midnightmusings: Pet Peeve of the Week

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Thursday, June 29, 2006

Pet Peeve of the Week - misused words

Learning what I'm doing as a writer has gone a long way to ruining pleasure reading for me. It's sooooo hard to turn off that pesky Internal Editor! I find myself jerked out of the page by typos and grammatical errors. My IE will shriek, "OMG! Just look at that! Why didn't anyone catch that in editing?" Or even worse, "Why on earth did anyone publish this POS?"

I've gotten a lot out of reading and submitting to the Crabby Cows. The blog began as an effort to assist writers who are serious about honing their craft, with a glimpse into the minds of a pair of skilled and entertaining professional editors. It has grown far beyond that, developing into an entertaining and informative writers' community.

Along with their sister ruminant Grouchy Goat, the Crabby Cows are refreshingly honest (and use the F-word a lot!) in both their scathing crits and their flights of fancy. If you're easily offended or have a thin skin, don't bother reading their blog or participating in their weekly 'games'.

I find them udderly delightful.

Which brings me to the Pet Peeve of the Week. They may not all relate to writing, but trust me, I can always find a soapbox to climb on!! With effort, I will limit myself to only one rant per week. A serious challenge, but I'm strong.

Misused words irritate the hell out of me.

First, there are those that look or sound alike. Using hoard and horde interchangeably is an error I see a lot. Personally, I'd rather face a hoard than a horde.

My favorite typo of all time in fiction is the substitution of 'prostate' for 'prostrate'. In the final scene of The Scotsman Wore Spurs by Patricia Potter, the hero lay prostate in bed. What a priceless image!

My favorite typo in nonfiction appeared in an annual report of Manufacturers Hanover Bank in the late 1980s, in which a reference was made to their "certified pubic accountants". 'Nuff said.

When I write, if I'm not certain of the meaning of a word, I'll use my Word Processor's thesaurus function. Takes less than a second and gives me an idea whether I'm on track. BTW, the difference between horde and hoard is immediately apparent using that method of verification for either one. I adore words, so it's dangerous for me to grab my well-thumbed thesaurus off the shelf and begin to browse. Same goes for the dictionary - I could be distracted for days!

Shades of meaning make a big difference in context. Sometimes I'll come across a writer who relies on her WP's thesaurus without ever considering the difference between the possibilities it shows her.

For example, if you've used the word 'unlikely' too many times in several paragraphs (for those of you who aren't writers, that's one of the things an editor will look for, so we work to cultivate the habit of noticing repetition) and look for synonyms by using your WP's thesaurus, you come up with the following list:

improbable
unbelievable
incredible
fantastic
far-fetched
doubtful

Can these words be used willy-nilly? Do they all mean the same thing? NO! To be precise, not all of them have the same meaning. Some can be used interchangeably, some can't. This is where considering shades of meaning is absolutely necessary.

"It's doubtful that he'll be there." That's not the same thing as, "It's fantastic that he'll be there." As a matter of fact, that's a big difference!

The dictionary can sort things out, but not while it's closed, sitting on the shelf. You have to take the time to pick it up and look up the alternatives presented by the thesaurus. Oh, and then you have to pay attention to what you learn and apply it. Yes, writing is a four-letter word that ends in K.

That would be WORK.

Now language does shift and change over time. Meanings of certain words expand and contract. One change I've noticed is the use of 'nauseous' for 'nauseated'. Once upon a time, 'nauseous' meant 'to cause nausea' but it has been expanded in popular usage to include 'affected with nausea'. Being both a traditionalist and a stubborn bitch, I continue to use it in its older sense. (Anyone calling me a bitch isn't a problem. I'm the Alpha Bitch, so I consider it a term of respect. And I do bite - but I've had my rabies shots. LOL)

Come back next week for a new Pet Peeve!

posted by Liddy Midnight @ 6:36 AM

8 Comments:

At 11:33 AM, Jan Springer, Erotic Romance Author said…

Oops. lol.

I do that alot during my first couple of drafts and hope to hell my internal editor catches it during the editing phase...

Sometimes though they get through and my real editor and proof readers...well they let me know about it...they don't let me get away with anything *jan sobbing* and they snap their whips up one side of me and down the other telling me "don't do that again or you're fired!" LOL

So I will vow to concentrate a bit more on my editing phase so Liddy and others hopefully won't get mad at me when they read my books. *grin*

Thanks, Liddy for your wonderful post!

Hugs!
jan
At 2:41 PM, Two Voices Publishing said…

Typos be dammed! Er...damned. My fingers work faster than my brain sometimes - that's why I find fun things like the Zen clam [instead of Zen calm] in my second round edits. That's also why it takes me so long to read books these days. I have to keep telling my internal editor to shut up.
At 9:56 AM, Liddy Midnight said…

Thanks for reading and commenting, everyone!

Bernadette, I love "Zen clam"! That's a very good example of typos that your spellcheck function won't notice.

ML, you're not dyslexic, you merely have a digital problem--as in your digits don't hit the correct keys. SNORK! Remember, you're an artist, not a typist.
At 2:10 PM, Emmy Ellis said…

Oh mine's got to be 'then' and 'than'.

Carly said she'd rather be a size 6 shoe then a 7.

ARGHHHH!

:o)
At 2:23 PM, Emmy Ellis said…

Just thought of another one!

When people write the following instead of just sticking with the first word:

Nothing, nada, zip, zilch.

I resist pulling my hair out when I read that. I get the idea with the first word...and it's everywhere! Lots of people are doing it.

:o)
At 5:56 AM, Liddy Midnight said…

Ellis, it might be that people write that because they talk that way. Too many of us don't realize that, if we were to write all of our dialogue as direct transcriptions of our speech, the result would be painful to read at best, completely unreadable at worst. Most of us don't talk in complete sentences, and then there's that repetition thing.

We have a friend who's a security consultant. In one case he worked on, one of the men being investigated only spoke in complete sentences when he was lying. LOL! Once he realized that, it was easy to interview the guy and let his responses guide the investigation.

Thanks for stopping by, sister Cowlet!
At 6:49 AM, Emmy Ellis said…

HA! That's a really funny tale!

I don't mind stopping by. This blog has taken my fancy and is on my daily 'must visit' rounds.

:o)
At 8:22 PM, Liddy Midnight said…

Awww, Ellis, that's so sweet! And have I mentioned you're my new best friend? LOL

But now the pressure's on! I have to come up with something worth reading on a regular basis. Yikes!