Kirk Mahoney . com

Reader Jennifer W. recently contacted me with this question:

Could you look into the proper spelling of the term inkjet? I see it spelled 3 ways: ink jet, ink-jet and inkjet. There are differences between various dictionaries as well. How do I know which is correct?

Here was my response:

Jennifer,

Thanks for contacting me. It’s an excellent question!

If you are referring to an individual jet built into a printer, then “ink jet” would be correct. For example: “An ink jet in the printer became clogged with ink residue.”

But you should never use “ink jet” to modify a noun (such as “printer”). When you use two nouns together to modify a third noun, you must hyphenate the first two nouns. Otherwise, for example, you leave the reader wondering whether “ink jet printer” refers to a printer that uses one or more ink jets OR to a “jet printer” (whatever that is!) that uses ink (versus, say, toner(s) or color stick(s)).

This leads to the question about when to use ink-jet and when to use inkjet.

You may not like the answer, but in my opinion the answer is that you may use either one.

It depends on whether you prefer hyphenated or non-hyphenated compound nouns.

The German language is full of non-hyphenated compound nouns.

In contrast, British English is full of hyphenated compound nouns.

My impression is that many Americans prefer the German approach, and this approach is fine when combining ink and jet.

Omitting the hyphen does not always work, though. For example, “pen-island” can easily be misinterpreted when you omit the hyphen!

But, again, the non-hyphenated “inkjet” form is just as clear as the hyphenated “ink-jet” form.

And it seems to me that many people now prefer “inkjet” over “ink-jet” when you are omitting the word “printer” from your sentence — as in, “My inkjet died last week.” (or “Do you have any inkjets for less than $100?”).

One suggestion: Download my hyphenation-mistakes book. It’s still free, and it may help you further with questions like this.

…

Best,
Kirk

I heard someone say “can or can’t” during an MP3-based interview this morning.

And it was only because of the context that I could be sure that the interviewee said “can’t” after the conjunction.

This got me to thinking: The popular use of “can’t” instead of “cannot” in spoken American English is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis.

In other words, it is simpler to say the one-syllable “can’t” than the two-syllable form.

But “can’t” can be difficult to hear (to distinguish from “can”).

Recommendation: Be nice to your audience by saying “cannot” instead of “can’t” in interviews, speeches, telephone calls, etc.

A reader named Warren emailed the following message to me recently: “I’m still a bit confused between to go and to come. U said it’s all about movement to or away from where the speaker or hearer is, my question is how do you define who the speaker is? is that the one that is talking? What about the following example: the doctor asked me to stop COMING back. In this case who’s the speaker? the doctor or the one who is talking?”

Warren, those are excellent questions. The best answers come from rewriting your example in three different ways.

1. “The doctor told me to stop COMING back to him.”
Consider an equivalent form but with a different person being told by the doctor what to do:

(a) “The doctor told Ms. Jones to stop coming back to him.”

Statement (a) puts you as the listener/reader in the location of the doctor. From the perspective of the doctor, Ms. Jones is COMING back to him.

2. “The doctor told me to stop GOING back to him.”
Consider an equivalent form but with a different person being told by the doctor what to do:

(b) “The doctor told Ms. Jones to stop going back to him.”

Statement (b) puts you as the listener/reader in a location OTHER THAN the location of the doctor. From the perspective of someone who is NOT at the doctor’s office, Ms. Jones is GOING back to him.

So #1 and #2 are each correct, but you have to decide as the speaker/writer whether you want to put the listener/reader at the location of the doctor (#1) or at your non-doctor’s-office location (#2).

In other words, you have to decide whether you want to focus the “told me”

• on the act of the doctor (#1)
   
  -OR-
• on what the doctor is requesting from your perspective/location (#2).

But let’s change your original sentence (#1) slightly:

3. “The doctor told me that I should stop ____ back to him.”
Consider an equivalent form but with a different person being told by the doctor what to do:

(c) “The doctor told Ms. Jones that she should stop ___ back to him.”

Statement (c) is equivalent to “The doctor told Ms. Jones that ‘X’.”, where ‘X’ is a complete sentence on its own.

