Month: November 2008

“ALWAYS VISABLE”

Adjectives, Common English Blunders, Mispronunciations, Misspellings

I saw this on a website.

Problem:
The adjective is misspelled — in capital letters, no less!

Explanation:
The adjective “visible” — misspelled as V-I-S-A-B-L-E — appeared in a banner advertisement on the MEN7 website, which I discovered after seeing a television program called “MEN7” on the ION network a few nights ago.

The website’s banner ad was for something called “Billionaires Car Club”.

The full text of the all-capital-letters ad was “LAMBORGHINI, MURCIELAGO | PRICE TO OWN $350K | ALWAYS VISABLE | SEE IT ON BILLIONAIRES CAR CLUB”.

I was not surprised to see the adjective “visible” misspelled by a website and TV program focused on fast cars and the male equivalent of “Cosmopolitan” magazine instead of on more intellectual pursuits.

But seeing the adjective “visible” spelled with an “a” in the middle made me wonder how typical this blunder was.

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

  • “visible” — 238,000,000 matches
  • “visable” — 723,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have used the correct spelling versus the incorrect spelling by a ratio of 329-to-1, which is superb.

However, nearly three-quarters of a million misspellings tells me that spelling the adjective “visible” with an “a” is a common English blunder.

I believe that this blunder is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis.

It is simpler to pronounce this adjective as if there were an “a” in the middle than to clearly pronounce the “i” in the middle.

And I believe that this mispronunciation drives the misspelling.

Solution:
“ALWAYS VISIBLE”

“Disassociate” vs. “Dissociate”

Verbs, Versus

I had to look up these two verbs the other day during a conference call.

Problem:
I was not sure which verb represented proper English.

Explanation:
The conference call entailed a review of verbiage to go into a Web-based application.

The review centered on how to communicate to a customer that two identities with the same company could be disconnected from one another.

One part of the document used the verb “disassociate”; another part of the document used the verb “dissociate”.

I had to look up these two verbs because I was unsure whether both were correct. Both verbs are correct and mean to remove from association.

The difference, according to at least one dictionary, is the age of the two verbs.

  • The verb “disassociate” originated in the period of 1595 to 1605.
  • The verb “dissociate” originated in the period of 1605 to 1615.

Solution:
Both verbs represent proper English. Use the one that you prefer, but be consistent within any given document that you are writing.

“… held in captivity for three months, the Taliban execute …”

Commas, Passive Voice

I saw this on a website.

Problem:
The Taliban were not held in captivity for three months.

Explanation:
The full sentence was “After being held in captivity for three months, the Taliban execute a local official when their demands are not met.”

The sentence appeared at a website that tracks Islamic terror attacks.

This sentence documented an attack — by the Taliban, not ON the Taliban — that was purported to have occurred in Kunar, Afghanistan, on 22 November 2008.

The problem with the sentence is that “the Taliban” immediately follows the comma-terminated “After being held in captivity for three months” and therefore implies to the reader that the Taliban were held in captivity for three months.

I usually appreciate the use of active voice instead of passive voice, but this sentence calls for passive voice after the comma.

In other words, the correct way to leave the “After” clause in place is to say immediately after the comma WHO was executed.

Solution:
“… held in captivity for three months, a local official was executed …”