Several years ago, I wrote a book called Does Your Flamingo Flamenco? The Best Little Dictionary of Confused Words and Malapropisms.
After the book was published, I would occasionally find, or someone would send me, confused word pairs and misnamed idioms, most of which were not in that book. So I saved them in case I ever did a sequel to that book. I don’t know whether or not I will do a sequel, but here are some of those words and idioms:
Words
Aloud/Allowed – Easy one. These have nothing at all in common. Aloud is an adverb meaning out loud. Allowed is a verb past tense (allow).
Apprise/Appraise – To apprise means to notify or inform. Appraise means to give a value to. She appraised the house at half a million dollars. Please apprise me of what happened at the meeting.
Apprehend/Comprehend – To apprehend is to take into custody. It can also mean to grasp mentally. Comprehend means to understand something, so apprehend can be used instead, but it is better to use the better understood comprehend to mean understand!
Assistance/Assistants – This reminds me of incidents and incidence, which I used to have as vocabulary words for my 7th grade English class. I added in instance, just to make it very confusing! They sound the same when spoken, but assistance is an abstract noun that means help. Assistants is the plural of the noun assistant.
Confidant/Confidante/Confident – Confident means possessing confidence or self-assurance. A confidant is a trustworthy person one confides in. Sometimes a female confidant is a confidante, but generally confidant is used for all genders.
Dragged/Drug – Dragged is the correct past tense of the regular verb drag. Regular verbs add -ed for the past tense. In some geographical areas, in some dialects, drug is used for the past tense of drag, but it is not standard. Drug is an entirely different noun or verb, whose past tense is drugged.
Persecute/Prosecute – To prosecute is to bring legal action against someone. To persecute is to punish, harm, or ridicule, often because of someone’s beliefs.
Shear/Sheer – To shear is to cut, as a lamb’s wool. Sheer is an adjective meaning see-through or transparent (as fabric) or an adverb meaning total or complete. It is sheer ignorance to believe that!
Simple/Simplistic – Simple means easy and uncomplicated. Simplistic has the same root, but indicates extreme and misleading simplicity. It is simplistic to think that we can accomplish that without extra funding.
Tortuous/Torturous – Tortuous means having lots of twists and turns, whether literally or figuratively. Torturous comes from torture and means extremely difficult or painful.
Idioms/Phrases
Champing at the bit/Chomping at the bit – The correct idiom is actually champing at the bit, although chomping seems to make sense! It means being impatient. Horses champ at their bits when impatient. or restless.
Deep seated/Deep seeded – The correct phrase is deep seated, which means ingrained. But deep seeded does seem to make sense and is often used.
In regard to/In regards to – The correct phrase is in regard to. We also use as regards, which does have the s. Both phrases are wordy and can usually be eliminated.
Toe the line/Tow the line – The correct idiom is toe the line. It means to follow the rules.
Tough road to hoe/Tough row to hoe – The correct idiom is tough row to hoe. It is very tough to hoe a road, but we do hoe rows.
Yesterday, September 24, was National Punctuation Day. If I had remembered, I might have written a post about punctuation. Oh, well!!;:”‘).?
What word do you leave if you “leave word”?
I believe that is an idiom and not quite literal! Interesting though.
This blog is a good addition to your Flamingo book, which I recently bought. Here are some more that I run in to.
Renege, not renig
Quash, not squash
Spendthrift ( I’ve been using it wrong, or is it “wrongly?”)
Systemic or systematic
Who or whom
Woke, woken up, awaken
Thanks for those additions! I did a blog post a long time ago on woke, awaken..and I have done several on the who and whom enigma.
The origin of these phrases is often interesting
For instance, in a race it was essential that nobody had a ‘head start’ by being in front of the others so a line would be drawn and the competitors had to ‘toe the line’/ Only cheats would ‘step over the line’.
A line was also used in boxing. Scratched across the centre of the ring the opponents would stand toe-to-toe at this line and if one of the them was knocked down, they both had to return to this start point. Only if they were both fit enough would they be able to ‘come up to scratch’
Thank you for the explanations!!!!
Always interesting to read your comments. They confirm or clarify, and I always enjoy learning something new.
Thanks, Barbara!