mosquito, mosquitoes, murmur, muscle, mysterious, narrative, naturally, necessary, necessity, either, neighbor, neutron, ninety, ninth, noticeable, nowadays, nuisance, obedience, obstacle, occasion, occasionally, occurred, occurrence, official, omission, omit, omitted, opinion, opponent, opportunity, oppression, optimism, ordinarily, origin, outrageous, overrun, panicky, parallel, parliament, particularly, pavilion, peaceable, peculiar, penetrate, perceive, performance, permanent, permissible, permitted, perseverance, persistence, physical, physician, picnicking, piece, pilgrimage, pitiful, planning, pleasant, portray, possess, possessive, potato, potatoes, practically, prairie, preference, preferred, prejudice, preparation, prescription, prevalent, primitive, privilege, probably, procedure, proceed, professor, prominent, pronounce, pronunciation, propaganda, psychology, publicly, pursue, quandary, quarantine, questionnaire, quizzes, realistically, realize, really, recede, receipt, receive, recognize, recommend, reference, referred, relevant, relieving, religious, remembrance, reminiscence, repetition, representative, resemblance, reservoir, resistance, restaurant, rheumatism, rhythm, rhythmical, roommate, sacrilegious, sacrifice, safety, salary, satellite, scenery, schedule, secede, secretary, seize, separate, sergeant, several, shepherd, shining, similar, simile, simply, sincerely, skeptic, skeptical, skiing, soliloquy, sophomore, souvenir, specifically, specimen, sponsor, spontaneous, statistics, stopped, strategy, strength, strenuous, stubbornness, subordinate, subtle, succeed, success, succession, sufficient, supersede, suppress, surprise, surround, susceptible, suspicious, syllable, symmetrical, synonymous, tangible, technical, technique, temperature, tendency, themselves, theories, therefore, thorough, though, through, till, tomorrow, tournament, tourniquet, tragedy, transferred, truly, twelfth, tyranny, unanimous, undoubtedly, unnecessary, until, usage, usually, vacuum, valuable, vengeance, vigilant, village, villain, violence, visible, warrant, Wednesday, weird, wherever, wholly, yacht, yield, zoology MORE ERRORS People send me quite a few word confusions which don't seem worth writing up but which are nevertheless entertaining or interesting. I simply list a number of these below for your amusement. What was said What was meant acrosst across aerobic numbers Arabic numbers all goes well augurs well all of the sudden all of a sudden alphabeticalize alphabetize anchors away anchors aweigh anticlimatic anticlimactic ashfault asphalt assumably presumably baited breath bated breath based around based on beckon call beck and call bored of bored with built off of built on or upon by in large by and large Cadillac converter catalytic converter card shark cardsharp case and point case in point cheap at half the price cheap at twice the price chalked full chock full chicken pops chicken pox chomp at the bit champ at the bit circus sized circumcised component opponent conservative effort concerted effort conversate converse cortage cortege a couple guys a couple of guys crossified crucified cortage cortege cumberbun cummerbund deja vous deja vu Samuel R. Delaney Samuel R. Delany diswraught distraught doggy dog world dog-eat-dog world do to due to documentated documented down the pipe down the pike drownding drowning duck tape duct tape electorial college electoral college escape goat scapegoat exasperated exacerbated excape escape exhilarator accelerator expecially especially extracting revenge exacting revenge exuberant price exorbitant price far and few between few and far between flustrated frustrated foul swoop fell swoop genuses genera got my dandruff up got my dander up harbringer harbinger heared heard heart-rendering heart-rending Heineken remover Heimlich maneuver hobbiest hobbyist hone in home in howsomever however I seen I saw or I've seen ice tea iced tea imbedded embedded in lieu of in light of in another words in other words in sink in synch insinnuendo insinuation or innuendo insuremountable unsurmountable International Workers Industrial Workers of the World of the World (IWW) intragul integral jaundra genre just assume just as soon lamblasted, landblasted lambasted larnyx larynx laxidaisical lackadaisical low and behold lo and behold mean time meantime misconscrew misconstrue mitigate against militate against momento memento muriel mural nip it in the butt nip it in the bud oject d'art objet d'art overjealous overzealous pacific specific parody of virtue paragon of virtue patriarticle patriarchal pedastool pedestal permiscuous promiscuous perscription prescription Peruvian interest prurient interest perverbial proverbial poison ivory poison ivy portentious portentous poultrygeist poltergeist predominately predominantly pre-Madonna prima donna proof is in the pudding proof of the pudding is in the eating radical chick radical chic radioactive increase retroactive increase rot iron wrought iron seizure salad Caesar salad self of steam self-esteem sense of false security false sense of security simular similar skiddish skittish slither of cake sliver of cake somulent somnolent sorted story sordid story stain glass stained glass supposably or supposedly supposingly supremist supremacist techknowledgy technology thankyou thank you Theolonius Monk Thelonious Monk tie me over tide me over took it for granite took it for granted tow the line toe the line turpentime turpentine tyrannical yolk tyrannical yoke unchartered territory uncharted territory unthaw thaw untracked on track or off the track up and Adam up and at 'em Valentimes Valentines verbage verbiage viadock viaduct visa versa vice versa vocal chords vocal cords voiceterous boisterous vunerable vulnerable Wimbleton Wimbledon windshield factor wind chill factor without further adieu without further ado wolf in cheap clothing wolf in sheep's clothing world-renown world-renowned For more of this sort of thing, see Jack Smith: "How to Win a Pullet Surprise" (Franklin Watts, 1982). Commonly Made Suggestions I am getting a tremendous amount of mail about this site. I enjoy the compliments, try to answer the queries, and ignore the occasional insult (one wit wrote of my site: "I could care less!" Cute.) The volume of correspondence has surpassed my ability to respond to all of it; so please forgive me if you don't hear back from me. I do read your letters. I also receive many suggestions for additions. These are usually welcome, and I adopt many of them; but at least half my mail involves points I have already covered in one way or another. If you would be so kind, please go through the following checklist before writing me. * If your first encounter with my site was through a link to the list of errors, please go to the introductory page at