SPELLCHECK IS A MARVELOUS INVENTION, but it can’t stop you from using the wrong word when the wrong word you’ve used is a word (but the wrong word). A great deal of copyediting entails catching these sorts of errors, which I assure you even the best writers commit.
A LOT/ALLOT, ALLOTTED, ALLOTTING
A lot of something is a great deal of it.
To allot is to assign.
ADVANCE/ADVANCED
To advance is to move forward. The past tense of “advance” is “advanced.”
An advance is a forward movement, as of an army, or a preliminary payment, as to writers who have not yet finished writing their books or children seeking to get ahead on their allowances.
As well, “advance” means beforehand (as in “supplied in advance”).
On the other hand, “advanced” refers to being ahead of the norm in progress or complexity, as an exceptionally clever student is advanced.
The mistaken use of “advanced” for “advance” (not least in publishing, where bound galleys*1 are too commonly misreferred to as “advanced editions”) is constant and unfortunate.
ADVERSE/AVERSE
“Adverse” means unfavorable or harmful, as in “We are enduring adverse weather.”
“Averse” means opposed to, repulsed by, or antipathetic toward, as in “I am averse to olives and capers.”
AFFECT/EFFECT
The traditional snap differentiation between “affect” and “effect” is that “affect” is a verb (“This martini is so watery, it doesn’t affect me at all”) and “effect” is a noun (“This martini is so watery, it has no effect on me at all”). Which is true as far as it goes. But only that far.
Because “affect” is also a noun: “a set of observable manifestations of a subjectively experienced emotion.” One may speak, for instance, of a psychiatrist’s commenting on a traumatized patient’s affect.
And “effect” is also a verb, as in “to effect change”—that is, to cause change to happen.
Other uses of these words and their variants—as an affected person affects a posh accent; one’s personal effects (the things you’re carrying around on your person); “in effect” in the sense of “virtually”—seem to cause less confusion.
AID/AIDE
To aid is to help.
An aide is an assistant.
AISLE/ISLE
This is a relatively new mix-up, at least so far as I’ve witnessed it, so let’s put a brisk stop to it.
Aisles are the passages between seating areas in theaters and houses of worship and airplanes, and between display shelves of groceries in supermarkets.
Isles are islands (usually small ones).
ALL RIGHT/ALRIGHT
Gertrude Stein made bemusing (or amusing, if you find Stein amusing) use of “alright” in her 1931 book How to Write:
A sentence is alright but a number of sentences make a paragraph and that is not alright.
As well, Pete Townshend wrote a song for the Who called “The Kids Are Alright.”*2
These and other uses notwithstanding—and quite possibly you don’t want to write like Gertrude Stein*3—“alright” is objected to, by some, as slovenly, and its appearance in print remains rare relative to that of “all right.” That said, that I’m regularly asked my opinion of the acceptableness or un- of “alright” suggests to me that it’s making inroads, like it or not. I continue to wrinkle my nose at the sight of it, perhaps because I can’t see that it has a worthwhile enough distinction from “all right” to justify its existence, as, say, “altogether” and “already” are distinctly distinct from “all together” and “all ready.” You may feel otherwise.*4
ALLUDE/
To allude is to refer obliquely, to hint at, as one alludes to a painful subject rather than discussing it explicitly.
An allusion is such an indirect, or allusive, reference.
To elude is to escape, as a bank robber eludes a dragnet.
A dream one half-recalls on waking that then slips entirely from one’s consciousness might be called elusive. That is, it’s difficult to hold on to.
ALTAR/ALTER
An altar is a raised structure on which, in religious ceremonies, sacrifices are made or gifts are left.
To alter is to change.
ALTERNATE/ALTERNATIVE
The Strictly Speaking Club, of which I’m an on-again, off-again member, will tell you that, strictly speaking, an alternate is a thing that replaces a thing, and alternatives—which travel in packs, or at least pairs—are options, any one of which might be viable. That is, if, owing to an accident, I’m forced off the road in Connecticut and must find my way to Boston via Pawtucket, I’m mandated to travel an alternate route, but on another day, should I opt to make my way to Boston on local streets rather than highways, I am simply choosing an alternative route.
As well, to do something every other Wednesday is to do that thing on alternate Wednesdays, to blow hot and cold in one’s feelings is to alternately like and dislike something, and constructing a lasagna with tiers of noodles, sauce, and cheese is to build it with alternate layers. “Succeeding by turns,” as the dictionary helpfully phrases it.
Also as well, an option beyond normalcy*5 is an alternative: alternative music, alternative medicine, alternative lifestyle, etc. (This use can carry a whiff of disapproval, so be careful how you apply it.)
One’s alternate identity (Percy Blakeney’s Scarlet Pimpernel, Bruce Wayne’s Batman, Paul Reubens’s Pee-wee Herman) is one’s alter ego.*6
AMBIGUOUS/AMBIVALENT
To be ambiguous is to lack clarity, to be murkily open to misinterpretation.
To be ambivalent is to have mixed feelings.
One’s meaning may be ambiguous, but one’s attitude is ambivalent.
AMOK/AMUCK
To run amok is, in its original sense, to launch, after a bout of brooding, into a murderous frenzy—a phenomenon, I find in my encyclopedia, particularly observed in Malaysia, whence the word “amok” derives. In its current, less homicidal context, the word evokes, for instance, what occurs when a mob of six-year-olds sugar themselves into howling agitation.
“Amuck” is simply a variant spelling of “amok,” and for quite some time it was the more popular English-language spelling. “Amok” overtook it in the 1940s, and I’d like to think that the 1953 Merrie Melodies classic Duck Amuck, featuring the eponymous Daffy, finished off “amuck” in any other but comical contexts.
AMUSE/BEMUSE/BEMUSED
To amuse is to entertain, delight, divert.
To bemuse is to perplex, befuddle, preoccupy, nonplus.
The rising use of “bemused” to describe, as I noted earlier, a sort of wry, unflappable, tuxedo-wearing, cocktail-sipping amusement may be unstoppable, but unstopped it will certainly kill off the usefulness of the word entirely—just as the redefinition of “nonplus,” which properly means to confuse-startle-unnerve, to mean its precise opposite (“I wasn’t frightened at all; I was completely nonplussed”), will, unchecked, render that word unusable in any fashion. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
ANYMORE/ANY MORE
“Anymore” = any longer or at this time, as in “I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
“Any more” = an additional amount, as in “I don’t want any more pie, thank you.”
You don’t have to search back too many decades to find frequent use of “any more” where we’d now, at least in America, write “anymore.” (The Brits remain less keen on the fused version.)
APPRAISE/APPRISE
To appraise is to assess or evaluate, as one has a gem appraised to determine its worth.
To apprise is to inform, as one apprises one’s boss of one’s vacation plans.
ASSURE/ENSURE/INSURE
One assures another person so as to relieve doubt: “I assure you we’ll leave on time.”
To ensure is to make something certain—something, not someone: “The proctor is here to ensure that there is no talking during the test.”
“Insure” is best reserved for discussions of compensation in the event of death or dismemberment, monthly premiums, and everything else involved in our betting that something terrible is going to happen to us.
