To the fairly well-educated and
logical mind, with its cache of about 20,000 or so words (an estimate that
fluctuates by study), there are more than a few words that seem to mean
something other than what they actually mean. They can be a trap for writers
the same way that obscure, complex usage rules are. With usage rules, it is
generally accepted among authors that if one knows the rule it is sometimes
acceptable to bend or break the rule for reasons of style. Not so much with
words and their meanings.
One of the pitfalls lurks in the
concept of "word families." An easy example of a word family is the
word family for tone. If you know what tone is, and you know the
general concepts of word forms, then you likely know the meanings of toned,
toning, tonal, tones, and probably even intoned without much
thinking about it. You could probably infer the meaning of tonicity if
you ran across it, from your understanding of the root word tone and
your understanding of word forms. The trapdoor opens when you decide to use tonicity
in your own writing, without verifying your understanding of the meaning.
Writing, "the tonicity of the painting's colors was inspirational"
will make most people think you are making up your own words. It will make
people dealing in medicine and biology laugh, because tonicity is a term
specific to the state of firmness or functional readiness of body tissues or
organs. It's fine to trust your instincts when reading a new word form, better
to verify when you are using one.
Peril looms as well within the
concept of "receptive knowledge" or your ability to infer the meaning
of a word in the context of it's use. For instance, if you ran across a passage
that said "the accident victim was dizzy and discombobulated", even
though you might not be familiar with discombobulated, you might be able
to deduce, through your receptive knowledge of the way people usually respond
to accidents, that the victim had been thrown into a state of confusion. You
could merrily read on, certain of what was going on, without ever adding discombobulated
to your active vocabulary.
The risk starts when you add a word
to your active vocabulary without ever really understanding what it means. That
can happen when you read a word misused by the author using it. Through general
reading, it would be simple for any reader to misconstrue the meaning of
infer. Infer is so commonly misused when imply is what is
intended that the error has perpetuated alarmingly. The meanings are opposite.
If you write, "she inferred that I was a total jackass," those
readers who know the difference between inferences and implications will assume
that you did something to make others conclude that you were acting stupidly
and offensively. If you were just minding your own business in the "10
items or fewer" lane at the supermarket with two lemons that you counted
as one item of ten, and she was glaring at your basket then shooting you the
stink eye, then she was implying you were a total jackass. You may have
inferred from her over-reaction that the woman was a total nut-case. Who gets
that incensed about a lemon?
Here are a few common word traps
that snare many writers, both through assumptions about word families and
receptive knowledge of the way language is commonly used:
- Penultimate—one of my favorites, because I was a willing victim. I always assumed that it was a stupid inflation of a perfectly good word. Something along the lines of saying something is "more unique" or "beyond infinite". Things ultimate, unique, or infinite are by definition insuperable. Through receptive knowledge I came to the incorrect conclusion that penultimate was just another example of language inflation for the sake of puffing up the image of the writer or speaker. Then one afternoon, I heard it used so often during the coverage of a race in the Tour de France that I decided to look it up. It means "second to last". That's it. We were watching the second-to-last race. A perfectly serviceable word. Just be aware that when you describe something as the penultimate example of, say, shrimp fra diavlo, that you are saying that there is something coming next that will be the last word on what a shrimp fra diavlo should be.
- Conflate—is not the same thing as inflate, aggrandize, or amplify. To conflate is to bring together; combine disparate parts into a composite. If someone conflated his resume, it doesn't mean he exaggerated his qualifications. Or it shouldn't anyway. It more properly means that he decided to combine his resumes for mime and quantum physics in the hopes that his combined skills would attract employers in need of someone who could explain string theory entirely through dance.
- Insure—means to call Afflack for a policy. Ensure means to promise certainty. Insuring yourself against sky-diving accidents ensures a depletion of your bank account.
I know that's just three examples of
oft misused words, but this is running long. So just consider, in a free
moment, looking up a few of these: nauseous, comprise, decimate, apprise,
bemuse, whence, continual/continuous, dissemble, disinterested/uninterested,
peremptory, sensual/sensuous, venial/venal.
The list could go on ad nauseum, but
those are some interesting examples. I hope it encourages you to be curious
both about the language you read and the language you use.
