Grammarist

The nouns entomology and etymology are very easy to confuse with each other because of their close similarity in sound. While they both denote areas of study, their focuses are dramatically different.

Etymology

Etymology is the study of the origins and development of words. It comes via Latin from the Greek etumon, meaning true sense of the word, so it essentially means the study of the true sense of the word. By extension, it’s sometimes used to mean the origins of a word. Writers occasionally use it in place of entymology—for example:

According to Jeffrey Hahn, associate professor of etymology, and Mark Ascerno, professor of etymology, there are ways to prevent the insects from entering your home . . . [Yankton Press & Dakotan]

And these are examples of correct usage:

“Indian summer” is of American etymology and best describes the US climate. [Irish Times]

The etymology of the Glaswegian word “bevvy” is not difficult to unravel. [The Guardian]

Entomology

Entomology is the study of insects. I always remember it due to the n in the first syllable, which reminds me of ant. Just think of it as antomology, but with an e instead of an a.

It’s not hard to find examples of entomology being used in place of etymology—for example:

The use of the letter Y to replace I in order to obfuscate the entomology of the word recalls the retrofitted ultrafeminist “womyn.” [Miconian]

The hyphenated follow-up shouldn’t be used as a verb. It has two uses: 1) as a phrasal adjective meaning following or building upon an earlier event, or 2) as a noun meaning the act or instance of following up or one that follows—for example:

A follow-up call from the mayor’s office asked whether they would host an event. [Columbus Dispatch]

The G2 is the follow-up to 2008’s G1, the first phone based on Google’s Android operating system . . . [WSJ Digits]

The one-word followup is increasingly used in place of follow-up, but most major publications still use the hyphenated form.

As a verb, follow up should be two unhyphenated words. In these examples, followup and follow-up should be replaced with the two-word follow up:

Each time Morecraft would stifle the attack, he would follow-up with a torrent of ground punishment . . . [Canton Journal]

And we recently asked reporter Ashley Milne-Tyte to followup with some advice for how to improve your chances of success. [qtd. by Marketplace]

I will follow-up with a post highlighting your ideas. [Big Think]

The Latin loanword ex post facto, meaning literally from that which is done afterward, has come to mean after the fact. Although it can have a pompous tone in less formal contexts in which the phrase after the fact or synonyms such as retroactive would do just fine, it does have legitimate uses, especially in legal contexts. It’s usually used as an adjective—for example:

The Swiss Supreme Court will intervene ex post facto only on restrictive grounds . . . [International Law Office]

There is no ex post facto violation because the trial court sentenced defendant on May 26, 2009, after the amendment of section 1170, subdivision (b) and the publication of Sandoval. [Leagle]

In an opinion by Walker, the majority found to be “without merit” the ex post facto claim, but only after citing United States v. Rodriguez . . . [Law.com]

And the phrase is occasionally used in non-legal contexts:

Later in the day, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulators . . . gave an ex post facto clean bill of health to the spill response’s heavy use of the chemical dispersant Corexit 9500 . . . [World Socialist Web Site]

The second volume is the synthetic project, the ex post facto project—what would a theology and ethic of the whole NT look like? [beliefnet]

As shown in these examples, some publications italicize ex post facto and some don’t. And because this loanword is a relatively common set phrase, it does not need to be hyphenated like most phrasal adjectives.

When ex post facto is shortened in any way, it ceases to make sense—for example:

The Constitution protects property owners not by giving them license to engage the police in a debate over the basis for the warrant, but . . . by providing, ex post, a right to suppress evidence improperly obtained and a cause of action for damages. [Leagle]

Post facto thinking by US govt on border-visa Bill [Business Standard, headline]

Moreover, ex post modifications of intellectual property licensing agreements affect not only Intel but other firms in high-tech markets . . . [PC Magazine]

In English, the exclamation point (or exclamation mark) has just a few simple uses. Most often, an exclamation point follows an exclamatory sentence, phrase, or word—for example:

Facebook Dislike Button Is a Fake—And I Dislike That! [PC World headline]

The rapper-actor was cleared of all charges and declared, “That’s what I’m talking about!” [Gothamist]

If things aren’t going the way you want, speak up! [Jezebel.com]

An exclamation point can be placed in square brackets within a quote to express the author’s amusement, shock, or surprise. For example, quoting a recent remark from Sarah Palin, I might use a bracketed exclamation mark to emphasize the irony of her statement:

It’s sounds cliché to say that he just doesn’t get it [!].

