Common Errors in English - Part 4

DAMP SQUID/DAMP SQUIB

Squid are indeed usually damp in their natural environment; but the popular British expression describing a less than spectacular explosion is a "damp squib" (soggy firecracker).

DAMPED/DAMPENED

When the vibration of a wheel is reduced it is damped, but when you drive through a puddle your tire is dampened. "Dampened" always has to do with wetting, if only metaphorically: "The announcement that Bob's parents were staying home after all dampened the spirits of the party­goers." The parents are being a wet blanket.

DANGLING AND MISPLACED MODIFIERS

Dangling and misplaced modifiers are discussed at length in usage guides partly because they are very common and partly because there are many different kinds of them. But it is not necessary to understand the grammatical details involved to grasp the basic principle: words or phrases which modify some other word or phrase in a sentence should be clearly, firmly joined to them and not dangle off forlornly on their own.

Sometimes the dangling phrase is simply too far removed from the word it modifies, as in "Sizzling on the grill, Theo smelled the Copper River salmon." This makes it sound like Theo is being barbecued, because his name is the nearest noun to "sizzling on the grill." We need to move the dangling modifier closer to the word it really modifies: "salmon." "Theo smelled the Copper River salmon sizzling on the grill."

Sometimes it's not clear which of two possible words a modifier modifies: "Felicia is allergic to raw apples and almonds." Is she allergic only to raw almonds, or all almonds­­even roasted ones? This could be matter of life and death. Here's a much clearer version: "Felicia is allergic to almonds and raw apples." "Raw" now clearly modifies only "apples."

Dangling modifiers involving verbs are especially common and sometimes difficult to spot. For instance, consider this sentence: "Having bought the harpsichord, it now needed tuning." There is no one mentioned in the sentence who did the buying. One way to fix this is to insert the name of someone and make the two halves of the sentence parallel in form: "Wei Chi, having bought the harpsichord, now needed to tune it." If you have a person in mind, it is easy to forget the reader needs to be told about that person; but he or she can't be just "understood."

Here's another sentence with a dangling modifier, in this case at the end of a sentence: "The retirement party was a disaster, not having realized that Arthur had been jailed the previous week." There is nobody here doing the realizing. One fix: "The retirement party was a disaster because we had not realized that Arthur had been jailed the previous

 

week."

Using passive verbs will often trip you up: "In reviewing Gareth's computer records, hundreds of hours spent playing online games were identified." This sort of thing looks fine to a lot of people and in fact is common in professional writing, but technically somebody specific needs to be mentioned in the sentence as doing the identifying. Inserting a doer and shifting to the active voice will fix the problem. While we're at it, let's make clear that Gareth was doing the playing: "The auditor, in checking Gareth's computer records, identified hundreds of hours that he had spent playing online games."

Adverbs like "almost," "even," "hardly," "just," "only," and "nearly," are especially likely to get stuck in the wrong spot in a sentence. "Romeo almost kissed Juliet as soon as he met her" means he didn't kiss her­­he only held her hand. True, but you might want to say something quite different: "Romeo kissed Juliet almost as soon as he met her." The placement of the modifier is crucial.

DARING­DO/DERRING­DO

The expression logically should be "feats of daring­do" because that's just what it means: deeds of extreme daring. But through a chain of misunderstandings explained in the Oxford English Dictionary, the standard form evolved with the unusual spelling "derring­do," and "daring­do" is an error.

DATA/DATUM

There are several words with Latin or Greek roots whose plural forms ending in A are constantly mistaken for singular ones. See, for instance, "criteria" and "media." "Datum" is so rare now in English that people may assume "data" has no singular form. Many American usage communities, however, use "data" as a singular and some have even gone so far as to invent "datums" as a new plural. This is a case where you need to know the patterns of your context. An engineer or scientist used to writing "the data is" may well find that the editors of a journal or publishing house insist on changing this phrase to "the data are." Usage is so evenly split in this case that there is no automatic way of determining which is right; but writers addressing an international audience of nonspecialists would probably be safer treating "data" as plural.

