The More You Didn't Care To Know, Part 1

It occurs to me, sometimes, that I am considered a font of knowledge for many different areas. These areas, and the knowledge contained therein are, of course, mostly completely irrelevant and thus I'm not particularly helpful, per se. But still, it is nice to be considered something of a polymath. The best thing, of course, about the word polymath, is that if you have to ask if you are one, then you aren't. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy, only the prophecy is about smug self-righteous intelligence. But enough waffling! You came here to be educated (because it's Tuesday, and that's what happens on Tuesdays!!) and so today I thought I would explain the differences between some words - words that are, of course, commonly confused. There would be no point in explaining the difference between the word 'pancake' and the word 'Tuesday' because the two are connected in no particular way (other than, of course, Shrove Tuesday, but that's just because I was thinking about delicious food...)

Then vs. Than

The confusion that exists between 'then' and 'than' strikes me as somewhat odd. Once you know what the two words actually mean, then hopefully you should agree that they are quite different. It's kind of like the words 'dead' and 'deed' - sure they only differ by a single letter, but I'd rather much have many deeds than many dead. 

The word 'than' is a comparative term. It is used to compare two objects, expressing the fact that one of the objects experiences a certain quality in greater abundance (man it's difficult to define that word without using it...) Correct usage of the word 'than' should be limited to sentences of the following nature: "Nathan has more money in than bank than I do." or "The red ball is smaller than the blue ball is."

The word 'then' is a temporal modifier (for want of a better term.) It is used to indicate that an activity or event is to take place later than (and there's that word again) another activity or event. Correct usage of this word should generally be limited to times when you want to express a chronology. For instance, if I were to say "I'm going to go to the shops, and then I'll return home." then this is correct usage of the term. You may have noticed I just used the word in another context - this is because 'then' can also be used as a conjunctive (meaning roughly 'in the situation that the preceding or following is the case'.

Less vs. Fewer

The difference between 'less' and 'fewer' is actually quite small, but it is still something that, on occasion, irks me. I can understand, for instance, if the average person says that they have less raffle tickets than their friend. This is a pretty common misconception, and the two words do carry the same vague meaning. What I have trouble ignoring, however, is the glaring grammatical error that stares at my any time I am in line at the supermarket. The sign that offends me so reads "12 Items Or Less." and, besides the fact that ever letter seems to be the start of its own little sentence, their misleading of the public disgusts me.

Traditionally (if it's appropriate to call language traditional, and I don't see why it isn't...) the word 'less' should be used only in conjunction with an item that is uncountable - for example 'hair' as an overall concept. One could correctly say "I have less hair than you." The word 'fewer', on the other hand, was designed to be used with countable objects - for example 'hairs' (this time, though, the individual objects that sit on your head, instead of the mass as a whole.) One could correctly say "I have fewer hairs than you." As I said before, the difference is small, but if you want to exercise your mind then attempting to differentiate between these two can be good for you.

Affect vs. Effect

There is quite a handy mnemonic device that one can use to remember the difference between the words 'affect' and 'effect'. If you simply remember the word RAVEN (standing for: Remember Affect Verb Effect Noun) then you should generally be fine. As a verb, affect usually means to influence, alter, move emotionally, or (when speaking of an illness) to harm the body. As a noun, effect usually means the result/outcome of an event, though it is also seen in 'special effects', 'sound effects', and so forth.

There is a slight difficulty when it comes to very specific (and rarely used) definitions of the words, in which effect can actually be a verb and affect can actually be a noun. These cases are, however, quite rare. As a verb, effect means simply 'to bring about' (i.e. "He effected a change in the policy.") Affect, on the other hand, has a noun usage which seems to have fallen almost entirely from the common vernacular, being defined as emotion or an external display there-of (i.e. "The Doctor was void of affect as he finished off the Daleks".) Still, it's not hard to tell when one should use affect and effect in common speech.

And Finally...

So I think that should pretty much wrap it up for this particular entry in 'The More You Didn't Care To Know'. There are a couple of other discrepancies that I wanted to highlight, however I think that would do for next Tuesday, or at least one in the near future. I have decided that, to square off the list, I am going to include a list of words that people consistently use incorrectly in either context or spelling that don't deserve a full explanation.

Bold, when used in the context of someone without hair, is incorrect. The correct term is bald.

Horny when used in the context of any inanimate object (i.e. "The porn your mother starred in is really horny") is not only incorrect, but downright silly. Inanimate objects cannot, by definition, experience emotion, and thus cannot feel horny. What you mean to say is either the object made/makes you horny, or that the object is/way erotic.

A Whole Nother when used at any time, is incorrect. What you mean to say is A Whole Other.

Peruse when used in the context of quickly looking something over, is incorrect. Peruse actually means that one takes one's time and carefully inspects things.

Rediculous is not spelt as such. It is correctly spelt ridiculous.

Ironic. You know what? Don't even bother trying to use irony correctly - you're probably not going to...(But in case you wanted to know, it is only used to describe outcomes that are opposite to the expectation. For example, a giant banquet being eaten at the funeral of a man who died of starvation.)