Category Archives: Language use

I’ve been working my way through the last of Gill’s massive list and this is one of the final ones … I have had some more suggestions here and there, though, so the supply won’t run out just yet!

So, today we have confound and confuse.

To confuse someone is to make them bewildered or perplexed – “He confused her with his rapier wit until she would agree to anything”.”1% fat or 99% fat-free? I’m confused”. In a linked way, it also means to make something less easy to understand – “He confused all the issues with each other until it was impossible to understand his arguments”. And it also means to identify wrongly – “Is that Busted? Oh – I’ve confused them with McFly.”

Now, confound does carry a meaning of to surprise or confuse,  but it’s more used in the sense of proving something wrong or causing it not to work, defeating a plan, a hope or an aim “Her hopes of living off her savings were confounded by the low interest rates”; “Ha! With my intelligence and wit, I have confounded your dastardly plot!” A useful and flexible word, it can also mean to mix up with something else: “in his formula, x is confounded with y, and that makes it come out wrong”.

Special bonus word: to confute – is to prove to be wrong (shall we do confute and refute next time?)

So, a simple rule – confuse if you want to perplex or mix up; confound if you want to ruin the dastardly plans. Got that?

“She was confused by the bright lights, and he confounded her plan for escape by tripping her up.”

That’s probably the last troublesome pair for 2011 – will anybody be on the internet reading blogs next Friday?

You can find more troublesome pairs here and the index to them all so far is here.

That, which or who? This is a set of words that I see used incorrectly all the time, especially using “that” instead of “who” (although there are a few debates, it’s normally quite clear). I’ve also been asked for help on that/which a number of times, and I have to admit that I wouldn’t have been able to reel off the rules without checking it. Of course, I do check all of these, even when I think I know the answer, just to make sure I’m giving you the correct information!

So, to start off, you can use that OR which if you are introducing clauses that define or identify something (the fancy name for these is “restrictive relative clauses”) and it doesn’t seem to matter which – it’s a question of style preferences or what feels better in the sentence (wouldn’t you know: another one without a proper rule!) So: “A book which aims to explain all human life”, “a book that aims to explain all human life”.

Which is officially used (instead of that) if the clause gives additional information. “The book, which costs £15, has sold 1000 copies”.

Although it’s not officially specified in my reference books, I would therefore use them like this:

– If you’re just saying what the book (or whatever) does in general, use that: “these are the books that will tell you about the stars”.

– If you’re explaining something in comparison with something else, use which: “This is the book which explains all human life, unlike this other one, which just explains about men”.  The way to remember this? “Which is which?”

Moving on to who, we use who when we’re talking about a person or something that’s personified such as a group of people or a named animal. “The man who said yes”, “The proofreaders, who were all a bit pernickity”, “Felix the cat, who was very naughty” (and possibly, “the cat, who was very naughty”, if it’s a specific cat, but “the cats that lived in the barn”, “the cat that I saw on my way to work, which was white with a grey tail … “).

Things do get a bit confusing when you get to a group of people, as a group is non-personified, but the people are – you can do it either way but someone will argue with you, whichever path you take (“The group of men who were going to the ball”, “The group of men that was going to the ball” – I prefer the former, personally. Remember to make the verb agree when you do this – it depends whether you’re referring to the singular group or the plural members of the group).

You can find more troublesome pairs here and the index to them all so far is here.

Another troublesome pair from my friend Gill’s enormous holiday list – if you have any more you’d like me to look at, do let me know …

Today we’re looking at till (or more properly, ’til, although the Oxford Dictionaries no longer include a listing for ’til) and until, which I do see being used interchangeably by both native and non-native English speakers (this is quite rare, actually: most of the pairs I’ve been talking about are usually only found in native English speakers, in my experience. Non-native English speakers have all sorts of other common issues, but  not these.) (That gives me an idea for a new series of posts!).