DATELINE/DEADLINE

The word "dateline" is used today mainly to label the bit of text at the top of a printed news story that indicates where and­­often, but not always­­when it was written. For instance, after a headline about events in Kenya, the deadline might read"NAIROBI, Kenya, June 2, 2010."

Probably because this rather obscure word has been popularized by its use for the name of an NBC television news show, some people confuse it with "deadline," which is most often the date by which something must be accomplished. You can miss deadlines, meet deadlines, or have to deal

 

with short deadlines­­ but not datelines.

DAY IN AGE/DAY AND AGE

The expression is "in this day and age; but it's a worn­out expression, so you'd be better off writing "these days."

DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME/DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME

The official term is "daylight saving time," not "savings time."

DEBRIEF

"Debrief" has leaked out of the military and national security realms into the business world, where people seem pretty confused about it. When you send people out on missions, you brief them­­give them information they'll need. You give them a briefing. When they come back, you debrief them by asking them what they did and found out. Note that in both cases it's not the person doing the actual work but the boss or audience that does the briefing and debriefing. But people commonly use "debrief" when they mean "report."

The verb "brief" comes originally from law, where someone being given a legal brief (instructions on handling a case) can be said to have been briefed. Debriefing has nothing to do with underwear.

DECEPTIVELY

If you say of a soldier that he is "deceptively brave" you might be understood to mean that although he appears cowardly he is actually brave, or that although he appears brave he is actually cowardly. This ambiguity should cause you to be very careful about using "deceptive" and "deceptively" to make clear which meaning you intend.

DECIMATE/ANNIHILATE, SLAUGHTER, ETC.

This comes under the heading of the truly picky. Despite the fact that most dictionaries have caved in, some of us still remember that when the Romans killed one out of every ten (decem) soldiers in a rebellious group as an example to the others, they decimated them. People sensitive to the roots of words are uncomfortably reminded of that ten percent figure when they see the word used instead to mean "annihilate," "obliterate," etc. You can usually get away with using "decimate" to mean "drastically reduce in numbers," but you're taking a bigger risk when you use it to mean "utterly wipe out."

DEEP­SEEDED/DEEP­SEATED

Those who pine for the oral cultures of Ye Olden Dayes can rejoice as we enter an era where many people are unfamiliar with common expressions in print and know them only by hearsay.* The result is mistakes like "deep seeded." The expression has nothing to do with a feeling being planted deep within one, but instead refers to its being seated firmly within one's breast: "My aversion to anchovies is deep­seated." Compounding

 

their error, most people who misuse this phrase leave the hyphen out.

Tennis players may be seeded, but not feelings.

*The notion that English should be spelled as it is pronounced is widespread, but history is against the reformers in most cases. Pronunciation is often a poor guide to spelling. The veneration of certain political movements for the teaching of reading through phonics is nicely caricatured by a t­shirt slogan I've seen: "Hukt awn fonix."

DEFENCE/DEFENSE

If you are writing for a British publication, use "defence," but the American "defense" has the advantages of greater antiquity, similarity to the words from which it was derived, and consistency with words like "defensible."

DEFINATE/DEFINITE

Any vowel in an unstressed position can sometimes have the sound linguists call a "schwa:" "uh." The result is that many people tend to guess when they hear this sound, but "definite" is definitely the right spelling. Also common are various misspellings of "definitely," including the bizarre "defiantly."

DEFAMATION/DEFORMATION

Someone who defames you, seeking to destroy your reputation (making you ill­famed), is engaging in defamation of character. Only if someone succeeded in actually making you a worse person could you claim that they had deformed your character.

DEFUSE/DIFFUSE

You defuse a dangerous situation by treating it like a bomb and removing its fuse; to diffuse, in contrast, is to spread something out: "Bob's cheap cologne diffused throughout the room, wrecking the wine­tasting."

