Ten examples of how the English language is trolling us

Regular readers of my blog will know that my full-time job is as an editor. You’d think that I’d be fully across all the various, ugly, beautiful permutations of English and its stupid-arse spelling.

You’d be wrong.

What brought this to my attention most recently is that in my latest manuscript I spelled “lightning” wrong. Like, every single time. My finger itches to put an e in there, but noooooooo, that would be the verb meaning to make something lighter. As in, “The lightning is lightening the sky.”

Because obviously.

Now, to be fair, since I don’t work for the BOM, I don’t read about lightning in my job very much — so it isn’t something I’ve had trained out of me. But still, I did want to pull my hair out a little bit.

Here are some other examples of the ways that English is trolling us:

Alter / altar. One is the verb meaning “to change”; the other is a sacred table or platform at which religious offerings are made.

Baited / bated. One is describing something with bait (such as worms) attached. The other means “restrained” (with relation to breathing) — so the phrase “with bated breath” means with held breath, not with a mouthful of raw prawns. On behalf of all those romance heroines out there, I think we can say that’s a relief.

Blonde / blond. I gather this one is the fault of French, which has gendered adjectives. There, blonde is feminine and blond is masculine. In English, that’s sorta kinda true, but the application varies; my former publishing house’s convention was that “blond” was the adjective that describes hair colour and “a blonde” is a woman with blond hair.

Compliment / complement. The first is a nice thing someone says about you; the second has a bunch of meanings but generally relates to something that completes a thing or makes it perfect.

Climatic / climactic. One relates to weather; the other is the, er, climax of something. I have seen the wrong one used. Who knew weather could be so exciting?

Discreet / discrete. The first is wise, prudent or judicious; the second is detached or distinct. (I still have to look this one up every time.)

Exercise / exorcise. The first is physical activity and the second is to drive out an evil spirit — possibly in response to having seen me exercise! (Scary stuff.)

Grizzly / grisly. The first is something grey or a type of bear (but not a type of bare!). The second is something gruesome.

A sanction can be both authoritative permission and a provision of a law that enacts a penalty for disobedience — so two things that are OPPOSITE to one another. And in my dictionary, at least, as a verb it always means to approve or ratify something — so sentences such as “the UN sanctioned X country for breaching Resolution 1234” are actually saying that the UN approved the country’s actions rather than punishing it. Oh, UN, you so crazy.

Storey / story. One is a floor of a building; the other is a tale we tell ourselves. (This one’s not for US readers, who I gather use “story” for both…?)

So, all of that being the case, how do you avoid your writing being full of hilariously climaxing environments and buildings where each floor is a tale (but not a tail) of wonder (but not wander)? The answer is at once deceptively simple and also a lifelong job:

• Read a lot
• Own (and use) a current-edition dictionary of the specific English variant you’re using
• Proofread your work (I noticed an incorrect “it’s” when I proofread this blog post — gah!)
• Proofread it again (I did)
• Have someone else proofread your work — copy editors are worth their weight (not wait) in gold
• Make a list of words you know you get confused, and then double-check their usage whenever you see (not sea) them

What’s your favourite pair of words that are usually mixed up? Are they about meeting the principled principal? Having dessert in the desert? Eliciting illicit activity? I need (not knead) to know now!

Update: words to be wary of

I’ve been doing a lot of editing in the last two months. A lot. I’ve done a first read on Lucid Dreaming, and separately incorporated feedback from a CP on it. I’ve CPed something in return. And, the biggest one of all, I got my first-round edits back from Turquoise Morning Press on Isla’s Inheritance.

So I guess it’s no surprise that I’ve added words to my list of things to keep an eye out for. So here’s an updated version. Maybe it will help others out too.

Adverbs (words usually ending in ly) – Do a search for words ending in “ly” and see whether you need them. Sometimes you can delete them outright; other times you can write around them. Rarely will you need them.

