Month: October 2008

“Condemn” vs. “Contemn”

Misspellings, Verbs, Versus

I saw one of these verbs while investigating the word “disdain”.

Problem:
These two verbs have distinct meanings but differ by only one letter.

Explanation:
Feeling playful, I wondered this morning whether the word “disdain” had a counterpart word “dain”.

So I searched a dictionary for “dain” but found no match. Instead, I learned that “disdain” — spelled D-I-S-D-A-I-N — comes from “dis” plus “deign” — spelled D-E-I-G-N.

I also learned that one of the synonyms for “disdain” as a verb is the verb “contemn” — spelled C-O-N-T-E-M-N.

The meaning of this verb “contemn” is to treat with contempt.

In contrast, the verb “condemn” — spelled C-O-N-D-E-M-N with a “d” in the middle — means to express strong disapproval of and is related to the roots “con” and “damn”.

Here are examples of proper use of these two verbs:

  • “Please do not condemn him for wanting to take care of his family.”
  • “The consultant contemns any client who asks questions after what the consultant gives what he believes is a thorough presentation.”

Solution:
Remember that “condemn” — spelled with a “d” — is related to the word “damn”. Remember that “contemn” — spelled with a “t” — is related to “contempt” — also spelled with a “t”.

“Please distribute amongst your team.”

Prepositions, Pronouns

I saw this in an email message.

Problems:
1. A direct object is missing.
2. The wrong preposition was used.

Explanation:
The email message included an attached announcement about a reorganization.

The writer sent the email message to the people near the top of the new organization.

She wanted to make sure that everyone in the new organization — all Americans — got the news.

Even if we convert the chiefly British preposition “amongst” to the more common preposition “among”, we still do not have the solution.

“Please distribute among your team.” still has two problems: (1) a direct object is missing; (2) the preposition “among” does not go with the singular noun “team”.

The solution to the first problem is to put the pronoun “this” immediately after the verb “distribute”.

The solution to the second problem is to replace the preposition “among”, which requires three or more parties, with the preposition “to”, which requires a minimum of one party.

Solution:
“Please distribute this to your team.”

“… the areas first formidable competition …”

Apostrophes, Devolution toward Simpler, Possessives

I saw this in a press release today.

Problem:
A possessive apostrophe is missing.

Explanation:
The press release was about AT&T U-verse service in Nashville, Tennessee.

The full sentence was “AT&T has begun pulling permits in Nashville to roll out its new TV service, the areas first formidable competition for Comcast cable and the satellite TV companies that operate here.”

A possessive apostrophe is missing in the word “area”.

I believe that the number of people who write possessive nouns simply by adding the letter “s” is increasing.

I believe that this increasingly common mistake is due to ignorance and to the growing number of people who use text messaging, for which punctuation beyond a comma, period, exclamation mark, or question mark is often difficult.

And I believe that this mistake is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis. It is simpler to omit the possessive apostrophe than to include it.

Solution:
“… the area’s first formidable competition …”