Fellow pedants rejoice!
Here’s the thing: precision of language allows for both more elegant and more useful communication. I love that English has this dizzying variety of words, many of which are similar in meaning, but with a difference of connotation that allows us to increase our precision.
However, I am also a pedant, so the flip side of my love of precise speech is that I’m the sort of person who gets upset if someone says uninterested when they mean disinterested. (Yes, I know making this kind of statement, or post, is an open invitation for all of you to point out every bit of incorrect language usage I’ve ever committed. I can live with it.)
Those two things together–love of precise speech and pedantic tendencies, contribute to my being very pleased while reading the style guide at the Economist. I suspect most people would find it overly picky, but I found it fun to read. I even picked up a few distinctions that I’m going to be very careful to make from now on. You won’t find there/their/they’re on this list.
Here are some samples:
Aggravate means make worse, not irritate or annoy.
Anarchy means the complete absence of law or government. It may be harmonious or chaotic.
Convince. Don’t convince people to do something. In that context the word you want is persuade. The prime minister was persuaded to call a June election; he was convinced of the wisdom of doing so only after he had won.
Effectively means with effect; if you mean in effect, say it.The matter was effectively dealt with on Friday means it was done well on Friday. The matter was, in effect, dealt with on Friday means it was more or less attended to on Friday. Effectively leaderless would do as a description of the demonstrators in East Germany in 1989 but not those in Tiananmen Square. The devaluation of the Slovak currency in 1993, described by some as an effective 8%, turned out to be a rather ineffective 8%.
Hobson’s choice is not the lesser of two evils; it is no choice at all.
Homosexual: since this word comes from the Greek word homos (same), not the Latin word homo (man), it applies as much to women as to men. It is therefore as daft to write homosexuals and lesbians as to write people and women.
And so on…
Kira
Richard B.
April 20th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Good stuff–I disagree with a couple of these, but my Inner Pedant was extremely happy to see entries for dilemma, decimate, and begs the question.
April 20th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
Yes, the common misuse of decimate also drives me insane.
Which ones do you disagree with, as a point of interest?
April 21st, 2007 at 9:18 am
Really minor stuff … especially in a science fictional context, collapse can be transitive now. When we sit in a circle and talk about manuscripts folks have writ, we are critiquing them, not (necessarily) criticizing them. Gender vs. sex is more complicated than the Economist’s grammar vs. people formulation. Low-key is fine (key doesn’t only refer to music). I think sentence adverbs (”hopefully”) are OK in the 21st century. And the few Scots I know don’t like to be called “Scotch.”
I’m not saying much more than that my Inner Pedant is foolish and inconsistent. I cheer at the valiant attempt to recapture “begs the question,” but think it’s pointless to quibble over taking versus using drugs. (”It’s not like I’m taking” just sounds wrong.)
Although that reminds me of something not in their table: use vs. utilize. That one drives me nuts.
April 23rd, 2007 at 12:41 am
I might take issue with “hopefully”, which I think should either be “I hope” or “hopably”, but I’ve pretty much given up on that one.
April 23rd, 2007 at 7:06 pm
“Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to?”
–Clarence Darrow
‘nuf said.
April 24th, 2007 at 1:01 am
I do love old Clarence, but clearly I shall speak it to Richard, and others of his (and my) ilk.
April 25th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
Oh, and you might like this:
That’s another bit from the Santayana poems book I’ve been reading–this an extract from the Scholar’s speech in “Six Wise Fools”.