BAITED/BATED
A trap is baited—that is, outfitted with bait.
“Bated,” which you are unlikely to chance upon disattached from the word “breath,” means reduced or moderated or suspended. To await something with bated breath is to await it with thrilled tension, to be on (to use a grand old word) tenterhooks.
BAKLAVA/BALACLAVA
Baklava is a Middle Eastern pastry made of filo dough, chopped or ground nuts, and an awful lot of honey.
A balaclava is a hood that covers the entire head (except, for the sakes of practicality and respiration, the eyes and the mouth). A ski mask, more or less.
Neither “baklava” nor “balaclava” should be confused with baccalà, which is dried, salted cod; a balalaika, which is a stringed instrument; or Olga Baclanova, the actress best known for being turned into a human duck in the 1932 horror film Freaks.
BAWL/BALL
To bawl one’s eyes out is to weep profusely.
To ball one’s eyes out would be some sort of sporting or teabagging mishap.
BERG/BURG
A berg is an iceberg.
“Burg” is a slangish, old-fashioned, often uncomplimentary term for a town or a city. If a town or a city is particularly dreary and puny and backward, it’s not merely a burg but a podunk burg.
BESIDE/BESIDES
“Beside” means “next to” (as in “Come sit beside me”).
“Besides” means “other than” (as in “There’s no one left besides Granny who remembers those old days”).
I’ve found that “beside” is frequently used when “besides” is meant, and I wonder whether people who have had it drilled into their heads to use “toward” rather than “towards,” “backward” rather than “backwards,” etc., view “besides” as a Briticism-to-be-avoided. Or, thinking it a relative of “anyways,” view it as an outright error.
BLACK OUT/BLACKOUT
The verb is “black out,” as one may black out after binge drinking.
The noun is “blackout,” meaning a loss of consciousness, an electrical power failure, or a suppression of information (as in a news blackout).
BLOND/BLONDE
“Blond” is an adjective: He has blond hair; she has blond hair.
“Blond” and “blonde” are also nouns: A man with blond hair is a blond; a woman with blond hair is a blonde. “Blonde” carries some heavy cultural baggage by way of the moldy pejorative “dumb blonde,” so use it thoughtfully and carefully, if at all.
I won’t pretend that “blonde” is unknown as an adjective. Here, plucked, via a random Internet search, from Emma Embury’s “The Interesting Stranger,” c. 1841: “the blonde hair, rosy cheeks and somewhat dumpy person of her merry sister.”*7 If you insist on using “blonde” as an adjective, I must insist that you apply it only to women, as the concluding e, via the French, marks the word as feminine.
BOARDER/BORDER
A boarder is a person who rents a room in a boardinghouse.
A border divides one geographical entity from another.
(My editor, looking over my shoulder, which is his job, suggested that this differentiation was obvious and thus deletable from this admittedly lengthy list. I wish.)
BORN/BORNE
The word you want for discussions of birth, actual or metaphorical, is “born,” whether one was born yesterday, born in a trunk or out of wedlock, or New York–born.
Otherwise, things that are carried or produced are borne. Diseases are insect-borne. A tree that bears fruit has, then, borne fruit. The right to bear arms is the right to have borne them.
And though triumph may be born out of tragedy, one’s grand schemes may not be borne out in reality.
BREACH/BREECH/BROACH/BROOCH
To breach is to break open or pierce.
A breach is a rupture or violation, as in a breach in a dam or a breach of etiquette. When Shakespeare’s Henry V cries, “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,” he’s literally referring to the gap his English troops have opened in the walls of a French city under siege. Note, please, that it’s “unto the breach,” not, as it’s often misquoted, “into” it.
A breach is also the leaping of a whale out of the ocean; the whale is thus said to be breaching.
“Breech” is an outmoded term for buttocks; thus trousers were once breeches. A breech birth is one in which the baby emerges buttocks (or feet) first.
To broach a subject is to raise it.
A brooch is a piece of decorative jewelry.
BREATH/BREATHE/BREADTH
“Breath” is a noun; “breathe” is a verb. One loses one’s breath. One breathes one’s last breath. Et cetera.
“Breath” is often written when “breathe” is called for. This is an especially easy error to commit and, once committed, difficult to catch, so I urge you to be on your guard about it.
No one ever seems to get “breadth” wrong—though it comes up every now and then in “Hey, how come it’s ‘length’ and ‘breadth’ and ‘width’ but not ‘heighth’?” conversations*8—so I simply note its existence.
BULLION/BOUILLON
The former is metal, the latter broth (which you may sometimes encounter dehydrated into little cubes).
CACHE/CACHET
A cache is a place for hiding one’s valuables or a collection of things so hidden. As a verb, then, to cache means to hide. One might, I suppose, cache one’s cache of cash in an underground cache.
Cachet is the quality of prestige and distinction, as Edith Wharton’s avaricious, ambitious Undine Spragg, in The Custom of the Country, marries for social cachet. And for cash.
Though the pronunciation of words, as opposed to their spelling and use, is, as I’ve mentioned, outside my bailiwick, I’m happy to point out that “cache” is pronounced exactly like “cash,” whereas “cachet” has two syllables: “ka-shay.”
CALLOUS/CALLUS
To be callous is to be hard-hearted.
A callus is a thickening of the skin.
Many, many, many people get this wrong, so if you can get it right you’ll earn a slew of brownie points.*9
CANVAS/CANVASS
Canvas is cloth, of the sort used to make sails or to paint on.
To canvass is to secure votes or opinions.
CAPITAL/CAPITOL
A capital is an important city, or a large letter as one would find at the beginning of a sentence or a proper noun, or one’s accumulated funds, or, architecturally, the crown of the shaft of a column. It is also an adjective describing a serious crime (often, though not invariably, punishable by death) and something that approving British people used to exclaim—“Capital!”—before they all started exclaiming “Brilliant!”
A capitol is a building housing a legislature, like the great domed Capitol (capitalized in this case, as that is its name) in our nation’s capital.
CARAT/KARAT/CARET/CARROT
A carat is a unit of weight applied to gemstones.
The proportion of gold in an alloy is measured in karats, the purest gold being 24-karat.
A caret is a copyediting and proofreading symbol (it looks like this: ^) showing where new text is to be inserted into an already set line.
Carrots are what Bugs Bunny eats.
CASUAL/CAUSAL
Be careful with these, as one doesn’t want to write of a causal relationship (in which one thing causes another thing or is caused by it) when one means to write of a casual—easygoing, informal—relationship, and vice versa. The words are visually almost indistinguishable, their meanings anything but.
CHORD/CORD
In music, a chord is a number of notes played simultaneously; “chord” is also used to refer to an emotional response, as a plaintive melody may be said to strike a chord.
A cord is a woven string of threads.
To strike a blow against an exceptionally popular error: One has vocal cords, not (no matter how musical one is) “vocal chords.”
CITE/SIGHT/SITE
The confusion between “cite” and “site” seems to be on the rise. To cite something is to quote or attribute it, as one cites a reference book or a website. And, aha, there’s the potential for confusion: In citing a fact one’s found on a (web)site, the desire to “site” it is increasingly compelling (but still incorrect).
