Think About It. What Do You Mean? How many times a day do you say that he did it or that she gave the paper to him? Or maybe you ask, “What is your favorite?” while in the company of several people? Who knows whom you’re talking to or about. (We’ll discuss prepositions some other time, oh great parser.). The old personal pronoun wreaks havoc and confusion again. The result in our house is at least misunderstanding and sometimes worse. ” But you said! ”Add to that an unfortunate number of words that sound the same, spelled differently and have quite different meanings.
Usually we can understand in context, if not spell them correctly when writing. Of course the reference is to two, too and to, not to be confused with tutu. That would be just too, too! Or perhaps your favorites are you’re and your, lie and lye, role and roll or scene and seen. Do you get aid from an aide? You probably don’t want to be bare near a bear. Then there’s by and buy. But that’s enough of those. Bye-bye.
More difficult even are the words with two mutually exclusive meanings. You know some. In baseball season you want to strike the ball, not strike out. More?
- Seed the soil to grow plants or seed the grapes to serve.
- Screen to show a film or screen to hide something.
- Sanction by acting negatively (our recent censure of Russia over Crimea) or approve.
- Watch my dust or dust it off.
- Bound to the bedpost or bound for the store. Careful now! This is a G rated blog.
Occasionally it’s not just an awkward moment. Once in a while the result is like that of Paul Newman, educated by Strother Martin in the 1967 movie Cool Hand Luke that it’s a “failure to communicate”.
Before mixing metaphors further or semantically separating them even farther, I could probably further my cause by taking my stance at a greater distance from the subject.
Seems like for all of us it might be a good idea to choose our words more carefully and keep them in context lest our listeners ask What Do You Mean? Think About It.