Six sets of troublesome words
November 1, 2008 | writing craft
I grew up with an intimidating father, who happened to be an excellent natural speller. One of his fond sayings was, “If a man could spell every word in the English language correctly, I would wonder why he’d wasted his life.”
When he would say this, I would smile and silently congratulate myself on a well spent life.
Many years and classes passed unhampered by my less that perfect spelling. Then I went to work for a man, who spelled even better than my father Furthermore, he regarded anyone, who was so slovenly as to make spelling errors an example of a poor education and poor character.
Naturally, I adored my shiny new boss, wanted to impress him, and wanted my lovely paychecks to continue. I became a fervent spell checker, stayed employed, and learned a slew of new skills.
Despite all this diligence on my part, to this day there are words that give me trouble.
Affect/effect–Affect the verb may mean to move, influence, or pretend. Affect the noun refers to the emotion or mood associated with an action or an idea, such as he displayed a blunted affect. In contrast, effect also can be a noun or a verb. As a noun it may mean the result of influence, the power to influence, being in force, belongings, and so forth. The dictionary rattles on with more possible definitions. When used as a verb it may mean do or make. Such as ‘to effect an escape.’ Honestly, even after pouring over the definitions I wind up trusting my ear.
Callous/callus–the former refers to hard-hearted behavior, the latter to thickened skin. The problem with this pair is simply why do we need to different spellings of the same word with closely related definitions? Troublesome indeed.
Flaunt/flout–flaunt is to show off, flout is to rebel. Thus one could flout convention, never flaunt it. And yet, I’ve read them misused frequently enough to make me repeatedly question my understanding.
lay/lie(set)/lie(fib)–technically three words. But, since two of them are spelled identically I’m treating the trio as a troublesome pair. Why should I be more logical than the language? There are twenty-one definitions for the verb lay in my small dictionary, to say nothing of the noun. Personally, I think little words are often underrated, regarding their difficulty factor.
Meretricious/meritorious–sounding and spelling are distinctive. Definitions are close to antonyms and yet they are misused quite flagrantly. Keep that dictionary handy.
Wreak/wreck–one wreaks havoc and wrecks cars. Again, why do we need two different words? Why can’t one wreck havoc? No, of course not, I’ve been thoroughly brainwashed. Havoc must continue to the wreaked. Clearly, nothing else would suffice.
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November 1st, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Now that I think about it, lie/lay catch me up short as well. No matter how I torture those two words I am never sure I have them right :)
November 1st, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Thanks for stopping Michael, one of things I haven’t figured out is how to allow all comments….
November 1st, 2008 at 9:22 pm
I am a lover of good spelling and yet I do it wrong also.
What about message and massage? We know the difference when we read them but when we type them our fingers do the walking and spell check doesn’t flag because both have the noun/verb exchange as equally.
I looked at this blog the other day but never realized it was a blog or had a comment thingy. I thought it was like a news page. hmmm. Just thought I’d share that.
November 2nd, 2008 at 8:03 am
Good point, the homophones are an issue aren’t they like– there/their, your/you’re, or its/it’s I know which one I meant to type but my fingers don’t always get it right.
Damn, in my effort to make it nice it doesn’t say blog anywhere. Thanks for mentioning. I’ll try to fix it.