That Which Invokes Fury

Even More Misunderstood Words to Master

This is not the article you were going to get today, but sometimes things don’t go to plan. When they don’t, that’s totally fine. I mean, it’s not fine—I actually hate when things don’t go to plan, that’s the worst. It gets me really angry. But alas, sometimes things go off the rails and there’s just nothing to be done. And it’s fine because I know how to plan ahead, kind of.

Sometimes when I’m writing Shelf Life, I write too much Shelf Life. I know, you probably feel like there’s no such thing as too much Shelf Life. But if I wrote all the stuff I think about you’d be so sick of reading it. You’d get bored and stop reading. There’s just really a lot banging around in my head all the time. There has to be a limit.

So sometimes, when I’ve written just too much Shelf Life, I chop off half the article and stick it in a folder to use some other time and that is what you get on the days like today when I did not have a lot of bandwidth in the previous week to come up with something totally fresh. Don’t worry. This has been in the fridge. It’s well within its best-by date.

Back in January I shared with you some of my favorite misused and misunderstood words that I encounter as an editor. I had so many word pairs on that list that I had to save a few for a rainy day and today it was rainy as heck. A perfect day to break out some more confusing word pairs for you to mull over. Maybe you don’t make any of these mistakes, but even if you don’t you might learn something you didn’t know or you might pick up a great tip to share with someone who has a hard time remembering which is—

Which v That

A lot of folks seem to think that and which can be used interchangeably in their pronoun sense. Some people know they can’t be used interchangeably and will tell you that which has to be used with a comma while that doesn’t need one. The comma is a hint, but it doesn’t get to the heart of the issue.

Which is descriptive while that is restrictive, like this:

• Dogs, which have fur, are mammals.

• Dogs that have spots are Dalmatians.

You should use which when you are adding a clause to describe something about your subject, but not differentiate it from others. Dogs are mammals. They happen to have fur. The fur doesn’t differentiate them from other mammals. It merely describes the dog. You could remove the entire clause and your sentence would still be true.

Use that when you are adding a clause that differentiates your subject, restricts it to a subset. In this example, you understand I am telling you that there are many kinds of dogs, but the ones with spots are Dalmatians. If we remove this clause, the sentence becomes false: Dogs are Dalmatians. Not so. Only some dogs are Dalmatians—the ones with spots.

The quick trick to check if you’ve got the right one in your sentence is to see if you can remove the clause it is introducing while the sentence remains true. If so, then which is correct (and the clause should be set off with commas). If the sentence becomes false when you remove the clause, you should use that.

Imply v Infer

This is a simple difference of who’s pitching and who’s catching. You imply something when you are expressing something in an indirect way. The person implying is the one putting information out into the world; they are doing so in a way that it cannot be taken at face value and some deduction is necessary to figure out the information. That is an implication.

You infer when you are the person employing deduction to figure something out from incomplete information or component pieces. The person inferring is the one receiving information; but what they have received is incomplete and they must make a logical leap based on the pieces they have received in order to come to a conclusion about what it means. That is an inference.

The person pitching the information is implying something. The person catching information and interpreting it is inferring something. The person on third base? I don’t know.

Emigrate v Immigrate

I see a lot of people using immigrate to mean both things, the entire act of moving from one country to another. This one is actually super easy. You emigrate from your country of origin and you immigrate to your new home country.  I suspect Americans are used to hearing immigration used and not emigration because we believe everyone wants to come live here and no one who lives here would ever want to go live anywhere else. That is completely untrue, but in any case we the people are not too worried about the brain drain. When in doubt, remember that to immigrate is to come in. Both with an “i.”

Invoke v Evoke

Tricky, because the words sound similar and their meanings are fairly similar as well. To invoke is to call someone or something forth, by using its name. This could be in a figurative sense, for instance if you are invoking an authority to support your point (“if James Joyce were here, he’d agree with my interpretation of Finnegans Wake!”) or in a literal sense, for instance if you are using an incantation to invoke a demon and conjure it from its smoky brimstone dimension into this reality to do your bidding, as I’m sure we all do from time to time. Think of the word invocation and how it sounds like incantation, which is how a witch summons a demon.

