Enormity: This is one that grates on
my nerves every time I hear it used incorrectly. It does not mean Huge, or
super big, or ginormous. Enormity means evil, usually a great evil. While it is
understandable that an average person might confuse enormity with something
that is enormous, I have heard people who should know better (writers,
reporters) who misuse this word. It would be appropriate to say “. . . the
enormity of the 9/11 attacks . . .” or “. . . the enormity of Hitler’s
Holocaust . . .” It would not be appropriate to say “ . . . the enormity
of the Sahara Desert . . .”
Iregardless: This is not a word. You
meant to say regardless.
Laid: I will confess that this one tripped me up in my younger days. If you are talking about reclining, the past
tense of lie is lay. For the verb lay, meaning to set something down, the past
tense is laid. So it would be proper to say: “He laid the book on the table,”
or “the chicken laid an egg.” It would not be proper to say: “he laid in the
bed.” Instead you should say: “he lay in the bed.”
Factoid: This is a real word, but it
does not mean a small bit of information. It actually means a piece of
misinformation that has been presented as fact. So don’t be saving up factoids
for your trivia contest.
Forte: This one is not so much
misused as it is mispronounced. There are two different words that are spelled
forte. In music the word forte means loud, and is pronounced for-tay. Everyone gets that one right.
The problem is the other word which means a strength or something you are good
at. This one is pronounced fort. The forte in music is an Italian word so the
final e is pronounced. The other one is a French word so the final e is not. So
if you hear someone say “Math is not my forte.” They should be pronouncing it fort and not fort-ay.
And while we are on the subject of pronunciation,
why is it that almost no politician can pronounce “nuclear”? It usually comes
out sounding like “nuke-u-lar.” Seriously, this is disturbing. There ought to
be a basic test for holding public office. If you can’t pronounce nuclear, you
are disqualified.
Literally: This means it actually
happened. It is not to be used as a term of exaggeration or illustration.
People are always saying things like “I literally died laughing.” Really? How
can you say that if you are dead?
Its/it’s: The confusion here is
understandable because it seems to violate the rules. “. . . its box” means the
box that belongs to “it”. “It’s a red box” means “it is a red box.”
Normally when you see an apostrophe followed by an “s”, it is a possessive,
like “joe’s box” or “Fran’s car.” But when it comes to “its” the possessive “s”
does not get an apostrophe.
“For all intensive purposes:” Yeah,
that is not a thing. The correct phrase is: For all intents and purposes. The
other one doesn’t make any sense.
Okay there are my pet peeves for the
day. What are yours?
(My novel Star Liner, is now available as an
ebook through Copypastapublishing.com, Amazon, or the other usual online
sources. For those who like to turn physical pages, the paperback will be out
soon).
Link to Star Liner
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