Sound Like a Billion (B through E)
B-B-B
BALUSTER/BANISTER
The banister is the rail. A baluster is a support that holds it up.
BARBECUE
Spelled thus. No q. The best is at Arthur Bryant’s in Kansas City. Barbecue came from the Arawak, a Native people in the Caribbean and Central America. The Spanish later borrowed the word, barbecoa.
BASICALLY
Pedantic. (That’s from Latin for “comes off like a condescending prick.”) The point of saying basically is to imply that something is far more complex. Well, so what? Things are complicated. Here: basically, basically, basically. You get three for your whole life. Use sparingly.
BACKFORMATION
This is the process of turning a perfectly good noun into a lousy limp verb, as is “message me.” My favorite example of this – I’ll let you decide if it’s a good example – is the verb escalate. Often heard in the context of diplomacy, newscasters will often say that a situation or tensions have escalated. The verb is backformed from the noun escalator.
But get this: Escalator isn’t a “real” word. It’s a trademark for a brand of moving stairs based on the Latin scala, which means “stairs.” Before that, neither the noun nor the verb form of this word existed in English.
We hear backformation all the time, and, as the beatified editing professor John Bremner noted in his classic Words on Words, it is not always a bad thing. True enough. But English verbs are already an embarrassment of riches. We have dozens to choose from for most actions to convey even the slightest gradation of meaning, of nuance. Don’t use cheap backformed verbs when they can be avoided. Reconnitor strong, crisp, active verbs to do your writing’s heavy lifting.
BELOW/UNDER
Below, Fowler says, tends to be regarded as an antonym (that is, “opposite”) of above. Under is the antonym of over.
Below the bridge could mean “further south,” for instance, wheras under the bridge indicates something else.
If you mean “less than,” say that.
BIMONTHLY/SEMIMONTHLY
Bi- means two, as in, ahem, bicycle (two wheels) or bipod (two legs). Bimonthly means every other month, as does the rarer but lovely bimestrially. Semi means “half.” A semimonthly publication comes out twice a month. Same for biweekly and biannual.
BOTH
As with different, both often can be cut and often should be. Both should be used primarily as a noun, seldom as an adjective and then only if emphasis is needed.
BACKSLASH
Slash and backslash are not interchangeable.
This is a slash: /
This is a backslash: \ It’s only used in computer coding.
Forward slash is redundant.
You’re most likely to encounter a slash in the phrase and/or. Editors hate this construction and advocate changing the phrase to “X or Y or both.” (I posit the Associated Press promulgated the “or both” solution because slashes could wreak havoc on the newswire’s early form of code.) That edit is not always an easy option and and/or is not only perfectly clear but some people even say it. Use it if you want.
BAD/BADLY
Badly is the adverb: use it to modify a verb. Except for to feel. If you feel badly, something is wrong with your sense of touch. Seeing these two words in the same sentence helps clarify which one to use: “I feel bad things ended badly.”
If you’re sick, just say so.
BASED OUT OF
Based in is preferable. Or just say from.
Cutting of – in this phrase or any other -- is a great way to tighten your writing. Try to elminate as many as possible.
BATED BREATH
Not baited. Bated means “to reduce the force or intensity of, to take away or deduct.” If you are bating your breath, you’re holding it, as in anticipation.
BECAUSE OF/DUE TO
This is one of those rules that editors love to harp on at great length, throwing around terms like adverbial phrase and adjectival clause until you’ve lost consciousness. Forget all that foofaraw and just remember the rule: If you can substitute the phrase “caused by” you should use due to, otherwise say because of.
Yes, that means all the damn signs -- Due to staffing we’re closed -- are wrong. Due to should not start a phrase.
BELIEVE/FEEL/THINK
One believes with the heart. One feels with senses or emotions. One thinks with the brain. We can’t know what another person believes, feels or thinks; we can only know what they said. Use that when you can, unadorned by modifers. And use only that: Don’t get fancy with gasped, sighed, hissed, replied, commented or anything else.
Readers don’t “hear” said and won’t get hung up on it no matter how many times you need it. It’s the one verb you shouldn’t get fancy with.
