sounding smart
You know, I'm all for people sounding intelligent when they write, but there are some homophonic gaffes that rile me up. It's like trying to use a five-dollar word when a five-cent one will suffice, but then picking the wrong five-dollar word and just looking like a jackass.
The one I see all the time is "loath" and "loathe," which I'm sure I've complained about before, but I can't find where. You would think if you were high and mighty and so into your own hatred that you'd remember the one with the e is the verb you are looking for. If you "loath" something, you're actually saying you "lazy" something, which... is apropos, I suppose.
Another one that makes up for its infrequency with its cringeworthy hilariousness is "platonic" versus "plutonic." As you can guess, the latter can mean "relating to Pluto," and I guess it's also some sort of geologic term. Either way, the concept of a "plutonic friend" is... well, kind of entertaining. But wrong.
And yet the one mistake I see the most among otherwise apparently intelligent folk is "its" versus "it's," though mostly I see inappropriate use of the apostrophe when it's not meant to be there. You'd think with the attention to detail that nerds have, we'd revel in the inconsistency of the apostrophe, which in most cases is entirely appropriate for possessive adjectives. It's not in this case. So take your apostrophes and cram them.
There are, of course, many other abuses to our delightful language, and I don't mean to discredit the wonderfully creative uses I also encounter (and let's face it, I love making up words). But these are the ones I encounter in my rounds of reading off of otherwise relatively smart science, technology, and pop culture sites. And every time I see them, my heart hurts a little. If the clever people can't get it right, we may be doomed.
The one I see all the time is "loath" and "loathe," which I'm sure I've complained about before, but I can't find where. You would think if you were high and mighty and so into your own hatred that you'd remember the one with the e is the verb you are looking for. If you "loath" something, you're actually saying you "lazy" something, which... is apropos, I suppose.
Another one that makes up for its infrequency with its cringeworthy hilariousness is "platonic" versus "plutonic." As you can guess, the latter can mean "relating to Pluto," and I guess it's also some sort of geologic term. Either way, the concept of a "plutonic friend" is... well, kind of entertaining. But wrong.
And yet the one mistake I see the most among otherwise apparently intelligent folk is "its" versus "it's," though mostly I see inappropriate use of the apostrophe when it's not meant to be there. You'd think with the attention to detail that nerds have, we'd revel in the inconsistency of the apostrophe, which in most cases is entirely appropriate for possessive adjectives. It's not in this case. So take your apostrophes and cram them.
There are, of course, many other abuses to our delightful language, and I don't mean to discredit the wonderfully creative uses I also encounter (and let's face it, I love making up words). But these are the ones I encounter in my rounds of reading off of otherwise relatively smart science, technology, and pop culture sites. And every time I see them, my heart hurts a little. If the clever people can't get it right, we may be doomed.