The everyday words you're probably misusing
Have you ever been guilty of opting for the biggest word to impress the masses without having its meaning down pat? Do you live by a 'right click, synonyms' mentality? You might want to think again – your 'impressive' vocabulary might be doing more harm than good to your reputation.
At the risk of making you into an 'escape goat', we've taken a deep dive into some of the most commonly misused words according to UQ expert in writing, editing and publishing, Dr Roslyn Petelin.
What are some commonly misused words and phrases?
A pigment (figment) of my imagination, going off on a tandem (tangent), cut and dry (dried), myself, as in ‘They invited my partner and myself to dinner’ (‘They invited my partner and me to dinner’), incidences (incidents), bunker (hunker) down, pacific (specific), the central tenant (tenet) and the less energy they expand (expend).
Biggest bugbear?
Existential threat (if something is existential, it’s not just a threat.) Other bugbears are criteria used in the singular, imply to mean infer, lead instead of led, different to rather than different from, and only misplaced as in ‘Benson only wrote six books in the Mapp and Lucia series’. Wrote ‘only six books’ makes much more sense.
Australian slang that I love:
I’m very fond of the sentiment expressed on a perfectly balmy day ‘You wouldn’t be dead for quids’. Annabel Crabb certainly has a great grasp of the Australian vernacular. In high praise of gin and tonic tarts, she said: ‘I couldn’t cram them into my gob fast enough’. Other phrases I find useful are ‘I’ve had a gutful of this’, ‘two bob each way’, ‘happy as Larry’, and ‘I didn’t come down in the last shower’. However, nobody comes close to the great Paul Keating: ‘can a souffle rise twice?’ and ‘simply a shiver waiting for a spine to run up’.
Australia-specific slang or colloquialisms that get under my skin:
I wince when I hear pronunciation mispronounced as 'pronounciation'. I wince also when I hear the following: anethetist (anesthetist), anythink (anything), deteriate (deteriorate), haitch (aitch), hone (home) in on, cashay (cache), could of (could have), libry (library), vunnerable (vulnerable), and expresso (espresso). I could go on. These errors are highlighted in a lovely little book called Waynespeak.
"My first editing job was of the Grade 6 newsletter. I have been editing ever since."
What led me to my career in writing, editing, and publishing?
Growing up in a Queensland country town, I had marvellous teachers in primary school, whose English lessons I can recall decades later: Mr Cocking (Grade 4), Mr Collins (Grade 5), and Mrs Sedgeman (Grade 6). My best friend started elocution lessons with a wonderfully dedicated teacher, Mrs Williams, so my parents sent me along to her studio as well. We learnt poems and extracts of prose and sat for exams set by the Australian Music Examinations Board. At that time, the Australian Elizabethan Trust toured their Young Elizabethan Players to Australian country towns with some abridged plays by Shakespeare, so I was treated to my first frisson-inducing experience of Portia’s ‘Quality of mercy’ speech in The Merchant of Venice.
My first editing job was of the Grade 6 newsletter. I have been editing ever since.
At UQ I extended my study with a major in English and became a High School English teacher. I taught Literature and Film at The Brisbane Kindergarten Teachers’ College, then moved to QUT, where I taught writing and set up a certificate in Writing, Editing, and Publishing (WEP), which I migrated to UQ in 2000. Hundreds of students eagerly enrolled, many gained masters’ degrees, and several have now been awarded doctorates.
What makes a piece of communication excellent?
Lucid and coherent communication that lands beautifully on its target because it’s accessible, understandable, and riveting. To produce writing worth reading there needs to be systematic, recursive, and generative revising and editing.
I’m a great consumer of podcasts and am revelling in the brilliance of Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook on The Rest is History. I’m also hugely enjoying other podcasts such as Backlisted (about books), and Better Known (where Ivan Wise interviews fascinating raconteurs about things that should be ‘better known’). He recently interviewed Matthew Rice (whose daily illustrations on Instagram are utterly delicious) and James Marriott (whose columns in The Times are intellectually sizzling). James’s Cultural Capital Substack is terrific, as is Tina Brown’s excoriatingly clever Fresh Hell Substack.
When it comes to spoken communication, Richard Fidler in Conversations on the ABC is a very accomplished and empathic communicator, who has, several times, interviewed a UQ WEP graduate, Candice Fox, who has gained an international reputation as Australia’s top crime writer. Leigh Sales on Australian Story and formerly on 7.30 is also a splendid communicator.
My best piece of advice for aspiring writers
Actively read lots of tight, smart writing and try to emulate (not imitate) it. Work out what makes a piece of writing resonate for you and practise constructing sentences. There’s a terrific exercise based on Sherlock Holmes in the sentence-level chapter of my book How Writing Works. Many, many writers have endorsed the value of reading. It’s very disappointing to hear in a recent report from the OECD that reading proficiency is falling around the world. Surely I’m not the only one to have more than a thousand books on their kindle.
About Dr Petelin
Dr Roslyn Petelin is an Honorary Associate Professor in the School of Communication and Arts. The online writing course that she launched on UQx, WRITE 101x; English Grammar and Style, has attracted close to one million students since 2014. It will run again this year. Her latest book is How Writing Works (2e Routledge).
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