Further confusion arises between “site”—as a noun, the property on which a structure is constructed; as a verb, the action of placing that structure—and “sight,” a thing one goes to see, e.g., the sights of Paris one views while sightseeing.
A sight is also the dojigger on a firearm that helps you aim, thus “I’ve got you in my sights.”
CLASSIC/CLASSICAL
A classic is an excellent or defining version of something, as “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” is a classic pop song by the Beach Boys and the classic (if inadvisable) cure for a hangover is to recommence to drink.
“Classical” is best reserved for descriptions of things like the civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome or the orchestral music of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
CLIMACTIC/CLIMATIC
The former relates to narrative thrills, spills, and chills on the way to a denouement; the latter concerns, perhaps (and hopefully) less thrillingly, meteorological phenomena.
COME/CUM
Sexually speaking, there are no hard-and-fast*10 rules about this, but I think that “come” works nicely as a verb in the sense of “to climax.” If one is then going to use the common term for the product of male orgasm, “cum” is your man.*11
As a staid conjunction, “cum” suggests dual use, as one might speak of a desk-cum-bureau. It’s best set between the things it’s conjoining with hyphens.*12 After centuries of use, the Latin-derived “cum” is surely a proper English word, so set it in roman rather than italicizing it. It also tends to inspire, in the chronically immature,*13 the giggles, so give it a good thought before you choose to use it at all.
COMPLEMENT/
To complement something is to go nicely with it, the way a diagonally striped tie may complement a vertically striped shirt.
If I am telling you how natty you look in your spiffily complementing shirt and tie, I am paying you a compliment.
An ability to spell and an ability to type rapidly and accurately might be thought of as complementary skills in secretarial work—that is, each serves the other.
If I am offering you my spelling and typing skills free of charge, I am giving you access to a complimentary service.
CONFIDANT/CONFIDANTE
If you’re not a fan of gendered nouns, you can certainly apply “confidant” to anyone with whom you share confidences. Don’t, though, refer to a man as a confidante; confidantes are, solely, women.
(Most people discern correctly between “fiancé” and “fiancée,” but most is not all.)
CONSCIENCE/CONSCIOUS
Your conscience is the little voice within that helps you differentiate between right and wrong. If you are Pinocchio in the Disney version, you possess an externalized conscience in the person—well, in the insect—of Jiminy Cricket, whose name derives from the euphemistic oath that is a polite alternative to bellowing “Jesus Christ!”
To be conscious is to be awake and alert, also to be particularly aware and mindful.
CONTINUAL/CONTINUOUS
“Continual” means ongoing but with pause or interruption, starting and stopping, as, say, continual thunderstorms (with patches of sunlight) or continual bickering (with patches of amity).
“Continuous” means ceaseless, as in a Noah-and-the-Flood-like forty days and forty nights of unrelenting rain.
CORONET/CORNET
A coronet is a small crown; a cornet is a trumpetlike musical instrument.
CRITERION/CRITERIA
“Criterion” is singular: a standard upon which one can make a decision. A number of criterions (it’s a word, really, though I can’t think of the last time I saw it used) are criteria.
I frequently encounter the plural “criteria” where the singular “criterion” is meant. Perhaps people think it’s fancier.
CROCHET/CROTCHETY/CROTCHET
To do needlework with a crochet hook is to crochet. Crocheting is not knitting (neither is it tatting, which is the making of lace), and people who do either get peeved, or even crotchety, if you mix them up.
To be crotchety, then, is to be grouchy, cantankerous, prickly, tetchy.*14
One’s crotchets are one’s unreasonable notions or one’s eccentric habits. (As well: What we Americans call a quarter note, the Brits call a crotchet; the Brits have all kinds of interesting names for perfectly normal musical things.)
I note no widespread confusion between a salmon croquette and a game of croquet, so we’ll pass those by.
CUE/QUEUE
These two are not so alike in appearance, but confusion between them is, in my experience, on the rise.
A cue is a signal, as to an actor, to make an entrance, commence a speech, or perform some action. “You sockdologizing old man-trap,” a line in Tom Taylor’s 1858 comedy Our American Cousin, may be the most notorious cue in history, as the audience laughter it inspired was expected by John Wilkes Booth—an actor, but not in this particular play—to smother the sound of his gunshot as he assassinated Abraham Lincoln.
To cue is to give a cue. To take a cue is to model one’s behavior or actions on someone else’s.
A queue is a ponytail, often braided, of the sort traditionally worn by, among others, Chinese men. More commonly, a queue is a line of people waiting for something. (Did you know that a line of people walking in pairs is called a crocodile?) A queue is also the lineup of DVDs you have waiting for you at Netflix, if you happen to still watch DVDs.
To queue, then, is to get in line. This is often phrased “queue up,” which should not be confused with “cue up,” which is to get a thing ready to commence (as, say, a PowerPoint presentation or what older people would call a slide show).
“Queue” was, not long ago, a terribly British verb, and for Americans to say that they were “queuing up” for this or that was the height of pretension. I’m not certain when the term arrived in the United States, but it certainly seems to have its green card by now.
DAIRY/DIARY
You are unlikely to confuse their meanings; you may well confuse them while typing. Nuff, as they say, said.
DEFUSE/DIFFUSE
To defuse is, literally, to remove a fuse, as from a bomb, to keep it from blowing up. Figuratively, if you’re trying to calm down a roomful of ornery people, you’re defusing a thorny situation.
The adjective “diffuse” means unconcentrated (as, say, “diffuse settlements in a vast territory”). As a verb it means “to spread” (as air freshener may diffuse, or be diffused, through a room).
DEMUR/DEMURE/DEMURRAL
To demur is to voice opposition or objection; perhaps because the word, spoken, makes a gentle burring noise (or perhaps because it looks like “demure”), it’s often used to suggest polite opposition.
“Demur” is also a noun, as one may accept someone else’s decision without demur (or, if you prefer, demurral). “Demur” and “demurral” also carry a less frequently used meaning: delay.
To be demure is to be modest or reserved.
DESCENDANT/DESCENDENT
Use the former as a noun, for progeny and progeny’s progeny; use the latter as an adjective to describe said progenies, or to describe something moving downward.
Each is occasionally, and unhelpfully, defined as meaning the other.
(Vastly more often than not, you want the former. The latter rarely shows up.)
DESERT/DESSERT
Most of us can correctly discern between a desert (that hot and dry place) and a dessert (that sweet and soul-satisfying complement to one’s meal).
Many go wrong in their attempt to haul out the venerable*15 phrase referring to people receiving their comeuppance. Such people are getting not their “just desserts” but their just deserts—they are getting precisely what they deserve.
Though if a few of us drop by a restaurant with the sole intention of enjoying a couple of slices of pie and a goblet of chocolate mousse, we may surely be said to be receiving just desserts.
DISASSOCIATE/DISSOCIATE
They mean the same thing—sever—and they showed up in English around the same time. For reasons I can’t discern, “disassociate” gets a lot of rocks thrown at it; I can’t say that it bothers me. If you’re aware of the psychological meaning of dissociation—a separation from reality that occurs in crisis—you may come to think of “disassociation” as better suited to more everyday severances, as, say, disassociating oneself from an offensive statement made by one’s racist uncle at Thanksgiving dinner.
