Envy vs Jealousy and other words mistaken for each other

therosesword 2021-02-14 17:10:18 UTC #26

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 2021-02-14 17:21:05 UTC #27

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 2021-02-14 18:32:35 UTC #28

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 2021-02-14 18:47:41 UTC #29

Who's vs whose

weary vs wary

therosesword 2021-02-14 23:12:41 UTC #30

the words that sound alike are a given but I was wondering more about words that sound different that people interchange them thus the original post of "envy vs jealousy."

joannekwan 2021-02-15 19:15:34 UTC #31

OH, GOT ONE.

Keening

I see this very often in steamy scenes and it's lumped with moan/groan/whine/whimper/that sort of thing. But the wailing definition of the word is mournful and is a lament, usually for the dead.

therosesword 2021-02-15 19:19:50 UTC #32

Seriously? I... I.... take away their writing badge.... ouuuuuuuch

therosesword 2021-02-15 19:23:47 UTC #33

I was on zoom with a friend who writes erotica... I just told her this and she spewed her coffee.

joannekwan 2021-02-15 19:27:35 UTC #34

Like I wonder where it came from! Did someone misuse it in their fanfic and it just took off??

Kura 2021-02-15 19:37:52 UTC #35

I don't speak English well, it bothers me a lot when I used words wrong without realizing it.

Unfortunately I don't know WHAT words I am using wrong when I'm speaking because no one will tell me because "it's cute / in endearing how you and your family (cause we're all bad at English) keep using words to mean something but they don't mean that." but no one will tell me the word that we're using wrong?????

The only ones I have been corrected on have been by online strangers reading my comic and that was that race/nationality/ethnicity do not mean the same thing. (I was using it wrong in the character profiles, I was using race: but then listing ethnicity's. I was just using the the one easiest to spell because I didn't want to fuck the spelling up)

therosesword 2021-02-15 19:38:32 UTC #36

I have no idea. It's an Onomatopoeia word: one that sounds much like what it describes. (if you already knew that sorry for the explanation.

No doubt they're using a thesaurus and relying only on that. Nope, I take that back. I just put the word "howl" into the manuscript I'm typing and hit the thesaurus and then went down the rabbit hole of other words and "keen" never came up.

I can't imagine using that in a steaming love seen. I just sent the info on to another friend who writes some pretty steamy stuff, can't wait to see what she says. I mean, not even in (mummble mumble letters letters) type of leathery stuff would that be appropriate.

therosesword 2021-02-15 19:41:39 UTC #37

give me anything with more than three letters and I can screw up the spelling. You need to let the people you know to please correct you. A lot of times people won't do it because they don't want to make you feel bad. I inadvertently corrected someone when I was in Sicily and then apologized but he then asked me more about different pronunciations so he was okay with it.

vothnthorvaldson 2021-02-15 19:53:00 UTC #38

Oh yes it is difficult sometimes to get corrected as a non native speaker, both because people find it cute and not a big deal, and because often they are afraid of hurting or simply don't want to say anything negative.
It's still very weird for me because I grew up in France, where correcting people is generally a way to show them interest and is something positive.
I wish I was corrected more, but because that won't happen, we have to find other strategies, but I've not find any efficient yet.

therosesword 2021-02-15 20:04:09 UTC #39

Simply look straight at the people you're talking to and tell them you'd like to be corrected and that they would help you in achieving your goals of fluent English. A friend of mine is an ESL teacher and she tells her students that quite a bit. Also, google is great for checking things quickly.

best of luck!

vothnthorvaldson 2021-02-15 20:51:44 UTC #40

Thanks!

Regarding asking people for corrections, I've given up a few years ago. Too many bad experiences. I'm happy enough if I can get people to tell me when they don't understand me, which is already a huge struggle. Also it's partially my fault because I can't keep my mouth shut when I get corrected wrongly which I think is not nice of me at all if I was the one asking to begin with.
Google is helpful but only if one knows there is a mistake to begin with.

I find going from an understandable level of English to total fluency is the most difficult step. Also, because there are so many immigrants here, some more recent than I am, some with a native language much more different etc, I'm generally told there is nothing wrong with my English because I reached the socially acceptable level for my community. Which is good, obviously, but a bit disappointing too.
Anyway way off topic

Kura 2021-02-15 21:02:20 UTC #41

I do ask them to tell me what I'm saying wrong, but they will not. Sometimes it'll be close to begging, or I'll be annoying about it and bring it up repetitively in different conversations (because maybe if I am annoying about it they will give up and tell me cause it'll stop being fun for them), but they will not tell me the word/words/phrases I am using wrong so I don't know it.

Because it's endearing / funny to them and they don't want to ruin that.

Thankfully people online are more open and willing to correct me, so I've been improving a lot and doing a lot better since getting access to the internet. But the way I speak IRL and online is sometimes different so people online can't tell me what's going on about it either.

cherrystark 2021-02-15 22:26:20 UTC #42

I have another one. This is more of a typo issue but barely vs barley. I see it so often and it bugs me!!!

therosesword 2021-02-15 22:29:01 UTC #43

ouch! ouch ouch ouch...

as long as we're going that route also: Cavalry and Calvary!

But_a_Jape 2021-02-16 01:30:36 UTC #44

First off, I'd like to make clear that I appreciate the existence of this thread and the discussion it promotes, but it also happens to strike a particular pet peeve mine, being: it tells people that a common misconception is wrong but then doesn't provide the correction.

For those who don't know and have gone this far without looking it up themselves - "envy" is having the desire for something that is not yours while "jealousy" is the fear that someone else will take something you have.

As far as I'm concerned with its usage, it does jump out at me when I notice it as "technically wrong," but the descriptivist in me says people have been treating these words as synonymous for so long, it really shouldn't be something to get hung up on. Like how "decimate" technically means "reduce by 1/10th" but if you were to correct someone who uses it as a synonym for "destroy," you really just come off as someone saying "Hey guys, I'm smart and know things!"

I was also kinda hoping for discussion on more than just words that are spelled similarly or can just be simple typos, but another pair of words that I think is applicable would be "asocial" and "anti-social."

I've seen this more commonly in casual conversation than actual writing, but "asocial" is an avoidance of social situations while "anti-social" is active antagonism towards society (see "Anti-Social Personality Disorder," which is the currently proper term for what used to be referred to as "sociopathy" or "psychopathy"). I see this regularly when people describe introverted or shy people and say "Oh, they're anti-social, they don't talk to anyone" which I fear could be more harmful than the regular old "People are using words wrong" because this could actually lead to people being perceived in a way that they aren't.

Granted, I have absolutely no evidence of this, but I feel like if the quiet, asocial kid gets the label of "anti-social" and then other people learn that "Anti-social behavior" is a symptom of sociopathy, then the "quiet kid" eventually gets mischaracterized as "future school shooter."

therosesword 2021-02-16 01:41:18 UTC #45

Turn hope into the real thing and start that discussion. This was meant as a light hearted little thread for things that seem to be one thing but are not and a chance for people to let off a little steam. And also, to give people a chance to maybe look up the things they're not familiar with. When I see paragraphs of explanation and it's not a text book I tend to scroll on past or see if dust bunnies need rounding up.

Might I suggest you start another thread (as this one is getting rather long) for that deeper discussion?