(no subject)

[tesla]

Why do people so frequently misuse homophones? "Tenants" (should have been "tenets") and "adverse" ("averse") both came up today, both used incorrectly by very literate folks. I suppose that I can understand doing this in a casual forum (e-mail to peers, etc.), but one of them was in a presentation to 50 people. I'm always surprised when people can't hear the difference between these words when they're spoken, and hence surprised when people use them incorrectly in either written or verbal forms.

What is the etiquette surrounding this? I'll certainly point out the one in the presentation, because the person involved will appreciate it. But in a business setting, when do people want to be corrected and when would they rather be humored? I typically err on the side of gentleness, because in my world right now, relationships are more important than absolute precision.


Mmm - 15-year Laphroaig. Yummy.

Comments

[davidschroth.livejournal.com]

I've been up way too long, and my memory isn't what it was once (actually, it's never been what it was once), but I'm not sure 'mnemonics' is the word yoh should be using here. The examples you give are almost homonyms, depending upon where one learned to speak English.

I tend to think of Every Good Boy Does Fine, or such like, as a mnemonic.

Of course, I'm probably violating etiquette by saying anything at all. minnehaha K has a pithy and funny saying about the fannish tendency to correct others, but I can't remember it.

I'm sure it's all due to the Laphroaig.

[tesla-aldrich.livejournal.com]

You're so right. I was actually looking for "homophones" (and have now corrected it).

And I wish I could say that I had planned it this way - I didn't - but what a perfect test case: I was momentarily embarrassed but my error, but am really glad to have the right word now.

Just wish that I could be sure that other people would feel the same way.

[echoegami.livejournal.com]

ah! well done, and here i look silly because i am so slow to type and you've since made your corrections.

Homophone that drives me crazy

[davidschroth.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's not a homophone, which is why it really drives me crazy.

When I first came to work in OS development here in the Great White North, I more or less constantly gritted my teeth over the pervasive use (at my place of employment) of the phrase assembler pneumonics.

It ain't a word, and the root alone should be a major clue that, in the words of Inigo Montoya, You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

And, to get more or less back on subject, I never tried to correct the miscreants. Since they had seen fit to embed it in several approved design documents before I arrived, it didn't seem worth the bother.

On new design inspections, however, I get to allow my pedantic nature free reign. (Oops - I may have done it, again).

Re: Homophone that drives me crazy

[tesla-aldrich.livejournal.com]

And truly, tenant/tenet and adverse/averse aren't homophones either (particularly the latter), but either people are lazy with their pronunciation, or they have imperfect hearing, or they don't visualize words upon hearing them, or SOMETHING, and so these are perceived as homophones.

Your example is particularly egregious, of course, by virtue of not being a word at all. :)

I'm trying to envision what "assembler pneumonics" might be - software that's buggy, wherein the "bug" is viral pnuemonia? A new disease commonly known as "factory-worker's lung"?

I, too, thoroughly appreciate the guardians of language. Yes, it's a living body of knowledge, but let's use that property intelligently: let's create new words and new constructions where the old ones are weighed and found wanting, rather than doing so from mere laziness.

[echoegami.livejournal.com]

i hear ya my sister but, truthfully, i just had the difference between the two words pointed out by this here post. for which i should thank you so, "thank you." if it were me i'd want to be corrected but, as you say, gently and certainly aside from others.

i agree w/ mr. davidschroth, i believe you're using "mnemonic" in the wrong sense but i think neither are they homonyms as he suggests because they need to be either spelled the same or sound the same. adverse and averse sound similar but not they're certainly not the same sound.

even as i agree with you on my other shoulder i hear friends yell, living language, living language! so i suppose i should give them their due and voice. they site the concept that a living language evolves over time. words that once meant one thing morph over time and use to mean something else.

for examples look to all those appropriated words from german, french and native american languages we have peppered our "american english" with and shaped to our own purposes. know what i mean, vern?

if you follow this train of thought then you relax the rules if favor of the majority-preferred word and meaning combinations. if you have an aversion to red meat you become "adverse" to it. [groan] okay. if you insist on recycling "irregardless" [shudder] of the evidence it mostly doesn't work then that is your right. i guess.

but therein lay the slippery slope, don't it just? if we continue on that way who knows where we may end up? can you imagine text books written in 1337 5p34k? ridiculous!

[echoegami.livejournal.com]

anyway... i just want to say i, personally, am in favor of grammar mavens and language gate keepers but i know not everyone is. in fact it would seem that the majority of people in the world are not really interested in having their grammar corrected.

so, getting to my point - to correct someone, especially in the work place, i would carefully consider how well you know them and how comfortable you are with the possibility they won't appreciate being corrected.

[short-angry.livejournal.com]

Now I remember why I refuse to play you in scrabble.

I would say in a business setting, your average person would want to know if they were using a word incorrectly.

[buttonlass.livejournal.com]

I find that most people don't mind the correction after the fact, so long as it's not in front of others.

The real problem is that by then they have already erred so it's to late to really do any good. I have however found that most people don't notice errors like we do. I think their brains just insert the right word and it gets glossed over, or ,alternately, they would have made the same mistake themselves.

I have for the most part given up on telling people. Most of the errors I see are by my professors and I usually don't see any gain in correcting them.:)

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

my ex says "artesian" when he means "artisan" *every* *single* *time*. when i divorced him, i gave up correcting him. ;)

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

being able to hear the difference between them really varies, based on what dialect you(they) are speaking, and also what dialect(s) you(they) are used to listening to. there are sounds in some that aren't in others. applied on a larger level, this is the basis for the whole japanese-->english l/r issue-- japanese has only one letter where we have two, and it's located solidly between l and r. so frequently, they can't hear the l/r difference, because they hear the japanese sound instead, and when they make that sound, english speakers can only tell that it's not the sound that they would say, so they assume it's the other one.

huh. with a brief brushup on my phonology terminology and without this damn cold i could likely explain that better. but for now, that's it.

my theory on correcting such things at work is if it's in a presentation, or in a situation where me correcting it could allow the person to make a useful change in it (reading a draft, etcetera), then i'll point it out. other than that, i let it slide, unless it's completely egregious.