Common English Blunders

“Economic” vs. “Economical”

Adjectives, Common English Blunders, Devolution toward Simpler, Versus

I frequently see one of these used when the other is required.

Problem:
The adjectives “economic” and “economical” are best not treated as synonyms.

Explanation:
The most common definitions of the adjective “economic” are:

  • related to the production and use of wealth, commodities, and income;
  • related to the science of economics; and,
  • related to an economy.

An example of the proper use of the adjective “economic” is “The President of the U.S. vetoed the bill for economic reasons.”

The adjective “economical” means thrifty.

An example of the proper use of the adjective “economical” is “You should buy a more economical car.”

I believe that the tendency of some people to use “economic” where “economical” is required is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis.

For example, it is simpler to say “an economic use of gasoline” than it is to say “an economical use of gasoline”, which requires an extra syllable.

Solution:
Use “economic” when referring to income, wealth, commodities, economics, or the economy. Use “economical” when referring to thriftiness.

“That’s imported travertine marble from Italy.”

Common English Blunders, Nouns

I heard this the other day on the HGTV “House Hunters International” television program.

Problem:
Travertine is not marble.

Explanation:
The statement was made by a real-estate agent showing a house to a prospective buyer.

The problem with the statement is that it contains the phrase “travertine marble”, which is a common English blunder.

Travertine is a sedimentary rock.

In contrast, marble is a metamorphic rock that is created by the metamorphism of limestone.

Therefore, travertine is not a type of marble and should not be used to modify the noun “marble”.

Solution:
“That’s imported travertine from Italy.”

“Professional Trainings”

Common English Blunders, Nouns, Plurals

I saw this on the cover of a brochure that my wife got recently.

Problem:
“Trainings” is not a word.

Explanation:
“Professional Trainings: 2008-2009” was the full title of the brochure from a “Training Institute for Improved Health”.

The brochure described various educational sessions to be presented by the Institute.

The word “training” as a noun means the instruction or education of a person who is being trained.

Given that the nouns “instruction” and “education” have no plural form, the noun “training” has no plural form, and therefore “trainings” is not a word.

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

  • “training” — 725,000,000 matches
  • “trainings” — 13,700,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have written the word correctly vs. incorrectly by a ratio of 52.9:1, which is good, but the fact that the Web contains nearly fourteen million instances of “trainings” is outrageous!

It is also clear that erroneous pluralization of the noun “training” is definitely a common English blunder.

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

  • “professional training” — 5,190,000 matches
  • “professional trainings” — 47,700 matches

This tells me that Web authors have written the phrase correctly vs. incorrectly by a ratio of 109:1, which is much better, especially when one notices that “trainings” returned about fourteen million matches but that “professional trainings” returned fewer than fifty thousand matches.

I suppose that this says that most professionals know that “trainings” is not a word!

Solution:
“Professional Training”