Misused Vocabulary and Factual Errors in Stories That Make You Cringe

[ElectricBlue]

That's @Bramblethorn being a wind-up merchant. Or as you could say, Australian.

Yep. This. It's a particular habit we've got .

 

[TheLobster]

There you go.

If y’all cared so much about the preservation of proper royal English, you wouldn’t have taxed that tea!

 

[mrs_mackenzie]

Unusual to see it here but

If y’all cared so much about the preservation of proper royal English, you wouldn’t have taxed that tea!

The royals always speak as if they've got a mouthful of marbles. No need to preserve that.

Ironically, the best English speakers are the Scots...

 

[SimonDoom]

Ironically, the best English speakers are the Scots...

True if by "best" you mean "most incomprehensible." Of all the English language accents, that's the toughest one for me to follow. It sounds great, though.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

True if by "best" you mean "most incomprehensible." Of all the English language accents, that's the toughest one for me to follow. It sounds great, though.

If you mean Glaswegian or Doric, yes. (Anyone who masters Billy Connolly, try Rab C. Nesbitt...)

But there's a clipped Edinburgh accent that's so refined it sounds more English than the English. Mostly associated with elderly ladies in Morningside. Think Maggie Smith as Jean Brodie or Prof McGonagall.

 

[SimonDoom]

If you mean Glaswegian or Doric, yes. (Anyone who masters Billy Connolly, try Rab C. Nesbitt...)

But there's a clipped Edinburgh accent that's so refined it sounds more English than the English. Mostly associated with elderly ladies in Morningside. Think Maggie Smith as Jean Brodie or Prof McGonagall.

I've been to Edinburgh (fantastic city, loved it) and I had no problem there. I've heard other accents that left me baffled.

 

[FifthEstate]

"Savoring the rich chocolate was better then sex."

Ugh! That is just fingernails on a chalkboard.

Me too! Didn’t we learn that in like 3rd grade? I won’t name names, but there is a Lit writer with over 5,500 followers who made that mistake commonly.

 

[FifthEstate]

I have an embarrassing admission, I used “faithful” in the place of “fateful” in a few different situations in stories. I clearly know the difference, but my editing brain just never connected. What made it worse was the usage was in circumstances where fateful would have referred to evenings where a wife was being unfaithful. I only discovered it when a reader pointed it out. Horrifying.

 

[TheLobster]

Me too! Didn’t we learn that in like 3rd grade?

I'd hope that 3rd graders do not routinely discuss the comparative merits of cock vs. cocoa.

 

[FifthEstate]

I'd hope that 3rd graders do not routinely discuss the comparative merits of cock vs. cocoa.

Haha…certainly not in 3rd grade, but by 5th it might have been up for debate by some of the girls I went to school with!

 

[Celticlight]

I've been to Edinburgh (fantastic city, loved it) and I had no problem there. I've heard other accents that left me baffled.

I grew up in Glasgow and then moved to Edinburgh and London (and overseas a bit), so I feel like I can speak in both tongues to some extent.

Strangely I sound more Glaswegian when I say violent things.. can't imagine what the subtext might be there..

 

[JTass]

Alot. There's no such word. It's a lot.

Yeah, 'A lot' vs Alot vs Allot is already on my list.

 

[JTass]

"Savoring the rich chocolate was better then sex."

Ugh! That is just fingernails on a chalkboard.

When spellcheckers first reared their ugly head 20 years ago, the butchering of the word 'definitely' was a rampant plague. It seems that misspelling definitely as definately would suggest the replacement 'defiantly', leading countless emails to read "yes, we should defiantly move forward with this," leaving people like me wondering just who we were to be rebelling against since we were all in agreement.

Definitely vs Defiantly is on my list.
I have a separate section for "not going down this rabbit hole" for common grammar fuck-ups like than/then, there/their/they're, you're/your, etc.,etc.

 

[JTass]

I wouldn't worry about it. I've written stuff about times and places I literally lived in and been told that I'd gotten things wrong by people bitching that I obviously didn't know what I was talking about. People's memories are... like, there's a whole segment of neuroscience focused on just how fucked up memory is as a process/structure for encoding factual information. Don't sweat it.

I dunno... I guess historical accuracy doesn't bug me too much. These are fictional stories, after all.
The stuff that pulls me out of suspension of disbelief are the basic factual errors that can be checked with a 5-second search on Google (like my example of authors referring to steel bullets).

 

[TheArsonist]

I just happened upon another misuse that bugs me: "contemporary" to mean peer/equal, or someone in the same situation, a fellow. For example, a middle-aged princess referring to a teenage princess as "my young contemporary." (Example adapted from Castle Town 3 by Anya Merchant. Of course, the two characters are technically "contemporaries" in that they both exist at the same time, but that's not what the writer means.)

 

[mrs_mackenzie]

I just happened upon another misuse that bugs me: "contemporary" to mean peer/equal, or someone in the same situation, a fellow. For example, a middle-aged princess referring to a teenage princess as "my young contemporary." (Example adapted from Castle Town 3 by Anya Merchant. Of course, the two characters are technically "contemporaries" in that they both exist at the same time, but that's not what the writer means.)

Interesting (to me at least) for this one, while "contemporary" doesn't have a dictionary definition that means the same as "peer", "equal" or "fellow", all of those words are listed as synonyms in the thesaurus...

