Mnemonics and misconceptions

[some language notes]

The Thinker (Rodin, 1904; photo by Miguel Hermoso Cuesta via Wikimedia)

Misnomers vs. misconceptions

It’s a common misconception that misnomer means misconception.¹

In fact, if you call a misconception a “misnomer,” you’re giving a misnomer to a misconception!²

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Pneumonic vs. mnemonic

Every time I see someone write about educators and such using “pneumonic devices,”³ I want to reply with something snarky about what kind of “education” requires ventilators or iron lungs.⁴

Here’s a mnemonic for you: You get pneumonia in your lungs—not your brain. And, of course, mnemonic,⁵ like memory, begins with m.⁶

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Jealousy vs. envy

If you’re possessive of what is yours, you’re jealous. If you’re unhappy about someone else having what you want, you’re envious.⁷

Remember: God is jealous; Satan is envious. (“I the Lord your God am a jealous God” [Exodus 20:5]; “through the devil’s envy death entered the world” [Wisdom 2:24].)⁸ (N.b. Somewhat interesting etymological footnote.)

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Imply vs. infer

Imply is what you do when you’re the one talking. Infer is what you do when someone else is talking.

I imply by my remark; I infer from her remark. (Imply by my rhymes; infer rhymes with her, and infer from is alliterative.)

“Are you inferring that I’m ignorant?!”

“No, I wasn’t inferring that at all … before.”⁹

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Two equestrian notes

Whoa belongs with other horsey words like whinnying, whickering, whip, and whisperer, which is to say, the h belongs with the w. Whoa. Not “woah.”¹⁰

Likewise, reining in someone or something, and giving or having free rein, are equestrian metaphors, not monarchical ones. You don’t mean “free reign/reigning in.”

If you are actually capable of writing a phrase like “dropping the reigns” (something I saw recently in the wild), then this mnemonic is too advanced for you. I dunno, maybe associate the silent g in reign with the g in king (not silent, but usually not pronounced as a g)?

Alan Rickman rules, yes—but when he rides a horse, he holds the reins.

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Comprise vs. compose

Before using comprise, try compose first. If compose sounds right, comprise is wrong (or, at least, it will be criticized by sticklers).

• Wrong: The book composes ten chapters.

• Right: The book comprises ten chapters.

• Also right: Ten chapters compose the book. (Therefore, Ten chapters comprise the book is wrong. Remember, try compose first!)

If you feel even tempted to use comprised of, stop. In fact, perhaps it’s better if you just forget about comprise.

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Run-on sentences

A run-on sentence is defined, not by excessive length (that’s a common misconception), but by a specific structural error involving two or more improperly joined independent clauses.

Run-on sentences can be short, this is an example!¹¹

Very long sentences, by the same token, are not run-ons, so long as they are structurally correct: more precisely, so long as they avoid the relevant structural error; even a sentence that contains (as this long sentence does) two or more independent clauses, each able to stand alone as a sentence in its own right, can be structurally correct—and, therefore, not a run-on sentence—so long as it employs appropriate conjunctions, punctuation, or both.¹² (If you called this sentence a “run-on,” that would be a misnomer.)

Admittedly, the term run-on sentence isn’t a very intuitive or precise label for this structural error—and, in fact, in colloquial usage this term is sometimes applied to long, rambling sentences that lack this error. Is the term run-on sentence … a misnomer? Arguably so!¹³

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Faze vs. phase

If you got an F on a test, you might be fazed—or unfazed—with an f. Pretty much anything else is a phase.

You can go through a phase, phase something in or out, plan a phased rollout, observe things that are in phase or out of phase, etc.

But even if you set your phasers on stun, if the alien monster easily shakes it off, it wasn’t even fazed. Fazed. Not phased.

• Wrong: “It’s just a faze you’re going through,” she said, unphased.

• Right: “I’m not a werewolf … The phases of the moon don’t faze me!”

When the phases of the moon do faze you (for more, see note 13 below)

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Humus vs. hummus

Circling back to m-related mnemonics:

• Humus, with one m, is organic matter in soil (from Latin humus, meaning “earth”).¹⁴

• Hummus, with two m’s, is tasty, because mm.

P.S. The pronunciations differ as well as the spellings. The first syllable in humus is pronounced like human—unsurprisingly, since the two words are related.¹⁵ (Even more interesting etymological footnote!) The first syllable in hummus is pronounced like humming—a sound you might make if you were happy, because you were eating hummus.

You’re welcome!

1. A misnomer is a misnaming of something. Misnomers can be based on misconceptions; for example, tidal wave and rip tide are misnomers, inasmuch as the idea or suggestion that they are related to tides is a misconception. Other misnomers are archaisms; the function of glove compartments is not to hold gloves, and terms like film, footage, and taping are used in entirely digital-media contexts. Misnomers can also be euphemistic or hypocritical, e.g., public servant as applied to a self-serving politician, or ethics committee as applied to a group tasked with protecting organization elites. Mistaken origins are often implicated in misconception-based misnomers: Norway rats likely originated in China; Chinese checkers originated in Germany; German chocolate cake originated in the U.S., etc.

2. This is as good a place as any for my standard disclaimer: I’ve tried hard to be accurate in this post, but I’m no more immune to misconceptions than anyone else, and I always welcome additions and corrections from anyone who knows anything I don’t.