To evoke something is to call it to mind, the way a familiar scent can evoke a memory from childhood. It can also mean to imitate something creatively, much as a set of word magnets shaken together in a dice cup and thrown indiscriminately at a magnetic surface might evoke the spirit of Finnegans Wake. Think of the word evocative (bringing images to mind), which sounds like provocative (causing a strong reaction).

So they both mean to call or recall something, but to invoke is to use a name to call something forth, and to evoke is to call something to mind.

Elicit v Illicit 

This one is kind of easy because these words have nothing in common. Something is illicit if it is forbidden, taboo, or contraband. Illicit drugs, an illicit affair, illicit activities generally. Illicit is the opposite of the seldom-used English word licit, meaning lawful or legal, and comes from the same Latin root (licere) as the word license. If you have a license to kill, for instance, then killing is licit for you—not illicit. Illicit is an adjective—it describes something.

On the other hand, to elicit something is to—get this—evoke it. To draw it forth from wherever it is. You can elicit a reaction from someone by doing something provocative. Elicit is a verb—an action.

Elicit comes from the Latin root lacere meaning to entice or deceive—you’re using trickery or deception to entice something out (draw forth) of something or someone. Because these words come from lacere and licere, they look and sound very similar but the roots have nothing in common. Remember, if it’s an action it’s with an “e” and if it’s a description it’s with an “i.”

Regiment v Regimen v Regime

A triple threat. I see this one all the time—regiment is often used in its correct sense and then also used to mean regimen, when they are completely different words. My phone routinely autocorrects regimen to regiment, which infuriates me. And then regimen and regime also get confused for one another. All three just constantly getting confused.

A regiment is a permanent division of a military force. It’s a chunk of the military. A bunch of  soldiers with some kind of commander is a regiment. 

A regime is an authority system—usually a government but not always—and may also refer to the strict system of rules imposed by that system on the people within it. So you might refer to the Stalinist Regime, the authoritarian government that ruled over parts of Europe and Asia from the 1920s to the 1950s, or you could use the word to refer to the economic regime under Stalinism, in which the government completely overhauled the industrial and agricultural institutions to reinvent the finances of the Soviet Union.

Finally, a regimen is a routine that you follow, perhaps prescribed by a doctor or other professional, or perhaps one you made for yourself. Your daily vitamin regimen, for instance, or your exercise regimen, or—if you’re Catherine from Shelf Life—your fifteen-step skincare regimen that you need to keep from looking like an absolute disaster.

Regiment, group of people. Regime, authoritarian government. Regimen, routine. Easy peasy.

Amend v Emend

This one is tricky because amend and emend both mean to make a change to something—especially to a document (for instance, the Constitution). An emendation is an alteration, usually to text, that is meant to improve the work. So the job of a copyeditor, for example, is to effect emendations—to emend the text. To amend is to alter something—usually by addition or deletion—with the intent of modifying the whole for the better. That sounds like exactly the same thing. The biggest difference is that emend is used almost exclusively for manuscripts, while amend can be used for a lot of things. You can amend a document but also a record, or a process, or a behavior. Emend basically means the same thing as edit. In fact, I don’t know anyone who uses the word emend except editors. Amend will always suffice in both situations, where emend is more particular. Both of these words share their origin with the word mend, meaning to fix something. In summary, use amend whenever you’re not sure and use emend to impress your friends.

One week from today is April Fool’s Day. I just registered for a very cool Dolly Parton-related event on that date, which I hope is real and not a joke! Be thinking about what funny (but not unkind) pranks you might pull on your friends and family. Personally, I am looking forward to pretending to throw a tennis ball for Laila and then not actually throwing the ball. April 1 is the only day you’re allowed to do that. Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy a bit of sun before the April showers really set in. I’ll see you on Tuesday.

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