Inferences and breakdowns
There are loads of skills involved in being a professional writer. There are so many boxes to tick, it could take a lifetime to tick them all, and you can be a good writer without ticking them all (plus editing is a whole other set…).
I know this. BUT I’m still surprised sometimes when people who write professionally – and are good at it – misuse words and grammar. I get that it’s just one element of writing well. I get that language evolves. I know lots of people don’t notice or care about grammar mistakes (and those who do will differ over the grey areas anyway). And I don’t want to be an old fuddy-duddy pedant, really. But some of the rules are there to help make things clear and quick to understand (like a prudent Oxford comma).
But what makes it matter for me is when we start to lose unique, useful words because we’ve stopped using them the right way. Here’s a couple of examples based on things I’ve had in my inbox this week…
Infer or imply? Indifferent or ambivalent?
Infer is not the same as imply. Inferences are not the same as implications. When you do the implying, I do the inferring: you’re hiding a little meaning in what you’re saying and I’m noticing it (or drawing my own inference, which might be not what you meant at all). Inferring is interpreting, ‘taking meaning from’. In other words, if you ask me: “What are you inferring?”, you’re asking about the inner workings of my mind and what I’m taking from the conversation. If you want to accuse me of making a slight, ask me: “What are you implying?”.
Ambivalent is not the same as indifferent. Indifference is not caring either way. Indifference isn’t going to keep you awake at night (at least not if it’s your own indifference…). Ambivalence is being torn between two positions. Ambivalence can be agonising. It can be desperately wanting both options – or neither – but having to choose one. We lose something if we take the two words to be synonymous.
Check out or checkout? Log in or login? Break down or breakdown?
I’m willing to admit perhaps this one is me being pedantic. Little bit. But maybe there are one or two people out there who care, but aren’t sure how it works...?
These are all verbs that run together when they’re made into compounds, whether they’re compound nouns or adjectives. What does that mean? Well, when you’ve finished shopping you might be ready to check out. That’s a thing you’re going to do – doing word = verb. When you want to go and check out, you go to THE checkout. That’s a place, a thing, so that’s a noun. You’re putting the doing words together to make a make a thing. Compound noun.
It works with hyphenated compounds too. When you’re doing the washing up, you use washing-up liquid.
It’s the same with clicking the login button when you want to log in, or going to a login page to enter your password so you can log in. Same with doing something every day until it becomes an everyday occurrence. But if you do truly amazing things every day, those things don’t necessarily become everyday in the same way brushing your teeth is a mundane, everyday task. (This is why I like the IKEA strap line ‘the wonderful everyday’, because it’s not saying you need wonderful things every day, it’s saying that there is beauty and wonder in everyday things when they’re well designed.)
Here’s one more: you can break down a task into smaller steps and give me your breakdown, which shows me how to break the task down the way you’d suggest. If I like your breakdown, I might share it with a friend, so they can break their tasks down your way too.
If you’re trying to figure out which is right, two words or one, try putting into the past tense. I checked out, two words, I went to the checkout, one. I broke down, I had a breakdown…
On that note, time for a tea break.