In online writing, writers sometimes use exclamation point to make it more obvious that they’re being sarcastic—for example:

Make sure you donate to Reid’s campaign, as it’s absolutely vital that this Good Democrat wins!  [Salon.com]

The nouns elegy and eulogy are easy to confuse with each other because both are written to commemorate a deceased person, but there are important distinctions between them.

Elegy

An elegy is a poem, song, or other work of art composed as a lament for someone who has died. These are examples of correct usage:

Occasionally, as with Laura Fraser’s beautiful, clear-eyed recent elegy for her lost lover, somebody hits it out of the park. [Salon.com]

Poetry “makes nothing happen”, said Auden in his elegy for WB Yeats — but he was playing devil’s advocate. [London Evening Standard]

Because elegy has a more expansive meaning than eulogy, it’s rarely used incorrectly.

Eulogy

A eulogy is a speech or written tribute praising someone who had died. Unlike elegy, which is often used figuratively or to describe a work of art with a mournful tone, eulogy is only used literally. In other words, use eulogy only to refer directly to the speech or written tribute; use elegy to refer to any other work that commemorates or laments someone or something that has passed.

These are examples of correct usage:

Particularly poignant was her eulogy for Donald Dowd, a family friend, at Dowd’s January funeral in Springfield. [Boston Globe]

Hours after delivering a eulogy at Thurman Munson’s funeral in Ohio, Bobby Murcer drove in all the runs in the Yankees’ dramatic, emotional 5-4 comeback win over the Orioles at Yankee Stadium. [Newsday]

And in these examples, elegy would be more appropriate:

This eulogy to the African ancestors filled the room with music, movement and just the right amount of theatrics, including a spectacular opening sequence of dancers on a backlit stage and a moment which had the audience gasping. [Jamaica Observer]

It is a eulogy to an evocative landscape. [The Mayo News]

Drier is a comparative adjective meaning more dry. The word is never used to denote an electrical appliance. This is incorrect:

As Sherrod sat under the hair drier, a customer came and hugged her and asked for an autograph. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution].

And this is correct:

Readings in the upper 80s to near 90 this afternoon are combining with drier air to make it a rather pleasant day out there . . . [Washington Post Capital Weather Gang]

A dryer is an electrical appliance used to dry hair, clothes, or anything else. This is incorrect:

Gusts of hot, humid air mix with cooler, dryer air at every step of the process. [Ottawa Citizen]

And this is correct:

The sleek Xlerator hand dryers may blast the water away, but their decibel level can spike into the mid-90s . . . [Chicago Tribune]

Because of their similar sound, ensure and insure are often confused with each other—and assure is often thrown into the mix as well. All three words have distinct meanings with little crossover between them.

insure

Insure usage is simple: it means to provide insurance for or to have insurance for. In modern English, it has no meaning beyond this. Thus, this usage is incorrect:

To insure that regular checks occur, the department installed electronic checkpoints with bar codes around the jail . . . [LA Times]

And this is correct insure usage:

Citizens was formed to cover property owners who can’t find a private company willing to insure them. [Miami Herald]

ensure

Ensure means to make sure or certain. These are correct:

Working together as a team and under Red’s direction, we will ensure that this project will make all Texans very proud and will benefit our great state. [qtd. in NYT]

President Barack Obama said on Wednesday he would fight to ensure U.S. exporters had a level playing field to compete for world trade . . . [Reuters]

assure

Assure means to inform positively or to cause to be sure—for example:

Officials scrambled to assure Pakistan that the administration doesn’t condone the leak of 76,000 Afghan war documents by Web site WikiLeaks . . . [WSJ]

Assure is often mistakenly used where ensure would be more appropriate—for example:

The way he frames the challenges facing the budget pretty much assure that conclusion. [The Heritage Foundation]

