Month: December 2008

Ampersand vs. “And”

Conjunctions, Versus

I sometimes see an ampersand used where the word “and” is required.

Problem:
These two conjunctions are not quite synonyms.

Explanation:
Wikipedia has an excellent overview of the ampersand.

As Wikipedia notes, “The word ampersand is a corruption of the phrase ‘and per se and’, meaning ‘and [the symbol which] by itself [is] and‘.”

The ampersand symbol — & — comes from a ligature of the letters “e” and “t” in the Latin word et, which means “and”.

Although the rise in popularity of SMS text messaging — with its 140-characters-per-message limit — has spurred the increasing use of the one-character “&” as a substitute for the three-character “and”, it is NOT appropriate to use the ampersand absolutely everywhere as a substitute for “and”.

Here is a summary of where the ampersand is appropriate:

  • In the name of a business (e.g., “Smith & Jones”);
  • When addressing an envelope to a couple (e.g., “Dr. & Mrs. Johnson”);
  • In book and movie titles (e.g., “Harry & Tonto”);
  • When giving credit for close collaboration on a screenplay (e.g., “William Benson & Mary Gallagher”);
  • When citing sources in text, per the APA style guide (e.g., “(Watson & Crick, 1955)”).

An ampersand is also used in many computer languages.

Otherwise, an ampersand should NOT be used as a substitute for the conjunction “and”.

Solution:
Reserve the use of the ampersand (&) as a substitute for the conjunction “and” in business names, movie and book titles, names of couples on envelopes, and some other special situations.

“Hyperchondria”

Mispronunciations, Misspellings, Nouns

I hear or see this occasionally.

Problem:
This is a mispronunciation or misspelling of a valid noun.

Explanation:
The valid noun is “hypochondria” — spelled H-Y-P-O-C-H-O-N-D-R-I-A.

This noun means excessive concern about one’s health, especially focusing on symptoms that could be due to cardiac or gastric problems.

The noun “hypochondria” exemplifies the value of knowing the roots of words in the English language.

The “chondria” portion of the noun refers to ensiform cartilage — that is, to sword-shaped or xiphoid cartilage, which relates to the lowermost segment of the three segments that comprise the sternum.

The “hypo” portion of the noun means under or below.

Knowing these two roots makes it easy to understand how the noun “hypochondria” refers in particular to cardiac or gastric problems.

So replacing “hypo” with “hyper” produces a nonsense word. Whatever is over or above the xiphoid cartilage is outside the body and therefore could not refer to gastric or cardiac problems.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following (with the quotation marks, to avoid variations) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

  • “hypochondria” — spelled H-Y-P-O-C-H-R-O-N-D-R-I-A — 456,000 matches
  • “hyperchondria” — spelled H-Y-P-E-R-C-H-R-O-N-D-R-I-A — 1,760 matches

This tells me that Web authors have favored the correct word over the incorrect word by a ratio of 259-to-1, which is excellent.

Solution:
“Hypochondria”

“member priviledges”

Common English Blunders, Misspellings, Nouns

I saw this yesterday on a website.

Problem:
One of the words is misspelled.

Explanation:
I had just registered my name and address at a website where I wanted to make a purchase.

The website permits purchases by returning members, by new members, and by those who choose not to create a member account.

I chose to create a member account so that I could track my order.

An account-creation confirmation page appeared, apparently to allay my concerns about creating yet another identity (“member account”) at yet another website.

The Web page referred to “member priviledges”, with the second word spelled P-R-I-V-I-L-E-D-G-E-S.

The misspelling was obvious to me, if not to the page’s author. The second word should have been spelled P-R-I-V-I-L-E-G-E-S (with no “d” in the middle).

This misspelling is a common English blunder, but I wondered just how common it was.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following (with the quotation marks, to avoid variations) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

  • “privilege” — spelled P-R-I-V-I-L-E-G-E — 31,400,000 matches
  • “privileged” — spelled P-R-I-V-I-L-E-G-E-D — 16,900,000 matches
  • “privileges” — spelled P-R-I-V-I-L-E-G-E-S — 21,100,000 matches
  • “priviledge” — spelled P-R-I-V-I-L-E-D-G-E — 694,000 matches
  • “priviledged” — spelled P-R-I-V-I-L-E-D-G-E-D — 354,000 matches
  • “priviledges” — spelled P-R-I-V-I-L-E-D-G-E-S — 362,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have used the correct spellings versus the incorrect spellings by a ratio of 49.2-to-1, which is good but not excellent, especially in light of the more than 1.4 million total misspellings.

I suspect that these misspellings come from mental interference by the word “ledge” — spelled L-E-D-G-E.

Solution:
“member privileges”