For example, ‘X’ could be “The sky is blue.” — giving us “The doctor told Ms. Jones that the sky is blue.”.

So what should we put in the “___” in #3?

Sentence #3 becomes “The doctor told me that ‘X’.”, where X = “I should stop ___ back to him.”.

Try replacing “___” in this X with “GOING” and with “COMING” to see which one is correct:

(d) “I should stop GOING back to him.”
(e) “I should stop COMING back to him.”

Given that you (the “I” in (d)) are NOT where he (the “him” in (d)) is, you have to GO back to him.

In other words, you, where you are, cannot COME back to him.

So the correct completion of statement #3 is always “The doctor told me that I should stop GOING back to him.”

I wrote yesterday about the nouns “swine” and “pig”.

Thinking about other animals, this has made me ask even more questions: 1. What exactly does “cattle” mean? 2. How is “cattle” related to “cow”? 3. Is it preferable to refer to bovines as “cattle” or “cows”?

Dictionary.com says that the plural noun “cattle” primarily means bovine animals, esp. domesticated members of the genus Bos.

And Dictionary.com says that the first three meanings of the noun “cow” are (a) the mature female of a bovine animal, esp. of the genus Bos, (b) the female of various other large animals, as the elephant or whale, and (c) Informal. a domestic bovine of either sex and any age.

So it is preferable to use “cattle” to refer to bovines in general and to use “cows” to refer specifically to mature female bovines or to refer to the females (usually mature) of other large animals (usually mammals).

I sometimes see or hear these verbs used interchangeably.

Problem:
The verbs “flaunt” and “flout” are not synonyms.

Explanation:
The verb “flaunt” — spelled F-L-A-U-N-T — dates back to the 1560s.

When used with an object, “flaunt” means to display ostentatiously.

When used without an object, “flaunt” means to parade oneself conspicuously.

The verb “flaunt” apparently comes from the Norwegian dialectical word “flanta”, which means to show off.

I first learned the verb “flaunt” from a Braniff Airlines TV ad, in which Braniff had stewardesses proclaim “If you’ve got it, flaunt it!” to brag about Braniff’s superiority over other airlines.

The verb “flout” — spelled F-L-O-U-T — dates back to the late 1300s.

When used with an object, “flout” means to scorn, scoff at, or mock.

When used without an object, “flout” means to show contempt or disdain.

The verb “flout” comes from the Dutch word “fluiten”, which means to play a flute. That word also means to jeer, which apparently was often accomplished hundreds of years ago by someone playing a simple flute or whistle around another person.

Solution:
To remember that “flout” is different than “flaunt”, notice that “flout” looks somewhat like “flute” to remember that “flout” means to mock or to show disdain, as if you were playing a flute in a mocking way around someone else.

I started thinking about these two verbs the other day after seeing a reference to one of them in a technical document.

I saw a reference to the verb “black”, which dates back to the 1200s, in an IPTV technical document.

The document referred to a “blacked screen.”

The transitive verb “black” means to make black.

The intransitive verb “black” means to become black.

Now consider the verb “blacken”, which dates back to the 1300s.

The transitive verb “blacken” primarily means to make black or to darken and secondarily means to sully or defame.

The intransitive verb “blacken” means to become black or dark.

For example, “blackened chicken” and “blackened salmon” and “blackened tuna”, which are popular American menu items now, are not completely black.

So it seems that one can blacken the flesh of animals used as food and can black a TV screen, but not the other way around.

I sometimes see these words written interchangeably.

Problem:
The words “retch” and “wretch” are not synonyms.

Explanation:
The word “retch” — spelled R-E-T-C-H — is a verb that dates back to the mid 1500s and means to vomit when used with an object and means to make an effort to vomit when used without an object.

The verb “retch” comes from an Old Norse word that means to hawk or spit and, when spoken, sounds like hawking or spitting.

The word “wretch” — spelled W-R-E-T-C-H — is a noun that dates back to before 900 and means an unhappy person or a person of base character.

The noun “wretch” comes from the Old English word “wrecca”, which means exile and comes from the German word “Recke”, which means warrior and comes from the Old Norse word “rekkr”, which means man.

