AND/OR


The legal phrase “and/or,” indicating that you can either choose between two alternatives or choose both of them, has proved irresistible in other contexts and is now widely acceptable though it irritates some readers as jargon. However, you can logically use it only when you are discussing choices which may or may not both be done: “Bring chips and/or pepsi.” It’s very much overused where simple “or” would do, and it would be wrong to say, “you can get to the campus for this morning’s meeting on a bike and/or in a car.” Choosing one eliminates the possibility of the other, so this isn’t an and/or situation.


ANECDOTE/ANTIDOTE

A humorist relates “anecdotes.” The doctor prescribes “antidotes” for children who have swallowed poison. Laughter may be the best medicine, but that’s no reason to confuse these two with each other.


ANGEL/ANGLE

People who want to write about winged beings from Heaven often miscall them “angles.” A triangle has three angles. The Heavenly Host is made of angels. Just remember the adjectival form: “angelic.” If you pronounce it aloud you’ll be reminded that the E comes before the L.


IN OTHER WORDS

When you reword a statement, you can preface it by saying “in other words.” The phrase is not “another words.”


ANTIHERO

In literature, theater, and film, an antihero is a central character who is not very admirable: weak, lazy, incompetent, or mean-spirited. However, antiheroes are rarely actually evil, and you should not use this word as a synonym for “villain” if you want to get a good grade on your English lit paper.


ANXIOUS/EAGER

Most people use “anxious” interchangeably with “eager,” but its original meaning had to do with worrying, being full of anxiety. Perfectly correct phrases like, “anxious to please” obscure the nervous tension implicit in this word and lead people to say less correct things like “I’m anxious for Christmas morning to come so I can open my presents.” Traditionalists frown on anxiety-free anxiousness. Say instead you are eager for or looking forward to a happy event.

ANY MORE

In the first place, the traditional (though now uncommon) spelling is as two words: “any more” as in “We do not sell bananas any more.” In the second place, it should not be used at the beginning of a sentence as a synonym for “nowadays.” In certain dialects of English it is common to utter phrases like “anymore you have to grow your own if you want really ripe tomatoes,” but this is guaranteed to jolt listeners who aren’t used to it. Even if they can’t quite figure out what’s wrong, they’ll feel that your speech is vaguely clunky and awkward. “Any more” always needs to be used as part of an expression of negation except in questions like “Do you have any more bananas?” Now you won’t make that mistake any more, will you?


ANY TIME

Though it is often compressed into a single word by analogy with “anywhere” and similar words, “any time” is traditionally a two-word phrase.


ANYWAY

“Anyways” at the beginning of a sentence usually indicates that the speaker has resumed a narrative thread: “Anyways, I told Matilda that guy was a lazy before she ever married him.” It also occurs at the end of phrases and sentences, meaning “in any case“: “He wasn’t all that good-looking anyways.” A slightly less rustic quality can be imparted to these sentences by substituting the more formal anyway. Neither expression is a good idea in formal written English. The two-word phrase “any way” has many legitimate uses, however: “Is there any way to prevent the impending disaster?”


ANYWHERE

“Anywhere,” like “somewhere” and “nowhere,” is always one word.


APART/A PART

Paradoxically, the one-word form implies separation while the two-word form implies union. Feuding roommates decide to live apart. Their time together may be a part of their life they will remember with some bitterness.


APIECE/A PIECE

When you mean “each” the expression is “apiece”: these pizzas are really cheap—only ten dollars apiece.” But when “piece” actually refers to a piece of something, the required two-word expression is “a piece ”: “This pizza is really expensive—they sell it by the slice for ten dollars a piece.”


APPALLED

Those of us named Paul are appalled at the misspelling of this word. No U, two L’s please.And it’s certainly not “uphauled.”


APPRAISE/APPRISE

When you estimate the value of something, you appraise it. When you inform people of a situation, you apprise them of it.


APROPOS/APPROPRIATE

“Apropos,” (anglicized from the French phrase “à propos” ) means relevant, connected with what has gone before; it should not be used as an all-purpose substitute for “appropriate.” It would be inappropriate, for example, to say “Your tuxedo was perfectly apropos for the opera gala.” Even though it’s not pronounced, be careful not to omit the final “S” in spelling “apropos.”


ABOUT

Lots of people think it’s just nifty to say things like “We’re having ongoing discussions around the proposed merger.” This strikes some of us as irritating jargon. We feel it should be “discussions about” rather than “around.”


ARTHRITIS

If there were such a word as “arthuritis” it might mean the overwhelming desire to pull swords out of stones; but that ache in your joints is caused by “arthritis.”


ARCTIC

Although some brand names have incorporated this popular error, remember that the Arctic Circle is an arc.


ASCRIBE/SUBSCRIBE

If you agree with a theory or belief, you subscribe to it, just as you subscribe to a magazine.
Ascribe is a very different word. If you ascribe a belief to someone, you are attributing the belief to that person, perhaps wrongly.


AS BEST

You can try to be as good as you can be, but it's not standard to say that you do something “as best as you can.” You need to eliminate the second “as” when “good” changes to “best.” You can try to do something as best you can. You can also do the best that you can (or even better, the best you can).


AS FAR AS *** IS CONCERNED

Originally people used to say things like “As far as music is concerned, I especially love Baroque opera.” Recently they have begun to drop the “is concerned” part of the phrase. Perhaps this shift was influenced by confusion with a similar phrase, “as for.” “As for money, I don’t have any,” is fine; “As far as money, I don’t have any,” is clumsy.



