Homonyms: Principle and Principal

A colleague recently wrote to me to express his irritation with an error he found in the Globe and Mail. Here’s his note:

How about a piece on principle and principal? A week or so ago, to my considerable irritation, a negligent copy editor in the good old G and M forgot the elementary principles of the trade, indeed failed to rely on the principal rule of the trade. That unknown miserable excuse of an editor didn’t check, and thus confused the two.

The Word Nerd does cut newspapers a bit of slack because of the speed at which many articles are written, edited and published; however, my colleague does have a point. Professional writers should know the difference between two homonyms (words that sound the same but have different meanings).

Principal — Used as an adjective this word means first in rank or importance. Example: The principal actor in the movie is Beth Smith. Most people are used to “principal” used as a noun. Example: The principal of my children’s school is Mr. Brown.

Principle –This word is a noun and means a fundamental truth; a personal code of conduct; or a law of nature. Example: His principles did not allow him to walk away with the extra change the cashier mistakenly gave him.

Word of the Year Announced

The Oxford University Press has announced its word of the year — (drum roll, please) — “unfriend.” Please see today’s Globe and Mail for the full story.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/personal-tech/facebooks-unfriend-defines-2009/article1366015/

Hat tip to Brenda for highlighting the article for me.

A Grammar Lesson in the Bathroom?

The Word Nerd came across these very common signs on a public bathroom in the Okanagan and risked public humiliation to snap a quick pic.

Of course, the correct use would be “men’s” and “women’s” because both words are already plural and so the apostrophe is needed to indicate the possessive. It is simpler to label the rooms “men” or “women.”

Hockey and Grammar

The Word Nerd is a HUGE hockey fan and lives and breathes the Canucks. While the Canucks-Flames rivalry is the most well-known, there is a little something extra in Vancouver’s air when the Toronto Maple Leafs come to visit.

One of Vancouver’s free daily newspapers, 24 Hours, recently ran a Twitter contest urging Vancouverites to tweet about why the Leafs suck ahead of this Saturday’s game. @jasonfearon tweeted “It all starts with grammar. Shouldn’t they be the Maple Leaves? Saying “leafs” is like saying “mouses” or “gooses.” The Word Nerd salutes @jasonfearon for an excellent grammar lesson in 140 characters.

Word Definition: Extant

A friend called to ask me the meaning of the word “extant.” It appeared in a novel she was reading and the context did not give any reliable clues as to the meaning. I had to look the word up in the dictionary because I wasn’t familiar with it so I thought I’d share my knowledge with you here because it is a cool word.

Extant is an adjective that means “in existance” or “not lost or destroyed.” There are only three extant copies of the document.*

*Example is from Dictionary.com.

Comma Splices

In doing some recent work in the office, the Word Nerd noticed that she needed to correct a large number of comma splices so she determined that a blog post was needed on this very common error.

A comma splice occurs when a comma is used to separate two complete sentences (or independent clauses). “A shark is all cartilage, it doesn’t have a bone in its body.*”

The best way to correct a comma splice to make two separate sentences. “A shark is all cartilage. It doesn’t have a bone in its body.”

You can also use a semicolon if the two sentences are very closely related. “The great white shark supposedly eats humans; research shows that most white sharks spit them out after the first bite.” 

*The examples in this post came from a great grammar resource book called Handbook for Writers (4th Canadian edition) by Simon and Schuster.

Do I feel nauseous or nauseated?

The Word Nerd recently took an emergency first aid course held by St. John’s Ambulance. While the course was excellent the training manual left something to be desired.

The Word Nerd was so upset by something she read in the training manual that the Word Nerd Husband had to prevent her from tossing the manual off the West Coast Express.

 The extensive use of “they” as a singular pronoun in the manual is enough to drive any word nerd or grammar geek batty; however,  in the section on fainting, the authors make a serious error by using the word “nauseous” when they really mean “nauseated.”

 If you say that you are nauseous, it means that you make other people feel sick. Example: Her workmates urged Amanda to take a shower after she ran the Vancouver marathon because she was nauseous. In other words, she smelled so strongly that she was making other people feel sick. If you say you are nauseated, it means that you feel sick to your stomach. Example: After eating some bad chicken, Mary felt nauseated.

 You cannot feel nauseous – you can only feel nauseated.

Complement vs. Compliment

Complement and compliment are commonly misused words.

 A compliment is what Brian gets when he dresses up to go out for dinner. “Wow, Brian, you look good today.”

Complement is related to the word complete. “The staff complement of the office is 14.”  A staff complement refers to the complete number of staff. You could also say that “whipped cream complements an ice cream sundae” in that the cream makes the sundae complete.

 A quick way to remember the difference? Note the 2 “e’s” in complement and complete.

Reader Request: Abstruse vs. Obtuse

The Word Nerd recently received this letter: “Would appreciate you explaining the difference in using the words abstruse and obtuse. I have often heard people use the word obtuse to describe something difficult to understand when I think abstruse should be used. I just heard it this morning on the CBC when both the announcer and the interviewee were talking about obtuse financial legislation.”

The writer is partially correct. Obtuse means slow-witted and slow to understand; however, it can also mean difficult to understand or obscure. (For the mathematically minded, an obtuse angle is one that is between 90 and 180 degrees but that definition does not apply in this situation.) Abstruse does indeed mean difficult to understand but does not have the added nuance of being obscure. Both words are adjectives and therefore can be used to describe financial legislation. The correct one depends on whether the legislation is just difficult to understand or difficult to understand because of its obscurity (or it is both difficult and obscure).

The wonderful (and sometimes frustrating) thing about the English language is the huge collection of words that mean practically the same thing with slight nuances that can tweak the intention of the sentence. The Word Nerd strongly discourages anyone (read: your children) from using a thesaurus to find a synonym unless he or she is fully aware of the nuances of language.

Word Origins — Cab

Sometimes I really geek out and actually spend a good half an hour reading a dictionary — I know it sounds weird but I get really into the different words and how they can be used. I also enjoy browsing through an etymological dictionary every now and then because you’ll never know what you’ll find. An etymological dictionary tells you about the origins of a word — not its definition. Here’s the origins of the word “cab.”

Cab is a short form of cabriolet which is a light carriage. The word was extended to hansom carriages (think of the large black carriage drawn by two horses in Victorian England). Hansoms were the forerunners to our modern taxis and the cab moniker was applied to both the horse-drawn and horseless variety.

For more etymological fun (and the source of the above info on cab), check out this online dictionary: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php