Homo Sum:
humani nil a me alienum puto

OK, I’ve learned to live with the fact that nobody understands why “try to” is more correct than “try and”, or why “hopefully” is a cheat for when you want to say “I hope”. I’ve made my peace, as ’twere.

But, that doesn’t stop the hundreds of minor errors that I see every day from driving me nuts. Not the obvious typos, but rather the systemic errors that indicate an almost viral transmission or misinformation.

And today I finally reached the tipping point with one example that I have, for some reason, been seeing everywhere lately: people who don’t know the difference between cache and cachet. Or, Fowler help us, who think caché–the French word for “hidden”–is the proper spelling of “cachet”.

Look, here’s the scoop:

Main Entry: cache
Pronunciation: ‘kash
Function: noun
Etymology: French, from cacher to press, hide, from Vulgar Latin *coacticare to press together, from Latin coactare to compel, frequentative of cogere to compel — more at COGENT

1 a : a hiding place especially for concealing and preserving provisions or implements b : a secure place of storage
2 : something hidden or stored in a cache
3 : a computer memory with very short access time used for storage of frequently or recently used instructions or data — called also cache memory

Main Entry: ca·chet
Pronunciation: ka-’shA
Function: noun
Etymology: French, from cacher
1 a : a seal used especially as a mark of official approval b : an indication of approval carrying great prestige
2 a : a characteristic feature or quality conferring prestige b : PRESTIGE <being rich…doesn’t have the cachet it used to — Truman Capote>
3 : a medicinal preparation for swallowing consisting of a case usually of rice-flour paste enclosing a medicine
4 a : a design or inscription on an envelope to commemorate a postal or philatelic event b : an advertisement forming part of a postage meter impression c : a motto or slogan included in a postal cancellation

Let’s try to get that right next time, OK? I’m so much easier to get along with when you aren’t pushing my pedantry buttons.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 5th, 2007 at 4:11 pm and is filed under Head-Explodes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.