To "E" or Not to "E": That's the Spelling Question (A Grammar Curmudgeon Production)
Mar 29 '04 (Updated May 05 '04)
The Bottom Line Pay attention, and don't depend on the spellchecker to chose the rite word four ewe.
The Grammar Curmudgeon has occasionally been accused of surliness – apparently by someone who failed to look up “curmudgeon” in his/her dictionary. Of course he is surly! that’s what makes him a curmudgeon! On second thought, it is not innate surliness that makes him a curmudgeon, nor is it Condaleezza Rice’s amazing ability to dissemble convincingly without dropping her charming smile. No, the Curmudgeon’s shorts are most frequently bunched by linguistic missteps and – let’s face it – usage laziness in this era of spell-checkers and on-line dictionaries. Of late, tGC has been beset by the notion that writers on his favorite commercial review site appear to have forgotten everything they ever knew (if anything) about the parts of speech – noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and the rest. “Does no one remember ‘Schoolhouse Rock’?” he moans. “Have they forgotten all about ‘Conjunction Junction,’ ‘A Noun is a Person, Place, or Thing,’ and ‘Verb: That's What's Happening’?” he asks querulously.
Of course, tGC has been known to set high standards: after all, he’s the gadfly who complains that it is “brakes” that stop the motion of a vehicle, not “breaks” and has attempted on several occasions to lecture his peers on the inherent beauty of a well-placed semicolon.
tGC’s undergarment-jumbling moments of late have come at the hands of those writers who apparently believe the canard that a spell-checker helps you choose the correct word. “Pshaw!” he interjects. “I have yet to see a spellchecker that can differentiate between noun and verb!”
Here are a few peeves that tGC keeps about that big house – not his favorite pets (those are the labs), but close. And they all involve a pair of words, one with a terminal “e” and the other without…
To abhor, abjure, or simply dislike improper usage
His curmudgeonliness was reading not long ago when he found this pair of wedgie-inducing phrases:
1 I am loathe to badmouth this product…
2 I simply loath this style of writing…
To quote the cartoon character Cathy, “Aaaargh!”
The writers have both managed to confuse (quite probably with the aid of a spellchecker) a pair of perfectly good words. The author of the first sentence intended to tell us that s/he is unwilling or averse to badmouthing the product. Loath - whose soft “th” makes the word rhyme with “oath” – is an adjective that’s closely related to the verb loathe. The verb form has a hard, buzzing “th” sound like the same letters in “this.”
The Grammar Curmudgeon is not loath to dropping the hammer on those who confuse the two words (in his gentle way, of course).
Waiting to exhale
1 I found myself holding my breathe as the two raced across pre-dawn Paris.
2 The air was so cold, Sarah felt as though she couldn’t breath.
The loath/loathe pattern returns in the words “breath” and “breathe” – two words that, if anything, are even more closely related than loath and loathe. The pronunciation pattern is similar, too: the verb form breathe - meaning to respire (inhale... exhale... repeat...) has that same buzzing “th” sound. The noun form breath (the product of the act of breathing) concludes with a softer, more breathy sound. This time out, the vowel sounds are different, too – “breathe” has a long e (as in the word beat) and “breath” has a short e (as in Seth).
You snost, you lost…
1 The handles were always coming lose because the bolts would not hold.
2 I am always afraid that I will loose my ring if I take it off.
The writers have confused two words that, frankly, have almost no connection to each other. Lose, a verb, means to misplace or mislay (writer 2 might misplace a ring); loose, an adjective, means poorly fitting or poorly attached. I suppose that, if that ring were loose enough, the writer might lose it. Same with a pair of jeans, I suppose – another use of “loose.”
The vowel sounds are identical this time: the “oo” sound heard in “soup” and “soon.” The terminal “S” in the verb form (lose) is harder, more like a “Z,” whereas the terminal “S” in the adjective (loose) sounds more like a hissssssss.
This particular pair has a potential added confusion: there is a verb spelled "loose," but its only meaning is to release or set loose.
Similar patterns occur in other words as well:
soothe is a verb
sooth is a noun that's unrelated, and archaic to boot - it means "truth," which I suppose is rather soothing.
clothe is a verb, meaning to don garments
cloth is a noun, the substance used to make those garments
choose is a verb in the present tense
chose is the same verb in the past tense (tricky, huh?)
The Curmudgeon kindly suggests that when writing you might want to read through your work. You might even want to read it aloud (whispering, so as not to bother your housemate or the person in the next cubicle [you shameless devil you – writing reviews at work!]). It’s just possible that you’ll catch one of these goofs in the process. Happy reading!
This is the eighth note from the Grammar Curmudgeon, an irregular series of... what, "diatribes"? "rants"? "suggestions"? on improving the quality of your writing - not just here on Epinions, but every time you create a sentence, a paragraph, or even a book. Feel free to suggest further topics (I already have a generation's worth up my sleeve) by emailing me or leaving a comment.
You can read the subsequent Grammar Curmudgeon installment at Spelling Test or find the previous installment at Proofreading
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