Adjectives

“Accessable”

Adjectives, Common English Blunders, Mispronunciations, Misspellings

I saw this in a PowerPoint document.

Problem:
This adjective is misspelled.

Explanation:
I believe that the misspelling of the adjective “accessible” is mostly due to the common mispronunciation — as “accessable” — of that adjective.

Other adjectives that use “ible” instead of “able” include “visible” and “horrible”.

The suffix “ible” is a variation of the suffix “able”; most people use memorization to know which suffix to use.

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

  • “accessible” — 130,000,000 matches
  • “accessable” — 2,170,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have written the word correctly vs. incorrectly by a ratio of 59.9:1, which is good, but the fact that the Web contains more than two million instances of “accessable” is disappointing.

Solution:
“Accessible”

“Electronical Devices”

Adjectives, Adverbs

My wife saw this on a sign in a high-school attendance office.

Problem:
The adjective is a bastardization of two perfectly good ones.

Explanation:
The sign directed visitors in the office to turn off such devices.

While “electronical” does appear in the Unword Dictionary and the Urban Dictionary on the Web, those dictionaries are not representing that this a proper adjective.

Search www.dictionary.com, in contrast, and you won’t find a match for this nonsense word.

I believe that the sign writer wanted sign readers to turn off cell phones, pagers, etc., and that the sign writer believed at least one of the following:

  • that “electronical” sounded more intelligent than “electrical” or “electronic”;
  • that “electronical” must be correct because it’s so close to “electrical” and “electronic”;
  • that “electronical” must be correct because “electronically” is a valid adverb.

What is disheartening is that a Google search for “electronical” (with the quotation marks) returned about 1,090,000 matches. Fortunately, a search for “electronic” (with the quotation marks) returned about 526,000,000 matches, and a search for “electrical” (with the quotation marks) returned 221,000,000 matches.

We get the solution by reviewing the definitions of “electrical” and “electronic”:

  • “electrical” — related to or operated by electricity
  • “electronic” — of or related to electronics, where “electronics” today usually refers to the science dealing with the flow of electrons in semiconductors (e.g., in cell phones)

Solution:
“Electronic Devices”

“… Comcast will wave its early termination fee …”

Adjectives, Common English Blunders, Devolution toward Simpler, Hyphens, Misspellings, Nouns, Verbs

I saw this in an April-23 article on the RCR Wireless News website.

Problems:
1. The verb is wrong.
2. A hyphen is missing.

Explanation:
The missing hyphen is a common English blunder, but a simple rule tells us that the hyphen is required in a particular part of this expression.

Here is the rule: When an adjective (e.g., “early”) and a noun (e.g., “termination”) together modify another noun (“fee”), there should be a hyphen to join the adjective to the first noun — to create a “compound” modifier, if you will, of the second noun.

I am not sure how common the other English blunder is: writing “wave” where “waive” — which means to forgo or give up — is required.

However, I believe that both problems are consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis. It is simpler to write “wave” than to write “waive”; it is simpler to omit a hyphen than to include one.

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

  • “waive the fee” — 106,000 matches
  • “wave the fee” — 1,790 matches

This tells me that Web authors have written the phrase correctly vs. incorrectly by a ratio of 59.2:1, which is heartening.

Solution:
“… Comcast will waive its early-termination fee …”