DISCREET/DISCRETE
Discreet people possess discretion; they kiss but don’t tell. They are circumspect, chary, and wary.
This thing over here and that thing over there are discrete—separate and distinct—things.
“Discreet” and “discrete” are often mixed up, not only but particularly by the authors of frisky personal ads.
EEK/EKE
“Eek!” is what you exclaim when you see a mouse.
To eke (as in “to eke out a living”) is to secure something with difficulty and, as a rule, barely. I suppose one could, feigning fright, eke out an eek.
EMIGRATE/IMMIGRATE
One emigrates from a place; one immigrates to a place. My paternal grandfather emigrated from Latvia; he immigrated to the United States. The terms are used to describe movement from one nation or continent to another; one does not, say, emigrate from Chicago to New York, or even from Chicago to Paris.
EMINENT/IMMINENT/IMMANENT
To be eminent is to be renowned, famous.
To be imminent is to be on the way and arriving any moment now.
To be immanent is to be inherent—built in, so to speak. One most frequently, when at all, sees the term applied to constitutional rights and the existence and influence of God.
ENVELOP/ENVELOPE
“Envelop” is the verb, as in to surround or encompass, “envelope” the noun, as in the paper doohickey into which one puts a letter.
EPIGRAM/EPIGRAPH
An epigram is a succinct, smart, and, as a rule, humorous statement, of the sort Oscar Wilde used to toss about like Ritz crackers to stray ducks. For instance, from the irresistibly quotable The Importance of Being Earnest: “All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.”
An epigraph is an evocative quotation—rarely humorous but generally succinct—set at the beginning of a book, often immediately after the dedication, or at the beginning of a chapter.
EVERYDAY/EVERY DAY
“Everyday” is an adjective (“an everyday occurrence”), “every day” an adverb (“I go to work every day”).
“Everyday” is increasingly often being used as an adverb; this is highly bothersome, and please don’t you dare speed up the trend.
EVOKE/INVOKE
To evoke is to call to mind, as the smell of coconut or rum (or coconut and rum) may evoke a fondly remembered tropical vacation or the ghost stories of a present-day horror writer may be said to evoke those of Edith Wharton or M. R. James.*16
To invoke is to summon in actual practice, as a warlock invokes demons to destroy his enemy, or to call upon for protection or assistance, as one invokes one’s Fifth Amendment right to remain silent and avoid self-incrimination.
To put it as simply as I can, if you confine evoking to the figurative and invoking to the actual, you’ll do fine.
EXERCISE/EXORCISE
Not, truth to tell, a lot of confusion abounding between that which one does at the gym and that which one does to demons, but:
If you are agitated and worked up about something, you are not exorcised but exercised.
FARTHER/FURTHER
As a rule, or at least what passes for a rule, “farther” is reserved for literal physical distance (“I’m so exhausted, I can’t take a step farther”) and “further” is used figuratively, as a measure of degree or time (“Later this afternoon we can discuss this weighty matter further”).
In the face of ambiguity, go with “further.” Our friends the Brits alleviate the ambiguity by mostly using “further” for everything.
FAUN/FAWN
A faun is a mythical creature, part man and part goat, a less intimidating version of a satyr.
A fawn is a young deer; fawn is also a pale yellow-brown color.
To fawn is to be obsequious in a quest for favor, to apple-polish, to bootlick, to suck up.
FAZE/PHASE
To faze is to bother, or to disturb, or to discompose, as someone is fazed by the prospect of speaking in public.
A phase is a stage of development, as a child may go through a phase of refusing to eat vegetables; to phase is to perform an action over time, as in phasing out outmoded textbooks.
FERMENT/FOMENT
One ferments (alcoholizes) beer or wine; one foments (stirs up) discord. That said, one’s anger can ferment, and an agitated group of people can be described as being in a state of ferment.
The use of the verb “ferment” as a synonym for the verb “foment” agitates many people; it cannot, however, be said to be incorrect. Sorry, agitated people.
FICTIONAL/FICTITIOUS
“Fictional” describes the nature of works of imaginative art and their constituent parts. The characters in a novel are fictional.
“Fictitious” describes something not in imaginative art that is made up. The dead grandmother you concocted in fifth grade to get out of school on a test day was, may she rest in peace, fictitious.
FLACK/FLAK
A flack is a press agent. Flak is antiaircraft weaponry and, especially, the gunfire propelled therefrom.
If you’re being roundly criticized, you’re catching not flack but flak.
FLAIL/FLAY/FLOG
To flail is to wave about wildly, as a drowning man might flail his arms; to flail is also to wallop. The verb relates to a noun: A flail is a threshing tool, a longer staff with a shorter stick loosely attached to it that gets swung about. It’s the other thing you see pharaohs holding in paintings and sculpture—the one that doesn’t look like a shepherd’s crook—and it’s also the shiversome stick-with-spiky-metal-balls-attached medieval weapon.
As verbs of punishment, “flail” and “flog” are given as synonyms, though to me the former evokes the stick and the latter the whip. Whatever the terms evoke for you is your own business.
To flay, on the other hand, is to peel or tear the skin off something or someone, or to do that sort of thing figuratively, as, say, with words.
FLAIR/FLARE
The former is a knack (as, say, a flair for the dramatic) or stylishness (as someone dresses with flair); the latter is a burst of light or flame, an emergency signal, or a widening, as of one’s bell-bottom trousers.
FLAUNT/FLOUT
To flaunt is to show off: yourself or some thing. Wealth and power are popularly flaunted.
To flout is to show contempt for or to defy; the word seems to be more or less permanently attached to either “the law” or “the rules.”
FLESH OUT/FLUSH OUT
To flesh out is to add substance, as one fleshes out a business proposal by offering substantive details of intended action.
To flush out is to clean something by forcing water through it, as one flushes out a wound, or to expose something or someone by forcing it out of hiding, as one might use a smoke bomb to flush out a gang of criminals holed up in their lair.
FLIER/FLYER
A flier is a person or thing that flies. When it comes to pieces of paper you don’t want handed to you by people whose causes you’re not interested in, some opt for “flier” and some for “flyer.” I suggest reserving “flier” for the soaring-in-the-air thing and “flyer” for the sheet of paper heading imminently into the recycle bin.
If you’re risking something, you may be said to be taking either a flyer or a flier. I, with no particular reason in mind, would go with the former (which is slightly more popular in print).
FLOUNDER/FOUNDER
To flounder is to struggle clumsily; to founder is to sink or to fail. Floundering may precede foundering; thus the terms are sometimes confused.
FORBEAR/FOREBEAR
To forbear is to refrain from doing something, as one may forbear from eating chocolate during Lent, or to exhibit self-control in the face of difficulty (thus to demonstrate forbearance).
One’s forebears are one’s ancestors.*17
FOREGO/FORGO
To forego is to precede.
To forgo is to do without.
