You Say That, But You Mean Something Else...

It often irks me when I see people using the wrong words; usually mixing up your/you’re or they’re/their/there and in rarer cases using “must of” instead of “must have”.

While some may say I’m being pedantic, I think it’s important to use correct grammar; otherwise we’ll all end up forming “sentences” with garbled strings of words and eventually lose our ability to communicate. I am always having to ask my younger sister and cousins to explain their “txt spk” - that’s text speak to you and me.

But interestingly, even the more learned of people can get it wrong and use words out of context. There are many words that are commonly misused; describing one thing while the definition is something quite different.

Here are three common culprits:

Chronic - people use this to mean acute or severe. But, in actual fact, chronic means ongoing or continuing. So a chronic illness is a long lasting one, not a severe one.

Dilemma - often used to refer to a problem. But you only face a true dilemma if you have a choice between two options; neither of them favourable.

And my personal favourite…

Decimate - people say “decimate” when what they really mean is “obliterate”. Decimate does not mean destroy, but to reduce by one tenth. (The clue is in the word itself - dec-imate). The word actually comes from a Roman punishment; where, if a centurion was displeased with his century, they would be lined up and every tenth man would be killed. Gory.