http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/ and read that first. If you are creating a link to my site, please link to that page at http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/: otherwise users will miss important introductory remarks and fail to trip my counter. The ":8080" string found in some links is obsolete. * If you think a common error is missing from my list, check it and my to-do list by searching them with the "Find" command in your Web Browser. A surprising number of people don't know that they can search the text of any Web page with their browsers, but it's a trick worth learning. What the eye misses, the browser may catch. * Other places to look: "More Errors," "Commonly misspelled words," and "Non-Errors." If you have a fast connection, try opening and searching the text-only version of the site. This is the most efficient way to use your "find" command to search the whole site at once. * This is not a general English grammar site, nor am I a grammarian. I am a literature professor interested in English usage, some of which involves grammar. You will find a list of comprehensive English grammar and writing sites at the bottom of my list of errors under "Other Good Resources." These are the folks to ask for help with your writing. If you have checked thoroughly and still want to write me, please feel free; but be aware that I do not have time to deal with all my correspondence. "Common Errors" is not my main Web project, and I work on it only sporadically (sometimes not for many months at a stretch). To see what other sorts of things I spend my time on, check out my home page at http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/ and the World Civilizations site I manage at http://www.wsu.edu/~wldciv/. * If you believe I have not sent you a response you deserve, consider these possibilities before deciding that I am deliberately not answering you: 1) I may be travelling and not doing e-mail, 2) your return address may be incorrect, causing my replies to you to "bounce" (if you rarely get replies to your e-mails, this is a good possibility), or 3) you are a new AOL user who has erred on the side of caution by blocking all incoming correspondence by people unknown to you. * Before writing me, check the following list of commonly made suggestions. You shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition. Nonsense. See the second item under "Non-Errors." You should say "Write to me" rather than "Write me." Some people following the British tradition object to this usage; it's standard in the U.S. The expression probably evolved in analogy to expressions like "call me," "phone me" and "tell me." In the U.S., "write me" will do just fine in informal writing such as I use on this site. The word is "pernickety," not "persnickety." The original Scottish dialect form was indeed "pernickety," but Americans changed it to "persnickety" a century ago, and "pernickety" is generally unknown in the U.S. The Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary calls "pernickety" obsolete, but judging from my correspondence, some English people still use it. Americans have it all wrong, the correct usage is English (Canadian, Australian, etc.). Read my page called "The President's English." A name which ends in an S needs an additional S after the apostrophe when it is made possessive, e.g., "Paul Brians's Page." Some styles call for the extra S, some don't. I was forced by the publisher of my second book to follow this rule and I swore I would never do it again. I think it's ugly. Add "ensure/insure." Look under "assure/ensure/insure." Please add [some particularly obscure word]. This site is concerned with common errors in English, not bizarre or esoteric ones, although I often enjoy reading about them. I admit to discussing some not-so-common errors if I find them amusing enough. What is the correct spelling of _________? Please try a dictionary first. The best on-line one is the WWWebster Dictionary (Merriam Webster) I was always taught X but all the authorities I've looked in say Y. What's happening to the English language? It's changing-always has changed, and always will. When you reach the point that nobody seems to agree with your standard of usage any more, you may have simply been left behind. There is no ultimate authority in language-certainly not I-nor any measure of absolute "correctness." The best guide is the usage of literate and careful speakers and writers, and when they differ among themselves one has to make a choice as to which one prefers. My goal is to keep my readers' writing and speech from being laughed at or groaned over by average literate people. How can you possibly approve of ___________? Your effrontery in caving in to this ignorant nonsense is appalling [ranting, raving, foaming at the mouth . . .]. It's odd how some people with high standards of correctness seem to have no notion of manners at all. You and I both know that I am not the most conservative of commentators on usage. If you want to make a logical case for a rule I don't accept, please do so politely. Your list of terms would be easier to read if it were arranged in a bulleted list. Indeed it was when I had it arranged that way; but the list was extremely difficult to navigate because when users returned to it from an individual page they had to scroll up or down a long distance to find where they had left off or wanted to go next. I could arrange the terms in a table, but since I am constantly adding to the list it would create an impossible amount of work for me. The list is now arranged in Netscape 3 columns, but I have resisted inserting breaks after each item to promote compactness. It's a struggle to balance between legibility and navigational ease. If you can't see the columns, you need to upgrade to Netscape 3.0 or better. I have made the list of terms alphabetical to make navigation a bit easier. Note that you can always download and print off the entire site as a single text document to peruse at your leisure. And remember that you can search any Web page, including my list of errors with the "Find" command of your browser. You should refer your readers to the on-line versions of Strunk and Fowler. Well, I just did, didn't I? But not with enthusiasm. Because of copyright restrictions these are both very early editions (1918 and 1908!). If you're looking for confirmation of your views you may find solace, but the average reader has no way of knowing whether their advice still makes sense today. Would you use a 1908 dictionary to determine the meaning of a word now? Still want to write? My e-mail address is brians@wsu.edu. Please don't call me "Brian." My name is Paul Brians. Paul Brians Professor of English Washington State University Pullman, WA 99164-5020 Version of December 27, 2000.