{"id":3125,"date":"2005-09-11T15:17:38","date_gmt":"2005-09-11T22:17:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/jed\/2005\/09\/11\/3125.html"},"modified":"2005-09-11T15:17:38","modified_gmt":"2005-09-11T22:17:38","slug":"words-easily-confused-16-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/2005\/09\/11\/words-easily-confused-16-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Words easily confused #16"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>And since I'm apparently being Writing Curmudgeon Guy lately, I think it's time for another installment of \"words easily confused.\" (To see previous editions, search my journal for the phrase \"words easily\" (no quotes)&#8212;that'll show the whole series.)<\/p>\n<p>As usual, an asterisk indicates an incorrect-usage example.  I made up all the examples; they're not quotes from anyone in particular.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I keep seeing writers use <span class=\"word-as-word\">descendant<\/span> when they mean <span class=\"word-as-word\">ancestor<\/span>, and vice versa.<\/li>\n<li>Another one I've seen a lot lately: <span class=\"word-as-word\">imminently<\/span> for <span class=\"word-as-word\">eminently<\/span>. (*&nbsp;\"She was imminently qualified,\" *&nbsp;\"Their doom was eminent.\")<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"word-as-word\">honing in on<\/span> for <span class=\"word-as-word\">homing in on<\/span>.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"word-as-word\">atop of<\/span>, sort of combining <span class=\"word-as-word\">atop<\/span> with <span class=\"word-as-word\">on top of<\/span>.  I'd probably be fine with <span class=\"word-as-word\">atop of<\/span> in dialect or some kinds of dialogue, but probably not in semiformal prose.<\/li>\n<li>Common misspelling: <span class=\"word-as-word\">shinny<\/span> for <span class=\"word-as-word\">shiny<\/span>.<\/li>\n<li>Another one: <span class=\"word-as-word\">jist<\/span> for <span class=\"word-as-word\">gist<\/span>.<\/li>\n<li>Very common misspelling: <span class=\"word-as-word\">fair<\/span> for <span class=\"word-as-word\">fare<\/span>.  (*&nbsp;\"How fairs the night?\")<\/li>\n<li>Here's one that annoys me all out of proportion to its severity: <span class=\"word-as-word\">sirrah<\/span> is not a synonym for <span class=\"word-as-word\">sir<\/span>.  In fact, it's almost an antonym: <span class=\"word-as-word\">sirrah<\/span> is a term of disrespect, implying that the person being addressed is inferior to the speaker.  Perhaps it annoys me so much 'cause I too assumed that they must be synonyms all through my youth; I suspect I just leapt to conclusions, but it's possible that I encountered a misuse of it in a fantasy novel at an early age.<\/li>\n<li>Here's one that the dictionary says isn't wrong, but that annoys me nonetheless: use of <span class=\"word-as-word\">grizzly<\/span> for <span class=\"word-as-word\">grisly<\/span>.  \"It was a grizzly sight\" makes me think of bears.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"word-as-word\">viscous<\/span> for <span class=\"word-as-word\">vicious<\/span>.  (*&nbsp;\"It's a viscous circle.\")<\/li>\n<li>To <span class=\"word-as-word\">toe the line<\/span> is to put your toe on an imaginary line; it means to obey the rules.  (<cite>Brewer's<\/cite> says it comes from runners in a race having to line up, all with their toes on the same line.)  It's not <span class=\"word-as-word\">tow the line<\/span>.<\/li>\n<li>I hear that people are starting to write <span class=\"word-as-word\">shoe-in<\/span> for <span class=\"word-as-word\">shoo-in<\/span>.  In case any of y'all are confused, a <span class=\"word-as-word\">shoo-in<\/span> is a sure winner. (I assume it's the same <span class=\"word-as-word\">shoo<\/span> as \"shoo, fly, don't bother me\"; has nothing to do with (for example) getting one's shoe in the door.) I've read that <span class=\"word-as-word\">shoo-in<\/span> was introduced to the general public by <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Damon_Runyon\">Damon Runyon<\/a>; I don't know for sure that that's true, but it seems plausible, given that its first-citation date in MW11 is 1937.<\/li>\n<li>This one is one of those old \"spelling demons,\" but it's been popping up everywhere lately, even (iIrc) in news stories: <span class=\"word-as-word\">principle<\/span> to refer to the most important thing or person.  Should, of course, be <span class=\"word-as-word\">principal<\/span>.  I think maybe people know that <span class=\"word-as-word\">principal<\/span> refers to the head of a school (\"the princi<em>pal<\/em> is your pal\"), and so they think that must be the only valid use of the word. (*&nbsp;\"The food was the principle reason I stuck around.\")<\/li>\n<li>Several times lately, I've seen authors use the phrase <span class=\"word-as-word\">dry heaves<\/span> to refer to vomiting.  The term specifically refers to retching that doesn't bring anything up; that's what the \"dry\" part means.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"word-as-word\">unwieldly<\/span> for <span class=\"word-as-word\">unwieldy<\/span>.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"word-as-word\">whet<\/span> for <span class=\"word-as-word\">wet<\/span> and vice versa.  (*&nbsp;\"Wet your appetite,\" *&nbsp;\"Whet your whistle.\")<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"word-as-word\">want<\/span> for <span class=\"word-as-word\">wont<\/span>.  (*&nbsp;\"He had eggs for breakfast, as was his want.\")<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"word-as-word\">site<\/span> for <span class=\"word-as-word\">sight<\/span>.  (*&nbsp;\"He looked through the gun's site,\" *&nbsp;\"Let's stop by the construction sight.\")<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The following items are so common they're probably not even errors; I suspect many educated people consider them perfectly reasonable.  But they sure look wrong to me.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span class=\"word-as-word\">stepped foot on<\/span> instead of <span class=\"word-as-word\">set foot on<\/span>.  Google gives about 178K search results for the former, and about 2.15M search results for the latter.  Possibly a regional dialect thing?  Not sure.<\/li>\n<li>The construction <span class=\"word-as-word\">both A as well as B<\/span>.  I can say \"both A and B,\" and I can say \"A as well as B,\" but the combined form really sets my teeth on edge.  But at least one writer who I like and respect a great deal uses this construction and sees nothing wrong with it, so I can't quite say it's wrong per se.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>And since I&#8217;m apparently being Writing Curmudgeon Guy lately, I think it&#8217;s time for another installment of &#8220;words easily confused.&#8221;&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language","category-words-easily-confused"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3125\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}