A plain language guide to grammar, punctuation and writing well
Look at this from a recent story in Retail Week: “We aren’t adverse to a change in the leasing model." And this, from Nottinghamshire Live: "I'm not adverse to slowing down the road ..." This is a mistake you will see EVERYWHERE. People use 'adverse' when they mean 'averse'. But it rarely happens the other… Continue reading A quick word … averse to adverse
Or, indeed, ‘flack’. ‘Flack’ being a variant spelling of ‘flak’ which means anti-aircraft fire, or, as used above, strong or annoying criticism. See Oxford Dictionaries.
That should be "grisly". The words are pronounced the same, but their origins and meanings are different. Grisly means causing fear and horror. Grizzly means grey – as in grizzled hair. It is rarely encountered except as the name of the fierce bear of North America.
'Crescendo' is an interesting word. It's commonly used in the expression 'reach a crescendo', as in the following examples: Bank pay row reaches a crescendo (Guardian online) ... protests demanding the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak reached a crescendo. (Telegraph online) Some careful wordsmiths rail against this use. Here, for example, is newspaper editor Simon Heffer… Continue reading A few notes about crescendo
‘Approbation’ means ‘approval' or 'praise’. The first few letters of the word are a bit of a giveaway, but, despite that, a number of writers use it to mean ‘disapproval’. This is even stranger when you consider that the opposite of ‘approbation’ is ‘disapprobation’. It all seems so obvious, but obviously isn’t.
I don’t usually mind when a word is used in a new way to mean something completely different: the result often seems so right that you wonder why it wasn’t co-opted sooner. However, some words just sound plain wrong when used outside of their normal context. On a recent TV programme about British writers, the narrator referred to Fleming’s series of novels about James Bond as his ‘franchise’.
That's Julie Bindel, writing in the Guardian about her less than heartfelt acceptance of hairs growing on her own face. She says: The second they appear they are instantly torn asunder. Asunder? Excuse me for going off topic, but I think she meant to say 'torn out'.
Wordwatch Towers 