AS FOLLOWS

“My birthday requests are as follows.” This standard phrase doesn’t change number when the items to follow grow from one to many. It’s never correct to say “as follow.”

YET

“As of yet” is a windy and pretentious substitute for plain old English “yet” or “as yet,” an unjustified extension of the pattern in sentences like “as of Friday the 27th of May.”



IN ACCORDANCE WITH

“Enclosed is the shipment of #2 toggle bolts as per your order of June 14” writes the businessman, unaware that not only is the “as” redundant, he is sounding very old-fashioned and pretentious. The meaning is “in accordance with,” or “in response to the request made”; but it is better to avoid these cumbersome substitutes altogether: “Enclosed is the shipment of bolts you ordered June 14.”



AS SUCH

The expression “as such” has to refer to some status mentioned earlier. “The CEO was a former drill sergeant, and as such expected everyone to obey his orders instantly.” In this case “such” refers back to “former drill sergeant.” But often people only imply that which is referred to, as in “The CEO had a high opinion of himself and as such expected everyone to obey his orders instantly.” Here the “such” cannot logically refer back to “opinion.” Replace “as such” with “therefore.”

AS TIME PROGRESSED/AS TIME PASSED

Events may progress in time, but time itself does not progress—it just passes.


ASCARED /SCARED

The misspelling “ascared” is probably influenced by the spelling of the synonym “afraid, ” but the standard English word is “scared.”



ASOCIAL/ANTISOCIAL


Someone who doesn’t enjoy socializing at parties might be described as either “asocial” or “antisocial’; but “asocial” is too mild term to describe someone who commits an antisocial act like planting a bomb. “Asocial” suggests indifference to or separation from society, whereas “anti-social” more often suggests active hostility toward society.



ASPECT/RESPECT

When used to refer to different elements of or perspectives on a thing or idea, these words are closely related, but not interchangeable. It’s “in all respects,” not “in all aspects.” Similarly, one can say “in some respects” but not “in some aspects.” One says “in this respect,” not “in this aspect.” One looks at all “aspects” of an issue, not at all “respects.”



ASSURE/ENSURE/INSURE

To “assure” a person of something is to make him or her confident of it. According to Associated Press style, to “ensure” that something happens is to make certain that it does, and to “insure” is to issue an insurance policy. Other authorities, however, consider “ensure” and “insure” interchangeable. To please conservatives, make the distinction. However, it is worth noting that in older usage these spellings were not clearly distinguished.



AS WELL

No matter how you use it, the expression “as well” is always two words, despite the fact that many people seem to think it should be spelled “aswell.” Examples: “I don’t like plastic trees as well as real ones for Christmas.” “Now that we’ve opened our stockings, let’s open our other presents as well.”


AT ALL

Some of us are irritated when a grocery checker asks “Do you want any help out with that at all?” “At all” is traditionally used in negative contexts: “Can’t you give me any help at all?” The current pattern of using the phrase in positive offers of help unintentionally suggests aid reluctantly given or minimal in extent. As a way of making yourself sound less polite than you intend, it ranks right up there with “no problem” instead of “you’re welcome.”



ATM

“ATM” means “Automated Teller Machine,” so if you say “ATM machine” you are really saying, “Automated Teller Machine machine.”


ATTAIN/OBTAIN

“Attain” means “reach” and “obtain” means “get.” You attain a mountaintop, but obtain a rare baseball card.


ATTRIBUTE/CONTRIBUTE

When trying to give credit to someone, say that you attribute your success to their help, not contribute.


AURAL/ORAL

“Aural” has to do with things you hear, “oral” with things you say.


AUGER/AUGUR

An augur was an ancient Roman prophet, and as a verb the word means “foretell”—“their love augurs well for a successful marriage.” Don’t mix this word up with “auger,” a tool for boring holes. Some people mishear the phrase “augurs well” as “all goes well” and mistakenly use that instead.


AUTOBIOGRAPHY/BIOGRAPHY

When you write the story of your own life, you write an autobiography; but when you write the story of someone else’s life, it’s just a plain old biography.


AVAIDABLE /AVAILABLE

Many people mispronounce and misspell “available” as “avaidable,” whose peculiar spelling seems to be influenced by “avoidable,” a word which has opposite connotations.

“Avaidable” is avoidable; avoid it.


AVENGE/REVENGE

When you try to get vengeance for people who’ve been wronged, you want to avenge them. You can also avenge a wrong itself: “He avenged the murder by taking vengeance on the killer.” Substituting “revenge” for “avenge” in such contexts is very common, but frowned on by some people. They feel that if you seek revenge in the pursuit of justice you want to avenge wrongs: not revenge them.


AVOCATION/VOCATION

Your avocation is just your hobby; don’t mix it up with your job: your vocation.


A WHILE/AWHILE

When “awhile” is spelled as a single word, it is an adverb meaning “for a time” (“stay awhile”); but when “while” is the object of a prepositional phrase, like “Lend me your monkey wrench for a while” the “while” must be separated from the “a.” (But if the preposition “for” were lacking in this sentence, “awhile” could be used in this way: “Lend me your monkey wrench awhile.”)


AXEL/AXLE

An axel is a tricky jump in figure skating named after Axel Paulsen.The center of a wheel is its axle.

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Marwatone.