DEGRADE/DENIGRATE/DOWNGRADE

Many people use "downgrade" instead of "denigrate" to mean "defame, slander." "Downgrade" is entirely different in meaning. When something is downgraded, it is lowered in grade (usually made worse), not just considered worse. "When the president of the company fled to Rio with fifteen million dollars, its bonds were downgraded to junk bond status." "Degrade" is much more flexible in meaning. It can mean to lower in status or rank (like "downgrade") or to corrupt or make contemptible; but it always has to do with actual reduction in value rather than mere insult, like "denigrate." Most of the time when people use "downgrade" they would be better off instead using "insult," "belittle," or "sneer at."

DEGREE TITLES

When you are writing phrases like "bachelor's degree," "master of arts

 

degree" and "doctor of philosophy degree" use all lower­case spelling. Less formally, these are often abbreviated to "bachelor's," "master's," and "doctorate": "I earned my master's at Washington State University." Be careful not to omit the apostrophes where needed.

The only time to capitalize the spelled­out forms of degree names is when you are specifying a particular degree's name: "Master of English Composition." However the abbreviations BA, MA, and PhD are all capitalized. In modern usage periods are not usually added.

DEJA VU

In French "deja vu" means literally "already seen" and usually refers to something excessively familiar. However the phrase, sans accent marks, was introduced into English mainly as a psychological term indicating the sensation one experiences when feeling that something has been experienced before when this is in fact not the case. If you feel strongly that you have been previously in a place where you know for a fact you have never before been, you are experiencing a sensation of deja vu. English usage is rapidly sliding back toward the French meaning, confusing listeners who expect the phrase to refer to a false sensation rather than a factual familiarity, as in "Congress is in session and talking about campaign finance reform, creating a sense of deja vu." In this relatively new sense, the phrase has the same associations as the colloquial "same old, same old" (increasingly often misspelled "sameo, sameo" by illiterates).

"It seems like it's deja vu all over again," is a redundantly mangled saying usually attributed to baseball player Yogi Berra. Over the ensuing decades clever writers would allude to this blunder in their prose by repeating the phrase "deja vu all over again," assuming that their readers would catch the allusion and share a chuckle with them. Unfortunately, recently the phrase has been worn to a frazzle and become all but substituted for the original, so that not only has it become a very tired joke indeed­­a whole generation has grown up thinking that Berra's malapropism is the correct form of the expression. Give it a rest, folks!

DEMOCRAT PARTY/DEMOCRATIC PARTY

Certain Republican members of Congress have played the childish game in recent years of referring to the opposition as the "Democrat Party," hoping to imply that Democrats are not truly democratic. They succeed only in making themselves sound ignorant, and so will you if you imitate them. The name is "Democratic Party."

DENIED OF/DENIED

If you are deprived of your rights you are denied them; but that's no reason to confuse these two expressions with each other. You can't be "denied of" anything.

DEPENDS/DEPENDS ON

 

In casual speech, we say "it depends who plays the best defense"; but in writing follow "depends" with "on."

DEPRECIATE/DEPRECATE

To depreciate something is to actually make it worse, whereas to deprecate something is simply to speak or think of it in a manner that demonstrates your low opinion of it. People who make unflattering jokes or comments about themselves are self­deprecating.

DERISORY/DERISIVE

Although "derisory" and "derisive" can both mean "laughable," there are sometimes subtle distinctions made between them. "Derisory" is most often used to mean "worthy of being laughed at": "Ethan" made a derisory effort to clean the cat box while talking on his cell phone." Sneering laughter is usually described as "derisive."

You might more unusually speak of an effort as "derisive," but most people would think it odd to use "derisory" to describe the tone of someone's laughter.

DESERT/DESSERT

Perhaps these two words are confused partly because "dessert" is one of the few words in English with a double "S" pronounced like "Z" ("brassiere" is another). That impoverished stretch of sand called a desert can only afford one "S." In contrast, that rich gooey extra thing at the end of the meal called a dessert indulges in two of them. The word in the phrase "he got his just deserts" is confusingly pronounced just like "desserts."

DEVIANT/DEVIATE

The technical term used by professionals to label someone whose behavior deviates from the norm is "deviate," but if you want to tease a perv friend you may as well call him a "deviant"­­that's what almost everybody else says. In your sociology class, however, you might want to stick with "deviate."

