7 Common Homonymic Spelling Errors

7 Common Homonymic Spelling Errors 7 Common Homonymic Spelling Errors 7 Common Homonymic Spelling Errors By Mark Nichol Homonyms are words that sound like, but are spelled differently and have different meanings. Some of the most commonly confused pairs of words are illustrated in the following examples: 1. â€Å"The color complimented her unusual skin tone.† Unless the color was personified and therefore had the power of speech as well as discernment, it complemented, or enhanced by association, the hue of the person’s skin. Both the noun and verb forms of complement derive form the Latin word for â€Å"completion.† Compliment has the same root, but it refers to courtesy. 2. â€Å"He assured them he would be discrete about the matter.† This error pops up frequently in personals ads (or ahem so I’ve been told) in which correspondents advertise their desire for a â€Å"discrete relationship.† Discrete and discreet have the same meaning, â€Å"separate, or distinct,† but divergent connotations. A discrete relationship wouldn’t be very satisfying, because discrete implies a categorical separation. Discreet, on the other hand, refers to secretive or surreptitious behavior no long walks on the beach. 3. â€Å"Despite the real estate boom, he hasn’t joined his ex-patriots in the feeding frenzy.† People who reside in a country other than the one of their birth are not necessarily there because they are no longer devoted to their own nation, though that is one meaning of the word in question. But patriotism doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with it. Such a person is an expatriate. The root word, patria, refers generally to one’s native country, not specifically to love for it. 4. â€Å"The teacher suddenly found herself overcome by a hoard of children.† We may treasure children, but we don’t refer to a â€Å"treasure of children,† and hoard means â€Å"treasure.† (It’s from Old English and is related to the word for â€Å"hide.†) The writer meant to write horde, which connotes a throng, a mob, or a rabble. Horde derives from the Turkic word orda or ordu, which refers to the abode of a khan, a word for â€Å"monarch† or â€Å"chieftain.† The English term describes both a nomadic group and a specific political entity of nomads, and more recent usage has adopted the term as a synonym for crowd or the other meanings listed above. 5. â€Å"Carefully turning the pages, she poured over the document.† Poured what over the document? That was careless of her. She would have saved herself some cleaning up if she had pored over the document instead. Pore means to intently gaze, read, or study and, in the sense of a wide-eyed attention, is perhaps akin to the noun pore, which means â€Å"passage† or â€Å"opening.† 6. â€Å"The principle issue at stake is whether it is ever acceptable to lie.† The definition of principle derives from the Latin word for â€Å"beginning†; a principle is an establishing or defining concept. But the issue in question here is the primary one or, as the writer intended to convey, the principal one. (The head of a school, by the way, was originally the principal, or first, teacher.) 7. â€Å"The motorist was sited for reckless driving.† Well, a police officer certainly sighted the reckless driving, but sited is a synonym for located. After the sighting, the officer issued a citation, and the driver was therefore cited. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Spelling category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:30 Religious Terms You Should Know60 Synonyms for â€Å"Trip†A "Diploma" is not a "Degree"

Definition and Examples of Back-Formation

Definition and Examples of Back-Formation In linguistics, back-formation is the process of forming a new word (a neologism) by removing actual or supposed affixes from another word. Put simply, a back-formation is a shortened word (such as edit) created from a longer word (editor). Verb: back-form (which is itself a back-formation). Also called  back-derivation. The term back-formation was coined by Scottish lexicographer James Murray, the primary editor of the Oxford English Dictionary from 1879 until 1915. As Huddleston and Pullum have noted, There is nothing in the forms themselves that enables one to distinguish between affixation and back-formation: its a matter of historical formation of words rather than of their structure (A Students Introduction To English Grammar, 2005). Pronunciation: BAK for-MAY-shun Examples and Observations singular noun pea from the older English plural peasethe verb burgle from the older English noun burglarthe verb diagnose from the older English noun diagnosis He spoke with a certain what-is-it in his voice, and I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled, so I tactfully changed the subject. (P.G. Wodehouse, The Code of the Woosters, 1938) Here I was maybe forty minutes ago, sort of claustrophobed in the gap between the kickass movie world where Lila dumps the guy with the smarmy mustache and the obvious one where it just keeps getting later.(Daniel Handler, Adverbs. Ecco, 2006) Stripping the in- from inchoate is known as back-formation, the same process that has given us words like peeve (from peevish), surveil (from surveillance) and enthuse (from enthusiasm). There’s a long linguistic tradition of removing parts of words that look like prefixes and suffixes to come up with roots that weren’t there to begin with. (Ben Zimmer, Choate. The New York Times, January 3, 2010) Suffix Snipping Alan Prince studied a girl who . . . was delighted by her discovery that eats and cats were really eat -s and cat -s. She used her new suffix snipper to derive mik (mix), upstair, downstair, clo (clothes), len (lens), brefek (from brefeks, her word for breakfast), trappy (trapeze), even Santa Claw. Another child, overhearing his mother say they had booze in the house, asked what a boo was. One seven-year-old said of a sports match, I dont care who theyre going to verse, from expressions like the Red Sox versus the Yankees. (Steven Pinker, Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language. HarperCollins, 1999) In many cases of back-formation a presumed affix is removed which is in fact not truly an affix, as in the following words where the -or, -ar, and -er are not the agentive suffix, but part of the root: orator - -er orate, lecher -er lech, peddler -er peddle, escalator -er escalate, editor -er edit, swindle -er swindle, sculptor -er sculpt, hawker -er hawk. These mistakes are called back-formations. Note that some of them are colloquial or marginal, while others are fully accepted. (Laurel J. Brinton, The Structure of Modern English: A Linguistic Introduction. John Benjamins, 2000) Back-Formation in Middle English [T]he weakening of the flexional endings during the early Middle English period, which made possible the derivation from verbs of a multitude of nouns, and vice-versa, was also as essential to the rise of and development of back-formation. (Esko V. Pennanen, Contributions to the Study of Back-Formation in English, 1966) Back-Formation in Contemporary English Back formation continues to make a few contributions to the language. Television has given televise on the model of revise/revision, and donation has given donate on the model of relate/relation. Babysitter and stage manager have given babysit and stage manage for obvious reasons. More remote was the surprising lase from laser (the latter an acronym for lightwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation), recorded from 1966. (W.F. Bolton, A Living Language: The History and Structure of English. Random House, 1982) Filling a Void Backformations are more likely to occur with very strongly entrenched patterns and they have the effect of filling an apparent void. The process has given us common verbs such as afflict (from affliction), enthuse (from enthusiasm), laze (from lazy), liaise from liaison), aggress (from aggression), televise (from television), housekeep (from housekeeper), jell (from jelly), and many more. (Kate Burridge, Gift of the Gob: Morsels of English Language History. HarperCollins Australia, 2011) Usage [B]ack-formations are objectionable when they are merely needless variations of already existing verbs: back-formed verb - ordinary verb*administrate - administer*cohabitate - cohabit*delimitate - delimit*interpretate - interpret*orientate - orient*registrate - register*remediate - remedy*revolute - revolt*solicitate-solicit Many back-formations never gain real legitimacy (e.g.,  *elocute, *enthuse), some are aborted early in their existence (e.g., *ebullit, *evolute),  and still others are of questionable vigor (e.g., aggress, attrit, effulge, evanesce, frivol). . . . Still, many examples have survived respectably. (Bryan Garner,  Garners Modern American Usage, 3rd ed. Oxford University Press, 2009)