beside / besides Some people argue that these two words should be kept distinct when they are used as prepositions. By this thinking, you should use beside only to mean “at the side of,” as in There was no one in the seat beside me. For the meanings “in addition to” and “except for” you should use besides: Besides replacing the back stairs, he fixed the broken bannister. No one besides Smitty would say a thing like that. But this distinction is often ignored by widely respected writers. While it’s true that besides can never mean “at the side of,” you will often see beside used in place of besides in print. Watch out for ambiguity when using beside in this way. The sentence There was no one beside me at the table could mean that you had the table to yourself or that the seats next to you were not occupied better and best Which do you think is best? The chocolate chip or the mocha supreme? between and among Between is used for two, and among for more than two.” This decree of grammar may still echo in your old classroom, but you would be wise to consider other reverberations as well. It is true that between is the only choice when exactly two entities are specified. For example, you must say the choice between (not among) good and evil and the rivalry between (not among) Great Britain and France. But when more than two entities are involved or when the number of entities is unspecified, the word choice depends on what you want to say. You use between when the entities are considered as distinct individuals and among when they are considered as a mass or collectivity. Thus in the sentence The balloon landed between the houses, the houses are seen as points that define the boundaries of the area where the balloon touched down. We assume, therefore, that the balloon did not land on any of the individual houses. In The balloon landed among the houses, the area of landing is considered to be the general location of the houses, taken together. It leaves open the possibility that the balloon came down on one of the houses. By the same token, we may speak of a series of wars between the Greek cities, which suggests that each city was an independent participant in the hostilities, or of a series of wars among the Greek cities, which allows for the possibility that the participants were shifting alliances of cities. For this reason, among is used to indicate inclusion in a group: She is among the best of our young sculptors. There is a spy among you. Use between when the entities are seen as determining the limits or endpoints of a range: They searched the area between the river, the farmhouse, and the woods. The truck driver had obviously been drinking between stops. bimonthly / biweekly / semimonthly / semiweekly If your therapy group has semimonthly meetings, how often should you expect to show up? A bimonthly meeting should take place “once every two months"; a biweekly, “once every two weeks.” A semimonthly meeting should be held “twice a month” and a semiweekly “twice a week.” That’s should. These words are often confused, and to spare nervous attendees the suspense, the only decent thing to do is to use substitute expressions like every two months or twice a month. In the publishing world, where confusion is a rarity, a bimonthly always comes out every two months, and a biweekly every two weeks boast Some have objected to the use of boast as a transitive verb meaning “to possess or own a desirable feature,” as in This network boasts an audience with a greater concentration of professionals and managers than any other network born / borne These words are both past participles of bear. Here’s how to sort them out. Use born only in passive constructions referring to birth: I was born in Chicago. For all other uses, including active constructions referring to birth, use borne: She has borne both her children at home. I have borne his insolence with the patience of a saint both Both indicates that the action or state denoted by the verb applies individually to each of two entities. Both books weigh more than five pounds, for example, means that each book weighs more than five pounds by itself, not that the two books weighed together come to more than five pounds. Both is inappropriate where the verb does not apply to each of the entities by itself. bring and take When do you use bring and when do you use take? It depends on your point of view. We use bring to indicate motion toward the place of speaking or the place from which the action is regarded. Thus you normally take checks to the bank and bring home cash, although from the banker’s perspective you have brought checks to the bank in order to take away cash When the point of reference is not the place of speaking itself, you can use either verb depending on the context. Thus you can say either The labor leaders brought their requests to the mayor’s office or The labor leaders took their requests to the mayor’s office depending on whether you want to describe things from the point of view of the labor leaders or the mayor. Perhaps for this reason, the distinction between bring and take is sometimes less clear than you might expect. A parent may say of a child, for example, She always takes a pile of books home with her from school, as the parent imagines the situation from the child’s viewpoint. This usage may sound curious to those who are accustomed to observe the distinction more strictly, but there is really nothing wrong with it. capital / capitol When touring the capital, why not visit the capitol? Capital and capitol are terms that are often confused, mainly because they refer to things that are in some ways related. The term for a town or city that serves as a seat of government is spelled capital. The term for the building in which a legislative assembly meets is spelled capitol careen / career That sportscar went careering down the road. Or did it careen? Careen comes to us via Middle French from the Latin word carina, which meant “the keel of a ship.” The original sense of the English verb was nautical and referred to the way a ship would lean to one side when sailing in windy conditions. Today, when used as a verb of motion, careen typically implies high speed. It often but not always entails a sideways motion or wavering. This sense probably came from the application of the nautical sense of the word to automobiles, which usually only careen, that is, lurch or tip over, when driven at high speeds Career, on the other hand, has always been on dry land. It comes from Middle French carriere, “race course,” which comes from Latin carrarria, “carriageway,” and ultimately from Latin carrum, “cart, car.” (The “occupation” sense is an extension of the “race course” meaning, although many might find this metaphor a bit of a stretch today.) As a verb, career originally meant “to move over a course.” In the verb’s first recorded usage, the course was the lane for each horse at a jousting tournament. But the kinds of courses and agents of motion soon proliferated, and the verb now means “to move forward at high speed.” center Can you center on something and around it at the same time? Traditionally, the verb center has been used with the prepositions on, upon, in, or at, but some language critics have denounced its use with around as illogical or physically impossible. Still, the fact that many writers persist in using this phrase in sentences such as The discussion centered around the need for curriculum revision suggests that many people perceive center around to best represent the true nature of what they are trying to say. Center can represent various relations involving having, finding, or turning about a center, and the choice of a preposition to accompany center depends on the meaning you want to convey. There is ample evidence for usages such as Our hope centered in the young leader, His thoughts centered on the long journey before him, and The trade is centered at Amsterdam. Center around is equally well established, as in A storm of controversy centered around the king. In this example, around seems to be the only appropriate choice. If using the phrase center around does not sit well with you, however, try revolve around instead. certain If you think too much about it, you might conclude that certain is an absolute term like unanimous or paramount and cannot be modified. Something is either certain or it is not, you might say. There can be no in- between. But before you say much more, you may find yourself using certain in combination with adverbs such as fairly, absolutely, and completely, which would seem to imply that levels of certainty exist. In an earlier survey, a majority of the Usage Panel accepted the construction Nothing could be more certain, so you can be confident that modifying certain is a pretty safe bet. compare to / compare with Compare usually takes the preposition to when it refers to the activity of describing the resemblances between unlike things: He compared her to a summer day. Scientists sometimes compare the human brain to a computer. It takes with when it refers to the act of examining two like things in order to discern their similarities or differences: The police compared the forged signature with the original. The committee will have to compare the Senate’s version of the bill with the version that was passed by the House. When compare is used to mean “to liken (one) with another,” with is traditionally held to be the correct preposition: That little bauble is not to be compared with (not to) this enormous jewel. But to is frequently used in this context and is not incorrect complement / compliment He complimented her on the way her sweater complemented her hair. Complement and compliment, though quite distinct in meaning, are sometimes confused because they are pronounced the same. As a noun, complement means “something that completes or brings to perfection” (The antique silver was a complement to the beautifully set table); used as a verb it means “to serve as a complement to.” The noun compliment means “an expression or act of courtesy or praise” (They gave us a compliment on our beautifully set table), while the verb means “to pay a compliment to.”