Month: July 2008

“OUR CONDOLANCES TO THE DEBAKEY FAMILY”

Misspellings, Nouns

I saw this yesterday on a flower-shop sign.

Problem:
The first noun is misspelled.

Explanation:
The flower-shop sign appeared yesterday in a Channel-11 local news report about the death of Michael DeBakey, M.D., a Houston medical legend.

C-O-N-D-O-L-A-N-C-E-S was on the sign in large, all-capital letters.

This noun is correctly spelled C-O-N-D-O-L-E-N-C-E-S.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following words (without the quotation marks) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

  • “condolences” — 6,320,000 matches
  • “condolances” — 91,400 matches

This tells me that Web authors have written the word correctly vs. incorrectly by a ratio of 69.1:1, which is not too bad, especially given the fewer than one hundred thousand instances of the misspelling.

Solution:
“OUR CONDOLENCES TO THE DEBAKEY FAMILY”

“Surpress”

Common English Blunders, Mispronunciations, Misspellings, Verbs

I see this occasionally and hear this more often.

Problem:
This is a misspelling or mispronunciation of a verb.

Explanation:
“Surpress” — spelled S-U-R-P-R-E-S-S — is a mispelling or mispronunciation of the verb “suppress”, which is spelled S-U-P-P-R-E-S-S.

Given that the first “p” in “suppress” is not usually pronounced, I believe that many American English speakers do not realize that “suppress” is spelled with two “p”s.

However, given the tendency by some speakers to add an “r” to “uh” sounds — as in “idea” pronounced “idear”, or as in “Usher” pronounced “Ursher” — it is not surprising to me that “suppress” can become “supress” instead.

The verb “surprise” is yet another source of interference.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following words (without the quotation marks) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

  • “suppress” — 18,400,000 matches
  • “surpress” — 121,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have written the word correctly vs. incorrectly by a ratio of 152:1, which is very good but not excellent.

Solution:
“Suppress”

“Link” vs. “Linkage”

Common English Blunders, Nouns, Verbs, Versus

I heard a landscape designer on an HGTV program refer to “creating a linkage” between a home and a potting shed.

Problem:
These two nouns are not synonyms.

Explanation:
The landscape designer was referring simply to installing a paved path between the home and the shed. In other words, the path would connect the shed with the home.

When I heard the designer call the path itself a “linkage”, I wondered whether this was the appropriate noun and looked up “linkage” and “link” in a dictionary.

The noun “link” essentially means anything that connects two people, places, or things.

The noun “linkage” essentially means one of the following:

  • the act of linking — as in “The CIA’s linkage of the two spies took three years.”;
  • a system of links — as in “There is a complex linkage between the fertilizer that one puts on a lawn and the chemicals in the water that can be extracted from an underground aquifer.”

I believe that some people use “linkage” when the noun “link” is appropriate because they want to sound more educated — and perhaps charge more for their services!

Solution:
Use “link” when referring to a connection between two people, places, or things. Use “linkage” when referring to the act of creating links or when referring to a system of links.