CHAPTER 91:COMMONLY CONFUSED WORDS III

DEPRECATE/DEPRECIATE

Deprecate means put down; depreciate means lose value:

She deprecated her sister’s taste in men.

A new car depreciates by more than 50 percent as soon as you drive it off the lot.

DISCREET/DISCRETE

Both of these words are adjectives.

Discreet means prudent or tactful.

Discrete means separate or distinct.

He was too discreet to mention that she needed voice lessons.

I write a regular column for the Times, but this essay is a discrete project.

DISINTERESTED/UNINTERESTED

Disinterested means neutral, unbiased, or not influenced by personal considerations:

We asked a disinterested person to settle our argument.

Uninterested means not interested.

My son is uninterested in his school work.

ELICIT/ILLICIT

Elicit is a verb, meaning to bring about. Illicit is an adjective, meaning illegal or immoral.

His firing elicited a strong protest from the rest of the staff.

He was fired for illicit use of inside information.

EMIGRATE/IMMIGRATE

You emigrate from somewhere; you immigrate to somewhere. A person who does those things is an emigrant or an immigrant, depending on whether you’re speaking of his departure or his arrival. To simply call someone an immigrant implies that he immigrated to the country you are in right now, or the country you were just now speaking of.

I emigrated from Poland.

I immigrated to the United States.

He’s an emigrant from Russia.

My parents were immigrants.

EMINENT/IMMINENT

These two words have no relation to each other save for a similarity in sound and spelling. Eminent means greatly respected; imminent means about to happen.

FARTHER/FURTHER

If something is farther, it’s more distant:

My house is farther from the office than yours.

Further refers to an extension of quantity, time, or degree. In effect, it just means more:

Do you intend to investigate further?

In practice, the distinctions between farther and further have almost disappeared.

FLAUNT/FLOUT

To flaunt something means to display it ostentatiously (and often defiantly):

She flaunted the jewelry her boyfriend bought her.

You flout a rule or law if you scornfully disobey it:

He flouted the speed limit.

GOOD/WELL

In general, good is an adjective, used to modify a noun (He’s a good worker). Well is an adverb, used to modify a verb (He played well). I feel good is standard English, as a way of indicating emotional well-being or physical vitality. I feel well means I do not feel ill. (Otherwise, good is acceptable as an adverb only in informal expressions (I nailed him but good). You’ll seldom use good as an adverb in business writing.

HISTORIC/HISTORICAL

Historic means of importance to history. Historical means a fact or occurrence of history, or referring to history. Since the h in these words can be unstressed, many authorities prefer to speak of “an historic place,” or “an historical fact”-even though they would say “a history of football.” Other authorities feel that the use of an in this context is absurd. Whichever you choose-an or a-be consistent.

July 4^th is an (a) historic date.

Your birthday is an (a) historical fact, but it is not historically important, so you can’t call it an (a) historic event.

HOME/HONE

To home in on something means to seek out and attack something with great precision. (It refers to homing pigeons, which I have extraordinary senses of direction.) Some writers mistakenly say “hone in” – possibly because to hone means to sharpen.

I/ME

No doubt you’ve heard plenty of people saying things like, “Just between you and I,” or “He spoke to my wife and I.” Using I where one should use me is a very common mistake-probably more common, in the business world, than using me instead of I.

Some of us never recovered from the way our third-grade teachers gave us grief for using me incorrectly (as in “It’s me,” or “Him and me are going swimming.”). These teachers did such a good job of curing us of our mistakes that many of us avoid using me in just about any situation. However, He spoke to my wife and me is perfectly all right, as you can tell by dividing the sentence in two: He spoke to my wife. He spoke to me. Or try turning the sentence around: You would never say, “He spoke to I and my wife.” On the other hand, many people do misuse the word me. For instance, It’s me! It’s I! Is better, and you can see this when you state the sentence as I am it! She’s taller than me is substandard. She’s taller than I is better, because it would be just as proper to say, She’s taller than I am. But you wouldn’t be likely to say, She’s taller than me am.

IMPLY/INFER

The speaker implies; the listener infers:

He implied that he was thinking of quitting.

I inferred from what he said that he didn’t like his job.

INGENIOUS/INGENUOUS

Ingenious means clever or resourceful.

His method of making hats out of dried pumpkin shells is quite ingenious.

Ingenuous means innocent or frank. (Disingenuous means fake-innocent or hypocritical.

“That hairdo makes you look 20 years older,” he said ingenuously.

You’re being disingenuous when you say, “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.”

An easy way to remember the difference is by the sound of the words: Ingenious sounds like genius; ingenuous sounds like genuine.

ITS/IT’S

It is the possessive, meaning belonging to it – its claws, its beak, etc. You would think it would be spelled it’s since most possessives are formed by adding’s (Jim’s, the company’s, etc.). But remember that the possessives of pronouns (his, hers, yours, its) are not formed with apostrophes! It’s is the contraction for it is and for it has, and its apostrophe represents the missing space and letters.

Ah!, English! It’s a shame that it’s got so many little tricks up its sleeve.

LAY/LIE

Lay requires a direct object; lie does not. Lie is something you do; lay is something you do to something.

I’m going to lie down.

I want the tablecloth to lie flat.

But:

Lay down your arms!

The past tense of lie is lay:

I lay down for a few minutes.

LESS/FEWER

In general, you should use fewer when you’re referring to something that can be measured or counted, and less when you’re referring to something that can’t have an exact quantity placed on it.

I have three fewer staffers than I had last year.

I wear less clothing in hot weather.

In many cases, you’ll use fewer to modify plural nouns even if there are no numbers involved.

I saw fewer customers today than yesterday.

Use less to indicate diminishment:

There’s a pint less in the bottle than there was an hour ago!

Less is also standard in many phrases involving distance, money, and time:

I make less than $ 50,000 a year.

I did it in less than two hours.

It’s less than a mile away.

LIGHTNING/LIGHTENING

Lightning is what you see in the sky. Lightening is what you do to your work load by making the intern do most of it!