We continue our series of challenges with a mixed challenge on confusing words and confusing usage. See if you can ace these without looking them up. Please send your answers directly to me.
- We waited with baited/bated breath.
- The university conducts symposiums/symposia on linguistics every semester.
- The electric/electrical train was plugged in to/into the same electric/electrical outlet as the electric/electrical toothbrush.
- The speech was a/an historic moment.
- This crummy/crumby software does not even have an automatic update feature!
Here are the Results from Last Week's Challenge:
|
Confusing word or phrase |
Percent incorrect |
|
toe the line |
17% |
|
hard row to hoe |
14% |
|
attributes |
7% |
|
sixty-four thousand dollar question |
3% |
|
moot |
0% |
We had quite a few winners, with 19 respondents getting 100 percent correct! Here are your winners, alphabetically by first name: Amanda P. Avallone, Beatrice W. Mukora, Bob Cunningham, Carla Craddock, Chris Zimmel , David Pitts, Irene McCoy, Jackie Knoy, Jim Dages, Jing Ping Fan, Karyn R Smith, Krista Allen, Nancy Wright , Susan Czubiak, Susan Klick, Tanya Davis , Tara Allen, Terri Schultz, and Toni Wills. Congratulations!
The hardest idiomatic expression appears to be toe the line, with 17 percent of respondents answering tow the line. I was not surprised that this one was among the hardest, because I have heard people not only argue that the word is tow, but also give a detailed explanation involving horses towing barges up a canal. Reliable authorities, however, including the Merriam Webster Dictionary online, agree that the expression is toe the line, meaning conform to rigid standards. The origin is variously attributed to something sailors or students were made to do during roll calls--stand perfectly lined up side by side with their toes all touching some kind of line on the floor--or to making sure your toe does not cross some kind of starting line in a sport or fight such as racing or sword fighting.
The second hardest idiomatic expression turned out to be hard row to hoe--an expression from farming, involving the back-ache-inducing task of hoeing the weeds out of a row of plants such as corn. Having had some experience with hoeing rows of corn, I personally think the expression really should be "long row to hoe" rather than "hard row to hoe," because of the dismay one feels when looking down the row of corn to see how far is still left to go compared with how far one has already come. I suppose how hard the ground is also plays a role in how hard a row is to hoe, and I suspect that the "road" to hoe expression might come from someone's play on words indicating that the ground was so hard that it was like hoeing a road. But that is pure speculation, and does not change the fact that hard row to hoe is correct.
Attribute--to state that one thing is the cause of another;contribute--to make a donation. Confusion probably comes from the fact that multiple causes might contribute to a result, but when a person is the subject of the sentence and is making a judgment as to what caused something, the word is attribute. You attribute the result to causes, and causes contribute to a result.
Carla Craddock brings up an interesting point about the sixty-four thousand dollar question: who cares what the number is, since everyone knows that your point is that it is an important question? What an interesting point! In fact, you have made me realize that using these expressions "correctly" may mean we are using a lot of clichés. Using them somewhat differently than the standard usage might actually be a good idea, to give a fresh take to these phrases. Nevertheless, you want to make sure you know whether you are deliberately playing with these phrases or just plain getting them wrong. Probably most readers will understand you (or be able to figure it out, given Google) if you write tow the line or road to hoe. But with idiomatic expressions, there is usually some specific source of the saying--in this case a radio quiz show in the 1940s and a TV quiz show of the 1950s--and careful readers will know the difference if you use the wrong word.
I am reminded of a colleague who was assigned the job of finding art for an article in a magazine. The article was titled "Ugly Ducklings," so she had found a photograph of some web-footed, wide-billed birds and was set to go. When she showed the art to the editorial board, however, her bad luck came into play: three out of the five members of the editorial board were avid birdwatchers, and they burst out almost simultaneously with "Those aren't ducks! They are geese!" Needless to say, that art was nixed, and some graphics of actual ducklings, along with an image of a swan, went into the layout. Extra points to anyone who can tell me why a swan photo was accepted!
No one missed the moot point/mute point question. Maybe I should have asked, "How do you pronounce moot?" I know I hear people call this a "mute" point quite frequently. Moot rhymes with what a cow says: moo. And, by the way, the birdwatchers can also tell you that there is such a thing as a mute swan!
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