I hope you find my writing and business tips and observations useful. My business and blog are dedicated to helping businesses communicate clearly and reach their potential.
Read, subscribe to my newsletter, enjoy!Tash
Together we all …
Although they sound exactly the same, the word altogether and phrase all together are quite different.
all together: at the same time, acting in unison
All together, 50 students visited the display.
altogether: completely, entirely
The recipe was altogether different to my version.
The simple way to remember which is which is to think of all the parts being together – all together.
reforestation
Sometimes words don’t have to sound alike to be commonly swapped with another word of different meaning. For example, reforestation and afforestation are often misused – note reafforestation (also used by many people) is not a word at all!
afforestation: planting trees/seeds to make a cleared area into a forested area
Afforestation is slowly reducing the size of the desert.
reforestation: replanting trees/seeds to replace a forest after fire or felling
The timber company is involved in reforestation after every logging project.
Absolute words
Earlier in the week I wrote a post about products being exclusively available in one department store being a misleading statement (things are either exclusive or they aren’t!) and it reminded me of an article I wrote in my newsletter some time ago (it was my November 2004 newsletter to be precise!)
Here is what I wrote back then:
Don’t over qualify
There are a group of words that have very precise meanings – these words don’t need any qualifying to make them strong, and in fact it is grammatically wrong to attempt qualifying them.
For instance, the word unique means one of a kind so something is either unique or it isn’t – ‘very unique’, ‘particularly unique’, ‘most unique’ and similar combinations are unnecessary.
Other words that are commonly misused in this way are:
Electrocuted – the word actually means to be killed by electricity, not receive an electric shock.
Perfect – means there can be no improvement; adding ‘very’ to it doesn’t serve any purpose.
Fatal – means deadly. An accident is fatal or it isn’t, it can’t be ‘very fatal’ or ‘really fatal’.
In most of these examples, they can be qualified by using a word such as ‘almost’ or ‘nearly’; the word unique, however, can’t be qualified at all.
What other words can you think of that are absolute in their own right?
Exclusively present at how many places?
I recently saw a sign on the back of a bus that included “available exclusively at no other department stores”.
It left me wondering was it exclusive to the advertiser or not? It was the only department store stocking the product but it could well be available at other places which means it wasn’t exclusive at all!
Let’s look at what exclusive really means…
exclusive: entirely, not shared or including others
The reporter had an exclusive story as the witness spoke only to her.
Exclusive is an absolute term so it can’t be qualified – that is, something is exclusive or it isn’t, there is no middle option. “I’ll give you and the other TV stations an exclusive interview” and “the exclusive club is open to everyone” don’t make sense.
Adverse or averse?
With only one letter different and both words having a negative aspect, adverse and averse are easily conufsed if you aren’t careful.
adverse: not in your best interests, unfavourable
She had an adverse reaction to the new medicine.
averse: strongly against or opposed; turn away
He is averse to opening a new branch in Sydney.
verse: text with metre and rythym, such as in poetry or a section of a song
The second verse is my favourite part of the song.
Fewer uses of less?
Words with similar meanings can easily be used in the wrong context, which does not give a good impression of the writer and also doesn’t help to keep the specific meanings of words. Did you know that ‘fewer’ and ‘less’ are often used in the wrong way?
fewer: not as many items (i.e. relates to things you can count)
There are fewer tasks on my to do list now
less (or less than): not as much of something (i.e. relates to a collective noun)
Antibiotics resulted in less disease after WWII.
ANZAC remembrance
Yesterday was Anzac Day so I thought of how often I have seen remembrance misspelt. It is an important word that is part of common speech even though most of us don’t use it very often aside from near Anzac and Remembrance Days.
The other ‘word’ to be aware of is Anzac…
Anzac stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps so we would generally write it as the acronym ANZAC; however, we only capitalise the first letter as specified in The Protection of the Word “Anzac” Regulations (administered by the Minister for Veteran’s Affairs).
What phase fazes you?
Here is an interesting pair of similar sounding words – I haven’t often seen faze written (and never misused) but perhaps that is because not many people know how to spell or use it?
faze: to worry or scare
The weather predictions didn’t appear to faze anyone at the campsite.
phase: a specific time or stage in a sequence
He is in the drafting phase of the annual report.
Here comes Santa Claus…
As always, I am involved with Love Santa at this time of year – I write letters to Australian children to help out that busiest of men, Santa Claus (Father Christmas or St Nick). I love doing it, and am honoured Santa entrusts this important task to me each Christmas.
You’d think that Santa is famous enough that people could spell his name, but unfortunately I often see it misspelt so it inspired this week’s Monday Meanings!
Claus – Santa’s surname/last night/family name; a first name for boys in some countries
Santa Claus is a very generous man.
Clause – part of a sentence (including a subject and its verb) or a legal document
According to clause 23.4, all pilots must avoid flying at sleigh height on 24h December.
Claws – sharp nails growing from the fingers or paws of some animals, especially cats.
Santa’s kitten sharpens his claws on the couch.
How to remember these three words? Well, the easy one is relating claws to jaws as both are sharp and potentially dangerous!
Then just take the easier/shorter word for Santa as he is uncomplicated (magical and special, but uncomplicated!)
Roast carat or carrot?
Carrot: an orange coloured root vegetable from the parsley family and a good source of carotenoid nutrients including beta-carotene
Roast lamb isn’t the same without roast potatoes and carrots
Caret: a mark that indicates where text is to be inserted. In editing, it is ^ but on a computer screen it is usually >.
The fox jumped over ^log.
Carat (ct):a unit of weight used for gems and precious stones. It is a metric measurement based on 0.2 grams per carat.
A five carat opal weighs about one gram.
Karat (k): a measure of the purity of gold – pure gold being too soft for jewellery, it is mixed with other metals to make an alloy.
My necklace is 18k which means it contains 75% pure gold.
Telling them apart can be simplified. Carrot is the most commonly used version, and the only one likely to rot.
Caret is a very specific word that most people would rarely come across, especially as the word cursor is used more often in a computer sense.
As for carat and karat, carat refers to how much gemstone you have to carry (i.e. the weight) while a karat refers to the King’s gold!
Recent Comments