BEMUSE
“Hillary acted bemused, barely masking her contempt at their condescension. She was no doubt amazed at what as amateur job they were doing at character assassination.” – Maureen Dowd, “The Empire Strikes Back,” The New York Times
Bemused is beloved by people who yearn to sound stylish and edumacated. Hey, hats off to Maureen Dowd, though: She managed to write a whole column without a Godfather reference, even if she evidently couldn’t resist an easy Star Wars allusion. No matter. None of it works.
Bemused is a good way to let the whole world, or at least the readership of The Gray Lady, know how vacant your vocabulary (and perchance your thought process) really is. The word means “to confuse,” it does not mean “to amuse slightly” or “to amuse a superior personage.”
BLOOMBERG TERMINAL
The most useful device in business. Find one and learn how to use it. As soon as you have some budget authority, make sure someone on your team has one. This has nothing to do with usage, it’s just sage advice. Bloomberg has a wonderul in-house style manual, The Bloomberg Way, which is a great sort of Cliff’s Notes for business school as well as a good guide to clear writing.
BLURB
Gelett Burgess was a humorist in the 1930s. To make fun of advertising, he created a fake book jacket to use at a publishers’ convention. He borrowed an image of a pretty girl and printed her endorsement of the book, which he credited to the fictitious Miss Belinda Blurb. The rest is history.
BOYCOTT
Was a person before it morphed into a verb: Capt. Charles C. Boycott oversaw an estate in Ireland for an earl. He evicted his tenants, who subsequently refused to do business with him.
BRAND NEW
New is sufficient. If you use this compound modifier in front of a noun, the two compound and must be hyphenated.
This American idiom is a reference to the cattle business. Cattle are branded to mark ownership. When the brands are first made, the designs are crisp. As the hide of the cow heals from the hot brand over time, the design blurs. A cow with a sharp brand was said to be brand new to the ranch.
BURN DOWN/BURN UP
Informal speakers often add prepositions to verbs that are unnecessary. These should be strictly parsed. But be careful, as they can convey nuance. The building burned tells the story. We get that there was a fire. But the building burned down implies destruction rather than mere damage. In either case, the lesson is the same: Prosecute the words you use to ensure the precision of your meaning. Eskimos have a lot of words for snow, but they all mean something a little different. English is likewise rich. Choose the most correct word.
BURST/BUST
Burst is an old, old word dating at least to Beowulf in the sense of “to break suddenly.” Bust came along as a dialectual variant in 1806. Its use as a synonym for burst is substandard; the word today is mostly found in idioms like “went bust.”
C-C-C
CALVARY/CAVALRY
Even history buffs get this one wrong, notably Rick Harrison of the show Pawn Stars. Cavalry -- “CAV-uhl-ree” -- refers to a mounted military unit. Calvary is something altogether different: Just outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem is Golgatha, Hebrew for “the skull,” evidently a reference to the shape of a small hill. This is the site where tradition holds Jesus and two thieves were crucified. The four canonical gospels usually use the Hebrew word. An early Catholic translation, the Douay-Rheims, went all Latin in Luke 23:33, using the name the Romans used, Calvariae Locus. Later, the far more influential King James Bible also used Calvary and introduced this troublesome confusion.
Calgary is just a city in Canada and is, therefore, harmless. Here endeth the lesson.
CAMPANILE
A freestanding tower. Say “CAM-puh-knee-lee” not “CAM-pen-EEL.” Many have bells. The instrument used to play them is a carillon.
CANADA GOOSE
Not Canadian goose. Canadians are people. So what about Canadian bacon? Should it be Canada bacon? What can I tell you? English is weird.
CANCELED
Not cancelled. Cancellation, however, with two n’s, is correct. Spellcheck won’t help with this one: You have to know what’s right.
CAPITAL/CAPITOL
Capitol is the building. Capital is the city. Capital is also a financial term. It means – wait for it – “money.”
CAPITALIZATION
It’s acceptable to capitalize words for effect – Let’s talk about What’s Next for the company – but don’t overdo it, and don’t capitalize something just because it’s a noun. That’s too, like, German or something.
CASTER/CASTOR
The Brits called the wheel on the bottom of your chair a castor. In the United States, we say caster. A castor, stateside, is the bean from which the poison ricin in derived.
CASH FLOW/S
The statement of cash flow describes the change in the cash account on the balance sheet. That’s perfectly clear, but you’ll hear the term cash flow bandied about as if it means “revenue” or even “profit.” In these cases, be very specific. Words that mean money or sums of money can mean different things depending on the user or the context. In any case, cash flow is preferred to the plural. Revenue is singular, too.
