1. Conscience and conscious. These two are way too similar.
2. Casual – this word I understood to mean “relaxed”, “informal”, “toned-down.” As a kid, however, dressing casually always meant dressing up.
3. Thoroughfare – I mispronounced this word “THRU-fare” and everyone in the car laughed at me. “No thoroughfare” means you can’t get through! Thorough has nothing to do with it! Turns out thorough is Old English for through. Time to update this word.
4. Invaluable – “in” means “not”. How hard could this be? How often does a word mean the exact opposite of what you expected it to mean?
5. Nonfiction – Did anyone have a hard time keeping fiction and nonfiction straight? Fiction, fictitious, false, got it. That makes nonfiction “not made up stuff”. So, you mean like “real?” “true”? Can’t we pick a word other than “notfalse?”
3 comments:
original.
on a box of wheat thins: "original flavor", meaning the standard
or
complimenting someone's idea as "original" meaning new and different.
One of my favorites is cleave.
Cleave: v. to adhere closely, cling or stick.
Cleave: v. to split, divide, sever
I never did like nonfiction neither. This isn't misunderstanding a word, but I never connected the word "indict" with its pronunciation of "indite" until, like, college. I heard and used the word in speaking, but I thought the written word was a whole different one.
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