DEVICE/DEVISE

"Device" is a noun. A can­opener is a device. "Devise" is a verb. You can devise a plan for opening a can with a sharp rock instead. Only in law is "devise" properly used as a noun, meaning something deeded in a will.

DEW/DO/DOO/DUE

The original pronunciation of "dew" and "due" rhymed with "pew", but American pronunciation has shifted toward sounding all of these words alike, and the result is much confusion in standard phrases. On a damp morning there is dew on the grass. Doo on the grass is the result of failing to pick up after your dog. The most common confusion is

 

substituting "do" for "due" (owing) in phrases like "credit is due,"

"due to circumstances," and "bill is due."

"Do" is normally a verb, but it can be a noun with meanings like "party," "hairdo," and "dos and don'ts." Note that in the last phrase it is not necessary to insert an apostrophe before the "S," and that if you choose to do so you'll wind up with two apostrophes awkwardly close together: "don't's."

DIALOGUE/DISCUSS

"Dialogue" as a verb in sentences like "the Math Department will dialogue with the Dean about funding" is commonly used jargon in business and education settings, but abhorred by traditionalists. Say "have a dialogue" or "discuss" instead.

DIETIES/DEITIES

This one is always good for a laugh. The gods are deities, after the Latin "deus," meaning "god."

DIFFERENT THAN/DIFFERENT FROM/TO

Americans say "Scuba­diving is different from snorkeling," the British often say "different to" (though most UK style guides disapprove), and those who don't know any better say "different than." However, though conservatives object, you can usually get away with "different than" if a full clause follows: "Your pashmina shawl looks different than it used to since the cat slept on it."

DIFFER/VARY

"Vary" can mean "differ," but saying "our opinions vary" makes it sound as if they were changing all the time when what you really mean is "our opinions differ." Pay attention to context when choosing one of these words.

DILEMMA/DIFFICULTY

A dilemma is a difficult choice, not just any difficulty or problem. Whether to invite your son's mother to his high school graduation when your current wife hates her is a dilemma. Cleaning up after a hurricane is just a problem, though a difficult one.

"Dilemna" is a common misspelling of "dilemma."

DIRE STRAIGHTS/DIRE STRAITS

When you are threading your way through troubles as if you were traversing a dangerously narrow passage you are in "dire straits." The expression and the band by that name are often transformed by those who don't understand the word "strait" into "dire straights."

See also "straightjacket/straitjacket."

 

DISBURSE/DISPERSE

You disburse money by taking it out of your purse (French "bourse") and distributing it. If you refuse to hand out any money, the eager mob of beggars before you may disperse (scatter).

DISC/DISK

"Compact disc" is spelled with a "C" because that's how its inventors decided it should be rendered; but a computer hard disk is spelled with a "K" (unless it's a CD­ROM, of course). In modern technological contexts, "disks" usually reproduce data magnetically, while "discs" (CD­ROMs, DVDs, etc.) reproduce it "optically," with lasers.

DISCONCERNING/CONCERNING, DISCERNING

This odd word looks like it might be an error for "disconcerting," but people who use it seem mostly to mean something like "discerning" (perceiving) or "concerning" (in the sense "of concern," itself widely considered an error).

DISCREET/DISCRETE

The more common word is "discreet," meaning "prudent, circumspect": "When arranging the party for Agnes, be sure to be discreet; we want her to be surprised." "Discrete" means "separate, distinct": "He arranged the guest list into two discrete groups: meat­eaters and vegetarians." Note how the T separates the two Es in "discrete."

DISCUSSED/DISGUST

"Discussed" is the past tense of the verb "discuss." Don't substitute for it the noun "disgust" in such sentences as "The couple's wedding plans were thoroughly discussed."

DISGRESSION/DISCRETION

Discretion has to do with being discreet or with making choices. A lot of people hear it and get influenced by the quite different word "digression" which is used to label instances of people wandering off the point. The result is the nonword "disgression." The expression is "you can do it at your own discretion."

