When I came across it in Hugh Howey’s Wool, I figured, ok, first book, self published author, it happens sometimes. When I was reading Phil and Kaja Foglio’s novelisation of Girl Genius and they used discrete instead of discreet, I was surprised and disappointed, but figured, ok they write webcomics and use Kickstarter to fund things, maybe they can’t afford a proofreader. When I was reading Jim Butcher’s Summer Knight and it made the same error though, I’d run out of excuses.
I’ve come across the error before(started a thread about it even, I believe), but to run into it three books running actually made me go look it up in a dictionary to see if it was suddenly acceptable usage. Authors, editors, proofreaders - What the fuck? Pull up your socks. Basic errors like this are jarring and knock me out of my immersion in the book. This one is also such a common error that it should make people who work with language for a living more likely to catch it not less.
What’s going on? Coincidence? People don’t care about correct spelling anymore?
I used the word “discrete” recently while teaching my physics class, and I wrote it on the board and made sure to point out that it was different from “discreet.” I got a lot of blank looks and one girl even said that she was pretty sure discreet was spelled “discrete.”
I consider it a relatively easy mistake, though, since they are pronounced the same. Much more offensive to me are writing “loose” for “lose” and “where” for “were.”
An increasing number of people don’t care, it seems, as opposed to those who can’t spell because of dyslexia or the like. The former often argue that the reader knows what they mean whether a word is misspelled or not, so the misspelling is unimportant.
In many cases they are blind to the fact that their misspelled words can make their statements hilariously funny and/or opposite to the meaning they wish to convey. Sometimes both.
Oh, there are so many. I wish it were possible to start a post and then add to it later as things come to mind. If only there was such a method I could chose. err … choose?
choose vs. chose
any time vs. anytime
I must admit to being so lazy that I still have never looked up “anytime” vs “any time”. I’d like to know if anyone has an opinion about them.
There are many more to come. Darn. I wish I didn’t have to start a new post everytime I want to add another example. Or is it “every time”?
I recently read a high-end biography of a major American figure by a well-known biographer from a top-drawer publisher… and filled a page with notes about spelling, grammar and factual errors without even trying too hard.
In a nutshell, I don’t think editors exist any more. Books go directly from the author’s copy of Word to press. So we get alot of people who are discrete, but they’re alright with that; authors who write with flare; gross misstatements of cultural tropes like the golden rule; notables who earn honorary degrees… even from the best and biggest.
I posted this in another thread, but I saw a commercial for mail-order adult undergarments and they promised to send them discretely packaged. Just about drove me up the wall. I’m sure most people who receive Depends by mail would rather have them come in a plain brown box that didn’t disclose the contents.
I have no idea… normal caution about identities, I guess.
The book was Cronkite, by Douglas Brinkley, who besides being David Brinkley’s son is a history professor at Yale. He uses “flare” for “flair” throughout the book. He comments on F106s in Vietnam, when Sixes were famously never deployed there. He misstates the Golden Rule twice - can’t recall offhand how, but it’s irritatingly off-target. He mentions Cronkite “earning” an honorary degree two or three times. He misuses both ‘vis a vis’ and ‘fulsomely’ - the list goes on, and IMVHO these are errors we shouldn’t see in a minor book by minor historian from a minor publisher, much less a major-leaguer. I actually stopped writing down most of the errors at about the midway point, pulling out my Note II to note only the worstest.
Homonyms are a PITA. We’re stuck with most of them. Discrete/ Discreet are an example where I could see an argument to combine them in the new dictionaries. For me the difference in those words spelling is regional like mold/mould. YMMV but why make English harder than necessary? Pedantic points may be fun in school, but the real world has to use English to conduct business and earn a living.
It also strikes me that I’ve never seen the discrete/discreet error the other way round - i.e, nobody ever uses discreet when they mean discrete. I wonder why that is.
But unlike mold and mould, which are the same word, discrete and discreet are two distinct (or discrete, if you will ) words with very different meanings.
discrete[ dih-skreet ]
adjective
apart or detached from others; separate; distinct: six discrete parts.
consisting of or characterized by distinct or individual parts; discontinuous.
Mathematics
a. (of a topology or topological space) having the property that every subset is an open set.
b. defined only for an isolated set of points: a discrete variable.
c. using only arithmetic and algebra; not involving calculus: discrete methods.
discreet[ dih-skreet ]
adjective
judicious in one’s conduct or speech, especially with regard to respecting privacy or maintaining silence about something of a delicate nature; prudent; circumspect.
showing prudence and circumspection; decorous: a discreet silence.
modestly unobtrusive; unostentatious: a discreet, finely wrought gold necklace.
It is not being pedantic to insist on the proper usage of discrete or discreet. It would be indiscreet to use the wrong word in place of the proper one.
