I hate it when people say "infer", thinking it's a fancy way of saying "imply."
--- Richard Willis
I brought this over from Cap's "Comics Guide" discussion because I'm going to go afield---make that "far afield"---of Cap's topic and I didn't want to hijack his topic.
Mr. Willis, if we should ever bump into each other, please permit me to buy you a beer, or any other beverage of your choice, because you're a man after my own heart. Not only did you properly identify a common grammatical error, you also accurately pinpointed why so many folks make it.
That is, they're trying to sound eloquent.
Now, this is not quite the same thing as many people who write business letters or memoranda do when they employ a more elevated term or expression for a simpler one, such as when one writes utilise for "use", or at the present time for "now". These folks are attempting to make their correspondence sound more formal or official. And while there may be some stylistic problems with it, the more-elabourate terms they use do mean the same thing as the ones they eschew.
But quite often people giving a speech or writing something for public dissemination seek to sound a bit more eloquent, so they resort to words which they feel sound fancier than the plain old ordinary ones. There's nothing wrong with the desire; the problem is the fancier words they use do not mean the same thing as the ordinary ones they don't want to use.
As you pointed out, sir, mistaking infer to be a fancier way of saying imply is probably the most common example of this.
Of all my pet peeves when it comes to the (mis)use of the English language, these kind of errors get their own category with me. After the "infer/imply" business, probably the most often-seen example is when folks use the word fortuitous to mean fortunate.
Fortunate describes something which occurs from a stroke of good luck or good fortune. Fortuitous, on the other hand, is less definitive. Fortuitous means "to occur randomly or by happenstance". If you're walking down the street and get smooshed by a falling meteorite, that's fortuitous, but it certainly isn't fortunate.
Another way people try to sound more eloquent is by using the word comprise as a fancier way of saying compose. Like "infer/imply", there is a mirror relationship between the two words, in that both compose and comprise deal with a whole and its constituent parts. But they are not interchangable terms.
Compose, simply put, means "made up of/from"; comprise means "to consist of".
"Huh?" says the guy in the back, "I don't get the difference."
It's simple. When you use the word compose as an active verb, the constituent parts come first and then the whole. For example, "Ace, Red, Rocky, and Prof [the constituent parts] compose [make up] the Challengers of the Unknown [the whole]"
Compose can also be used with an inactive verb, in the expression "is composed of"; in this case, the whole comes first and the constituent parts second. "The Challengers of the Unknown is composed of Ace, Red, Rocky, and Prof.
Comprise, however, is always an active verb; thus, the phrase "is comprised of" is incorrect. When one uses comprise the whole comes first and the parts second. "The Challengers of the Unknown comprise [consist of] Ace, Red, Rocky, and Prof."
Also falling in this category of using words for their eloquence quotient is when gender is used to mean sex. Like some of the others, they're similar in meaning, but have a distinct difference which precludes interchangability.
Now, I know how this one came about. Writers were either squeamish about using the word "sex", because of its carnal implications, or they wanted to avoid their readers reacting like juvenile twelve-year-olds. ("Hee hee, he said 'sex'." Snort, snort!)
Simply explained, sex---as it pertains to "male" and "female"---refers to the distinct classifications of male and female in terms of physical traits. Most often, of course, this in the case of biological life forms. But it also applies to inanimate objects described for convenience as "male" and "female", such as the opposite ends of an extension cord.
Gender also refers to the distinctions between male and female, but on a much more limited range. Gender strictly refers to grammar and the distinction between male and female as it applies to the agreement of a subject with its associated pronouns. In the sentence "Bob forgot he had to work this week-end," the male subject, "Bob", requires the masculine pronoun, "he". If it were "Betty forgot she had to work this week-end," then obviously the female subject calls for the feminine pronoun, "she".
When discussing male and female distinctions in grammar, then gender is the right word; for everything male and female in the physical world, it's sex. (Hee hee, the commander said 'sex'." Snort, snort!)
While I'm on the subject, just in case I haven't irritated enough folks, let me toss off some more of my linguisitic pet peeves:
When I was boy, the word describing something which was readily or violently combustable was inflammable. This was derived from the verb "to inflame". Its opposite was non-inflammable.
However, around the late '60's, the word flammable began to emerge. It was a safety concern because many folks, not grasping the root of the word, mistook the "in--" part of inflammable to mean "not". Because of the concern that people might immolate themselves because they were too stupid to understand what inflammable really meant, those in charge of such things coined the word flammable and began using it.
I've lost count of the number of arguments I've had with instructors of damage-control and hazardous-material courses over my use of the world inflammable.
While that was a case of people not knowing a word, there is a common error which comes from folks knowing a word---or thinking they know it.
Again, going back to my early youth, I felt quite proud of myself when I discovered that there was a word for the class of abbrieviations such as "UNICEF" and "laser" and "NASA"---acronym. You almost never heard the word acronym then. But, sometime around the early '80's, suddenly everybody knew it.