FOREWORD/FORWARD
A foreword is an introductory section of a book; the term is generally used to refer to a brief essay written by someone other than the book’s principal author.*18
Forward is a direction: not backward. It’s also an adjective often applied to children, suggesting bratty presumptuousness, or to people getting above their station or being aggressive (often sexually).
GANTLET/GAUNTLET
A gauntlet is a kind of glove, particularly useful for hurling to the ground in challenge when mortally insulted, or for picking up to accept such a challenge.
If you’re forced to make your way between two parallel lines of people armed with clubs who are intent on thrashing the living daylights out of you and you don’t have the option to sprint like hell in the opposite direction, you are running either the gantlet or the gauntlet, depending upon whom you ask. I’m a “gauntlet” fellow. I find the very sight of “gantlet” fussy and prissy, as if those two lines of assailants are raring to smack you around with doilies.
GEL/JELL
A gel is a jelly; it is also a transparent colored sheet, usually made of plastic, used in stage lighting.
When Jell-O sets, or when one’s master plan takes shape, it either gels or jells. I like “jells.”
GIBE/JIBE/JIVE
There’s a lot of etymological muddiness here, but you’ll be on solid ground if you use “gibe” to mean (as a noun) a sneering taunt or (as a verb) to deride, and “jibe” to mean agree with or align.
The periodically encountered use of “jive” to mean “jibe” (“I’m so pleased that our plans for the weekend jive”) is unsupportable, etymologically or any other -ly.
GRAVELY/GRAVELLY
“Gravely” is an adverb denoting seriousness, as one may become gravely ill.
“Gravelly” is an adjective characterizing a collection of pebbles and other bits of rock, as in a gravelly road, or roughness, as in a raspy, gravelly voice.
GRISLY/
Gory crimes are grisly.
Tough meat is gristly.
Some bears are grizzly.
Mistaken references to “grizzly crimes” (unless committed by actual bears, in which case OK) are extremely popular, always good for a chuckle, and to be avoided strenuously.
“Grizzled” refers to hair streaked with gray—and, by extension, it makes a decent synonym for “old.” It does not mean, as many people seem to think it does, either unkempt or rugged.
HANGAR/HANGER
One puts a plane in a hangar.
One hangs a coat on a hanger.
The underappreciated cut of beef found suspended*19 from a cow’s diaphragm is hanger steak.
HANGED/HUNG
Criminals are hanged.
Paintings are hung. Some. Also men. Some.
HARDY/HEARTY
Hardy people are able to cope with hardship; they are plucky, doughty, intrepid, indomitable.
Hearty people have a lot of heart; they are spirited and ebullient and cheerful, often in a loud, demonstrative, and irritating fashion.
A rich, nourishing soup or stew is hearty.
HAWK/HOCK
Verbwise, to hawk (outside discussion of birds, that is) is to sell and to hock is to pawn.
As to loogies, you may either (traditionally) hawk them or (popularly) hock them.
To hork, should you need to know this, is to vomit or to…well, there are a few other definitions, most of them disgusting.
HISTORIC/HISTORICAL
“Historic” denotes significance, as the passing of the Civil Rights Act was a historic event.
“Historical” simply denotes presence in the past.
Note, please: “a historic event,” not “an historic event.” Unless you’re in the habit of saying or writing “an helicopter” you’ve got no cause to say or write “an historic.”
HOARD/HORDE
To hoard is to amass, often with an eye toward secrecy; that which one hoards is one’s hoard. J.R.R. Tolkien’s Smaug is a hoarder of gold. New York’s legendary Collyer brothers, Homer and Langley, were hoarders of just about anything they could cram into their Fifth Avenue townhouse. Their hoarding ultimately led to their grisly deaths, Langley crushed by a would-be defensive booby trap and poor blind, helpless Homer subsequently starving to death. The More You Know.
“Horde” is most often used as an uncomplimentary term for a teeming crowd of something or other: Mongol invaders, say, or sidewalk-blocking tourists in Times Square, or zombies.
HOME/HONE
Birds of prey and missiles home in on their targets.
To hone is to sharpen.
The phrase “hone in on” is one of those so-many-people-use-it-that-it-has-its-own-dictionary-entry-and-can-scarcely-anymore-be-called-an-error things, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
HUMMUS/HUMUS
Hummus is a Middle Eastern dip made from mashed chickpeas.
Humus is decaying organic matter in soil.
You will find fifty-seven varieties of the former at your local Whole Foods. Be careful never to eat the latter.
IMPLY/INFER
To imply is to suggest, to say something without saying it.
To infer is to draw a conclusion from information perhaps obliquely offered, to figure out, to deduce.
Think of “imply” as an outward action and “infer” as an inward one. Or: Speakers imply; listeners infer.
INTERNMENT/INTERMENT
Internment is imprisoning or confining, particularly during wartime—as Japanese Americans were interned during World War II.
Interment is ritual burial, as a child might laboriously and with great ceremony inter a deceased pet. (To put something into an urn—particularly ashes after a cremation, which I hope you don’t call cremains—is to inurn it.)
IT’S/ITS
“It’s” is “it is,” as in “It’s a lovely day today.”
“Its” is the possessive of “it,” as in “It rubs the lotion on its skin.”
No matter the perspicacity of any statement you may ever present publicly in print or, especially, online, an inability to discern between “its” and “it’s” (and, see below, “your” and “you’re”) will make you a target for thunderous belittling. It’s not fair, I suppose, but neither is life generally, I find.
KIBITZ/KIBBUTZ
To kibitz is to chitchat. Used with a bit more shade, it’s to offer meddlesome advice from the sidelines, particularly at a card game.*20 Note that it’s spelled with a single b.
A kibbutz, with two b’s, is an Israeli socialistic farming collective.
LAMA/LLAMA
The South American domesticated ungulate, cousin to the alpaca and the vicuña, is a llama.
A Buddhist priest or monk of Tibet or Mongolia is a lama. Lamas live in lamaseries.
LAY, LIE, LAID, LAIN, AND THE REST OF THE CLAN
Loath as I am to haul out the grammatical jargon, we’re not going to get through the lay/lie thing without it.
So, then: One notes that “lay” is a transitive verb, which means that it demands an object. A transitive verb doesn’t merely do; it must do to something. One does not merely lay; one lays a thing.*21 I lay my hands on a long-sought volume of poetry. I lay blame on a convenient stooge. I lay (if I am a hen) an egg.*22
What does this mean to you? Well, for a start: If you’re hesitating between “lie” and “lay” and (a) your sentence has a thing to act upon and (b) you can replace the verb you’re in a quandary about with a less confusingly transitive verb like “place,” you need a “lay.”
“Lie,” on the other hand, is an intransitive verb. I lie, period. Works for both recumbence and fibbing. No object needed. “Lie” can handle an adverb (I lie down, I lie badly) or a place on which to do it (I lie on the couch); it just doesn’t need a thing, a what, attached to it.
Unfortunately, both verbs can and must be conjugated, and this is where the trouble kicks in.
