A timely post, as I was discussing this, with examples, at home yesterday evening. Yes, that’s how we like to have fun here at Libro Towers: a bit of etymology of an evening …

We’ve already had one pair where I explain the difference between homo and hetero, so we know that the prefix “homo” will essentially introduce a word that’s all about two things being the same. But what happens when those words themselves all look horribly similar?

These three are quite similar-looking technical words used in English literature and linguistics. It is important to know the difference if you are working in these fields.

Homonyms have the same spelling or pronunciation but different meanings (the word comes from the Greek – having the same name), for example, pole and Pole, pear and pare, but also bass and bass. The homonym is the main class of words, divided into homophones and homographs.

Homophones have the same pronunciation but different meanings, origins or spellings, new and knew, beat and beet, fair and fare.

Homographs have the same spelling but different meanings, with either different pronunciations or the same pronunciation – for example bass (the deep singer) and bass (the fish), or cleave (separate) and cleave (join together).

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

I’ve been working on a document that described a number of buildings with annexes, and I have to admit that I had to look this up, just to check. Well, to be honest, I look up a lot of things to check them, as I’d always rather get it right, oddly enough (one of these days I’ll write a post about a word that I’ve always thought is a word, but doesn’t actually exist …)

So, to annex is a verb, never has an e on the end, and means to add as an extra part or to appropriate territory. I can’t give an example of the latter without getting all political, but you could have a set of tables and a document they refer to, and decide to annex the tables to the document rather than present them separately. That’s an acceptable, discrete verb form, not one that’s been oddly made out of a noun (like “to inbox” – ugh) as far as I know.

An annexe, the noun, is an addition to a document or building. Now, I have to admit that I thought the difference lay here, and that the e was only added for a building. But all of my good old Oxford sources say no, it’s used for both. So, “The table was added as Annexe 1 to our document”; “Coffee will be served in the annexe to the church”.

Or, you can just skip the e there altogether. But you know me: I like to maintain different forms of words to preserve the variety of our language. So I say verb: no e; noun: add that e. Add it as an annexe, if you will!

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

I have come across this rather more times than I’d like recently. If anyone remembers the short-lived Libro character, Ranting Ron, who turned out to be too negative for this nice, friendly, supportive blog, he would have been ranting about this one ..

Invite is a verb. It means to ask someone to go somewhere or do something, and can be informal (“she invited me to go for a coffee after yoga”) or formal (“Mr and Mrs Perkins invite you to the wedding of their daughter, Polly”). It can also be used to refer to eliciting a response of some kind – “I would like to invite questions from the audience”. Full stop.

Invitation is a noun. It’s a written or verbal request inviting someone to go somewhere or do something. It’s the bit of card that is used to do this, which Mr and Mrs Perkins will send to you when they want to invite you to their daughter’s wedding. Invitation is the noun to invite’s verb.

Now, I have to admit that the esteemed Oxford dictionaries do admit that there is an Informal use of invite to mean invitation. But I don’t think we need that, do we? Let’s keep the distinction and keep it all nice. OK?

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

Is it the eyes or is it the mouth? I have to admit that this is a bit of a cheeky one, inspired by the ramblings of a group of vision scientists who were discussing vision and kissing … but what’s the point of having even a fairly serious work blog if you can’t be cheeky occasionally. So this one is dedicated to Matt, Arthur, Dicle, Matthew, Aidan and their chums …

Ocular means of or related to the eyes or vision.

Oscular, in its “humorous” sense (according to the Oxford dictionaries, whose sense of humour may be slightly ponderous) refers to kissing. In its zoological sense, it means something related to the osculum. And the osculum, dear readers, is a large aperture in a sponge from which water is expelled (from Latin os, mouth: diminutive, osculum, little mouth). Now, if that hasn’t killed the romance, I don’t know what will …

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

Another troublesome pair that I’ve seen a few times recently: another of these homonyms, or words that sound the same, which I suppose is where the problem arises. Because we all know the difference, don’t we?

A waste occurs when you have something left over that has to be thrown away, or you don’t use something and it goes off, or you spend too much – it’s all about using something carelessly or extravagantly, or not accounting for what you need. So you can waste a bag of apples if you don’t eat them in time and they go rotten and have to be thrown away, or you waste money if you pay for a gym membership and don’t ever go to the gym.

A waist is the middle of something, where it’s nipped in, particularly in the human body, where it’s the big between the ribs and the hips, but also in other creatures, and inanimate objects, like a violin.

“I wasted a lot of satin making her wedding dress, because I didn’t measure the size of her waist so I had to trim lots of pieces off the original pattern.”

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

I’ve seen a few blog posts and articles mentioning something being “packed to the gunnels” and I’ve been getting all steamed up about the mistake, knowing it should be “packed to the gunwales”. So, I decided to write up one of my Troublesome Pairs to differentiate them.

A gunwale is the upper edge or planking of the side of a boat. By extension, we tend to use “packed to the gunwales” as a metaphor for something being full up, as if a boat is literally packed to its gunwales, it will be completely full up to the brim.

A gunnel is … an alternative spelling for gunwale. So I apologise to the writers against whom I have fulminated. Luckily, I didn’t mention it to anyone before I checked! And I still prefer gunwales, myself.

Note: they are pronounced the same: “gunnel(s)”.

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

These three words are very close in form and have related but not identical meanings. There is also a British English / American English aspect, something I don’t often cover in these Troublesome Pairs, but one that needs addressing here.

Alternative means available as another possibility, or mutually exclusive, said of one of more things (originally, it could only be used of two entities, but matters have freed up and more than two alternatives are now allowed). So you could use the services of one typist or an alternative typist if the first one is busy, or you could choose between the alternative answers “yes” or “no” when answering a question. Alternatives are the two or more available possibilities.

Alternative can also mean activities that depart from and/or challenge traditional norms – like alternative health and alternative lifestyles – the same meaning is there, in that they are offering an available possibility other than the “main” one.

The adjective alternate (with the stress on the middle syllable: alTERnate) means every other – “We hold the event in alternate months” means the event is held in, for example, January, March, May, etc. In biology, leaves alternating on a stem will appear on each side in turn, rather than being in matched pairs, two leaves together. But it’s worth noting that the American English usage of alternate carries the same meaning as the British English alternative defined above. To alternate, the verb (with the stress on the first syllable: ALternate) means to swap between two contrasting options repeatedly – “I alternated between watching the diving and hiding behind a cushion”. If two things are alternating then they are doing the swapping – “Mary and Sue were alternating as the front runners in the race”.

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