Kirk Mahoney . com

I sometimes hear these nouns used interchangeably.

Problem:
These nouns are not all synonyms.

Explanation:
A “baluster” is a moulded shaft that most often supports the handrail of a staircase but also can be used to support the coping of a parapet, which is a wall-like barrier often at the edge of a roof.

The noun “baluster” comes from the Italian word — balaustra — for a pomegranate flower because the traditional shape of a baluster resembles the half-open pomegranate flower.

Balusters often are made of stone or wood and are sometimes made of metal.

A “balustrade” is a sequence of balusters that support a handrail.

A “banister” — also spelled with two “n”s — is another name for a staircase baluster, but many architects and interior designers prefer to reserve the word “banister” for a narrower, more-modern support.

Now here is where it becomes more confusing.

Many Americans — I cannot speak for other countries — also use the word “banister” to refer to the handrail of a staircase.

Solution:

• Use “baluster” to refer to a pomegranate-flower-shaped support of a staircase handrail.
• Use “balustrade” to refer to a sequence of balusters.
• Use “banister” to refer to a non-pomegranate-flower support of a staircase handrail.
• Be aware that some use “banister” also to refer to the staircase handrail itself.

I hear or see this occasionally.

Problem:
This is a mispronunciation or misspelling of a valid noun.

Explanation:
The valid noun is “prerogative” — spelled P-R-E-R-O-G-A-T-I-V-E.

The definition of this noun as it is most commonly used is a privilege or right limited to persons of a particular category or to a specific person.

This noun dates back to a Latin adjective in the late 1300s that literally meant voting first.

The noun “prerogative” exemplifies the value of knowing the roots of words in the English language.

The “rogative” portion of the noun is related to the word “interrogative”, which as an adjective usually means conveying or pertaining to a question.

The “pre” portion of the noun means before.

Knowing these two roots makes it easy to understand how the noun “prerogative” refers to a privilege or right limited to a person or specific group of people — such as voting first!

So replacing “pre” with “pe” in “prerogative” produces the nonsense word “perogative”.

I believe that the mispronunciation of “prerogative” as “perogative” is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis (and that this, in turns, leads to the misspelling of “prerogative”). It is simpler to say “perogative” — as if it were spelled P-U-H-R-O-G-A-T-I-V-E — than it is to say “prerogative”.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following (with the quotation marks, to avoid variations) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

• “perogative” — spelled P-E-R-O-G-A-T-I-V-E — 5,750,000 matches
• “prerogative” — spelled P-R-E-R-O-G-A-T-I-V-E — 5,610,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have favored the incorrect word over the correct word by a ratio of 1.02-to-1, which is horrible!

Solution:
“Prerogative”

My wife mentioned this a week ago to friends at dinner.

She asked our friends, who are from Texas, whether they had ever heard the word.

They said that they had not.

I was sure that I had heard the word. I cannot say whether I first heard it from her, but I probably did.

She said that she learned the noun when she lived in England.

I like the sound of the word, so I had to learn more about it.

The word dates back to the mid-1500s, is usually pluralized, and means an inflammation of the feet and hands due to exposure to moisture and cold.

My wife told us that it was a very common condition in England, where it is often cold and damp, and that the condition is extremely painful.

This noun comes from the combination of the noun “chill” and the noun “blain”.

The word “blain” — which confuses the spelling checker that I am using while I type this — comes from the Old English word blegen, which apparently originated before the year 1000. Now THAT is old!

The noun “blain” means an inflammatory sore or swelling, which makes it easy to remember what a “chilblain” is.

My wife remembers chilblains as the pain and blistering caused by rewarming oneself too quickly in front of a fire after being out in the cold and dampness of London, which describes the condition well.

According to Encyclopedia Britannica Online, “Tissue damage is less severe with chilblains than with frostbite, where the skin is actually frozen. Red, itching papules and patches of eroded tissue appear on the skin, which is cold and clammy to the touch; severe chilblains may blister and swell. The condition is aggravated by warmth, and sudden rewarming is not recommended. The preferred treatment is to elevate the affected part and allow it to warm gradually at room temperature.”

