Common English Blunders

“Determinate” vs. “Determinant”

Adjectives, Common English Blunders, Mispronunciations, Nouns, Verbs, Versus

I sometimes hear these two words used interchangeably.

Problem:
These two words are not synonyms.

Explanation:
The primary definition of the word “determinate” as a verb is to make certain of. The primary definition of the word “determinate” as an adjective is having defined limits.

The primary definition of the word “determinant” as a noun is a determining agent. The primary definition of the word “determinant” as an adjective is having the power of deciding.

I believe that these words most often are used interchangeably because of sloppy pronunciation.

Solution:
When using each of these words as an adjective, think having defined limits for “determinate” and having the power of deciding for ” determinant”.

“It wasn’t something I pre-planned.”

Common English Blunders, Redundancies

I heard this a couple of days ago while watching a History Channel program on the Ark of the Covenant.

Problem:
The verb “pre-planned” is a nonsense word.

Explanation:
The “pre” in “pre-planned” is redundant, just as the “back” in “return back” is redundant.

To plan something is to do think about something before it occurs.

The “pre” prefix also means before.

It makes no sense to think about something before before.

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

  • “planned” — 155,000,000 matches
  • “pre-planned” — 1,400,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have avoided this “pre-” redundancy by a ratio of almost 111:1, which is good but not great, especially in light of over one million(!) “pre-planned” matches.

Solution:
“It wasn’t something I planned.”

“He wanted to play so bad …”

Adjectives, Adverbs, Common English Blunders

I heard this the other day when a woman was talking about her son having a strong desire to play baseball.

Problems:
1. The adjective should be an adverb.
2. What would be the adverbial phrase is adjacent to the wrong verb.

Explanation:
This sentence illustrates two common English blunders:

  1. The speaker used an adjective as an adverb.
  2. The speaker put the (defective) adverbial phrase next to the wrong verb.

The word “bad” is an adjective; one must add “ly” to make it an adverb (“badly”), which is required to modify a verb.

The meaning of “badly” when modifying “play” could easily be the first definition of the adverb: in an undesirable way.

In contrast, another meaning of the adverb “badly” is very much, and this definition would make sense when “badly” modifies “wanted” in the sentence.

The word “so” is used informally as an adverb to mean extremely or very.

So the meaning of “so badly” is very, very much when this adverbial phrase follows the verb “wanted”.

“He wanted very, very much to play …” makes more sense than “He wanted to play in an undesirable way …” when someone is talking about a strong desire instead of a poor performance.

Solution:
“He wanted so badly to play …”