Let’s run through them, tensely.
to lay
|
present |
lay |
I lay the bowl on the table. |
|
present participle |
laying |
I am laying the bowl on the table. |
|
past |
laid |
Earlier, I laid the bowl on the table. |
|
past participle |
laid |
I have laid the bowl on the table. |
to lie (in the sense of to recline)*23
|
present |
lie |
I lie down. |
|
present participle |
lying |
Look at me: I am lying down. |
|
past |
lay |
Yesterday, I lay down. |
|
past participle |
lain |
Look at me: I have lain down. |
That the past participle of “lie” is “lain,” which never looks right to anyone, is bad enough. That the past tense of “lie” is “lay,” the very word we are trying so hard not to misuse in the first place, is maddening. I know. I’m sorry.
With practice, you may be able to commit all of these to memory. Or you may dog-ear this page and keep it handy. I know I would.
Bonus Lay/Lie Facts
The action of lying down does not require that one be a person, as some people mistakenly (and, I think, oddly) believe. I lie down. Fiona the hippopotamus lies down. Pat the bunny lies down.
One doesn’t, in present-tense hiding, lay low or, in ambush, lay in wait. It’s “lie” all the way: I lie low; I lie in wait.
That said, one does lay a trap for one’s enemy, and given the chance, one will lay that enemy low.
To lay a ghost is to exorcise it.
You’re not going to like this: Up until the late eighteenth century or so, no one particularly cared whether you chose to lie down or lay down, so long as you got horizontal. Then some word busybodies got wrought up on the subject, a rule was born, and schoolchildren (and writers) have been tortured on the subject ever since.
LEACH/LEECH
To leach is to drain one substance out of another by means of a percolating*24 liquid, as rainwater may leach nutrients out of soil.
To leech, literally, is to apply leeches, those nasty-looking bloodsucking worms, to a patient in order to advance healing.
To leech, figuratively, is to make a habit of exploiting another person—to suck that person dry in a leechlike manner or, to mix invertebrates, to sponge.
LEAD/LED
The past tense of the verb “lead” is not “lead” but “led.” Today I will lead my troops into battle; yesterday I led them.
I wouldn’t point out something that seems so elementary but for the vast number of times I’ve seen, published, “lead” where “led” was called for. The error is not mysterious—for one thing, they sound the same; for another, compare “read,” which is the past tense of “read”—but error it is.
LIGHTENING/LIGHTNING
If you’re carrying your mother’s suitcase to the train station, you are nobly lightening her load.
If on your way to the train station a thunderstorm descends, you should seek shelter, not only to stay dry but to avoid being struck by lightning.
LOATH/LOATHE
I am loath—that is, reluctant—to make comments, snide or otherwise, about people I loathe—that is, detest.
Use “loath” as an adjective; use “loathe” as a verb.
LOSE/LOOSE
To mislay something is to lose it.
Something that is not tight or severe—a dress, one’s morals—is loose.
To loose something is to set it free. Oddly, to unloose something is also to set it free.
LUXURIANT/LUXURIOUS
Something lush or plentiful is luxuriant: Rapunzel’s hair, say, or kudzu.
Something luxurious is lavish and elegant and expensive, like a Lamborghini or a stateroom on the Titanic.
MANTEL/MANTLE
A mantel is a shelf above a fireplace.
A mantle is a sleeveless, capelike garment. Metaphorically, it’s the thing you don when you’re assuming some responsibility.
MARITAL/MARTIAL
The former refers to marriage, the latter to the military. Unless your marriage is militaristic, in which case word choice probably isn’t your biggest problem.
MASTERFUL/MASTERLY
Somewhere along the path you may have been taught, as I was, that “masterful” is an adjective meaning bossy or domineering and that “masterly” is an adjective that means adept or virtuosic. Experience has shown me, though, that writers tend to use “masterful” to mean accomplished—gushing book blurbs are forever calling out “masterful prose”—and do not take kindly to having it changed to “masterly,” which they tend not to use at all. (I suppose that part of the discomfort with “masterly” is that, with that -ly finale, it looks like an adverb.)
Reading up on the subject to write up this pair, I learned this: Both words have carried both meanings for centuries, and only in the early twentieth century did one particularly influential wordsmith take it upon himself to neaten things up by segregating them into the separate roles I’ve mentioned above. Which is to say: The distinction is sort of kind of utterly insupportable.
So feel free to maintain the division if you’re so inclined—you won’t be wrong if you do—but feel free not to.
MILITATE/MITIGATE
To militate is to prevent or to counteraffect, as the presence of heavily armed soldiers will militate against public unrest.
To mitigate is to alleviate, as the presence of the Red Cross will mitigate the suffering of hurricane victims.
No matter how many times you see “mitigate against,” which is all the time, it is never correct.
MILLENNIUM/MILLENNIA
One millennium, two or more millennia. Be careful with the spelling as well: two l’s, two n’s.
In downtown Manhattan, there’s a Millenium Hilton. I would never stay there.*25
MINER/MINOR
Miners labor underground.
Minors are children.
An inconsequential detail is minor. So, musically, is a chord, scale, or key that the ear tends to associate with melancholy.
MUCOUS/MUCUS
Re “mucous,” I couldn’t possibly improve upon this elegant dictionary definition: “relating to, covered with, or of the nature of mucus.”
That is, “mucous” is an adjective, “mucus” a noun. Mucous membranes produce mucus.
NAVAL/NAVEL
People rarely err when they mean to type “naval” in the seafaring sense, but when the talk turns to belly buttons, many forget to switch from a to e. Your innie or your outie is a navel.
ONBOARD/ON BOARD
Remember “everyday” and “every day”? Well, here we are again.
“Onboard” is an adjective (onboard refueling, for instance, or an onboard navigation system); “on board” is an adverb, literally denoting presence on a vessel (“The crew was on board the ship”) or figuratively denoting agreement (“This department is on board with the new regulations”).
The use of “onboard” as a verb was, you may recall, covered on this page, and let’s not encourage it via repetition.
ORDINANCE/ORDNANCE
An ordinance is a decree or a piece of legislation.
“Ordnance” refers to military supplies—not only artillery but ammunition, armor, vehicles, all the practical stuff of warfare.
PALATE/PALETTE/PALLET
Your palate is the roof of your mouth or your sense of taste.
A palette is an array of color or the board onto which artists lay their paint.
A pallet is a platform onto which items are loaded, as in a warehouse; “pallet” is also a somewhat outmoded term for a small bed.
PASS/PASSED/PAST
As a verb, “passed” is the past tense of “pass.”
“Past” is both noun and adjective, as in William Faulkner’s “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” It’s also a preposition, and an adverb, and just about anything else you can think of except a verb.
“Passed” is never an adjective, and “past” is never a verb.
PEAK/PEEK/PIQUE
Mixing these up is direly easy. A peak is a summit; a peek is a glance. The ea in “sneak” inspires many an erroneous “sneak peak.” No, please: It’s “sneak peek.” (Unless you find yourself jetting through a cloud and suddenly about to collide with a mountain, in which case, sure, that’s a sneak peak.)
A fit of pique is a peeved little tantrum; to pique one’s interest is to stimulate and excite it.
PEAL/PEEL
You probably don’t need to be reminded that bells peal and potatoes are peeled. You might need to be reminded that what you’re doing when you’re being watchful is keeping your eyes peeled—wide open and lids up.