The problem was they knew it, but didn't quite know it. You see, these folks would refer to everything which was commonly known by its initials as acronyms. That's incorrect. Acronym refers to only such abbreviations which themselves are commonly pronounced as words.
"NATO" and "NASA" and "PIN" are acronyms. "FBI" and CEO" and "DVD" are not; they are initialisms.
There's one grammatical error which crops up almost inevitably in commercials, especially those for some sort of drug for treatment of an ailment. I crab about it so much when I see it that the Good Mrs. Benson cringes whenever one of those commercials runs.
What happens is the spokesman in that kind of commercial is usually a medical professional, and his name will appear on the screen in this fashion:
"Dr. Otto Schmidlapp, M.D." or "Dr. Cosgrove Edelweiss, D.D.S." or "Dr. Joseph Hogbristle, Ph.D."
Let's take Otto (although the mistake is the same in all of the above examples). What does the "M.D." stand for? "Doctor of Medicine". So what the label is really stating is "Doctor Otto Schmidlapp, Doctor of Medicine"---a clear redundency. The rule of grammar in such cases is: use either the leading title ("Doctor") or the trailing title ("M.D." or "D.D.S. or whatever), but never both at the same time.
I don't know---I've never asked any medical professionals of my acquaintence---but I'd be willing to bet a month's pension that, at the end of medical school, when the soon-to-be graduates are about to receive their doctorates, they are actually instructed in the proper grammatical usage of their newfound title.
And, quite frankly, I would never use the services of a physician whose business card or nameplate on his office door read: "Dr. [Name], M.D." If he's sloppy about that, then I can't trust him not to be sloppy about treating me.
Since I'm enjoying this, let me toss out a few more grammatical pet peeves.
"Tuxedo with tails". There's no such thing. You see, the tuxedo is a lesser version of the tailed jacket (white tie). Supposedly, the name tuxedo came from the place where such a jacket most prominently first appeared---Tuxedo Park, a posh upstate-New York haven for old-money rich folk. The intent was to have a less-stifling alternative to white tie, yet still present a formal appearance. Thus, the jacket was redesigned to be without tails.
Thus, the tuxedo is a derivation of the tailed jacket. You have "tails" and you have "tuxedo", but not both. Saying "tuxedo with tails" is akin to saying "a blind man who can see".
"Déjà vu". I know, I know---the ship has already sailed on this one. But it's irritating because its actual meaning refers to a specific trait for which there is no other suitable term.
Virtually everyone now takes déjà vu to mean "something one is experiencing that is very similar to what he has experienced before"---and that's virtually the exact opposite of its true meaning.
Déjà vu is actually a term from psychology, one of many similar terms used to describe peculiar tricks of the mind. What déjà vu actually means is that quirk of the brain that occurs when one sees or experiences something never seen or experienced by him before, yet for some reason seems familiar.
This is a rare case in which I know exactly the first time I heard the term. It was on 15 September 1971. That was the night when the first regular episode of Columbo---"Murder by the Book"--aired. About ten minutes into the show, the soon-to-be victim, portrayed by Martin Milner, describes the locale of his soon-to-be killer's cabin as a set-up he has never seen before; yet, somehow, it seems very familiar to him, and terms it correctly as déjà vu.
The other terms which descibe brain-quirks are jamais vu, when it's something you have seen or experienced before, but somehow it seems unfamiliar; presque vu, something you can almost, but not quite, remember, i.e., on the tip of your tongue; and déjà vécu---which is what everybody thinks déjà vu is---to undergo an experience identical or very similar to something one has experienced before.
So when the Toledo Mudhens, for the second year in a row, lose the divisional playoffs by one home run hit by Slugger Shopenhauer of the opposing team, it's not déjà vu; it's déjà vécu.
Our own little Internet pastime---comics---is rife with chronic spelling errors by eager posters on message boards and blogs.
"Loose", when used to mean "to not win" or "to misplace something". It's lose---with one "o".
"Rouge", when referring to acting outside the law. It's rogue, as in "rogues gallery".
Ad nauseum, which is just a plain misspelling, probably occuring because of its similarity to the correctly spelt ad infinitum. It's ad nauseam---with a second "a", not a second "u".
And the king of them all:
"Villian".
If those offenders out there take nothing else from this diatribe of mine, then please take this:
It's villain. V--I--L--L--A--I--N.
One of the most absurd cases of this misspelling that I ever saw occurred when I found a blog article devoted to the entire run of the title The Secret Society of Super-Villains. The writer used the cover of each issue as the art accompanying his piece. So at least fifteen times the proper spelling of "villain" was right there before his eyes in the title of the series; yet the writer consistently misspelt it as "villian" throughout his work.