DISINTERESTED/UNINTERESTED

A bored person is uninterested. Do not confuse this word with the much rarer "disinterested," which means "objective, neutral".

DISRESPECT

The hip­hop subculture has revived the use of "disrespect" as a verb. In the meaning to have or show disrespect, this usage has been long

 

established, if unusual. However, the new street meaning of the term, ordinarily abbreviated to "dis," is slightly but significantly different: to act disrespectfully, or­­more frequently­­insultingly toward someone. In some neighborhoods "dissing" is defined as merely failing to show sufficient terror in the face of intimidation. In those neighborhoods, it is wise to know how the term is used; but an applicant for a job who complains about having been "disrespected" elsewhere is likely to incur further disrespect . . . and no job. Street slang has its uses, but this is one instance that has not become generally accepted.

DISSEMBLE/DISASSEMBLE

People who dissemble are being dishonest, trying to hide what they are really up to. This is an uncommon word, often misused when "disassemble" is meant. People who disassemble something take it apart­­they are doing the opposite of assembling it.

DO RESPECT/DUE RESPECT

When you preface your critical comments by telling people "with all due respect" you are claiming to give them the respect they are due­­that which is owed them. Many folks misunderstand this phrase and misspell it "all do respect" or even "all­do respect." You shouldn't use this expression unless you really do intend to be as polite as possible; all too often it's used merely to preface a deliberate insult.

DOCTORIAL/DOCTORAL

"Doctoral" is occasionally misspelled­­and often mispronounced­­ "doctorial."

DOESN'T SUPPOSED TO/ISN'T SUPPOSED TO

You aren't supposed to say "doesn't supposed to." The expression is "isn't supposed to."

DOLLY/HANDCART

A dolly is a flat platform with wheels on it, often used to make heavy objects mobile, or by an auto mechanic lying on one under a car body. Many people mistakenly use this word to designate the vertically oriented two­wheeled device with upright handles and horizontal lip. This latter device is more properly called a "handcart" or "hand truck."

DOMINATE/DOMINANT

The verb is "dominate"; the adjective is "dominant." The dominant chimpanzee tends to dominate the others.

DONE/DID

The past participle of "do" is "done," so it's not "they have did what they promised not to do" but "they have done. . . ." But without a

 

helping verb, the word is "did." Nonstandard: "I done good on the test."

Standard: "I did well on the test."

DO'S AND DON'TS/DOS AND DON'TS

One unusual use of apostrophes is to mark plurals of words when they are being treated as words, as in "pro's and con's," although plain old "pros and cons" without apostrophes is fine. But "don't" already has one apostrophe in it, and adding another looks awkward in the phrase "do's and don't's," so people wind up being inconsistent and writing "do's and don'ts." This makes no logical sense. You can also skip the extra apostrophes and write "dos and don'ts," unless you're afraid that "dos" will remind your readers of MS­DOS (but that unlamented operating system is fast becoming a distant memory).

DOUBLE NEGATIVES

It is not true, as some assert, that double negatives are always wrong; but the pattern in formal speech and writing is that two negatives equal a mild positive: "he is a not untalented guitarist" means he has some talent. In informal speech, however, double negatives are intended as negatives: "he ain't got no talent" means he is a lousy musician. People are rarely confused about the meaning of either pattern, but you do need to take your audience into account when deciding which pattern to follow.

One of the funniest uses of the literary double negative is Douglas Adams' description of a machine dispensing "a substance almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea."

DOUBT THAT/DOUBT WHETHER/DOUBT IF

If you really doubt that something is true (suspect that it's false), use "doubt that": "I doubt that Fred has really lost 25 pounds." If you want to express genuine uncertainty, use "whether": "I doubt whether we'll see the comet if the clouds don't clear soon." "Doubt if" can be substituted for "doubt whether," though it's considered somewhat more casual, but don't use it when you mean "doubt that."

DOUBTLESSLY/DOUBTLESS

Leave off the unnecessary "­ly" in "doubtless."

DOVE/DIVED

Although "dove" is a common form of the past tense of "dive," a few authorities consider "dived" preferable in formal writing.

