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The Characteristics and Elements of Language and Words

Welcome to the Library! The articles will help you better understand the elements of language and words. The content comes from the pages of the Logophile Lexicon - Words About Words

FBI Most Wanted List
​of Misused Words

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Book Bag Packed Stuffed With Words
Misuse Words & Get 20 to Life in the Pen

​Adverse
  • What people think it means: averse; opposed to.
  • What it actually means: Unfavorable, contrary, or hostile.

Bemused
  • What people think it means: a cheeky way of saying "amused."
  • What it actually means: Puzzled, confused, or bewildered.

Chronic
  • What people think it means: acute; severe.
  • What it actually means: persisting for a long time or constantly recurring.

Compelled
  • What people think it means: to feel strongly that you want to do something.
  • What it actually means: to be forced to do something whether you want to or not

Complement
  • What people think it means: compliment; a polite expression of praise or admiration.
  • What it actually means: to add to something in a way that enhances or improves it; make perfect.

Conversate
  • What people think it means: To converse; to carry on a conversation.
  • What it actually means: this is not a real word.

Dilemma
  • What people think it means: a problem.
  • What it actually means: a situation in which a difficult choice has to be made between two or more alternatives, especially equally undesirable ones.

Effect
  • What people think it means: to impact or to change.
  • What it actually means: people get effect, which is a noun, confused with "affect" which is a verb. The easiest way to remember the difference is that "affect" creates change whereas "effect is the result."

Enormity
  • What people think it means: extremely big.
  • What it actually means: extremely bad or morally wrong; a grave crime or sin.

Factoid
  • What people think it means: a little fact; a small, interesting piece of trivia.
  • What it actually means: False information. It was created to describe false information that had been printed so many times it became accepted as fact.

Fortuitous
  • What people think it means: very good luck, most often used to indicate that luck did something for the better.
  • What it actually means: It just means "by chance." It could be good, or it could be bad.

Further
  • What people think it means: a physical distance.
  • What it actually means: "farther" relates to a physical distance, "further" refers to a metaphorical one.

Hung
  • What people think it means: the same as hanged.
  • What it actually means: to suspend or be suspended from above with the lower part dangling free.

Infamous
  • What people think it means: The same as famous.
  • What it actually means: notorious; well-known for a very bad reason.

Inflammable
  • What people think it means: incapable of catching fire; the opposite of flammable.
  • What it actually means: flammable and inflammable mean the exact same thing. In both case, it indicates something can easily catch fire.

Ironic
  • What people think it means: when something bad happens, famously popularized by Alanis Morissette's 1995 hit song, "Ironic."
  • What it actually means: Happening in the opposite way to what is expected, and typically causing wry amusement because of this.

Irregardless
  • What people think it means: Regardless, or "in spite of present circumstances."
  • What it actually means: it's not a real word.

Literally
  • What people think it means: Figuratively, which is the exact opposite. So people say, "I'm literally dying from laughter," to emphasize how funny they think something is, when, in fact, they are not actually dying.
  • What it actually means: In a literal manner or sense; precisely or exactly are synonyms.

Moot
  • What people think it means: mute; as in, turning off the volume.
  • What it actually means: Subject to debate, dispute, or uncertainty, and typically not admitting of a final decision.

Nauseous
  • What people think it means: Nauseated; sick, as if you're about to throw up.
  • What it actually means: Nausea-inducing; an adjective to describe something that will make you feel sick.

Peruse
  • What people think it means: To skim through something.
  • What it actually means: To read thoroughly or examine at length.

Plethora
  • What people think it means: a lot of something, usually in a good way.
  • What it actually means: too much.

Redundant
  • What people think it means: repetitive.
  • What it actually means: Not useful; superfluous.

Regularly
  • What people think it means: to do something frequently.
  • What it actually means: to do something consistently.

Tortuous
  • What people think it means: an adjective for torture.
  • What it actually means: twisting or winding.

Travesty
  • What people think it means: tragedy; something that needlessly causes great suffering or mass destruction.
  • What it actually means: a mockery or parody of something that's supposed to be serious.

Ultimate
  • What people think it means: the best of all.
  • What it actually means: as a noun, it can be used to describe the best of something, but, as an adjective, it denotes the last item on a list.

Commonly Misused Expressions


Adverse and Averse
  • Adverse is an adjective meaning “bad”, like having an adverse reaction to a food or a bee sting, or when referring to adverse weather conditions.
  • If you’re against doing something or avoid it whenever you can, you’re averse to it.

