Week 8 - More "Word-for-word" Examples

Last week we started a "word-for-word" series. Let's do some more. Here's an easy one, one that shows up frequently in the research administration field:

Principle vs. principal

Keeping in mind the principles of allowability, allocability, and consistency, the principal investigator decided not to charge the laptop to her grant.

I sometimes have trouble remembering which spelling is which, but I realized recently that "principal" has an "a" (for adjective) in it -- a "principal investigator" is the holder of a research grant, and a "principle investigator," if there were such a person, would be someone who snooped around looking for principles. Of course, "principal" can be a noun as well as an adjective, and I don't have a clever mnemonic for that one. A "principle" is an important idea, and a "principal" is an important person.


Better vs. best

True confessions: I was just reminded of this one in the line at the supermarket, reading the "Who Wore It Best" section in US Weekly. "Best" is a superlative, meaning that the winner comes out on top when compared with everyone else. "Better" is a comparative, used when the contest is between only two entrants. So in this particular case, Courtney Love did look better than Michael Jackson in that Givenchy outfit, but maybe not best in the whole world.


Like vs. as if

Here's another perennial favorite, one made more difficult by the prevalence of "like" in common usage. I'm often guilty on this one too, but I do try to get it right when I write.

Kim's room looks like a disaster area -- it looks like she hasn't picked up her clothes in a month.

The second use of "like" in the sentence above is incorrect -- we should have said

...it looks as if she hasn't picked up her clothes in a month.

The distinction here is that the first usage is a simple simile, in which "like" is equating two nouns ("room" and "disaster area"). In the second usage, the "like" is followed not by a noun, but by a whole clause ("she hasn't picked up her clothes in a month"), so it should be "as if."

OK, two more for this week, a hard one and an easy one:


Lie vs. lay

This is the hard one, since we get tangled up with not only transitive vs. intransitive verbs, but also past vs. present tenses. I won't try to cover all the possibilities -- for example, I'll leave out the meaning of "to lie" that has to do with not telling the truth.

"To lie" is an intransitive verb, meaning it doesn't take a direct object:

I like to lie down when I sleep.

But what about that old children's prayer that starts

Now I lay me down to sleep?

No problem -- "to lay" is a transitive verb, one taking a direct object, for example the "me" in the prayer, or the eggs in

Among chickens, only females lay eggs.

Now if I'd been thinking about eggs the other day when I encountered the clue "They lay around the farm" in my crossword puzzle, I wouldn't have had any trouble getting the answer (a plural four-letter word starting with HEN, understanding that the direct object (eggs) in the clue is assumed), even if I'd gotten distracted thinking about other meanings of "lay," for example the ones in the Shakespeare (I think) quote

"I'll lay you ten to one,"

a pun referring to more than just gambling odds.

Anyway, to summarize, use "lie" (prevarication aside) when talking about arranging yourself in a recumbent position, and "lay" when you're arranging something (or someone) in such a position.

Confused yet? We haven't even talked about the past tenses of "to lie" and "to lay." The complication here is that "lay" is not only the present form of the transitive verb, but also the past tense of the intransitive verb, so you'd say

I lay down to sleep yesterday, but when I lie down today, I'll do it earlier.

The transitive verb "lay" is simpler, since its past tense isn't tangled up with another verb:

I laid the book on the table before I lay down on the couch.

That was yesterday. Today I'd say

I'll lay the book on the table; then I'll lie down myself.


OK, now the easy one:

Nauseated vs. nauseous

My dad (you guessed it, an English teacher) taught me this one. "Nauseated" refers to the state you get into after you've eaten something that disagrees with your stomach, and "nauseous" refers to someone who can make you feel that way even before you've sat down to eat. So when someone says, incorrectly,

I'm nauseous,

the cynical retort would be "Yes, I've always thought so," and the more charitable one would be "Gee, I'm sorry. When you feel better, maybe you can cheer up by reading Week 8 of the blog [and, if you read all the way to the end, never mischaracterize yourself again]."