Misused Words for Business E-Book

Giacomo Giammatteo

• Herausgeber: Inferno Publishing Company
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Serie: No Mistakes Grammar
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Seitenzahl: 91

Beschreibung

We’re back! That’s right. Back and at it again. And there’s an unexpected surprise. We have more redundancies, more expressions, and more mixed-up word news.

This isn’t a complex grammar guide, but it does cover a lot more ground than the first volume. And I’m willing to bet that you’ll learn something from it. You’re bound to know some of the words, but you won’t know everything and that makes the book worthwhile. I don’t know about you, but I’d give up a few cups of coffee to learn something.

Well…how about it? Would you? 

Leseprobe

No Mistakes Grammar, Volume II

Misused Words for Business

Giacomo Giammatteo

Inferno Publishing Company

Contents

1.Misused Words for Business

2.Words

3.Absolutes

4.Business Redundancies and Other Problems

5.Communication or Communications

6.Compound Modifiers

7.Capitalization

8.Words Difficult to Pronounce

9.More Mispronounced Words

10.Plurals of Compound Words

11.Misunderstood Idioms

12.He’s Going Downhill

13.Eat, Shit, and Die

14.An Axe to Grind

15.Hunger Pangs

16.Shoo-in or Shoe-in

17.Thumbs-Up or Thumbs-Down?

18.Toe the Line

19.First Come, First Serve

20.How to Use Dates and Times

21.Wordiness

22.Very

23.Closing

Also by Giacomo Giammatteo

About the Author

Acknowledgments

Misused Words for Business

Have you ever felt like people didn’t understand you? Or misunderstood you? Then perhaps you weren’t using the proper words. Sometimes there is a subtle difference between one word and the next, but if you don’t know what the difference is, you could be sending the wrong message.

Read Misused Words II, and see what you need to learn.

Misused Words for Business covers many of the same points (not the same words) as Misused Words but also includes sections on absolutes (words that shouldn’t be modified) business redundancies, capitalization (a horrible misuse in business), sayings, and times and dates. It’s not a complete grammar book, but it does cover a lot of territory.

Throughout the book I use 🐗 as a symbol for a tip, or a way to remember how to tell the difference. 🐗 (Dennis) is my pet wild boar. We rescued him when he was only a few days old, and he’s been with us for five years. Of course, he’s a little bigger now, weighing in at about four hundred pounds.

When we first got him, he was about twelve pounds. In any case, I use an image of a wild boar to draw attention to a particular section/tip. I hope it will help you remember it.

Words

Affluent/effluent

Affluent—wealthy, rich, materially successful.

The newly promoted vice president dropped his former friends; he now traveled in affluent circles.

Effluent—An outflow or discharge of liquid waste, as from a sewage system, factory, or nuclear plant. (From dictionary.com: “Sludge is the dirt that remains when sewage is cleaned into effluent.”)

You may think affluent and effluent are the same—and sometimes they may be—but there is a difference.

🐗When you think of affluent, think of an abundance of wealth, and when you think of effluent, think of excrement. It’s a crude example, but it works.

Quote: “Unfortunately, our affluent society has also been an effluent society.” —Hubert H. Humphrey

Allude/elude

Allude means “to refer to indirectly,” or “make an indirect reference.”

Elude means “to avoid or escape by cleverness, trickery, speed.”

The psychiatrist had alluded to the man’s cleverness, but the detective didn’t listen until the man eluded him.

🐗Try to remember that elude and escape both begin with the letter e.

Quote: “If you want something, it will elude you. If you do not want something, you will get ten of it in the mail.” —Anna Quindlen

Note: Along with these two words, when they appear as allusion/elusion,we can also add the word illusion to the mix. An illusion is a false perception of reality.

Magicians use illusion to their advantage; in fact, much of their act depends on illusion.

Amused/bemused

Amuse is a verb meaning to entertain, or cause laughter.

Bemuse is a verb meaning to bewilder or confuse someone.

The king was amused when his court was bemused.

🐗Remember that bemuse means to bewilder, and both start with be.

Appraise/apprise

Appraise is“to estimate the price or value of” or “to assess or make a judgment about.”A real-estate appraiser estimates the value of your house. A jeweler might appraise your jewelry collection.

Napoleon was renowned for being able to appraise his enemies with little more than a glance.

Apprise is “to give notice or inform.”

When they arrested us, the police apprised us of our rights.

🐗 Appraise has the word raise in it. Raise can be closely associated with value or price.

Assure/ensure/insure

These words are frequently found on résumés and in business writing. They have the general meaning of making the outcome of a particular circumstance certain; however, there are distinct differences.

Assure is typically used to assure someone/or some living thing of an outcome. An assurance is similar to a promise.

You might assure your boss that the project will get done on time and under budget.

Ensure is used more for things than people. So, to ensure the project gets done on time, you hire more people and secure additional resources.

Insure, in its pure form, refers to money or insurance.

I insured the project for $10 million dollars in case of accidents.

