Pylimitics

A lot of English speakers — and maybe this goes for other languages too — have pet peeves about the way other people use, misuse, or “misuse” words. 

The words compose and comprise are easy to get mixed up. Or maybe not. If you go by the “first” definitions of both of these, then you’d be careful to use “compose” to mean a whole that’s made up of parts. “The jury was composed of twelve local people” — and you’d use “comprise” to mean the parts that make up the whole. “Twelve local people comprised the jury.” 

In practice, though, “comprise” is often used to mean “compose”, as in “the jury was comprised of twelve local people.” This is a very popular pet peeve, and it’s not unusual to see or hear “comprised of” criticized as a mistake. But it really isn’t! “Comprise” has been commonly used to also mean “compose” since at least the 1700s. It seems to me that’s long enough to make it legitimate. 

Then there are words that get mixed up because their spellings are very similar and it’s hard to remember which spelling is the right one. I think most people understand the difference between a “roll” — either something rotated around a central axis or a hunk of bread you get with dinner — and a “role” — a part you play in a drama or even at work (which is often sort of the same thing. But you see “role” spelled “roll” all the time. Just a spelling thing, not confusion between the two meanings.

“Their” and “they’re” is the same as “roll/role” — it’s a spelling error. After all, those contractions like “they’re” and “it’s” can be elusive, especially when you were more interested in what was going on outside the window than the lesson back in fifth grade.

But then there’s “farther” versus “further.” “Farther” means physical distance, and “further” means more progress in anything except physical distance — when you go farther into a cave, you’re exploring it further. These are often confused, and I don’t think it’s just the spelling. In this case too many people were looking out the window, maybe not in fifth grade, but probably in one of those school years. 

Then there are word confusions that might be spelling issues, but also might be lack of understanding of the words. I’m not sure which it is when “principle” (which is a rule or idea) is confused with “principal” (which is a person in charge). And this one seems an obvious one to internalize in school — every school seems to have a “principal” who is a person — and as a person, the principal could be (but seldom is) your pal. (This is the rule of thumb I was originally taught for remembering the difference. And that was in sixth grade!)