Envy vs Jealousy and other words mistaken for each other

[kitschensyngk]

There's the age-old battle of "anxious" versus "eager."

Some people don't recognize that "anxious" shares an origin with "anxiety."

[rajillustration]

I feel like this particular case--so many people use it interchangeably nowadays that it's becoming synonymous. Like I never hear people use jealousy correctly in every day speech--it's nearly always as a synonym to envy. Not to say it's correct, but I think the English language changes so much and there's so many places where it's colloquial that it becomes more of like a formal thing to remember to use some of those words the right way (I say as I fix where I double spaced at the beginning of a sentence because apparently we don't do that anymore either).

Affect and effect though--those are science terms, I feel like that one isn't going to become synonymous ever. Definitely a pet peeve of mine when those are mixed up (and a mistake I make myself often enough)

[cherrystark]

I still have trouble with affect/effect from time to time but I always stop and think before I use either word.

I will also throw out hung vs hanged. I've seen this one more in mysteries. But, I remember in an old "Murder She Wrote" episode where Jessica corrects someone and reminds them that drapes are hung, men are hanged.

[therosesword]

@cherrystark

drapes are hung, men are hanged.

I like that little "prompt" as to which one is to be used. I know sometimes I'll type out "than" and realize ... ooop, wrong. "Then" is time, "than" is comparison

@rajillustration

I feel like this particular case--so many people use it interchangeably nowadays that it's becoming synonymous.

I see that too and I'm an ol' fuddy-duddy I actually correct people. But, yeah, I think that will "meld" eventually.

[Caro]

I just learned the other day that oblivion doesn’t necessarily mean destruction in the way I assumed it did but instead means the state of being forgotten??? Which makes absolute sense because the word “oblivious” exists..... but for some reason every use of the word oblivion i’ve ever seen I’ve read as “big, fiery, armageddon-like destruction”. But now the word oblivion just looks hopelessly sad to me. A very heartbreaking word!!

[cherrystark]

I think part of the reason people like to interchange envy and jealousy, at least for native English speakers, is the old grade school lesson that you can't or shouldn't use the same word two sentences in a row. It's part of the whole "said is dead" schtick. Especially with emotional words, writers don't want to use the same word again and again, so they pull out their theasaurous to try and find a "better" word without thinking about that word's meaning or conotation.

[therosesword]

writers don't want to use the same word again and again, so they pull out their theasaurous to try and find a "better" word without thinking about that word's meaning or conotation.

Good point. One of the reasons I love my Alexa... "Hey Alexa (in my case "computer") what's the definition of......

then if it's a little iffy I get on the computer and dive a little deeper down the etymology hole.

[Black_Conscious]

Anyone else have a few they've occasionally had to stop and think about before they use them?

Lets see...
For me its any word that sounds the same
like Hear and Here or Affect, Effect, to me they sound the same but their meanings are different or most defiantly the 3 there's .
so I get mixed up on them sometimes

[summer_coefficient]

I don't know if this counts and maybe someone has already said it
BUT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD "VILLAIN" AND "ANTAGONIST" ARE NOT THE SAME THING.

[therosesword]

so true so true.....and no one has said it yet

[cherrystark]

YES!!! I'VE BEEN SAYING THAT FOR YEARS!!! And yet, people still treat them as synonyms. A villian can be an antagonist but an antagonist isn't always the villain.

[a.g.meade]

Anyone else have a few they've occasionally had to stop and think about before they use them?

Compliment and complement still always get me. At this point, I don't think I'll ever remember which is which!

[vothnthorvaldson]

My pet peeve is people writing 'defiantly' instead of 'definitely'. It has a completely different meaning and worse, it still makes sense so one has no idea of what the person wants to say. One thing I've always wondered is what happens when such person needs to use the word 'defiantly' in its correct definition? Do they write it the same way?

As for me, English is not my first language so I do make many mistakes but they tend to be mistakes native speakers would never do. My most common one is experiencing vs experimenting. It can be very confusing too. I'm trying to think before using these two words but sometimes I still make the mistake.

[Kiweevil]

(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)

[ar-ninetysix]

This pair's another one I see pretty commonly misused. I'm honestly just assuming they don't know how to spell "definitely". And they somehow end up at "defiantly" believing it's not only close enough, but actually correct lmao

[gempompadour]

I often swap then and than with each other. Also there, their and they're. And here and hear. I think I mess these up a lot because I'm finnish. In my language every letter has a specific corresponding sound so words are read as they are written and vice versa. Here and hear sound exactly the same and need context "I hear something" / "come over here". In finnish that never happens.

Edit. Actually it happens sometimes (kuusi meaning both number 6 and a spruce) but I still hate that english has so many words that sound the same, lol.

[therosesword]

The ones that sound the same are, for me, different than the ones that sound totally different but people think they mean the same, like what I put in my original post: "Envy and Jealousy" Two entirely different meanings but people tend to think they're the same.

Don't worry about having English as a second language being the problem, so many English people still type the wrong "their, there and they're" too often.

[Crusoe]

Villains can even be protagonists! That distinction is definitely an annoying one, I can see why people mess it up, but it's a good distinction to remember

[cherrystark]

Exactly! I learned that a good way to check if a character is a villain or an antagonist is that if you retell the story from that character's POV (ex. Harry Potter from, Draco's POV) and the end result stays the same, that character is probably the antagonist. If you retell the story and the end result is drastically different, like if Voldemort won in the end, you've got a solid villain characterf

[crowstories]

Who's vs whose

weary vs wary