The thing itself—of a potato, a banana, a lemon, an orange—is a peel. Plus—and this is why we have the verb “peel”—one removes it before eating. As opposed to a skin—an apple’s, say—which outside of cooking one is apt to eat.
PEDAL, PEDDLE, PEDDLER, ET AL.
A pedal is something you operate with your foot. If you are operating something with your foot, you are a pedaling pedaler. Those cropped calf-length trousers you’re wearing, whether you’re riding a bicycle or not, are pedal pushers.*26
To peddle is to go from place to place selling things—often, small things: gewgaws, doodads, trinkets, the odd tchotchke. Peddlers peddle. (In Great Britain, sometimes it’s pedlars who peddle.) Perhaps because itinerant merchants might be seen as untrustworthy—otherwise, why don’t they own a proper store?—to peddle is also to promote a shaky or shady notion. (“Go peddle your nonsense elsewhere.”)
When you attempt to distance yourself from an action or (mis)statement, you are backpedaling. When you’re trying to fudge a fact or minimize the unpleasantness of a situation, you’re soft-pedaling. The former derives from bicycling, the latter from playing the piano. Why is “backpedaling” closed up and “soft-pedaling” hyphenated? Because dictionaries are whimsical.
The segment of a flower—likely you’ve got this down already, but better safe than sorry—is a petal.
PHENOMENON/PHENOMENA
As with “criterion” and “criteria” or “millennium” and “millennia” above, this is simply a matter of singular and plural: one phenomenon, two or more phenomena.
PIXILATED/PIXELATED
To be pixilated is to be confusedly crazy; it’s a silly-sounding word (derived from “pixie”) so perhaps best reserved for silly sorts of craziness. “Pixilated” was famously used in Frank Capra’s 1936 screwball comedy Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, in which it was applied to Gary Cooper’s tuba-playing character, Longfellow Deeds.
A pixelated image, on a computer or television screen, is one whose tiniest individual elements (often dots or squares; the term “pixel” is a portmanteau of “picture” and “element”) are expanded to the point where one can no longer make sense of the bigger picture.
I like to think that “pixelated” derived specifically and intentionally from “pixilated”; otherwise we’d just call it “pixeled.” I have no evidence to support that perhaps pixilated notion.
PLUM/PLUMB/PLUMMY
The adjective “plum,” deriving from the name of the summer-enhancing fruit, means choice and desirable. One speaks of, say, securing a plum role in a play or a plum political appointment.
To plumb is to determine depth, as of a body of water, and, by extension, to deeply explore or examine, as in, say, plumbing the horrors of modern warfare.
As an adverb, “plumb” means utterly or squarely, as in plumb loco or landing plumb in the middle of a ghastly situation.
A plumb is the weight on the end of a line that one uses to plumb, and “plumb,” as an adjective, means precisely vertical.
Also, what a plumber does for a living is plumb.
A plummy speaking voice is too rich, too proper, too self-conscious—that is to say, too-too.
POKEY/POKY
The pokey is the hoosegow, the clink, the slammer, the big house—a prison.
Something poky is irritatingly slow, or provincial, or frumpy.
In America we do the hokey pokey (and we turn ourselves around). In England they do the hokey cokey (and they turn themselves around).
POPULACE/POPULOUS
“Populace” is a noun; it means population or, particularly, the so-called common people.
“Populous” is an adjective; it means well and densely populated.
PORE/POUR
To pore over something is to examine it closely. Pores are those things on your face that get clogged.
To pour something is to tip it—water, wine, salt, sugar, what have you—out of a container.
PRECEDE/PROCEED
To precede is to come before.
To proceed is to move forward.
PREMIER/PREMIERE
As an adjective, “premier” means first or top-ranked; as a noun, it’s a head of state.
A premiere is a debut, as of a play. To premiere a movie is to open it.
PRESCRIBE/PROSCRIBE
To prescribe is to authorize medical treatment or the taking of medication, or otherwise to direct authoritatively.
To proscribe is to forbid.
PRINCIPAL/PRINCIPLE
How many times was it explained to you in elementary school spelling lessons that “the principal is your pal”? And what was your level of horror when you realized that the principal was not your pal but a terrifying martinet?
Consider that realization a principal (that is to say, primary) life lesson. In fact, you might deem it a principle—a fundamental truth from which more advanced truths derive—on the road to mature cynicism.
One’s principles are one’s amassed moralities; villains are unprincipled.
One’s principal is, as well, one’s amassed bank holdings that one aspires not to touch so that one can live entirely on one’s interest. Good luck with that.
PRONE/SUPINE
Obviously there’s no confusion of vowel order or consonant doubling here, but I include these terms because they are frequently mixed up and I can’t figure out where else to park them.
For the record:
To be supine is to be lying on one’s back.
To be prone is to be lying on one’s stomach.
Beyond “lead” when “led” is meant, I’d say that “prone” for “supine” (or vice versa) is the commonest error to get past writers, copy editors, and proofreaders and find its way to print.
You can devise all the mnemonics you like (if you’re supine you’re lying on your spine, if you’re prone you’re…oh, the heck with it), but I never—never—fail to consult the dictionary whenever I’m faced with either word.
PROPHECY/PROPHESY
“Prophecy” is the noun, “prophesy” the verb. An oracle prophesies a prophecy. The plural of “prophecy” is “prophecies”; the third-person singular of the verb “prophesy” is “prophesies.” (I prophesy, you prophesy, he prophesies, she prophesies, they shall have prophesied, we all scream for ice cream.)
RACK/WRACK/WREAK
Setting aside the meanings pertaining to cuts of meat, the storage of clothing and spice tins, the corralling of billiard balls, the accumulation of points, and rude references to a woman’s bosom, let’s focus on “rack” in the sense of pain: A rack is a nasty device (we may think of it as medieval, but it has a long and distinguished history going back at least to the first century A.D.) to which one is fastened by the wrists and the ankles and, well, you know all the shrieking, limb-dislocating rest. To be put to the rack, then, is to be tortured, and thus one’s body is racked with pain. One contemplates effortfully by racking one’s brains. A painful cough is a racking one. And an anxiety-inducing experience is nerve-racking.
Or is it?
To wrack is to wreck, to destroy. Was that awful hour you spent locked in a room full of rambunctious kindergartners simply nerve-racking, or was it utterly nerve-wracking? Is your moldering ancestral manse going to wrack and ruin, or merely rack and ruin?
You’ll be either elated or pained to the point of destruction to learn that the differences between “rack” and “wrack” have become so confused over time that many dictionaries simply list them as synonyms, and many stylebooks, after halfhearted attempts to nudge a few meanings in the direction of either, shrug resignedly and move on.
The suggestion of The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage to avoid “wrack” entirely and use “wreck” when you mean wreck is, all things considered, not a bad one.
And what of “wreak”? To wreak is to cause (in an unnice way) or to inflict. An army wreaks havoc. A storm wreaks damage. The preferred past tense of “wreak,” I should note, is not “wrought” (which is an ancient past tense of “work”; it still turns up in the phrase “wrought iron”) but, simply, “wreaked.”
REIGN/REIN
Monarchs reign.
Horses are reined.
