Kirk Mahoney . com

This verb bugs me.

What is wrong with using the verb “clean” instead of “cleanse”?

Why have two extra letters to refer to the act of, say, cleaning one’s face?

Why must it be “Cleanse your face with Scrub-o!”?

Why cannot it be “Clean your face with Scrub-o!”?

Perhaps some people who use “cleanse” like the “z” sound at the end of the verb.

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

• “clean” — 320,000,000 matches
• “cleanse” — 13,800,000 matches

This tells me that “clean” is 23.2 times as popular as “cleanse” on the Web.

My wife made me think this morning about the verb “sink”.

Problem:
Some pairs of these verb forms are synonyms, which causes confusion.

Explanation:
My wife used the word “sunken” this morning.

This made me wonder about the difference between “sunk” and “sunken”.

And this led me to a dictionary.

The verb “sink” has these basic forms:

• Sink — present simple, as in “I sink when I do not dog-paddle.”
• Sank — preterite, as in “He sank my battleship!”
• Sunk — past participle, as in “She has sunk the deal.”
• Sinking — present continuous, as in “Hey, your boat is sinking!”

But here are the catches that lead to confusion:

• “Sunk” is often used as a synonym for “sank”.
• “Sunken” is definitely a synonym for “sunk”.

Putting the above two lists together, we see that the verb “sink” actually has these basic forms:

• Sink — present simple
• Sank or often Sunk — preterite
• Sunk or Sunken — past participle
• Sinking — present continuous

Solution:
I recommend avoiding “sunk” as a preterite and instead always using “sank” as the preterite. And I recommend using “sunk” in your writing and speech as the past participle but recognizing that “sunken” is a standard alternative as a past participle, especially in literary references such as “The pirates were looking for sunken treasure.”

I sometimes see or hear pairs of these words confused.

Problem:
These four verbs are not synonyms.

Explanation:
I was watching an episode of the Fox TV show “Fringe”, which included some FBI agents chasing a bad guy.

One actor seemed to say “alluded” — spelled A-L-L-U-D-E-D — when telling another actor that the bad guy had escaped.

The verb “allude”, which dates back to the early 1500s and is spelled A-L-L-U-D-E, means to refer indirectly or casually. This verb comes from the Latin verb “alludere” (to play beside), from “al-” (toward) and “ludere” (to play).

What the actor should have said instead was “eluded” — spelled E-L-U-D-E-D — when referring to the bad guy’s escape.

The verb “elude”, which dates back to the mid-1500s and is spelled E-L-U-D-E, means to escape or avoid by trickery, cleverness, or speed. This verb comes from the Latin verb “eludere” (to evade or deceive), from “e-” (out of, from, or beyond) and “ludere” (to play).

I believe that many English speakers tend to pronounce “allude” and “elude” identically as “uh-lude”.

This is a mistake. The solution is to pronounce the “al” in “allude” in just the same way that one should pronounce the “al” in “allegory”, and to pronounce the “e” in “elude” in just the same way that one should pronounce the “e” in “email”.

Some people confuse the verb “elude” with the verb “delude”, perhaps because these two words differ by only one letter.

The verb “delude”, which dates back to the early 1400s and is spelled D-E-L-U-D-E, means to mislead the judgment or mind of. This verb comes from the Latin verb “deludere” (to play false), from “de-” (down) and “ludere” (to play).

Finally, the verb “illude”, which dates back to the mid-1400s and is spelled I-L-L-U-D-E, means to trick or deceive. This verb comes from the Latin verb “illudere” (to ridicule or mock), from “il-” (in) and “ludere” (to play).

I sometimes see or hear “illude” and “delude” used interchangeably, apparently because writers or speakers see “ill”, which looks negative and therefore somewhat like “de”, instead of “il”, which is the actual prefix of “illude” and is simply a variation of “in”.

The verbs “illude” and “delude” are not quite synonyms. Although both verbs generically mean to deceive, the verb “delude” is more about unconscious or unintentional misleading, especially reflexively, whereas the verb “illude” is more about conscious or intentional trickery.

Solution:

• Use “allude” when one means to refer indirectly or casually.
• Use “delude” when one means to mislead the judgment or mind of. The verb “delude” is often used reflexively.
• Use “elude” when one means to escape or avoid by trickery, cleverness, or speed.
• Use “illude” when one means to trick or deceive.

I heard someone say this in an interview the other day.

Problem:
The adverb “back” in “reciprocate back” is redundant.

Explanation:
I heard an Internet-marketing guru make the statement “They’ll reciprocate back for you.” in an audio file recorded as part of an interview series sponsored by Brad Callen, the maker of Keyword Elite.