Anyway: till and until. I have consulted the dictionaries and reference books and … they are the same. They mean up to a particular point in time or an event that is being mentioned (“He wasn’t able to take any holiday days until Christmas”), but in a sense that’s more concentrated on that particular date or event, as opposed to a word such as by which is more about the period itself. (“He was told to take all of his holiday by Christmas but he didn’t manage to do it until the gap between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve”; “You can’t play on the Playstation until you’ve finished your homework”).

Until is considered to be more formal, occurring more often in written English. Till is, wouldn’t you know it, more informal, and occurs more in spoken English. Till is also used as a noun (a cash register or a glacial deposit) or a somewhat archaic agricultural verb to do with preparing the soil before planting a crop.

However, there is one important distinction: you always use until when starting a sentence.

“She gave him the pills till he felt better” or “She gave him the pills until he felt better” but always: “Until he felt better, she continued to give him the pills”.

You can find more troublesome pairs here and the index to them all so far is here.

This is a perennial (ha, ha – see what I did there?!) mix-up and it’s worth just setting these words down for everyone – but I would maybe even advise that you don’t use them yourself, limiting yourself to using the explanation rather than the word. Then no one will be confused, and no one will turn up for a biennial party that they think is biannual!

Biennial means occurring every other year.  So a biennial event might happen in 2010, 2012 and 2014. It won’t happen more than once in a year, and it won’t happen in the years in between.

Biannual means occuring twice a year. Usually regularly – so you might have a biannual event taking place in February and August every year, for example, six months apart. So a biannual event will happen twice a year, every year, so in our above example, twice in 2010, twice in 2011 … twice in 2014, etc.

There are more of these words floating around too – for example, bimonthly.  The dictionaries and other reference materials do actually suggest avoiding these, in order to avoid mistakes, and to use “every two months” instead, and as I mentioned above, I think this is a good precept by which to go. So that biennial event can become an event that happens every two years – then we all know where we stand.

You can find more troublesome pairs here and the index to them all so far is here.

Welcome to another Troublesome Pair – I wonder if I can keep these going indefinitely. I’m almost sure I am – but I do appreciate when people take the time to suggest pairs for me to write about, so do drop me a line and let me know about any you need explaining, or any you see around you and think need explaining to people in general.

Apparently these two, lend and borrow, do get mixed up often. I can’t say I’ve seen it that much, but the person who suggested it isn’t the only one to have confirmed they’ve noticed it.

It should be quite simple. When you lend something, you are allowing someone to use it, on the understanding that it will be returned will be returned.  So Max lends Jim some money that Max has, and Jim needs. The library lends out books.

To borrow, on the other hand, is to be on the other side of the bargain and to be the recipient of the loaned item. Jim is borrowing Max’s money, and you borrow books from the library. You borrow money from a mortgage lender, for example.

The slight problem with lend is that it does tend to get used in the “wrong” way in colloquial speech and regional dialects, which means it’s floating around more, gets heard more, and the hearers can become inclined to think it’s the correct usage.  We’ve probably all heard “can I have a lend of your pen?” and, while the use might be regional and the sense can be perceived, it would be best if people whose regional dialect it is not part of, especially people learning and speaking English as a second or additional language, refrain from using it like this.

So – I have a book. You don’t have a book. I lend you my book. You borrow it. Now you have the book – but you will be giving it back (otherwise I’ve given it to you).

You can find more troublesome pairs here and the index to them all so far is here.

Remember Gill and her Libro Holiday?  Well, I’m still working through the word pair suggestions she sent me after that!

Today, we’re going to have a look at valuable and invaluable. You might be thinking that this might be another pair like flammable and inflammable, that mean exactly the same thing. Well, not quite, this time.

Valuable means either worth a great deal of money or extremely useful or important.  “Meryl’s contribution to the meeting was valuable; she provided tea and coffee and took the minutes”.

Invaluable means extremely useful; indispensable – very valuable, if you will. “Valerie made an invaluable contribution to our awayday when she single-handedly saved our MD from drowning.”

So in this case, the in- prefix does its usual job of multiplying the meaning to become, well, more so.

You can find more troublesome pairs here and the index to them all so far is here.