This is a good place to stop. Not that I've completely scratched the itch. I didn't even go into the constant misagreement of singular subject and plural pronoun ("Everyone forgot to bring their lunch.") that occurs to-day. But that's a second can of worms all by itself.
Replies
"Unique" does not take a qualifier! A thing is unique or it's not! A thing is never "very unique" or quite unique"!
Correct, sir! As unique means "one of a kind", it's an absolute, and absolutes do not take adjectives.
Also, it's "champing at the bit", not "chomping at the bit".
Which comes very close to a related peeve: the miswording of common idioms (a circumstance known colloquially as an "eggcom")
I'm talking about misquoted groaners like:
"A doggy-dog world."
"For all intensive purposes."
"Taken for granite."
Using 'everyone' with a plural pronoun doesn't sound wrong to me. The New Shorter Oxford defines 'everyone' as a synonym of 'everybody', and the latter as 'Every person'. That seems imprecise to me, as I think I can see a difference between the use of 'everyone' to mean 'all' and its use to mean 'each individual'. My mental ear does not object to the use of the plural pronoun in your sentence if the sense is 'all', but it says in that case 'lunch' should be plural.
The entries for 'everyone' and 'everybody' in the New Shorter Oxford both note that they "also" appear as antecedents for plural pronouns. Its example of this usage for 'everyone' is from Iris Murdoch, but for 'everybody' it has one from Byron: "Everybody does and says what they please."
The edition of Samuel Johnson's dictionary here does not have an independent entry for 'everyone'. Its entry for 'every' says it has 'no plural signification' and includes a couple of example with 'every one' ("All the congregation are holy, every one of them." from Numbers, and "Every one, that has an idea of a foot, finds that he can repeat that idea, and, joining it to the former, make the idea of two feet." from Locke).
I take your points, Luke. I would insist that it's pretty clear that everyone is singular---from the verb form used when everyone is the subject.
It's "[singular noun] is . . . ."
It's "[plural noun] are . . . ."
The form used when the subject is everyone is "everyone is . . . ." To say "everyone are . . . ." is clearly incorrect. Thus, that makes it a singular noun, which calls for a singular pronoun.
But, even allowing your points, that was only the first example of that came to mind. There are plenty of other occurances of misusing a plural pronoun with a singular subject that are more definitive. Things like "Each contestant will have their choice of categories."
When people write "could of" or "should of" when they mean could've or should've.
And the current trend in using the word literally to describe things that are not literal. As in "I was literally scared to death."
The ones that irritate me the most are the ones I hear most often.
The use of the word “nauseous” when the speaker really means “nauseated” is a big one at work when co-workers call in or go home sick.
I don’t think I have ever heard the word “hopefully” used correctly in casual conversation.
The misuse of the word “literally” could support a discussion thread all by itself. It’s not even when people use “literally” when they really mean “figuratively” that upsets me the most; it’s when the use of the word is completely unnecessary and adds no meaning to the sentence whatsoever: “The buildings were literally standing side by side.” Well, I’m glad you cleared that up.
I’ve mentioned these before, but my two “favorites” (if that’s the right term) were letters to the editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. One was a letter of complaint when the newspaper switched to a tabloid format for its Saturday edition. A man wrote that he and his wife literally got sick when they saw it. (I thought that was a rather extreme reaction.) Another was a complaint about Missouri’s then-new license plate design in comparison to to the designs of certain other states which “literally reach out and grab you.”
Along the lines of the linguistic pet peeve Bob noted, it’s stamping ground, not stomping ground.
However, I do have a little story to tell where it backfired on me a bit. In the early 1990's I was working in a theatre box office and had just been promoted to box office manager. I was advised that it would be good to send the other box office employees some sort of message to indicate that I was pleased with their performance of late, as the amount of errors that required fixing had recently dropped. So, I composed an email to all of them thanking them for the "paucity of errors" of late. Of course, not one of them understood what the word "paucity" meant; in fact, some of them thought that I was admonishing them for the errors that were occurring.
I"m a little more careful about that now.
The title of this thread opens the discussion to the use of metaphors. One of my favorite (and this time I do mean “favorite”) mixed metaphors happened when a co-worker mixed “can of worms” with “ball of wax” and came up with “that’s a whole other can of balls.” (Hey, tennis balls come in a can, so why not?) And as George Carlin once pointed out, no one ever has to open a can of worms. The cans worms are kept in are already open.
Speaking of George Carlin, he also took exception to the commonly misquoted phrase “the proof is in the pudding.” No, the raisins are in the pudding; the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Speaking of proof, some think “the exception proves the rule” means that a rule must have an exception to (somehow) be proven true. No, such an exception would disprove a rule. I have also seen it put forth that the saying means an exception “tests” a rule, but that’s not quite it either. An exception proves that a rule exists, even if no rule is explicitly stated. For example, if a sign says “No Parking on Sunday,” then the unstated rule must be that parking is allowed Monday through Saturday; the exception proves the rule.
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