{"id":574,"date":"2009-04-14T12:00:50","date_gmt":"2009-04-14T18:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/antidotal-evidence\/"},"modified":"2009-04-14T12:02:18","modified_gmt":"2009-04-14T18:02:18","slug":"antidotal-evidence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2009\/04\/antidotal-evidence\/","title":{"rendered":"“antidotal evidence”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I saw this yesterday in a message about story-related evidence.<\/p>\n

Problem:<\/strong>
\nThe adjective “antidotal” has nothing to do with story-related evidence.<\/p>\n

Explanation:<\/strong>
\nThe word “antidotal” is the adjectival form of the noun “antidote”, which means a medicine for counteracting a poison<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The word “anecdotal” is the adjectival form of the noun “anecdote”, which means a short account of an incident as an unpublished narrative<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Those who confuse these two adjectives probably are distracted by<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. the fact that both adjectives have “dotal” — spelled D-O-T-A-L — in them because both nouns have “dote” — spelled D-O-T-E — in them,<\/li>\n
  2. the fact that both adjectives start with A-N, and<\/li>\n
  3. the fact that both adjectives are nine letters long.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The noun “antidote” is constructed from the prefix “anti-“, which means against<\/em>, and “dote”, whose origin essentially means given<\/em>. In other words, the roots of “antidote” when assembled mean given against<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    The noun “anecdote” is constructed from the prefix “an-“, which means not<\/em>, and “ecdote”. The “ecdote” part of “anecdote” is a combination of “ec”, which means out<\/em>, and “dote”, whose origin, as just noted, means given<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    So the “ecdote” part of “anecdote” essentially means published<\/em>. In other words, the roots of “anecdote” when assembled mean not published<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    Solution:<\/strong>
    \n“anecdotal evidence”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I saw this yesterday in a message about story-related evidence. Problem: The adjective “antidotal” has nothing to do with story-related evidence. Explanation: The word “antidotal” is the adjectival form of the noun “antidote”, which means a medicine for counteracting a poison. The word “anecdotal” is the adjectival form of the noun “anecdote”, which means a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,26,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adjectives","category-mispronunciations","category-nouns"],"yoast_head":"\n"antidotal evidence" - Kirk Mahoney . com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2009\/04\/antidotal-evidence\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""antidotal evidence" - Kirk Mahoney . com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I saw this yesterday in a message about story-related evidence. 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