Periodic meetings of the chairpersons of all of these district evaluation teams in the state should occasionally hold meetings to assure that everyone involved understands what is expected of them and are operating accordingly. [The Baltimore Sun]

The noun dilemma, meaning a choice between two unfavorable or mutually exclusive alternatives, is often misused. Most commonly, it’s used to mean a difficult situation or as a synonym for predicament (which means a difficult or trying situation), plight, or quandary. For example, these authors misuse dilemma to mean a difficult situation:

After the recession forced credit card companies to purge the riskiest loans, the industry is facing a new dilemma: customers who are too good. [The Dallas Morning News]

This week I address a different parenting dilemma: how not to lose patience with your kids. [Huffington Post]

Jonathan Niese won his fifth straight decision Friday night and the Mets finally solved the dilemma that’s been the Nationals, 5-3. [WSJ]

And these are examples of correct dilemma usage:

There’s the dilemma . . . Religious organizations face a choice between altering their core beliefs or forfeiting privileges enjoyed by others.  [NYT Opinionator]

Safety vs. independence, a dilemma in caring for the elderly [headline, The Philadelphia Inquirer]

China now faces a dilemma of whether to loosen the restrictions on land supply and forego food security or live with the housing bubble but maintain food security. Both are unappealing options. [Asia One]

The phrasal adjective cut-and-dried is often written incorrectly, usually as either cut-and-dry or cut and dried (without the hyphens)—for example:

A little over a week later, the issue seems a little less cut and dry than the social network had originally painted it. [PC Magazine]

. . . the facts presented did not lead them to a cut and dried answer for how to dispose of the dog. [South Coast Today]

It’s easy to make the first mistake (cut-and-dry). For those of us who are unaware of the expression’s origin, cut-and-dry makes about as much sense as cut-and-dried. The second mistake (cut and dried) is just poor punctuation.  

Cut-and-dried means prepared and arranged in advance or ordinary; routine. Its exact origins are mysterious, but it seems to date from the early 1700s, when it was used in roughly the same manner as today.

As for the hyphenation issue, in keeping with the rules for phrasal adjectives, cut-and-dried should always be hyphenated when it precedes the noun it modifies (as in the second example above). In these examples, the writers use cut-and-dried correctly:

It appears to be a cut-and-dried tale; noble activists and caring government come together to do something positive. [The Daily Star]

When I tell people that I study engineering, they often assume it is a cut-and-dried trajectory . . . [WSJ]

When the phrase serves as a predicate adjective, it doesn’t need to be hyphenated—for example:

“I thought it was pretty cut and dried,” said Ms. Long, who is a registered nurse. [NYT]

The nouns tenant and tenet have no meanings in common, but they’re sometimes confused with one another—especially tenant in place of tenet—due to their similarity in sound.

Tenet

Tenet is defined as a principle held as being true, especially by an organization. A few of its synonyms are doctrine, belief, dogma, principle, creed, and maxim. The word has no other meanings. In these examples, tenet is used correctly:

He said it was unethical and goes against the tenets of Islam. [Arab News]

By destroying this very tenet of capitalism – that the losers actually lose so that new ideas, people, companies can become winners – they have now crippled our economy and kept millions out of work. [TPM]

Tenant

Tenant is defined as one that pays rent to occupy property; a dweller in a place; or, in law, one who holds or possesses lands, tenements, or property by any kind of title. Its synonyms are occupant, leaseholder, resident, and occupier. On the web, it’s easy to find mistaken misuse of tenant in place of tenet—for example:

Instead of getting “caught up in price warfare,” Woodhouse said Cracker Barrel focused on one of the central tenants of its brand, honest value. [Nashville Business Journal]

Toiling away in the background of every uncorking are the basic tenants of economics: supply and demand. [Burlington Free Press]

And in these examples, tenant is used correctly:

A group of Queens tenants left homeless by a fire two weeks ago fear many of their belongings were looted or just tossed out like garbage. [NY Daily News]

Supporters of tenants’ rights are disappointed that an overhaul of tenancy laws did not result in the demise of agency letting fees. [Radio New Zealand]