Saturday, April 15, 2006

language ranticle

A small rant-- a mere ranticle.

The words are enmity (EN-mity) and remuneration (re-MU-neration), folks. Not emnity and renumeration.

I know what you're thinking: you think EM-nity makes sense because it roughly matches the spelling of words like con-DEM-nation. You also think that it's re-NUM-eration because the "numer" somehow reminds you of "number," which you associate with money. (You might also be thinking of "numismatics," i.e., coin collection and study.)

Trust me: I thought that way myself about those two words. But I was wrong, and I purged myself of that particular bit of ignorance years ago. In cruising some online articles this evening, though, I saw my old bugbears, alive and well, roaming on other people's blogs.

If you happen to see "emnity" and "renumeration" anywhere near you during your online safari, grab a high-power rifle, shoot 'em dead, skin 'em, and restock the veldt with "enmity" and "remuneration."

That is all.


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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Being quite anal retentive myself when it comes to language, I feel your pain. But it surprises me that people would say "emnity" rather than "enmity." I've never heard that before. It's a lot harder to say "emnity" than it is to say "enmity," too, so that doesn't make too much sense. Unless it's only an error made in writing...?

Kevin Kim said...

Charles,

I think a lot of people mistakenly gravitate toward "emnity" because the combination "emn" occurs in words like "condemnation" and "indemnity." I was making that mistake for years, and I'd argue-- given the people I know who still make that mistake-- that's it's actually pretty easy to make.

Out of sheer monkey curiosity, I did a Google search on the misspelling "emnity," and got a whopping 70,900 results. It should be noted, though, that some of those results include correct spellings of the word, such as the online Webster's entry for "enmity."


Kevin