So somehow a word for “man” transformed into a word for “warrior”, which transformed into a word for “exile”, which transformed into a word that refers to an unhappy person or a person of base character.

Many readers may know the noun “wretch” from the hymn “Amazing Grace”, which includes the lyrics “Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me …”

Solution:
To distinguish the “retch” that starts with an “r” from the “wretch” that starts with a “w”, remember that the latter is a noun by remembering that another, similar-sounding noun is “witch”, which also starts with a “w”.

I sometimes see or hear these nouns used interchangeably.

Problem:
The nouns “perquisite” and “prerequisite” are not synonyms.

Explanation:
The noun “perquisite” — spelled P-E-R-Q-U-I-S-I-T-E — dates back to the early 1400s and refers to an incidental privilege or payment beyond regular salary or wages.

Many readers may know the informal noun “perk” — spelled P-E-R-K — which was coined in the 1800s as a shortened form of “perquisite”.

The origin of the noun “perquisite” is the Latin word “perquisitus”, which is the participle of the Latin verb “perquirere”, which means to inquire diligently.

This origin makes sense when one knows that the tertiary meaning of “perquisite” is something demanded as a particular privilege, as in “It was a perquisite of royalty.”

In other words, the noun “perquisite” began as a reference to something demanded by royalty, and it evolved to mean something extra given to employees.

The noun “prerequisite” — spelled P-R-E-Q-U-I-S-I-T-E — dates back to the early 1600s and means something prerequisite.

So one then must turn to the meaning of the adjective “prerequisite”, which is required beforehand, with “required” coming from the “requisite” part of “prerequisite” and with “beforehand” coming from the “pre” part of “prerequisite”.

Solution:
Think of the informal noun “perk” to remember the meaning of the noun “perquisite”; think of the parts of the noun “prerequisite” to remember its meaning.

I sometimes see these words used interchangeably.

Problem:
The words “hoard” and “horde” are not synonyms.

Explanation:
The word “hoard” — spelled H-O-A-R-D — dates back to before 900 to the Gothic word “huzd”, which literally meant treasure.

When it acts as a noun, the word “hoard” means an accumulation that is carefully guarded for future use.

When it acts as a verb with an object, the word “hoard” means to accumulate for future use in a hidden place.

When it acts as a verb without an object, the word “hoard” means to accumulate food, money, or anything else valuable in a hidden place for future use.

The word “horde” — spelled H-O-R-D-E — dates back to about 1550 but apparently originated before then with the Turkic word “ordu”, which literally means royal camp or residence.

The primary meaning of the word “horde” as a noun is a mass or crowd, and an alternate meaning is a nomadic group.

The word “horde” can also be used as a verb without an object, in which case it means to gather or assemble in a horde.

Solution:
Remember that the word “horde” — spelled H-O-R-D-E — seems to come from the Turkic word “ordu”, which means royal camp or residence, to remember that this word relates to a crowd or mass or group of people and to distinguish it from the word “hoard” — spelled H-O-A-R-D — which comes from a Gothic word for treasure.

I sometimes see or hear these verbs used interchangeably.

Problem:
The verbs “defuse” and “diffuse” are not synonyms.

Explanation:
The verb “defuse” — spelled D-E-F-U-S-E — was coined in the early 1940s and means to remove the fuse from, where the “de” prefix in this verb indicates negation and the “fuse” suffix refers to a cord of readily combustible material and comes from the Italian word “fuso”, which literally means spindle.

Unless you are a terrorist or sadist, you want the police to defuse a bomb.

The verb “diffuse” — spelled D-I-F-F-U-S-E — dates back to the late 1300s and means to spread or disseminate, where the “dif” prefix means apart or away and the “fuse” suffix comes from a form of the Latin word “fundere”, which literally means to melt.

Once the police have defused a bomb, they often will diffuse a message to the public about their success.

I believe that the oral/auditory confusion comes from mispronunciations of these two verbs.

I believe that the written confusion comes from ignorance about the roots of these two verbs and from misspellings originating from that ignorance or the mispronunciations.

Solution:
Remember that the “de” in “defuse” indicates negation, and remember that the “dif” in “diffuse” means apart or away.