'Words Almost Everyone Mixes Up Or Mangles': 7 Entries From The New American Heritage Book (PHOTOS)

As a kid, did you ever dread being sent to the principle's office?

Or have you ever asked someone to be discrete with delicate information you've given them?

English is a Rubick's cube of confusing possibilities, but the new book, "100 Words Almost Everyone Mixes Up Or Mangles" from the editors of the American Heritage Dictionary will set straight all the little linguistic hurdles that effect us, once and for all.

Here are a few of the most famous mix-ups featured in the book with captions by the editors of "100 Words."

Have a favorite we missed? Or how about a word that really gets under your skin when mangled or mixed-up?

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cache / cachet

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Cache, “a hidden store,” is sometimes confused with cachet, “prestige, appeal.” Both words come from French, but cache is pronounced like “cash,” while cachet rhymes with “sashay.” The confusion may be encouraged because we often don’t write final accents for words borrowed from French like resume and protege, so people may mistakenly think that cache is one of these words ending in an “ay” sound. Cachet is one of these “-ay” words, but one that ends in –et, like cabaret.

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Cache, “a hidden store,” is sometimes confused with cachet, “prestige, appeal.” Both words come from French, but cache is pronounced like “cash,” while cachet rhymes with “sashay.” The confusion may be encouraged because we often don’t write final accents for words borrowed from French like resume and protege, so people may mistakenly think that cache is one of these words ending in an “ay” sound. Cachet is one of these “-ay” words, but one that ends in –et, like cabaret.

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Sheesh...I Knew That One "Lay" or "Lie"?

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Comments

[alima]

09:46 PM on 09/22/2010

I'm so glad this thread is still going -- it's been one of the most enjoyable and rewarding exchanges for a long time.
I want to air another peeve that hasn't come up so far: the difference between and misuse of incident/incidents and incidence. A robbery is an incident -- not an incidence. Robberies are incidents, not incidences (which isn't even a word because incidence has no plural form). The incidence of robberies refers to how often they occur in a given area and/or period of time.

[dblohangel]

10:46 AM on 09/22/2010

"Many people believe that enervate is a synonym of energize" this confusion was clarified in the BIll Manhoff play "The Owl and the Pussycat" when the female lead character explained the difference saying enervate does not mean what you'd think it means.

[MiGrant]

12:27 PM on 09/21/2010

If we're being persnickety, it's Rubik's Cube, with no 'c'!

[Lev Raphael]

10:19 PM on 09/20/2010

I once had a reviewer mock "an access of emotion" in one of my Nick Hoffman mysteries. She said in her review it should have been excess, but that's not what I meant at all, and she was wrong that the word choice was wrong. She could have taken a minute to look it up, but she didn't. So I wrote her into the next book.

[GoodNews]

07:39 AM on 09/19/2010

These are my favorite comment sections...I wish I could fan and fave all of you!!!

[PatricktPDX]

06:01 AM on 09/19/2010

I think the biggest pet peeve should be the over use of the word LIKE!!!!

[Fernando]

04:32 PM on 09/18/2010

It really ENERVATED me when I realized the insurgency wasn't in its "last THROES" as Cheney said. Not a moment when he SHONE and showed how little CACHET he had.

[SynonymForWhatever]

07:41 AM on 09/18/2010

Who likes the "word" sammich? Ridiculous.

[lastliberalintx]

02:12 AM on 09/18/2010

The article is nowhere near as entertaining as the comments!

[Mrs X]

11:34 AM on 09/18/2010

I agree, but you know what would be even more entertaining? A list of commonly used non-Standard English words that are slowly becoming a part of the standard. Just think of the comment on a post like that!

[Nelson Montana]

01:01 AM on 09/18/2010

Actually my pet peeve is the sentence "I feel badly." That is very common yet incorrect. It is, "I feel bad."

It's an example of people hyper correcting in an (ironic) effort to sound more articulate.

I've actually had people "correct" me with this usage, after which I had to explain to them that "feeling badly" means not doing it well.

[Fernando]

04:34 PM on 09/18/2010

My pet one is "your" in place of "you are". A second one is: so-and-so "and I". It's always "me".

[Nelson Montana]

06:59 PM on 09/18/2010

"Your" is a spelling mistake (as are most of the examples in the articles). And yes, so and so and ME is correct. Though I feel that's somewhat forgivable.

Technically, to say "It's ME" is incorrect. It's actually "It is I" -- but almost no one says that and it actually sounds a little stilted.

[evangelicalchimp]

02:44 PM on 09/17/2010

first time i've even seen a flounder founder.

mary sue was in the back yard when she founder flounder!

[thebigbike]

02:29 PM on 09/17/2010

flaunt vs. flout "they were so disprectful they would flaunt the regulations right in front og the regulators!"

[elsie900]

05:41 PM on 09/20/2010

That reminds me: taunt vs. taut. "Don't taunt me with your taut muscles and trim physique!"

[wilray]

12:18 PM on 09/17/2010

Then there is the abbreviated version of the phrase "I am going to" as in "Ima" let you speak.

[wilray]

12:22 PM on 09/17/2010

or Ima let you finish.

[Lev Raphael]

10:20 PM on 09/20/2010

or:

Ima gonna letcha finish.

[Mrs X]

12:13 PM on 09/17/2010

What is with all this grammatical nitpicking? The purpose of language is communication, and don't we all understand what someone means when they say "I seen..." or "ek setra"? All this criticism of the ways that English is commonly spoken by many people strikes me as pure pretension. These "rules" that so many commenters cling to merely represent one particular pattern of speech and not some universal "truth."

[wilray]

12:53 PM on 09/17/2010

Sounds like you are doing some nitpicking of your own. During my training I took courses in communication. I thought they were joking about the cost of miscommunication. Then I went into the real world. Those little grammatical errors costs plenty, and that's dealing with general business. When you get into specific areas, it can cost even more. Impreciseness in contracts can cost plenty. A wrong word or faulty punctuation can cost millions. In the medical field, impreciseness can cause lives. Political careers can be sunk because of the choice of one wrong word. I do understand your point. I have many friends from outside the U.S. Some of the inflections and tones are difficult for my American ear. Sometimes I swear that I am saying the correct word. Yet, what I perceive as a subtle difference is enough to throw them off. They have no idea what I am saying. Even more difficult is a tonal language such as Thai. The meaning of the word changes with the tone. You think proper English is nitpicky. Try slang. The wrong word, phrase, or way of saying something will not score you points with the Hip-hop community. As languages go English is a pretty loose language anyway. Other languages have little deviation from the rules of grammar while English has wide latitude.

[Mrs X]

03:03 PM on 09/17/2010

I do not believe that Standard English is nitpicky, and I completely agree that there are many situations in which a standard is necessary in order to minimize miscommunication. What bugs me is how vehemently some people insist that Standard English the only "proper" way to speak the language. This insistence has always appeared to me to have a classist and raciest undertone since Standard English most closely reflects the way rich white people speak. Linguists will tell you that other speech communities, such as the "hip-hop" community, have grammatical rules that are just as strict and consistent as those of Standard English. It is only because this community is often looked down upon by speakers of Standard English that their speech patterns are seen as reflecting an unintelligent mind instead of a cultural variation.

[wilray]

12:08 PM on 09/17/2010

Okay this is not incorrect or anything - just the complexities of English, and I love to explain it to my ESL friends. Generally, if they are relatively new to English they are unfamiliar with some of the synonyms for "very." So I explain to them that pretty, awful, and wicked are all synonyms for very. It cracks them up that it is correct usage to say pretty awful or wicked good or pretty ugly or awfully pretty