3. Yes, one sees this in the wild. All. The. Time.

4. Memory tricks are mnemonic devices. Pneumonic devices would be technology related to respiratory function.

5. A friend, baiting me: “What we really need is a good way to remember how to spell mnemonic.”

Me, unable to resist an opportunity to make a dumb joke:

Memory
Needs
Every
Mnemonic
Only
Not
If
Contrived

6. Even though I know better when it comes to spelling it, I still struggle with mispronouncing mnemonic as “new-MON-ic” instead of “neh-MON-ic.” That darned u in pneumonic has infected the speech centers of my brain!

7. This, at least, is the traditional English jealousy/envy distinction, though it is today somewhat obscured, insofar as jealousy has swelled to cover the duties of both words, and envy has become less commonly used. This is so much the case, in fact, that a number of dictionaries now include “envious” in their first definition of “jealous”!

Words change in meaning all the time, and this process (called semantic shift) is neither good nor bad in itself. In this case, though, a word that was previously clear has come to have two very different meanings, and an important conceptual and moral distinction has unfortunately been eclipsed.

No use crying over spilled milk. Still, there is happily no reason that people who care about semantic and moral clarity can’t continue to use both words with greater precision than is commonplace, as doing so in this case is unlikely to cause confusion!

8. One sometimes encounters another distinction being made, often in Catholic circles, to the effect that jealousy means the desire for what others have (similar to what I have here called envy), while envy means resentment of another’s good, often with the wish to destroy it! Thus, for example, St. Thomas, quoting St. John Damascene, says that “envy is sorrow for another’s good” (ST II–II, 36, 1). This is rooted in the vagaries of Latin cognates and translations.

The word Thomas uses here is invidia, the root of envy, etymologically meaning “to look against” in the sense of “to view with an evil eye.” The English word jealousy, meanwhile, is derived from Latin zelus (derived from Greek zelos), meaning ardent zeal, protective devotion, or possessiveness. If you’re thinking that zelus sounds more like zealous than jealous, guess what: These rhyming English terms both derive from the same Latin root!

So here’s what happened: In Latin, zelus had mixed positive and negative connotations, while invidia was entirely negative. The negative energy of invidia was retained in the English term envy, while the mixed vibe of zelus wound up split, with the positive side going into zealous and the negative side into jealous. Over time, though, the negativity of jealous allowed it to encroach on the role of envy, leading to the latter word become less commonly used.

Unfortunately, in the process a useful distinction between possessive jealousy and resentful envy was obscured. Still, as remarked in note 6 above, one can choose to continue to distinguish between jealousy and envy, and this will result in basically no confusion—though you have to live with other people using jealousy less discriminately and envy less frequently.

9. The beauty of this reply, of course, is that, having inferred the other person’s ignorance, the speaker goes on to imply it.

10. Whoah is right out. You might think this goes without saying, but it doesn’t, certainly not here, since I went ahead and said it. (All three spellings are used in Keanu memes.)

11. This is a type of run-on sentence called a comma splice. The comma is an attempt to conjoin the two clauses—and certainly a comma splice is less egregious than a mere fused sentence: Run-on sentences can be short this is an example! A comma alone, though, can’t do the job. A semicolon would do the trick: Run-on sentences can be short; this is not an example. A comma aided by a conjunction will also serve: Run-on sentences can be short, but this is not an example.

12. As a writer, I have a lamentable penchant for crafting sentences that are long, complex, and demanding on readers—but I almost never produce run-on sentences, except deliberately, in casual writing, for humorous effect. (It isn’t funny because it’s a run-on, it’s funny because of the deadpan tone it conveys. [That isn’t a very funny example, but it might give you the idea.])

13. Actually, I’ve overstated my case regarding very long sentences not being “run-on sentences.” In casual use, very long sentences being called “run-on sentences” happens often enough that the misnomer is no longer a misnomer; words, after all, mean what they mean to the people who use them. (See note 6 above on semantic shift!) And, again, run-on sentence was never a very good term for what it was supposed to name in the first place. Still, writers, editors, and teachers should be clear on the more technical sense of the term.

14. Latin humus (“earth”) is the root of humility, meaning the state of being lowly or “near the ground,” as readers of Charlotte’s Web may recall.

15. As noted above, human, from Latin homo, is derived from humus or “earth”—in the same way that the Hebrew word adam (man or mankind) is famously derived from adamah, “earth.” Thus, in both languages the default term for human or mankind can be explicated as “earthling” (less in the full-fledged science-fiction sense of “from the planet Earth” as “from the stuff of earth,” i.e., “dust to dust” and all that).

Surprisingly, the English word man is thought to be unrelated to human, and probably does not derive from earth. Yes: man and human are unrelated words! Man is not from Latin, but from proto-German, with uncertain origins. (Some propose that the root concept may be thinking.)

In Old English, mann meant, not a male, but any human being. A male person was a wer (and thus a werewolf is precisely a male-person-wolf). A female person was a wif or wifman—the root both of woman and of wife, though wif didn’t originally connote marital status. (A woman who turns into a wolf would thus be a wifwolf, not a werewolf.) There’s an old idea that English woman is etymologically related to womb (“womb-man”), but this is a misconception.