Does word confusion rein supreme in your marketing office? Do you and your staff pour over documents for hours only to discover five or ten subtle errors when the 5000 copies come back from the printer? [Hold your e-mails. We know those words are wrong!] Check these oft-confused words and see if you can avoid some typical errors that people make all the time.
libel, slander. Libel may result from injurious remarks that are circulated in writing, slander from those that are spoken. But note that because words spoken over the radio or on television are likely to be recorded, what would normally be slander is treated as libel. In this connection it is useful to remember that, legally, publishing means making public and does not strictly imply printing. In a college or elsewhere, a lecturer who has large audiences but who never writes books could classically claim that he published regularly.
licorice, liquorice. The first spelling is standard in the United States; the second prevails in Great Britain. Both are distortions of the Greek glykyrrhiza (sweet root). Modern French réglisse is a further distortion by metathesis. Americans are often startled when, on the wrappers of toffee from England, they encounter liquorice. It is in fact the result of folk etymology--a spelling arrived at, one might guess, under the influence of liquor. If spelling were made either good or bad by any consideration but the custom of the country, one would have to say that the American spelling of this particular word, being closer to the Greek root, is the better one.
momently, momentarily. The difference between what lasts only for a little while (I forgot momentarily / I was dizzy but momentarily) and what may happen at any moment (He is expected momently) is worth making clear by keeping apart the uses of these two words. The merit of this is evident if, bearing in mind the short while meaning, we use the longer form in such a sentence as He will die momentarily. Note that in the Merriam-Webster Fifth Collegiate Dictionary, the word momentarily has no definition attached as at any moment. As English has grown, however, we now find the modern dictionary (Merriam-Webster Eleventh Collegiate Dictionary) including at any moment as a definition following momentarily. Is this a result of misuse and the dictionary's acquiescence? Would you fight this movement by using momently at your next opportunity? "Yes, Boss, I will join you and the clients in the conference room momently." Go ahead, be provocative!
pore, pour. You pour water. Our editors pore over your white paper searching for errors. These words are confusing, sure. They're derived from the same word pouren even though they are spelled differently in modern English. But look smart. Use them correctly in your writing. [The word pore for those things in your skin comes from an altogether different word poros, meaning passage.]
rein, reign. Even in the best agencies, confusion sometimes reigns, as does the queen. If your sales force is selling features your products will never have, you need to rein those salespeople in, as if you're a stagecoach driver and they're wild horses.
I hope this post helps you to overcome word confusion. What words do you find that are commonly confused? Add your comments.
Topics: misused words
Today we'll add a few more guidelines about using commas.
The comma, aside from its technical uses in mathematical, bibliographical, and other contexts, indicates the smallest break in sentence structure. It denotes a slight pause. Effective use of the comma involves good judgment, with ease of reading being the primary goal.Topics: punctuation
If you're an avid reader of our blog posts, then you know all about adverbs that do not end in ly and can be mistaken for adjectives. For example, An ill-clothed baby is correctly hyphenated, since ill is an adverb linked to clothed.
Topics: hyphenation, adverbs
OK, so the game's a close one and it's the fourth quarter. The chips and salsa are long gone, but the beer and sodas are holding out and the excitement is palpable.
Topics: adverbs, adjectives
Press releases, news reports, and newsletters often include quotations. As the writer, you sometimes find the need to explain or elaborate. You can use brackets to do so. Here's how.
Parentheses within a quotation enclose material that is part of the quotation. Brackets are the only mark of punctuation that indicate that the enclosed material is not part of the quotation.
The mayor said, "John is my choice for treasurer" may not be clear if John has not been identified or if more than one John has been mentioned. The mayor said, "John [Smith] is my choice for treasurer" uses brackets to give the surname without misquoting the mayor.
The mayor said, "He is my choice for treasurer" can be clarified by replacing the pronoun with the bracketed name: The mayor said, "[John Smith] is my choice for treasurer." The pronoun could be allowed to stay—The mayor said, "He [John Smith] is my choice for treasurer"—but it is usually better to omit the pronoun.
Here's another example: Smith said, "The Bard of Amherst [Emily Dickinson, 1830-86] is my favorite poet." This example uses the bracketed material after The Bard of Amherst rather than in place of it, because it is not just a pronoun that would be displaced; the writer does not want to lose the epithet that Smith used but does want to explain it.
The mayor said, "Smith [who is now out on bail] may not seem the obvious choice" uses brackets to supply material that may not be essential to clarify what the mayor said but that the writer thinks readers will find relevant.
Smith said, "I base my oratorical style on that of Pliny the Elder [actually, Pliny the Younger; the elder Pliny was a naturalist] and expect to overwhelm the electorate with my eloquence" uses brackets to enclose a correction. This type of bracketed correction seems snide and often is snide—which is all right when writers are being frankly derisive. But this can be objectionable if the writer is just slipping in a little dig to make himself appear superior to whomever he is quoting.
The overuse of [sic] indicates such a smart aleck. This can be a useful device when it is important to point out an error, but it should not appear after every minor error. Minor errors should either be allowed to stand for readers to notice themselves or else be quietly corrected, except in works of literary, historical, or legal significance in which such correction would be an unacceptable violation of the text.
Excessive uses of [sic] sometimes expose themselves: "Who [sic] shall I say is calling?" she warbled indicates that the writer, ignorant of proper grammar, thinks Whom would be correct. And GrammarPhile blog readers know "Who shall I say is calling?" is indeed correct!
Topics: quotations, quotation marks, punctuation
A compound construction is one in which two or more words share the same role in a sentence. When a pronoun is the final element in these constructions, there's a tendency to use the wrong form, particularly when the choice is between I and me. A good way to tell which form is correct in these situations is to see how the sentence would sound if that pronoun were by itself, or if it were the first word in the construction.
Topics: using I or me, I or me
People are sometimes confused regarding what words should be capitalized and what words should be all lowercase, especially when it comes to government bodies. Here's a partial list for you to refer to when writing your next proposal or press release:Topics: capitalization
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