CEMENT/CONCRETE
Cement is the powder that goes in the mix. Concrete is the hard stuff that results. Correct: She fell off her bike and landed on the concrete. A concrete truck is properly a cement mixer.
CENTER ON
Never center around.
CEREMONIAL/CEREMONIOUS
Ceremonial is an adjective that connotes a ritual or tradition. Ceremonius is a fondness for such formal trappings.
A ceremonial sword might be used in a ritual, as in a knighting. A ceremonious entry, as at a formal reception, is flamboyantly fussy.
CERTAINTY/CERTITUDE
Certainty means “the state of being certain.” Certitude is “the state of feeling absolutely convinced.” Certitude is a feeling; certainty involves inherent factuality. A high degree of certitude makes sense; it means one felt really sure. A high degree of certainty is redundant like all the way off or really dead.
CITIZEN/RESIDENT
Countries have citizens, cities and states and other places have residents.
CLASSIC/CLASSICAL
A classic is “a prototypical example,” as in a classic point guard or a Grateful Dead classic. Classical refers to a style of art, music or other subject. Both sometimes describe FM radio. Go figure.
COLLIDE
Only moving objects can collide.
COMMENCE
In special legal or religious contexts, commence has a place. If you’re just looking for more syllables than start, quit while you’re ahead. Start and begin are perfectly fine. Opt for the punchy Anglo-Saxon in lieu of the windy Latin.
COMPARABLE
Pronounce this word correctly or train yourself not to use it.
It’s COMP-ruh-bull, not com-PARE-uh-bull
.
See also: PREERABLE, SOVIET, EDUCATION, PRESAGE and PATENTLY.
COMPLEMENT/COMPLIMENT
“Complement” as a verb means “go with.” The tie complemented the jacket. As a noun, it means the same thing: The tie was the perfect complement to the jacket.
Compliment, spelled with an “i,” is a kind statement as a noun and can also be used as an verb. “That’s a great tie,” Phyllis said. “Thanks for that nice compliment,” Bob replied. Or: Phyllis complimented Bob. Had she been wearing a scarf to match his tie, she also would have complemented him.
A whole group is a full complement.
COMPOUND MODIFIERS
Stacking descriptive words in front of a noun can present problems. A blue-green car is really neither blue nor green; it’s both, so we glue the adjectives together. As a rule, compound modifiers should be hyphenated to keep things orderly and immediately clear.
Remember “three-fifths compromise.” With the hyphen, we know that the term refers to a shameful load of racist horseshit whereby black citizens were to be counted as three-fifths of a person. Without the hyphen, though, we are left to conclude that four fifths, as of bourbon, would be too much but two would be too little, and so three was settled upon in drunken agreement.
So what about common compound descriptors like high school, real estate and health care? As stand-alone nouns, they’re not hyphenated. As compound modifiers, they should be.
CONVERSATE
I can’t in good conscience bring myself to think of an example. Don’t use this word. Ever.
CONTEMPTIBLE/CONTEMPTUOUS
Something contemptible rightly deserves scorn and derision. Contemptuous means “full of contempt.” The hostile witness’a contemptuous tone evinced a stern warning from the judge.
COMPARE TO/COMPARE WITH
When illustrating similarities, use compare to. When illustrating differences, use compare with. Compare yourself with Shakespeare.
COULD OF
In all cases say could have.
CRETIN
Pronounced “KREE-ten,” not “CRY-ten.” I’ll leave you to evaluate the irony of mispronoucing a word that means “dumb.” Cretin comes to English from French and originated as a diminutive of Christian. A community of disabled people lived as wards of the church in a Swiss canton. Cretin grew from there as a synonym of “idiot.” This is the kind of thing you find hidden in brackets of good dictionaries.
CROSS TO BEAR
In the Bible, Jesus picks up his cross and carries it to his crucifixion. A cross to bear should be a voluntary burden.
CONVINCE/PERSUADE
Not interchangeable. One is convinced of an idea. This might persuade them to act. Persuasion is meant to lead to action. If that’s not what you’re trying to get across, use convince.