DOWNFALL/DRAWBACK

A downfall is something that causes a person's destruction, either literal or figurative: "expensive cars were Fred's downfall: he spent his entire inheritance on them and went bankrupt." A drawback is not nearly so drastic, just a flaw or problem of some kind, and is normally

 

applied to plans and activities, not to people: "Gloria's plan to camp on Mosquito Island had just one drawback: she had forgotten to bring her insect repellent." Also, "downfall" should not be used when the more moderate "decline" is meant; reserve it for ruin, not to designate simple deterioration.

DRANK/DRUNK

Many common verbs in English change form when their past tense is preceded by an auxiliary ("helping") verb: "I ran, I have run." The same is true of "drink." Don't say "I've drank the beer" unless you want people to think you are drunk. An even more common error is "I drunk all the milk." it's "I've drunk the beer" and "I drank all the milk."

DRASTIC

"Drastic" means "severe" and generally has negative or frightening associations. Drastic measures are not just extreme, they are likely to have harmful side­effects. Don't use this word or "drastically" in a positive or neutral sense. A drastic rise in temperature should be seen as downright dangerous, not just surprisingly large. Often when people use phrases like "drastic improvement," they mean "dramatic" instead.

DREDGE/DRUDGE/TRUDGE

You use machinery to scoop stuff up from underwater­­called a dredge­­to dredge up gunk or debris from the bottom of a river or lake. Metaphorically, you also dredge up old memories, the past, or objects buried in the mess in your room.

To drudge is to do hard, annoying work; and a person who does such work can also be called a "drudge." If you find yourself saying "drudge up" about anything you're trying to uncover you almost certainly should be using "dredge up" instead.

When you slog laboriously up a hill, you trudge up it. Trudging may be drudgery; but the act of walking a difficult path is not drudging, but trudging.

And you cooks wondering whether dredging a chicken breast with flour has anything to do with river­bottom dredging will be relieved to know it does not. The two words have completely different origins ("sprinkling" vs. "scooping").

DRIER/DRYER

A clothes dryer makes the clothes drier.

DRIBBLE/DRIVEL

"Dribble" and "drivel" originally meant the same thing: drool. But the two words have become differentiated. When you mean to criticize someone else's speech as stupid or pointless, the word you want is "drivel."

 

DRIPS AND DRABS/DRIBS AND DRABS

Something doled out in miserly amounts is provided in "dribs and drabs." A drib is a smaller relative of a dribble. Nobody seems to be sure what a drab is in this sense, except that it's a tiny bit larger than a drib.

Since the origin of the phrase is obscure, people try to substitute a more familiar word for the unusual word "drib" by writing "drips and drabs." But that's not the traditional formula.

DRIVE/DISK

A hard drive and a hard disk are much the same thing; but when it comes to removable computer media, the drive is the machinery that turns and reads the disk. Be sure not to ask for a drive when all you need is a disk.

DRUG/DRAGGED

"Well, look what the cat drug in!" Unless you are trying to render dialectical speech to convey a sense of down­home rusticity, use "dragged" as the past tense of "drag."

DUAL/DUEL

"Dual" is an adjective describing the two­ness of something­­dual carburetors, for instance. A "duel" is a formal battle intended to settle a dispute.

DUCK TAPE/DUCT TAPE

A commercial firm has named its product "Duck Tape," harking back to the original name for this adhesive tape (which was green), developed by Johnson & Johnson during World War II to waterproof ammunition cases. It is now usually called "duct tape," for its common use in connecting ventilation and other ducts (which match its current silver color). Note that modern building codes consider duct tape unsafe for sealing ducts, particularly those that convey hot air.

DUE TO THE FACT THAT/BECAUSE

Although "due to" is now a generally acceptable synonym for "because," "due to the fact that" is a clumsy and wordy substitute that should be avoided in formal writing. "Due to" is often misspelled "do to."

DYEING/DYING

If you are using dye to change your favorite t­shirt from white to blue you are dyeing it; but if you don't breathe for so long that your face turns blue, you may be dying.

(Common Errors in English by Paul Brians)