# Words one can get confused **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 18, 2022, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-one-can-get-confused/971772 "2022-09-18T20:10:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2022, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-one-can-get-confused/971772/204 "2022-11-23T18:48:04Z")
I thought it might have been mentioned already, but I did a quick search and didn’t see it: Proscribe vs Prescribe (and proscription vs prescription). Very different. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2022, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-one-can-get-confused/971772/205 "2022-11-23T18:51:55Z")
I had a boss that used to say “for all intensive purposes…” ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2022, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-one-can-get-confused/971772/206 "2022-11-23T20:01:31Z")
Someone in another thread wrote “Enquiring minds want to know!” To which I thought, no it’s ‘inquiring’. But then I looked it up, and it turns out that ‘enquire’ is a word that means the exact same thing as ‘inquire’. Enquire is a less common variant of inquire. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2022, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-one-can-get-confused/971772/207 "2022-11-24T15:32:20Z")
**queen** and **quean** ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2022, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-one-can-get-confused/971772/208 "2022-11-25T02:29:28Z")
A lot of people seem to have problems with _site_, _cite_, and _sight_. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2022, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-one-can-get-confused/971772/209 "2022-11-25T02:42:03Z")
_Its_ and _it’s_, too. ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2022, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-one-can-get-confused/971772/210 "2022-11-25T02:58:17Z")
With respect to the word “it’s” it is misuse can be found easily by separating it out into separate words every time its used. [sic] ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2022, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-one-can-get-confused/971772/211 "2022-11-25T13:56:44Z")
> [@glowacks](#): > > To be clear, there is a such thing as an object lesson. But it’s literally a lesson that uses an object to help teach. It’s not the kind of terrible thing that happens that scares you straight and gets you to never make the same mistake again like an abject lesson is. I have never heard the phrase “abject lesson.” It is not listed in Merriam Webster online, Cambridge Dictionary online, [Dictionary.com](http://Dictionary.com), or Wiktionary. All four sources do list “object lesson,” and all of them offer definitions and/or example sentences that indicate that it means something which clearly demonstrates a particular principle or idea. Cambridge adds that the lesson is “usually bad.” [Dictionary.com](http://Dictionary.com) does concede that it “formerly” meant “a lesson in which a material object forms the basis of the teaching.” ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2022, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-one-can-get-confused/971772/212 "2022-11-25T14:22:13Z")
I am familiar with “abject lesson,” but it does seem that all the scholarly and prescriptivist sources online claim that “object lesson” is correct and that “abject lesson” is an eggcorn, so I’m not convinced the blogger cited above is incorrect. ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2022, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-one-can-get-confused/971772/213 "2022-11-25T21:46:16Z")
“Object lesson” makes far less sense though than “abject lesson” in the way that it’s used. So I will admit that “object lesson” may have at one time been the only one in use, but that has changed. It may have been eggcorned to start, but it makes more sense when describing the kind of lesson that I’m thinking about. At least, that’s my opinion. Usage can change, which is why prescriptivists are basically always wrong. If everyone does something incorrectly in language, it becomes correct by definition. Scholarly research also will only cover historical usage, not how things have changed recently. This is a major problem when trying to learn certain languages that have had a lot of recent changes, but the literature for learning them is not updated to reflect those changes. In other words, I can believe that “abject lesson” developed from “object lesson”, but the phrases mean different things. They sometimes can be used to describe the same thing, but that’s not necessarily always true. There is plenty of evidence online about people using it in the way I described, knowing what the component words meant, and using them together to get the intended result. If it’s “wrong” it’s only because other people think that they intended a different phrase. I have always, in my memory at least, encountered “abject lesson”, and assigned it the meaning one would from understanding “abject poverty”. That is, it’s a lesson learned in the harshest possible way. I fail to see why that phrase is necessarily wrong. I’ve not used “object lesson” ever in the way that most closely resembles “abject lesson”. Now, I agree that with the evidence that I’ve been presented, I can no longer say that it’s words that people get confused in the same way I intended. I also cannot verify whether the author I was referring to was correct in their use of “object lesson”, but I didn’t read the article. I also find it rather strange that supposedly “object lesson” is the only correct phrase, but that I had never heard of it outside the extremely limited sense that the Wikipedia article gives, while I had buried in my memory the “abject lesson” phrase, which was a phrase that made perfect sense from its components given how I understood the meaning of the phrase. Again, I think this is an issue of prescriptivists and scholars being overly zealous and not appreciating how language can change. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2022, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-one-can-get-confused/971772/214 "2022-11-25T21:59:22Z")
I use the word ingenuous. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2022, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-one-can-get-confused/971772/215 "2022-11-25T22:01:15Z")
I saw an ad for a lawyer once, who promised to give clients “Piece of mind.” They can split an atom, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2022, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-one-can-get-confused/971772/216 "2022-11-25T22:02:45Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > I use the word ingenuous. I am gusted by this word. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2022, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-one-can-get-confused/971772/217 "2022-11-25T22:09:25Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > ingenuous Hey, ingenuous is in _dictionaries_. Old dictionaries. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2022, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-one-can-get-confused/971772/218 "2022-11-25T22:11:59Z")
Same root as ingenue. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2022, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-one-can-get-confused/971772/219 "2022-11-25T22:13:59Z")
Yeah. I know. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2022, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-one-can-get-confused/971772/220 "2022-11-26T00:37:09Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Yeah. I know. - Certainly didn’t mean to offend you - I was pointing it out to anyone who might not know the connection. You had made it clear you _did_ know the dictionary definition. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2022, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-one-can-get-confused/971772/221 "2022-11-26T01:03:45Z")
We’re cool ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2022, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-one-can-get-confused/971772/222 "2022-11-26T01:51:42Z")
**whether** and **whither** (and maybe **wither** / **whither**?) ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2022, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-one-can-get-confused/971772/223 "2022-11-26T22:02:22Z")
If your interest (or curiosity, or something like that) is **pique** d, it has been aroused or stimulated. If it’s **peak** ed, it’s reached a high point. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-one-can-get-confused/971772.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-one-can-get-confused/971772.md?page=12)