COULD CARE LESS
The point of this malidiom is to express disdain and contempt or both. It’s to convey the sense that the person using it has identified the issue at hand as her least-critical priority. It is intended to mean “I care about everything else on God’s green earth more than this.” Thus the phrase must be, logically, I couldn’t care less.
CUSTOMER/CLIENT
Customers buy products. Clients buy services.
D-D-D
DAMAGE/DAMAGES
A storm causes damage. A court awards damages.
DIALOG
Not a verb. You’ll sound like a pretentious tool.
DAYLIGHT-SAVING TIME
Not “daylight savings time.” The ancient Romans adjusted their clocks, giving more minutes to the third hour of the day based on the time of year. Eighteen centuries later, Ben Franklin wrote a satirical piece to a Paris newspaper proposing a similar scheme, to save money on candles. But the trouble was no one really cared exactly what time it was until after the railroads came, when nationally and then universally standardized time became necessary. The modern father of daylight-saving time is the New Zealander George Hudson, who proposed the idea in the late 1800s because he wanted more time for his hobby, collecting bugs. You’re fully briefed.
DATES BACK
This would be nothing more than a garden-variety redundancy were it not for the fact that one hears it and reads it so often: Baseball in America dates back to at least 1791, when a Massachusetts town outlawed playing it near the new town hall. “Dates to” is sufficient.
DEEP-SEATED
Not deep-seeded.
DELUSION/ILLUSION
A delusion is when one believes the false to be true. An illusion is a false conception or deceptive belief.
DEPRECATE/DEPRECIATE
These are words you already know, but like cache and cachet if you mistype one and get the other, spell check isn’t likely to find it.
DIAGNOSE
Conditions are diagnosed, not people. A person other than the patient is typically the subject of the sentence; the condition is the object, which receives the action of the verb. To get right to the point: Doctors diagnosed diabetes is correct. My doctor diagnosed me with diabetes is wrong. My doctor said I’m diabetic works just fine. That said, a persnickety editor is likely to change it for another reason known as sequence of tenses. That rule says you can’t backtrack your tenses. The sentence should read the doctor said (past tense) I was (past tense) diabetic.
DICHOTOMY
Beloved in academia -- dichotomy indicates a stark contrast -- it is a faddish word best avoided.
DIED SUDDENLY
No. Everyone dies at the same speed. If you mean, “died unexpectedly,” say that.
DIFFERENT
This is a word, like both, that often can be removed with no consequence, as in “I looked at two different houses.” Better: Get to the point and mention why they were different.
DILEMMA
Mary-Marsha faced a dilemma: Diamonds or pearls? No, she didn’t. A dilemma is a choice between two equally lousy options. Mary-Marsha merely faced a choice.
DISC/DISK
This one might be overtaken by the cloud, but the word disc is typically used for media stored optically and disk refers to media stored magnetically. Thus compact disc, floppy disk and hard disk. The bones in your spine have a c. This is a good rule, to be sure, but it’s perfectly arbitrary. Much of English is. And some of it doesn’t make any sense at all, or “often” wouldn’t have a t, cocksucker would be superlative rather than pejorative and we’d call them Convenient Stores. You’ll be okay.
DISINFORMATION/MISINFORMATION
Misinformation is just wrong. Ann was misinformed about which president resigned. Disinformation is propaganda intended to deceive.
DISINTERESTED/UNINTERESTED
Disinterested means “impartial.” An auditor should be disinterested: She has no personal stake (that is, interest) in the company she’s auditing, only in evaluating its financial position. Uninterested means you just don’t give a shit one way or the other.
DISTRUST/MISTRUST
Okay, so these two are pretty darn close. Distrust tends to be based on experience or reliable information; mistrust conveys general unease toward someone or something. One might distrust the advice of someone who has given you bad tips in the past and might mistrust advice from a stranger. If you use them as synonyms, no one will notice.
DR PEPPER
The soft drink doesn’t have a period in its official name, and spell check misses it. I just point this out so that you’ll be tortured whenever you look at a menu (most of them get this wrong).
“Don’t gobblefunk around with words.”
-- Roald Dahl
E-E-E
EACH OTHER/ONE ANOTHER
Two people look at each other.
Three or more look at one another.
EDUCATION
This word does not have a j. I checked twice. Many attempt to add one. Resist. Say “ed-you-CAY-shun” not ed-JOU-cay-shun.
