The Fourteen Points: Words Smart People Misuse

Hello. Welcome to the Weekend Gene Pool, which entails humiliating you, personally. We’ll get to that in a bit. It can wait.

In the meantime, I would like to issue a guide for people who want to gull other people into thinking they are more professional writers than they are.

All of you are smart, but if you want to be published, you need to make it through a gantlet (note: not “gauntlet,” which is a medieval-era metal glove a man stupidly flings to the ground to challenge another man to a fight) … a gantlet of elitist, butt-spanking first-line editors who will peremptorily snap-judge you because of honest mistakes you made in pursuing sophisticated points. You know, elitist assholes like me.

The 14 Points that follow are not for nitwits who write things like “for all intensive purposes” or “I could care less,” or “alot,” or “nipped in the butt.” There are guides for such people. They are all over the Web, written by other nitwits.

This is the guide for you. It is snobbish and nitpicky, but strategically valuable. My friend and colleague Pat Myers has contributed mightily to it.

(Urgent note: Descriptivist American dictionaries are constantly caving in to public ignorance, and endorsing improper usage they consider widespread enough to accept. That is not necessarily a bad thing — the English language remains alive — but it will not let your work get past gatekeeper schmucks like me, people who remember and cherish literacy, and jealously cling to it as a vanishing sign of their relevance in the world.)

1. LOATH v. LOATHE — One may loathe one’s daughter’s nose-picking, chair-smearing boyfriend, but may well be loath to admit it to her. Loath is never a verb. It is an adjective only. It means “reluctant.” Loathe is always a verb. You know what it means.

2. FORTUITOUSLY v. FORTUNATELY — If something occurs fortuitously it means by accident, regardless of whether that thing is good or bad. Believe it or not, the sinking of the Titanic was a fortuitous event. Fortunately is always good.

3. TENET v. TENANT — A good tenet is, say, “innocent until proven guilty.” A good tenant doesn’t piss in the sink.

4. DISINTERESTED v. UNINTERESTED — If you are a disinterested party over an issue, you have no stake, financial, political or otherwise, in how it is resolved. You are without prejudice, either blatant or hidden. Professional arbitrators are, at least in theory, disinterested. If you are uninterested in something, you yawn over it. It bores you. An uninterested arbitrator will fall asleep at the bargaining table in a divorce case over who gets the refrigerator.

5. i.e vs. e.g. — i.e. means “in other words.” e.g. means “for example.”

   Confused? i.e., use e.g. thus: when you are referring to Himmleresque amoral ideologues, e.g., Stephen Miller.

(Never write “thusly.” It is never correct.)

6. FOUNDER v. FLOUNDER — To flounder is to flop around helplessly and haplessly, like a fish out of water; it describes a hopelessly confused person, such as Dwight Schrute or Sean Spicer. To extend the piscatorial metaphor, to founder is to go belly up — to sink or fail totally, like a Trump casino. Or Trump Steaks. Or Trump Vodka. Or Trump University.

7. TROOPER v. TROUPER — A trooper is a state employee with a gun and an attitude. A trouper is someone who perseveres, as in the “show must go on” mentality of actors in a theater troupe. Fairly or unfairly, getting this wrong is a dead giveaway you ain’t much of a writer, I hereby annoyingly contend.

8. REIN v. REIGN — Free rein is, literally, slackening the reins of the horse’s bridle so the horse can control its own stride, move its head naturally, etc. If you give someone free rein, he can operate without constraints. Republicans, however, have been giving their president free reign, a word usage otherwise inappropriate.

9. FLOUT v. FLAUNT — To flout is to willfully disobey a rule, such as Pete Hegseth flouting the rules of war and murdering injured helpless people clinging to debris in the water, and who were also, it turns out, not heading to The United States to distribute drugs. To flaunt is to display something ostentatiously, such as Nicki Minaj and her behind. Flaunt has a negative connotation. Getting these two confused is flaunting your ignorance.

10. DISCREET v. DISCRETE — To be discreet (or to show discretion) is to be carefully inconspicuous in your actions, as in “He tried to be discreet, but his fart-squelching attempt emerged as an extended squeeee.” “Discrete” means separate and individual, not mixed. “Apples” and “me” are discrete categories of “things one bites.”

11. HOMOGENEOUS v. HOMOGENOUS — The first is pronounced “Homo-genius,” and it means everyone in the group is alike in some way. Japan is considered a homogeneous society. The second is nothing more than a misspelled version of the first that is used almost as frequently in writing, and always incorrectly.

12. ERSTWHILE v. ESTEEMED — Erstwhile means former, period. Your erstwhile janitor is the guy who used to janit for you. Esteemed means cherished, valued, etc.. There is no connection between the two words, but for reasons I have never understood, people — even some smart people like you — tend to use “erstwhile” to mean “worthy of praise.” Do they confuse it with “worthwhile”? I have no idea. This remains an eternal mystery.

13. CONVINCE v. PERSUADE — You convince someone of something — say, that contrary to popular belief, tofu cubes taste like moist, slimy packing peanuts. You persuade someone to DO something, e.g., to stop eating fucking tofu.

And finally,

14. SEAFOOD v. FISH v. SHELLFISH — Fish are fish, with gills and a tail and such. Shellfish are aquatic mollusks and crustaceans, such as clams, oysters, lobsters, shrimp, and squid. Seafood is all of the above. This may not seem like a revelation of Mendelian genius to you but I am including it here because, informed of the impendency of this column, Tom Shroder demanded it. That is because a few months ago, at Tom’s eye-rolling insistence, I was forced to endure Googling shame, discovering for the first time, at the age of 74, that the terms “fish” and “seafood” were not mutually exclusive; i.e., that “seafood” was not synonymous with “shellfish.”

—

Today’s Weekend Gene Pool challenge: Tell us of some embarrassing mistake or mistakes in word usage that you have made. The more humiliating the better.

As always, send your confessions here:

—

And finally, today’s Gene Pool Gene Poll:

Good. Now please give us money if you have money to give. We subsist and survive on your generosity.

See you soon.