Keep it simple, stupid

Kathryn and Ross Petras

When we try to sound smart, whether in our speech or in our writing, that is when we are most likely to sound stupid.

That is one lesson to be learned from That Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means by Ross Petras and Kathryn Petras. This is a small dictionary, only about 150 entries, containing words we easily confuse with similar words that mean something else entirely. This happens to the best of us, and the authors offer examples of "the best of us" making these errors: Washington Post, Huffington Post, President Obama, Variety, Fox News, New York Times, Time, Forbes and even F. Scott Fitzgerald.

We may use notoriety rather than fame because those extra syllables seem to add a little class, except that the two words don't mean quite the same thing. Notoriety refers to a negative kind of fame. John Dillinger was notorious. Eliot Ness was famous.

Or we may use penultimate thinking it means something like: "the very best." The Huffington Post once described Abraham Lincoln as "the penultimate American president." Actually the word means "second from the last." I remember learning this word during the Watergate hearings. One of those involved in the crime, G. Gordon Liddy perhaps, used the word in his testimony, then had to explain its meaning for the confused Senate committee.

Many times we confuse words that look alike or sound alike. The Petras explain the difference between complementary and complimentary, flaunt and flout, flounder and founder, ingenious and ingenuous, prescribe and proscribe, stanch and staunch, tact and tack, and many others.

Often the authors admit that the battle has already been lost, some words have been misused so often that even dictionaries have given in and added new definitions. Now decimate means "to destroy or devastate," not just to destroy a tenth of something. Crescendo is a musical term meaning to gradually increase loudness or intensity. So many of us think of it as meaning climax that dictionaries now accept that meaning, to the disgust of some musicians.

Then there are those words that will always be confusing. For example, both flammable and inflammable mean the same thing. Bimonthly means both twice a month and once every two months.

The goal of language, the Petras write, is "to communicate ideas and desires in the clearest way possible." Simple words do this best. Use is almost always a better choice than utilize, method almost always better than methodology. Even if we happen to know the meaning of a more impressive word, those we are trying to communicate with may not.

The authors keep each entry short, witty and, at least for the most part, easy to understand.