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.<\/p>\n
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<\/em> when they mean disinterested<\/em>. (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.)<\/p>\n 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<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n Here are some samples:<\/p>\n Aggravate<\/b> means make worse<\/b>, not irritate<\/b> or annoy<\/b>. <\/p>\n Anarchy<\/b> means the complete absence of law or government<\/b>. It may be harmonious or chaotic.<\/p>\n Convince<\/b>. Don’t convince<\/b> people to<\/b> do something. In that context the word you want is persuade<\/b>. The prime minister was persuaded to call a June election; he was convinced of the wisdom of doing so only after he had won<\/b>. <\/p>\n Effectively<\/b> means with effect<\/b>; if you mean in effect<\/b>, say it.The matter was effectively dealt with on Friday <\/b>means it was done well<\/b> on Friday. The matter was, in effect, dealt with on Friday <\/b>means it was more or less attended to<\/b> on Friday. Effectively leaderless<\/b> 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%<\/b>, turned out to be a rather ineffective 8%. <\/p>\n Hobson’s choice<\/b> is not the lesser of two evils<\/b>; it is no choice at all<\/b>. <\/p>\n Homosexual:<\/b> since this word comes from the Greek word homos<\/i> (same), not the Latin word homo<\/i> (man), it applies as much to women as to men. It is therefore as daft to write homosexuals and lesbians<\/b> as to write people and women<\/b>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And so on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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… Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","xfolkentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5UQvw-e6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}