“Contenting with a clutch in stop-and-go traffic …”

Adjectives, Misspellings, Verbs

I saw this in a ConsumerReports.org article.

Problem:
The article writer used the wrong verb.

Explanation:
The full sentence was “Contenting with a clutch in stop-and-go traffic, for instance, can be tiring.” in a ConsumerReports.org article titled “Should you shift to a manual transmission?”.

The verb “content” means to make satisfied or content.

Substituting this definition into the sentence yields “Making satisfied with a clutch in stop-and-go traffic, for instance, can be tiring.”, which makes no sense.

I believe that the writer got confused by the second “t” in the adjective “contentious”, which means quarrelsome.

The solution comes from the fact that the adjective “contentious” relates to the verb “contend”, which ends with a “d” and means to struggle in opposition, not to the verb “content”, which ends with a “t”.

Solution:
“Contending with a clutch in stop-and-go traffic …”