Dialogue tags such as gasped, shouted, yelled, cried, squealed, exclaimed, pronounced, whispered… I could go on all day. Check out this post if you want more information.

began to, started to, suddenly – “She began to run” is a long-winded way of saying “she ran”. Sometimes “began to” can be useful—say, when a girl begins crying halfway through an argument with her boyfriend—but not usually. And the house “suddenly” exploding isn’t any more shocking than the house exploding.

had – I’ve seen some people suggest you never need the word “had”. I don’t agree; in a past-tense novel it can be useful to flag that you’re talking about something that happened prior to the current scene. For example, “I had been to the shops”. If you say “I went to the shops” the way you would in a present-tense document (or life) then people will get confused about when the event happened. That being said, it’s not always necessary so use with caution.

of the – This is a typical indicator of a passive sentence, which is often unnecessary and always more wordy than an active sentence. For example: “The hair of the dog” vs “The dog’s hair”. Times you might want to keep a passive sentence include when the actor in the sentence is irrelevant or unknown; for example, “He was killed” versus “Bob killed him”. The latter is spoileriffic!

around, possibly, probably, likely, usually, almost, mostly – Do you need the qualification? If not, it should go.

seemed to – Because both my books are in the first person I overuse this phrase to describe my character’s interpretation of others’ feelings, thoughts or opinions. But nine times out of ten it doesn’t need to be there.

realised, knew, thought, saw, heard, felt (or their present-tense equivalents) – These phrases all flag a place where you’re telling rather than showing. “I felt angry” is the author telling the reader how the character felt, rather than showing it: “My fists clenched as fury raced through my veins”. (It’s terrifying how often I misuse these words!)

of – Sometimes this is unnecessary. Consider ‘The rage beat inside of my heart’. What is the ‘of’ contributing?

that – Sometimes you need “that” in a sentence. There are quite a few of them throughout this blog post. But you can often delete it with no impact on the meaning. Also, make sure you shouldn’t really be using ‘which’.

very, really, pretty (when it’s being used to mean “very”), just, simply, totally, finally, apparently, allegedly, supposedly, usually, awesome, fabulous, fantastic, incredible, wonderful – I keep these in dialogue and thoughts (because that’s how people talk), but at almost no other time. Note a lot of them are also adverbs?

‘Which’ versus ‘that’: when to use them!

It’s time for another grammar rant from me. This one is about when to use “which” and when to use “that”. I see a lot of published documents—fiction and otherwise—that use them both (IMO) incorrectly.

Consider the following sentence:

I bought a car which is pink.

According to some grammar books, the “which” is wrong. According to others, it’s not incorrect but it’s also not the best choice of words because it leaves the reader to guess what you’re trying to say. Either way, it should be fixed.

Both “which” and “that” can be used to introduce a clause. But when they do, they flag different things to the reader. “Which” flags a non-defining clause: one that contains supplementary information not required by the main clause. “That” flags a defining clause: one that is part of your main message.

When used to introduce a clause, “which” requires a comma in front of it and “that” shouldn’t have one.

So, in the case of the car, if I’m trying to tell you a bought a car that happened to be pink, I’d say:

I bought a car, which is pink.

The information after the comma is supplementary, not essential to the sentence. But if I’m really excited about the fact my car is pink, and it’s the main focus of what I’m trying to say, then I’d use “that”:

I bought a car that is pink.

Of course, with a simple sentence like this I’d edit it further to tighten it up even more: I bought a pink car! But in a more complex example, such a rewrite isn’t possible to do elegantly. See below.

This is wrong:

I went into the bakery which sold egg-and-bacon pies and hot cross buns.

This is the non-defining clause (the bakery I went into happened to sell pies and buns):

I went into the bakery, which sold egg-and-bacon pies and hot cross buns.

This is the defining clause (I specifically went into a bakery that sold pies and buns as opposed to the one that sold, say, bread and sausage rolls—and why wouldn’t you?!):

I went into the bakery that sold egg-and-bacon pies and hot cross buns.

Mmm, egg-and-bacon pies…

…

Sorry, what were we talking about? :p