If one is granted the freedom to make one’s own decisions and run one’s own life, one is given free rein. Free rein, please, not free reign: The phrase is taken not from the devil-may-care actions of kings or queens but from permitting one’s mount to do what it likes—the opposite of maintaining a tight rein. Unfortunately, “free reign” makes a kind of sense, so it’s frequently—though, still, incorrectly—used.
RELUCTANT/RETICENT
To be reluctant is to be resistant, unwilling.
To be reticent is to be silent, uncommunicative.
One is reluctant to do X; one is reticent about subject Y.
“Reticent” is increasingly often used to mean “reluctant.” I see no good reason to allow the distinction between these two to collapse, though many have given up on it.
RETCH/WRETCH
To retch is to heave, to gag, to nearly vomit. I think it’s wonderful that the English language has a word for “to nearly vomit.” (The word can also be used flat out to mean “to vomit,” but there are so many other colorful synonyms for that action that surely we can leave “retch” for the preface rather than the conclusion.)
A wretch is a person on the darker side of the happiness/niceness spectrum, from the muddy gray of the deeply miserable poor unfortunate to the full-tilt blackness of the scoundrel and the miscreant. And the blackguard.
RIFFLE/RIFLE
This duo plays well to the onomatopoeia/mnemonics crowd, because to riffle something is to thumb lightly through it, as, say, through the pages of a book or a deck of playing cards, and the word “riffle,” at least to my ears, has that lovely susurrating sound built right into it. To rifle through something—a room, a desk drawer—is to rummage with criminal intent to steal. That the verb “rifle” is the same as a noun for a firearm should also make it easier for you to remember which one of these is which.
ROGUE/ROUGE
Careful there, you typing fingers.
A rogue is a scoundrel, a ne’er-do-well.*27 (See also “wretch,” above.)
Rouge is that which one applies to the lips or the cheeks to redden them.
SEGUE/SEGWAY
The music-derived “segue” means, as a verb, to transition seamlessly and, as a noun, such a seamless transition. Before the invention of the motorized two-wheeled Arrested Development punchline—the Segway—“segue” was, lacking a homophone, likely never misspelled. Now it is. A lot. A smooth change is not a “segway.” Ever.
SENSUAL/SENSUOUS
“Sensual” pertains to the physical senses; “sensuous” involves aesthetic matters. The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that John Milton is thought to have coined “sensuous” in the mid-seventeenth century so as to have a word for the pleasure of the finer senses that would have, unlike “sensual,” no sexual connotation. Unfortunately, hardly anyone then or since has been able to remember which is supposed to be which, and the publication in 1969 of the racy how-to bestseller The Sensuous Woman—which should, according to Miltonian rules, have been called The Sensual Woman—likely muddied the distinction forever. If you’re leaning toward the use of either word and fear that your reader will be confused, you might do well to simply choose another term altogether.
SHONE/SHOWN
“Shone” is the past and past participle of shine (so is “shined,” if you like “shined”). “Shown” is the past participle of “show.”
STANCH/STAUNCH
These two derive from a single root, and each is occasionally offered as a synonym for the other, but if you’re, as I perennially am, in a compartmentalizing mood:
Use “stanch” when you mean to stop the flow of something, as blood from a wound, or to hold something in check, as to stanch the rising violence in a war-torn country.
And use “staunch” to describe someone who is indomitable, steadfast, loyal, and strong.*28
STATIONARY/STATIONERY
To be stationary is to be unmoving.
Stationery is writing paper (and, often included in the idea, the full array of envelopes, pens, pencils, and ink).
SUBTLY/SUBTLETY
Be careful to discern between the adverb (“She insinuated herself subtly into the conversation”) and the noun (“He wheedled money out of his parents with great subtlety”).
This one involves less definition confusion than typing confusion, but it’s a massively popular example of the latter.
TENANT/TENET
A tenant is a rent payer.
A tenet is a belief, a principle.
THAN/THEN
Beyond mixing these up with a slip of the fingers, many people mix them up syntactically when they mistype “No sooner had we placed our order with the waiter then the restaurant caught on fire” when they should be adhering to the correct construction “no sooner had x than y.”
THEIR/THERE/THEY’RE
“Their” is a possessive meaning belongs to them: I can see their house from here.
“There” is a direction indicating a place that is not here: I can see their house, which is over there.
“They’re” is a contraction for “they are”: They’re walking to their house.
As with “it’s/its” (above), “to/too” (below), and “your/you’re” (yet further below), you simply need to get this right. It’s not enough to know the differences, one must also apply them.
TO/TOO
I know I shouldn’t have to clear this up, but you’d be saddened to learn how frequently adults get it wrong.
“To” is, among many things, a preposition, as in “He walked to the store”; what is called an infinitive marker, as in the verb “to be”; and an occasional adverb, as in “She yanked the door to”—which is to say, she pulled it shut—or “He came to”—meaning he became conscious.
“Too” means also (as in “eating one’s cake and having it too”) and excessively (as in “Slow down, you move too fast”).
TOOTHY/TOOTHSOME
To be toothy is to have prominent teeth, or simply a lot of them.
To be toothsome is to be tasty; often the term is used to describe things that seem, in anticipation and as yet untasted, to be tasty, as a toothsome morsel. And that sense of anticipatory salivation is why “toothsome” is also applied to people who are sexually appealing, I imagine.
TORTUOUS/TORTUROUS
The former means twisty, winding, serpentine; the latter means like torture. A tortuous journey can be torturous, but there is no judgment inherent in “tortuous”; it’s merely descriptive. “Torturous,” no matter how you slice it, or are sliced (see “flay,” above), is unpleasant.
UNDERWAY/UNDER WAY
As above, with “everyday” and “every day” and “onboard” and “on board,” “underway” is an adjective, “under way” an adverb. You won’t have much (or any) use of the former, so odds are you want the latter. The voyage is under way, the project is under way, your life is under way. More and more lately, “underway” is used as an adverb. Bummer, I say.
VALE/VEIL
A vale is a valley; a veil is a face covering.
As picturesquely funereally evocative as the notion of a “veil of tears” might be, the phrase—going all the way back to Psalm 84—is properly “vale of tears.”
VENAL/VENIAL
“Venal” means mercenary, bribable, corrupt.
“Venial” means pardonable; a venial sin is one that will not send you to hell.
WAIVE/WAVE/WAVER
To waive is to renounce or cede, as one waives one’s right to a trial by jury.
To wave is to flap one’s hand about (or to curl one’s hair).
A customs inspector who lets you pass without examining your luggage is waving—not waiving—you through.
To waver (not to be confused with a waiver, which is a document of relinquishment) is to tremble or to vacillate.
WHOSE/WHO’S
“I don’t know whose books those are.” “Whose” is a pronoun denoting belonging.
“Who’s on first?” “Who’s” means “Who is.”
WORKOUT/WORK OUT
The former is a noun; the latter is a verb. You’re not on the way to the gym to “workout.” You’re on the way to the gym to work out. And to give yourself a workout.
YOUR/YOU’RE
Just like “whose” and “who’s.” “This is not your book but one stolen from the library. You’re in a world of trouble.”