It is much more common in the U.S. to hear about frostbite than to hear about chilblains.

But now that you know — or have been reminded — about chilblains, consider yourself warned about them, too!

Happy thawing!

I heard my wife use this word yesterday, and I like this word.

The noun “aplomb” means self-confident poise, assurance, or self-possession or great composure under strain.

The word dates back to mid-1820s French and literally means according to the plummet, as in straight up and down.

“She gave the speech with aplomb.” is a good example of how to use this noun.

Applying the noun’s literal meaning to this example, we get “She gave the speech without leaning or swaying.”

Is that not a descriptive picture of self-confidence?!

Consider adding “aplomb” to your vocabulary.

You might be surprised by how useful this noun can be.

I saw this yesterday in a letter.

Problem:
The word “final” is not a verb.

Explanation:
The letter came from the City of Houston Code Enforcement Division.

The full sentence was “Also, you may have outstanding inspections that were never finalled on this project as listed below.”

The problem with this sentence is that “final” is a noun or an adjective, but never a verb.

So one cannot “final a project”, and therefore one cannot use “final” as a verb in passive voice, either.

It is ironic that the next sentence in the letter contained the correct verb.

For fun, I searched Google for “finalled” (with the quotation marks, to avoid matches for such phrases as “final LED”) and got about 6,230 matches.

This indicates that very people are making the mistake made by in the form letter from the City of Houston Code Enforcement Division.

Solution:
“… inspections that were never finalized …”

I saw the word “ENTRY” yesterday over a door that I would have labeled an “ENTRANCE”.

My personal preference is to use “entrance” to refer to a location and to use “entry” to refer to the act of entering, which explains why “ENTRY” on an over-door sign caught my eye.

This prompted me to learn more about each of these nouns.

The noun “entrance” dates back to the mid-1400s (MF).

The noun “entry” dates back to the late-1200s (L).

Dictionaries’ definitions of “entrance” and “entry” are so similar that I would call them synonyms.

Do you make any distinction between “entrance” and “entry”, or do you use them fully interchangeably?

Please contact me, and tell me where you grew up (your hometown) and how you use each of these nouns.

Once I have enough responses, I will share the results — without your name or email address, but with your hometown.

Thanks!

I often hear people use one word when they mean the other.

Problem:
These two nouns are not synonyms.

Explanation:
I often hear people say something like “I have a theory about …”, such as “about why Janey stays out late” or “about why Jim does not like his boss” or “about why women generally have more close friends than do men”.

The primary definition of the noun “theory” is a substantiated group of statements that explain a set of phenomena.

In contrast, the primary meaning of the noun “hypothesis” is a proposed, tentative explanation for an observation or phenomenon.

As noted at Wikipedia, “A scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.”

So one starts with observations, then formulates hypotheses to explain those observations, and then tests those hypotheses. Once those hypotheses have been validated, one can create a theory.

I believe that the common English blunder of using the word “theory” where the word “hypothesis” is required is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis. (Note that I call this a hypothesis, not a theory!)

It is simpler to say or write the two-syllable, six-letter “theory” than it is to say or write the four-syllable, ten-letter “hypothesis”.

Solution:
Use “hypothesis” for a proposition to explain an observation. Use “theory” to refer to an analysis of a collection of facts and their relation to each other.

I heard this earlier today on CNN.

Problem:
The word “interventionalists” is non-standard English.

Explanation:
Someone on the CNN television channel this morning was interviewing physician-turned-TV-commentator Sanjay Gupta about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the impact of yesterday’s U.S. Airways plane crash in the Hudson River on the plane’s passengers and crew.

Gupta was talking about the importance of psychological intervention to prevent PTSD among the passengers and crew.

Gupta started his sentence with “The goal of these interventionalists …”.

I had never heard the word “interventionalist”, so I tried to find it in a dictionary but failed.

Apparently Gupta thought that he could add the suffix “ist” to the perfectly appropriate adjective “interventional” to form a noun for someone who practices intervention.