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I just happened upon another misuse that bugs me: "contemporary" to mean peer/equal, or someone in the same situation, a fellow. For example, a middle-aged princess referring to a teenage princess as "my young contemporary." (Example adapted from Castle Town 3 by Anya Merchant. Of course, the two characters are technically "contemporaries" in that they both exist at the same time, but that's not what the writer means.)

I suppose that I'd have to read the piece, but within the context that you've provided I can't say that the writer was in error. Admittedly, it doesn't sound like a piece of dialogue that I would have used, but if they are both royalty, both in the same social circles, the same elite structure, the same customs and culture, in the same courts, in fact even have the same title, then the age difference does not mean that they are not contemporaries. It's like saying that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris aren't regarded as contemporaries just because Biden is 80 and Harris is pushing 60. Of course they are. Con=together temp=time. They're running in the same circles at the same time, same career, same peer group, same culture, etc.

 

[TheLobster]

It's honestly news to me that "contemporary" can be used in a comparative fashion between two things, rather than describing only one as it relates to the (absolute) present. I always thought the correct word for the former is "contemporaneous."

dict.org seems to agree with you, though, saying these two words are synonyms and providing this as the last (thus presumably least used) definition:

3: occurring in the same period of time; "a rise in interest rates is often contemporaneous with an increase in with Mozart" [syn: contemporaneous, contemporary]

 

[TheArsonist]

if they are both royalty, both in the same social circles, the same elite structure, the same customs and culture, in the same courts, in fact even have the same title, then the age difference does not mean that they are not contemporaries. It's like saying that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris aren't regarded as contemporaries just because Biden is 80 and Harris is pushing 60. Of course they are. Con=together temp=time. They're running in the same circles at the same time, same career, same peer group, same culture, etc.

I think you're making the same mistake as the writer. A "contemporary" means "a person living at the same time or of approximately the same age as another" (Collins). Or as Merriam-Webster puts it, "one that is contemporary [happening, existing, living, or coming into being during the same period of time] with another" or "one of the same or nearly the same age as another." It has nothing to do with being "in the same social circles, same career, same peer group," etc.

Biden and Harris are contemporaries in the first of these sense, just like Joe Biden and Chappell Roan are contemporaries, or Kamala Harris and Anya Merchant (the writer of the incest-themed fantasy story I got the example from), or anyone else alive today including every one of us. Whether Biden and Harris are contemporaries in the second sense depends on whether you consider 59 and 81 to be within the same age bracket, but they would be so to just the same extent if they were in completely different careers and had never met.

As I said, the two characters in this example are technically contemporaries in that they are alive at the same time, but that is obviously not what Merchant means (it makes no sense to point out that a person one is interacting with is alive at the same time as oneself). The intended meaning is the misuse you defend: a peer, someone of the same status or in a similar position.

Interesting (to me at least) for this one, while "contemporary" doesn't have a dictionary definition that means the same as "peer", "equal" or "fellow", all of those words are listed as synonyms in the thesaurus...

A thesaurus is a tool to help you find the right word, and the terms listed as "synonyms" don't necessarily have exactly the same meaning. (If they did, it would be much less useful.) In this case, there are many contexts where these words overlap. For example, students in the same grade are both "peers" and "contemporaries." No doubt it's cases like this where the words are used interchangeably that lead people to confuse their meaning.

It's honestly news to me that "contemporary" can be used in a comparative fashion between two things, rather than describing only one as it relates to the (absolute) present. I always thought the correct word for the former is "contemporaneous."

RH Kerneman Webster's College Dictionary has this usage note: "contemporary, contemporaneous, coeval, coincident mean happening or existing at the same time. contemporary often refers to persons or their acts or achievements: Hemingway and Fitzgerald, though contemporary, shared few values. contemporaneous is applied chiefly to events: the rise of industrialism, contemporaneous with the spread of steam power."

 

[HordHolm]

Just looking at the title of this thread again had me picturing my mother jumping up and down, crossword in hand, yelling at the moon that, "you mean discrete, not discreet!"

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I think you're making the same mistake as the writer. A "contemporary" means "a person living at the same time or of approximately the same age as another" (Collins). Or as Merriam-Webster puts it, "one that is contemporary [happening, existing, living, or coming into being during the same period of time] with another" or "one of the same or nearly the same age as another." It has nothing to do with being "in the same social circles, same career, same peer group," etc.

I stopped right there since the bold and the italics in your quote contradict each other. Two of the three definitions given mention age but the one definition that does not mention age is just as valid as the other two.

 

[TheArsonist]

I stopped right there since the bold and the italics in your quote contradict each other.

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you completely lack reading comprehension. How sad for you.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you completely lack reading comprehension. How sad for you.

Meh, fuck off.

 

[trained23]

Effect/Affect!

(RAVEN - Remember Affect Verb, Effect Noun)

I remember this one by affect is an action

 

[Bramblethorn]

I remember this one by affect is an action

Although, both "affect" and "effect" can go the other way. "Effect" is usually a noun but also recognised as a verb, where it means bringing about a change or achieving a specific outcome: "the new boss effected a 20% reduction in teapot breakages". In that role it could mostly be replaced by "achieve", "make", etc.

"Affect" is usually a verb but can be used as a noun, describing the way somebody displays emotion; a psychiatrist might describe a patient as having "a flat affect". Probably the closest replacement would be "vibes" but that doesn't have the right degree of formality.