E.G., I.E.
Exempli gratia is Latin for “for example.” Id est is Latin for “that is.”
ELDER
Fine as a noun, as in “respect your elders” or “the elders decided to hire a pastor.” As an adjective, it’s archaic and almost always misused. Say older. But be careful: The potential for error here is not the word elder, which is perfectly clear. The rub is the difference between the comparative and the superlative. If a family has only two children, neither is accurately described as the eldest, only the elder.
EMPTY/VACANT
An empty building contains nothing. A vacant building is unoccupied by people but may contain other things, like furniture or equipment.
END USER
Corporate nonsense. Don’t use.
ENORMITY
Does not mean “huge.” Enormity doesn’t have anything to do with size. It means “evil.”
ENSURE/INSURE
Ensure means “to guarantee.” Insure means “to protect against financial loss.”
ENTHUSE
This word, back-formed from the otherwise lovely and mellifluous enthusiasm, makes any careful writer want to vomit on his shoes. Keep nouns as nouns; use verbs as verbs. Never say enthused again, in any context, not even once.
ENTITLED
You’re entitled to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and Obamacare. Movies, books and other works are titled. Garrison Keillor, who should know better, gets this wrong every morning on The Writers’ Almanac, when he says, “Here’s a poem for today, entitled, “To a Mouse” by Robert Burns.” No, Garrison! A thousand times no! “Here’s a poem for today, ‘To a Mouse,’ by Robert Burns. No loss of meaning, no egregious usage error. Say titled if you must; entitled is just plain wrong.
EPISODES
Pronouncied “EEE-pes-so-dees.” The Greek god of reruns. (Sorry.)
ESTIMATED AT ABOUT
Estimated is enough of a hedge. It implies imprecision. There’s no need to overdo modifiers with built-in connotations that already convey your meaning already. Ditto verb tense: It’s often built in, which is why you need not say currently hiring. The -ing form of the verb already indicates it’s happen-ING.
ESQUIRE
If you use Esq. to denote a lawyer, you need not employ another courtesy title. Don’t say Mr. Johnny Cochran, Esq. Pick one.
ETHEREAL/EPHEMERAL
Two elegant words. Their meanings are close but not the same. Ethereal means “delicate,” with connotations of otherworldliness. Something ephemeral doesn’t last very long, like fog.
EQUITABLE/EQUABLE
Equable means “unvarying, free from extremes, or not easily disturbed.” Equitable (pronounced EH-quit-uh-ble) means “fair, impartial or proportionate.”
EVERYONE/NO ONE
You probably use these words all the time, indeed, my guess is you use then properly. But if you do, consider whether you should use them at all. These words erode credibility.
Everyone likes vanilla ice cream is not an accurate statement. Some people hate it.
Everyone says you’re great. Nonsense. Plenty of folks hate your guts.
The same goes for no one.
No one goes to the Union Grill anymore. Well, someone must, right? Sometimes, “everyone” is correct, though: For instance, “Everyone who eats potato salad will die” is perfectly accurate. No one goes to Studio 64. Also true, now. Moral: If your meaning matters, choose your words carefully. Generalization invites logical fallacy.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Redundant. What is an “executive director” that a “director” is not? Nonprofits added executive to their titles to make them sound as important as the people they were asking for money. Don’t follow their lead. Remember, you get to write however you want. You don’t have to use someone’s exact title, especially if it’s dumb. And while I’m on the subject, you don’t have to put the idiotic exclamation point at the end of Yahoo. You aren’t required by law to write SYSCO or put any other company name or product in all caps. If it doesn’t pass the Looks Weird test, change it. I do defer to companies that insist on their trademarks being capitalized (Dumpster, Kleenex, Jell-o), but only because I worry DuPont will send me a sample if I fail to capitalize Napalm as they did to my friend Anne-Marie when she let Styrofoam into print with a lower-case “s.”
EXPERIENCE
Like literally, expereience is so unsalvageably hopworn as to be meaningless. If you must use it, do not modify, stacking adjectives onto experience always instroduces pretension and unnecessary wordiness. A theatrical experience, for God’s sake, is a “show.”
EXTRAPOLATE/INTERPOLATE
Extrapolation extends the trend. Interpolation is the act of assuming a sort of mathematical midpoint exists between two known values plotted on a line. Both are guesses.