The easiest way to remember the distinction between these words:

🐗 Assure is used for people. (You can make an “ass” of yourself if you promise your boss something and don’t deliver.) Ensure is used for things. Insure deals with money/insurance.

Boarder/border

Boarder—a person who rents a room or a place to stay (with or without meals).

Boarders were more popular years ago, and people liked it as it helped to pay the bills.

Border—“the edge of something, the outer rim.”

The border between the United States and Canada is not well protected.

It is a borderless TV.

The Rio Grande forms the border between Texas and Mexico.

🐗Try to remember that boarders organize things and border contains the word order.

Breach/breech

Breach—“an opening or break in something,” as in a “breach in the castle wall,” or “to breachsomething,” as in “He breached the wall.”

Breeches, on the other hand, represents a pair of trousers, as in “He put on his breeches.”

🐗 The easy way to remember it is breach is spelled like break and means “a break in something.”

🐗 Another thing to remember is that breeches is always seen in the plural form. You can’t tell someone to put on their “breech.”

Canvas/canvass

Canvasis a heavy fabric typically used for sails on ships, tents, backpacks, etc. It might also be used by painters/artists, stretched across wooden frames, and painted, as in an artist’s canvas.

Canvass—To canvass is “to conduct a survey or ask questions of a group of people.” For example, detectives usually canvass the area after a homicide. You also may see it expressed as “They canvassed (politician x’s) supporters to see what they liked.”

🐗Remember that canvas (one s) can refer to one, as in “the artist’s canvas,” but canvass (two s’s) means talking to many people.

Quote: “If you’re not prepared to accept the results, don’t canvass the voters.”

Carat/caret/carrot/karat

Carat—a carat is a measurement (weight) for diamonds, and other precious stones. It is typically thought of being equal to two hundred milligrams.

Caret—a caret is a proofreading symbol (^) primarily used to show where to place more text/pictures, etc.

Carrot—a carrot is a long, orange vegetable that is often found in salads. It is a member of the parsley family. It is often referred to as an enticement for something performed well. A well-known method of motivation or training is the “carrot-and-stick” method. Entice them with the carrot, and punish them with the stick.

Karat—a karat is a unit of measurement for gold. If something is sold as eighteen-karat gold, it is three-fourths gold. It is listed as a variant spelling of carat.

Coarse/course

Coarse—“without refinement, vulgar, rough, gritty.”

My wild boar, Dennis, has coarse fur.

The sailor had coarse manners, perhaps due to his extended time at sea.

The street punk had coarse language.

Course—course has so many meanings it’s difficult to list them all. It might be better to provide a few examples.

They bought a new house on the second hole of the golf course.

The ship’s captain set a southerly course.

The course of the stock market continues its upward trend.

The course of the river takes it right through the city.

He listened, then took his own course of action.

There are many other examples, but I hope this will suffice. Here’s one with both:

During the course of the day, we came across several coarse individuals.

🐗The one spelled with the ou can sometimes mean “route.”

Comprise/compose

Comprise—“consist, contain, include.”

The nursing staff was comprised of two males and five females.

The difference between comprise and compose is subtle but distinct. The whole is “comprised” of the parts, but the parts “compose” the whole.

You put something together, or compose it, as in “He composed a musical piece.”

Compose might also mean “to settle or calm yourself,” as in “It took a while for her to compose herself after learning of her mother’s death.”

Conscience/conscious

Conscience—“an idea of what is right and wrong,” as in “After cheating on her boyfriend, she had a guilty conscience.”

Conscious—“alert or awake.” Not in a coma or sleep like state. It also means “thought out,” as in “He made a conscious effort to visit his estranged son.”

He was conscious that he had a conscience.

🐗Remember that the n in conscience stands for noun. Conscience is a noun.

Note:Conscious can also be a noun; however, unless you’re studying to be a psychiatrist or often speak to them, I’d probably forget it.

Contingent/contingency

Contingent—something that depends on another event, as in “The chance of a flood depended on the dam breaking,”or “The possibility of snow was contingent on the unlikely drop in temperature.”

Contingency—is “a secondary plan,” as in “We had a contingency escape plan in case the first one failed.

The primary evacuation route was contingent on fair weather. Since that didn’t happen, we opted for the contingency plan.

🐗Think of the y in contingency and ask yourself why you’re following the contingency plan.

Data (with facts=plural; with information=singular)

Data is often written erroneously. The key is knowing what kind of data you’re talking about.

When data is a count noun (items that can be counted), the plural makes sense. In that type of sentence, you could replace data with another count noun such as facts. However, when data is treated as a noncount noun (items cannot be counted), the singular makes sense. In those cases, you could probably substitute the word information.

If you are submitting sales reports to your boss, you might say “The data (facts) are ready.”

But if you’re referring to marketing information, you could say “The data (information) is ready.”

Both would be correct.

🐗Remember to substitute facts or information for data. If facts works, use are (plural),but if information works, use is (singular).

Defuse/diffuse

Defuse—“to take out or remove the fuse from a bomb or explosive device,” or “to render a situation less dangerous,” as in “Obama defused the tense situation in Iran.”

Diffuse—