The verb “reciprocate” when used without an object usually means to make a return, so the meaning of “reciprocate back” would be to make a return back.

Because the “re” in “return” means back, one could argue that someone who “reciprocates back” would never make a return (e.g., for something given).

For fun, I searched Google for the expression “reciprocate back” (with the quotation marks, to avoid variations) and got about 7,920 matches, which is relatively low.

I continue to believe that the growing tendency, at least in American English, to add the adverb “back” after many “re” verbs reflects a growing ignorance about the meanings of the roots of English words.

Solution:
“They’ll reciprocate for you.”

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 heard someone say this yesterday during a conference call.

Problem:
The continuous inflection of the present tense is unnecessary in this statement.

Explanation:
The label “present continuous” refers to a continuous inflection of the present tense.

The phrase “are wanting” is an example of the “present continuous” form of the verb “want”.

As explained at Wikipedia, the “present continuous” form is prevalently used in English to express current action but is rare or absent in other Indo-European languages.

There are at least two hypotheses about why American English speakers often choose the “present continuous” form of a verb over the “present simple” form:

• One hypothesis is that saying something like “They are wanting …” sounds more educated to the speaker than saying simply “They want …”. One might even label this as a linguistic hypercorrection.
• Another hypothesis is that using the “present continuous” form instead of the “present simple” form effectively softens the impact on the listener or reader.

No matter which hypothesis you prefer, the “present continuous” form is often unnecessary and tends to interfere with clear, direct communication.

Solution:
“They want a response by January 31st.”

I heard a gardening expert say this today.

Problems:
1. The speaker misused the pronoun “on”.
2. The speaker misused the verb “need”.

Explanation:
I was listening this morning to a talk-radio program about gardening.

A caller asked the host about a topic.

The host responded with “You need to do a little bit more reading on it.”

The phrase “read on” is correct in sentences such as these:

• “I read on the website that he is divorced.”
• “I read on the subway the entire booklet.”
• “I read on the electrical panel that it was rated for only 120 volts.”

But “read on” is incorrect in a sentence such as “I read on the topic.”

Such a sentence requires the preposition “about”, not the preposition “on”.

The pronoun “it” in the statement made by the host to the caller referred to a topic.

So “reading on it” is incorrect, and the host should have used “reading about it” instead.

I believe that the use of “on” in place of “about” is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis.

It is simpler to say or write the one-syllable, two-letter “on” than it is to say or write the two-syllable, five-letter “about”.

The second problem was that the talk-show host used the verb “need” where another verb was required.

There are very few actions that humans need to take because there are very few things that humans need.

The verb “should” is the correction for “need to do” in the statement.

The avoidance of “should” in favor of “need to” in American English has become a common blunder.

My impression is that this blunder originated in the popular psychology of the 1960s, when the focus was on needs and when many started to say the catch-phrase “Don’t should on me!”

Solution:
“You should do a little bit more reading about it.”

I overheard this yesterday.

Problem:
The adverb “back” in “report back” is redundant.

Explanation:
The verb “report” comes from the Latin verb “reportare”, which means to carry back.

So the meaning of “report back” would be to carry back back.

Because the “re” in “report” means back, one could argue that those who “report back” would never reach their intended audience.

For fun, I searched Google for the expression “report back” (with the quotation marks, to avoid variations) and got about 3,740,000 matches.

This is depressing.

Solution:
“They dotted-line report to Becky.”

I often hear one of these expressions when the other one is required.

Problem:
These two expressions are not synonyms.

Explanation:
My wife recently heard a man say, “I will wait on you in the car.”

The preposition “on” bothered her, and we discussed how frequently each of us has heard “wait on” when “wait for” was required.

The common English blunder seems to be to use a form of “wait on” when a form of “wait for” is required.

Someone who “waits on” someone else is acting as a waiter or waitress.

So “I will wait on you in the car.” literally means “I will act as your waiter (or waitress) in the car.”

The man whom my wife heard should have said “I will wait for you in the car.” because that person was not saying that he would act as a waiter in “the car”.

Solution:
Use “… wait on you …” when you are a waiter or waitress; otherwise use “… wait for you …”.

I saw this yesterday in the 2009 entry confirmation for the Houston Marathon.

Problem:
The author should not have used “compromising” in the confirmation.

Explanation:
The 2009 Chevron Houston Marathon, which I am completing today, sent to me an “entry confirmation” booklet.

One of the booklet’s pages showed a map of sixteen blocks near the start of the marathon.

One sentence on that page was “The streets compromising the start line will close at 12:00 a.m.”

Yikes!

Streets to be used for the line of some 18,000 people starting the Houston Marathon cannot “compromise” that line.

Instead, those streets can comprise that start line.

Solution:
“The streets comprising the start line …”