Instead, he should have added the suffix “ist” to the noun “intervention” to form the noun for someone who practices intervention.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following (without the quotation marks) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

• “interventionist” — 1,770,000 matches
• “interventionalist” — 52,600 matches

This tells me that Web authors have used the correct “interventionist” versus the incorrect “interventionalist” by a ratio of 33.7-to-1, which is very good.

Solution:
“The goal of these interventionists …”

A personal confusion the other day about some of these words prompted this blog post.

Problem:
These nouns sound similar but are not all synonyms.

Explanation:
My wife bought a “balaclava” — with a “c” in the middle — to stay warm for her half-marathon last Sunday.

I have lived in the southwest U.S. my entire life and am not fluent in the names for cold-weather clothing.

So I thought that my wife said “baklava”, which is a word that she and I heard during our visit to Turkey two summers ago.

I researched both words and learned the following:

• A “baklava” — spelled B-A-K-L-A-V-A — is a sweet pastry that is popular in Turkey and is made from filo dough, nuts, and honey or syrup.
• A “baklawa” — spelled B-A-K-L-A-W-A — is the same sweet pastry, simply spelled with a “w” instead of a “v”.
• A “balaclava” — spelled B-A-L-A-C-L-A-V-A — is a knitted cap that fits closely around the head and neck and sometimes shoulders in order to keep the wearer warm.
• “Balaklava” — spelled CAPITAL-B-A-L-A-K-L-A-V-A — is a seaport on the Black Sea in the Ukrainian city of Sevastopol.
• “Balaclava” — spelled CAPITAL-B-A-L-A-C-L-A-V-A — is the same seaport, simply spelled with a “c” instead of a “k”.

The lowercase-”b” “balaclava” garment dates back to the 1880s and is named after the capital-”B” “Balaklava” seaport.

If you have eaten both a “bear claw” and a “baklawa” or “baklava”, then you know that these two pastries do not even look alike, let alone have the same ingredients or taste alike.

However, in case you are wondering, the name “bear claw” is not related to “baklawa” (or “baklava”), even though they sound similar.

Instead, the name “bear claw” refers to a yeast-raised, almond-paste-flavored pastry that is prepared such that its shape evokes the image of a bear’s claw.

Wikipedia says that a “bear claw” is chiefly popular in the western states of the USA.

Adding to possible linguistic confusion, the U.S.-based “bear claw” is different than the Dutch “berenklauw”, which means “bear’s claw” — with a possessive apostrophe-”s” — in English.

Wikipedia says that a “berenklauw” — spelled B-E-R-E-N-K-L-A-U-W — is a Dutch snack on a wooden skewer and made with meatballs, fried onion rings, and peanut sauce.

To summarize, one conceivably could wear a balaclava in Balaclava while consuming a baklawa, a bear claw, and a berenklauw.

Solution:
Remember that the capital-”B” word for the Ukrainian seaport can be spelled with a “k” or a “c”, that the seaport is cold, and that the small-”b” “balaclava” is named after the seaport and is for keeping warm. Remember that the shorter “baklava” is the pastry and can be spelled with a “w” instead of a “v”.

I saw this yesterday on an invoice.

Problems:
1. The verb is misspelled.
2. The number could have been expressed in a word.
3. The word following “of” is misspelled.

Explanation:
The invoice related to some landscape work that we had contracted for our home.

Granted, landscapers do not have to be good spellers, especially if they are good landscapers.

But bad spelling does not help one’s image with consumers.

The first problem was that the landscaper thought that the preterite of the verb “lay” should be spelled L-A-Y-E-D.

That is a good guess by a kindergartner, but it is a bit embarrassing to come from a forty-something-year-old adult.

Some might say that the second problem is not truly a problem, especially when it comes to invoices and accounting.

I would counter-argue that it is helpful to follow the general rule for a small number — that it should be written as a word, perhaps followed by the number in parentheses.

The third problem — the misspelling of the word after the preposition “of” — was severe enough that it confused my wife.

She told me that she kept wondering what was meant by S-A-W-D. After I pronounced this made-up word, it became clear what the landscaper was trying to say.

Solution:
“laid three (3) pallets of sod”