Top 10 confusables
Who hasn’t been personally victimised by confusables, those Tweedledums and -dees of the linguistic world?
For those not in the know, the term confusables refers to those slippery word pairs that often masquerade as synonyms while concealing crucial differences in meaning. They are, of course, nothing if not inevitable in the English language, a tongue that teems with words that sound alike, look alike, or almost (but not quite) mean alike — sometimes, it feels like homonyms, homographs, and homophones lurk at every turn of phrase.
Okay, no more nyms or phones, I promise. Below are ten notorious confusables that I hold to be the guiltiest of tripping up even the most talented of writers. So, no feeling stupid if you’ve confused them yourself. And no feeling too smug if you haven’t! Not only do mistakes happen to the best of us, but the English language is often neither logical nor fair and has a way of humbling us all with its quirks and complexities.
Moreover, many of the following words are so frequently confused that dictionaries are starting to accept their oft-mistaken meanings as non-standard definitions. But if you want to keep your writing precise (and your more particular readers happy), it’s worth upholding their conventional distinctions, at least for now.
Let’s take a few minutes to break down the definitions of these deceptive doubles and untangle their meanings and differences once and for all.
1. Enormity vs Enormousness.
Contrary to what common sense might suggest, only one of these words is a straightforward synonym for hugeness. Traditionally, enormity is the expression of grave sin or horrific crime, and refers specifically to the scale of horror or abnormality in war or other extremity, as in the “enormity of his offences.” If you’re simply referring to the largeness of something, then enormousness — or immensity, gigantism, or vastness — will serve you just fine.
2. Reign vs Rein.
The cause for confusion here is that these homophones (I lied before) emerge from two different metaphorical ideas — one equestrian, the other sovereign. So, use the riding metaphor — “free rein,” “rein in,” “take the reins” — when referencing control and restraint, but ‘reign supreme’, “chaos reigns,” “reign victorious,” when invoking supreme rule. The distinction is perhaps best remembered by considering the spelling of sovereign: take note of the royal g and you’ll remember that reign aligns with sovereign.
3. Complement vs Compliment.
A big difference can lie in a little letter. To complement is to complete or enhance something; to compliment is to flatter or express admiration or approval. Both words can work as verbs and nouns. A husband with good taste (or good sense) compliments his wife’s dress; the colours blue and orange complement each other; this Merlot will provide the perfect complement to the meal. My compliments if you’ve never confused these two!
4. Stationary vs Stationery.
The difficulty of distinguishing between stationary and stationery is remembering which spelling refers to writing materials and which means not moving. A trick to remembering which spelling carries which meaning is equating the e in stationery with envelopes, making stationary (with an a) synonymous with motionless by default.
5. Militate vs Mitigate.
Smiliar in sound, yet nearly antithetical in meaning, these two words have caused havoc in sentences for centuries (even Faulkner confused the two). Think military for militate because of its forceful connotations: it means to have great weight or effect and is usually paired with against (“The evidence militated against the defendent“). Mitigate has a softer sense and means something more like alleviate, to make something less severe (“She mitigated the pain with natural remedies,” ”His PR team went into overdrive to mitigate the damage“).
6. Smoky vs Smokey.
Smoky is the lowercase adjective describing something that emits, tastes like, or resembles smoke (smoky room, smoky mezcal, smoky eyeshadow). Smokey, capitalised, refers specifically to the legendary soul singer Smokey Robinson.
7. Uncharted vs Unchartered.
The distinction between these words lies in their roots: chart (map) vs charter (written grant of authority or rights). Uncharted refers to unexplored or unmapped territory, while unchartered means unauthorised or lacking a formal constitution. For instance, an unchartered company lacks professional accrediation, while uncharted land remains unrecorded on any map. So, you might sail uncharted waters to an uncharted island, but you might do so in an unchartered boat.
8. Loath vs Loathe.
These homophones differ in both grammatical form and meaning. The adjective loath (without an e) means reluctant or unwilling, as in “She is loath to try new things.” The verb loathe (with an e) carries harsher connotations and means to feel intense disgust or hatred. Remember to drop the e when using the adjective and reserve the verb for situations that require the stronger connotations of disgust rather than mere reluctance.
9. Pore vs Pour.
Pour means to flow or cause to flow; pore means to study or examine intently. A simple way to remember the difference is to imagine pouring yourself a cup of coffee, then poring over the definitions in your favourite dictionary.
10. Fortuitous vs Fortunate.
Though similar in sound, these adjectives have distinct meanings and different Latin roots. Fortunate comes from fortunatus, meaning lucky or prosperous, while fortuitous comes from fors, meaning accidental or happening by chance. Fortuitous has often been misused to imply a lucky coincidence, but its original meaning simply points to the role of chance rather than design.
That said, fortuitous has so frequently been assumed to carry connotations of fortune that it has acquired a secondary meaning in many dictionaries of “lucky coincidence” or ‘by happy design.” Perhaps in time, fortuitous and fortunate will evolve to be sister terms.
That’s all, folks. Stay tuned for another round of confusables down the line (I keep a growing list).
In the meantime, happy writing!