Bated Breath
When you are anticipating something so much that you’re hardly breathing, you’re waiting with bated breath.
  • The verb abate means to lessen or reduce, which is where this word comes from.
  • If you wait with baited breath you will smell fishy and need a toothbrush.

Case In Point
This is often confused as “case and point”, but that’s incorrect.
  • The phrase “in point” isn’t used much anymore — that’s old English usage when discussing something that’s relevant — but the correct phrase is “case in point” when you’re referencing an example to support something.

Chomping at the Bit
Champing is the correct phrase, not chomping at the bit.
  • ​Champing means making loud biting or chewing noises, and it’s the reference to the bit of rubber or metal that’s in a horse’s mouth when they have a bridle on. They love to chew at it noisily.

Could Have/Should Have
The proper phrase is “could have” or “should have”, and the contraction is “could’ve”.
  • In American English, both the phrase and the contraction sound like “could of” or “should of” when pronounced (and that’s likely why this confusion started in the first place) but they’re incorrect.

Couldn’t Care Less
If you could care less, that means you actually are capable of caring less, which isn’t what you’re going for when you’re driven to use this phrase. If the truth is that you can’t imagine caring any less than you do about something, the proper phrase is “couldn’t care less.”

Cite/Site/Sight
  • “Cite” means to reference, quote, or mention something. You’d cite an article or a blog post.
  • “Site” is a location. Construction site, site of the crime, even the virtual world of the web site.
  • “Sight” is either something that is seen, the act of seeing something or an aspiration (like setting your sights on a particular career goal). And you go “sightseeing”, not “siteseeing”.

Cue or Queue
  • If you’re standing in line, you’re in a queue or “queuing up”. If you’re scheduling a post or piece of content, you’re “queuing it up” or “putting it in the queue”. Cues are things like pool sticks and indicators for actors to speak their parts.

Et cetera
The abbreviation “etc.” when spelled out is “et cetera” not “EX cetera”. It’s Latin for “and the rest”.

Flesh out and Flush out
  • You “flesh out” an idea to add substance to it and develop it further. Think adding more flesh to the bone.
  • You “flush out” the rabbit from the hedges or the ducks from the marsh or the criminal from his hiding place.

For all intents and purposes
The phrase is not “for all intensive purposes”. Your intent may be intense though!

Home In
If you’re getting closer to a location or an idea or the central point of an argument, you’re homing in on it.
  • The phrase comes from the old use of homing pigeons.
  • The common misuse is to say hone in on something, based on mishearing home as hone when the phrase is spoken aloud.
  • Hone is a perfectly legitimate word, which means to sharpen (as in a knife edge). But hone in isn’t the correct phrase.

In regard to
It should either be “as regards”, “with regard to”, or “in regard to”. “In regards to” is a popular misuse.

Irrespective not Irregardless
Irrespective is the correct word when you mean “regardless of”. Irregardless is not a correct word. By its very nature it is a double negative.

Loath To
If you are unwilling or reluctant to do something, you are loath to do it. If you also hate it, you might indeed loathe it. But they are definitely different words, and leaving the “e” off of loath is not a mistake.
  • I loathe cleaning, but I am loath to let the dishes pile up for weeks since I’ll run out of dishes for my cheesecake.

Principal and Principle
The first use of principal is when it is an adjective meaning first, primary, or main:
  • “The principal reason that I’m concerned with this contract is…”.
  • As a noun, principal is sometimes used in job titles, as in the “principal architect”. There is a principal not principle of a school.
  • The part of your mortgage that isn’t interest is the principal.
A principle is a noun only and means a rule, doctrine, belief, law, or tenet.

Rein it in
When you rein something in you are slowing it down or bringing it more under control. Like a team of horses. “Reign” describes the rule of a monarch.

Say Your Piece
If you’re about to “say your piece”, that means you’re about to speak aloud a piece of your writing or perhaps give a piece of your mind. You don’t “say your peace”.
  • At a wedding, you either “speak now or forever hold your peace”, which means to maintain your silence forever and ever.

Sneak Peek
Often written incorrectly as sneak peak, this is about getting a special glimpse at something, not a mountain summit.

Supposedly
The word is “supposedly.” Never ever use “supposably”.

Toe The Line
You don’t tow it. Toe the line is about teetering on the edge of that line so closely that you’re near to stepping over it.
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