compose / comprise If you follow the traditional rule, you say that the whole comprises the parts and that the parts compose the whole. Thus you would say The Union comprises fifty states and Fifty states compose (or constitute or make up) the Union. While writers often maintain this distinction, comprise is increasingly used in place of compose, especially in the passive: The Union is comprised of fifty states. Don’t be surprised if this usage still elicits comments, however contact The verb contact is a classic example of a verb that was made from a noun and of a new usage that was initially frowned upon. The noun meaning “the state or condition of touching” was introduced in 1626 by Francis Bacon. Some 200 years later it spawned a verb meaning “to bring or place in contact.” This sense of the verb has lived an unremarkable life in technical contexts. It was only in the first quarter of the 20th century that contact came to be used to mean “to communicate with,” and soon afterward the controversy began. Contact was declared to be properly a noun, not a verb—and besides, it was argued, as a verb it was vague. Neither of these arguments holds water. Turning nouns into verbs is one of the most frequent ways in which new verbs enter English. The examples are countless and familiar. Curb, date, elbow, head, interview, panic, park, and service are but a few. Contact is but another instance of what linguists call functional shift from one part of speech to another. As for contact’s vagueness, this seems a virtue in an age in which forms of communication have proliferated. The sentence We will contact you when the part comes in allows for a variety of possible ways to communicate: by mail, telephone, computer, or fax continual / continuous These adjectives are sometimes confused because their meanings overlap. Both words can be used to mean “continuing without interruption”: living in a continual state of fear, enjoying a continuous state of peace. But continual usually refers to something that recurs or is interrupted periodically: the continual pounding of the surf, the continual banging of the shutters in the wind. Only continuous is used to refer to physical continuation: The fans formed a continuous line around the field continuance / continuation Both of these words mean “the act or fact of continuing,” but only continuance is used to refer to the duration of a state or condition, as in his continuance in office. Continuation applies especially to prolongation or resumption of action (a continuation of the meeting) or to physical extension (the continuation of the street). The continuation of a story is that part of the story following a break in its narration convince / persuade According to a traditional rule, convince is used to indicate mental acceptance, and persuade to indicate mental acceptance followed by action. Thus you convince someone of the truth of a statement or proposition but persuade someone to do something. By extension you use convince, but not persuade, with a that clause. Thus you should say By convincing me that no good could come of staying, he persuaded me to leave. If you accept this distinction, then you should not use convince with an infinitive: He persuaded (not convinced) me to go. In an earlier survey, a majority of the Usage Panel upheld this distinction. But the use of convince with an infinitive has become increasingly common even among reputable writers. In addition, both persuade and convince see frequent use with that clauses to indicate the acceptance of truth: I convinced (or persuaded) the receptionist that the matter was urgent. Thus, the traditional rule does not appear to have much of a future. could care less / couldn’t care less could care less! you might say sometime in disgust. You might just as easily have said I couldn’t care less and meant the same thing! How can this be? When taken literally, the phrase I could care less means “I care more than I might,” rather than “I don’t care at all.” But the beauty of sarcasm is that it can turn meanings on their head, thus allowing could care less to work as an equivalent for couldn’t care less. Because of its sarcasm, could care less is more informal than its negative counterpart and may be open to misinterpretation when used in writing. definite / definitive Definite and definitive both apply to what is precisely defined or explicitly set forth. But definitive most often refers specifically to a judgment or description that serves as a standard or reference point for others, as in the definitive decision of the court (which sets forth a final resolution of a judicial matter) or the definitive biography of Nelson (i.e., the biography that sets the standard against which all other accounts of Nelson’s life must be measured). deprecate / depreciate The first and fully accepted meaning of deprecate is “to express disapproval of.” But the word has steadily encroached on the meaning of depreciate. It is now used, almost to the exclusion of depreciate, in the sense “to belittle or mildly disparage,” as in He deprecated his own contribution different from / different than The phrases different from and different than are both common in British and American English. The British also use the construction different to. Since the 18th century, language critics have singled out different than as incorrect, though it is well attested in the works of reputable writers. If you want to follow traditional guidelines, use from when the comparison is between two persons or things: My book is different from (not than) yours. Different than is more acceptably used, particularly in American usage, where the object of comparison is expressed by a full clause: The campus is different than it was twenty years ago. You can use different from with a clause if the clause starts with a conjunction and so functions as a noun: The campus is different from how it was twenty years ago Sometimes people interpret a simple noun phrase following different than as elliptical for a clause, which allows for a subtle distinction in meaning between the two constructions. How different this seems from Paris suggests that the object of comparison is the city of Paris itself, whereas How different this seems than Paris suggests that the object of comparison is something like “the way things were in Paris” or “what happened in Paris.” discreet / discrete As an individual, you might be discreet, but you are definitely discrete. Discreet means “prudent in speech and behavior”: He told me the news but asked me to be discreet about it. The related word discrete means “separate, distinct”: The summer science program consists of four discrete units distinct / distinctive A thing is distinct if it is sharply distinguished from other things; a property or attribute is distinctive if it enables us to distinguish one thing from another. The warbler is not a distinct species means that the warbler is not a clearly defined type of bird. The warbler has a distinctive song means that the warbler’s song enables us to distinguish the warbler from other birds dive The kids opened the box and dove into the pizza. But should they have dived? The verb dive has two past tenses, dived and dove, and both are acceptable. Dived is actually the earlier form, and dove may seem strange in light of the general tendencies of change in English verb forms. Old English had two classes of verbs, called strong and weak. Strong verbs formed their past tense by a change in their vowel. Thus drive (past tense drove) and fling (past tense flung) are descendants of Old English strong verbs. Weak verbs formed their past tense by adding a suffix related to -ed in Modern English. The verbs live (past tense lived) and move (past tense moved) come from Old English weak verbs. But not all of the descendants of Old English verbs have preserved this pattern. Many verbs have changed from the strong pattern to the weak one; for example, the past tense of help, formerly healp, became helped, and the past tense of step, formerly stop, became stepped. Over the years, in fact, the weak pattern has become so prevalent that we use the term regular to refer to verbs that form their past tense by the addition of -ed. However, there have occasionally been changes in the other direction. For example, the past tense of wear, now wore, was once werede; that of spit, now spat, was once spitede. The development of dove is an additional example of the small group of verbs that have swum against the historical tide doubt and doubtful with that, whether, or if You can follow doubt and doubtful with clauses introduced by the conjunction that, whether, or if. Which conjunction you choose depends somewhat on the meaning you want to convey. We normally use whether to introduce indirect questions: I asked whether he could come along. Whether is therefore the traditional choice when the subject of doubt is in a state of genuine uncertainty about alternative possibilities: Sue has studied so much philosophy this year that she’s begun to doubt whether she exists. Similarly, when doubtful indicates uncertainty, whether is probably the word you want: At one time it was doubtful whether the company could recover from its financial difficulties, but the government loan seems to have helped On the other hand, you use that when you use doubt as an understated way of expressing disbelief. Thus you might say I doubt that we’ve seen the last of that problem, meaning “I think we haven’t seen the last of that problem.” That is also the usual choice when the truth of the clause following doubt is assumed, as in negative sentences and questions. Thus I never doubted for a minute that I would be rescued implies “I was certain that I would be rescued.” By the same token, Do you doubt that you will be paid? seems to pose a rhetorical question meaning “Surely you believe that you will be paid,” whereas Do you doubt whether you will be paid? may express a genuine request for information and might be followed by Because if you do, you should make the client post a bond