You know reaching here today was so difficult. I faced some averse circumstances, Uhh no
may be adverse circumstances. averse, adverse, okay I'm kinda confused. Does this happen
to you? Like do you also get confused between certain words and then end up misusing them?
Well which is why we have come up with today's lesson. Today's lesson is about words that
are commonly misused in the English language.
Hello and welcome to today's lesson, my name is Rima and I'm going to talk about certain
words that people end up misusing in the English language because of may be their similarity
in spellings, similarity in pronunciation. Whatever could be the reason but it's not
correct and which is why today we are going to take out some time and correct all these
misused words and then start using them correctly.
Okay so the first word that I have for you is adverse and most often it's confused with
averse, okay. Could be because there is only one extra’d’ in adverse as compared to
averse and the words appear similar. Now let me tell you what the meaning of adverse is.
The meaning of adverse is something that stops progress
whereas averse means not inclined towards. Confused? Well don't be. I'm going to give
you an example which is going to make it very simple. Now, let's say Sheila faced some adverse
circumstances when she was young. Okay which means, she faced some difficult circumstances
or she faced circumstances or situations which stopped her progressing in some way. Okay.
At the same time, If I say, Sheila is averse to the English language. That means she is
not inclined towards the English language. Now that is the stark and clear difference
between adverse and averse. So these words are not to be swapped, not to be confused
in any way.
okay, moving on I have the next pair. Now this one can be very confusing. this is appraise
and this is apprise. Now if you pay attention closely you'll notice, there's an extra 'a'
in the spelling here, which is why some people end up getting confused and misusing these
words. Now the meaning of appraise is to discern or find the value of something. Okay and apprise
means to inform someone about something. Now if I have to give you an example, I'll say,
I tried to look at the car and appraise its value meaning I tried to look at the car closely.
I tried to inspect it and find out or guess the value or the cost of the car, okay? But
if I have to use apprise, I'm going to say, when Susan came home, I apprised her of the
situation meaning when Susan came home I informed her about a certain situation. So that's the
difference between appraise and apprise. One means to find the value of some object or
something, okay? and the other one means to inform somebody about something.
Moving on, I have another pair, now this one can be very confusing. bemused and amused,
my God, they sound so similar right, okay. But bemused actually means confused or bewildered
and amused means to find something funny. okay so let's say you are watching a film.
A film with a very complex plot, a very difficult to understand story. So you could say something
like, The complex story of the movie left me bemused meaning it left you confused and
bewildered and you kind of felt a little lost there. But if you have to use amused, you
could say, the funny dialogues in the movie left me amused or I was amused by Susan's
behaviour at the party. Let's say Susan got a little tipsy and she was behaving a little
funny and her behaviour amused you and ended up finding it funny. so that's the difference
between bemused and amused and what do we have next?
Hmm... almost similar but completely different in meaning. Depreciate and deprecate, okay.
Now please pay attention to the pronunciation. Depreciate and deprecate. Okay the 'c' sound
here is an s' sound and the 'c' sound here is a 'k' sound. Okay so depreciate means the
value of something lessens or reduces and deprecate means to badmouth or disrespect
something or someone. okay, I have realized that the value of certain assets depreciates
over the years. okay, so that means the value of certain things, material things reduces
as time passes and as they get older. Okay and deprecate means that the organization
ended up deprecating the other organization because of their bad ethics. Okay let's say
there are two organizations and they are bad mouthing or disrespecting each other, then
you could use the word deprecate in saying, you know that one organization ended up deprecating
the other or you could say I found Susan's behaviour deprecating towards me. Meaning
the way Susan was behaving was fairly disrespectful or was almost like badmouthing the company.
Okay so that is your word pair. There's depreciate and deprecate.
Moving on, there is disinterested and uninterested. Now trust me this is the most confusing pair
and I'm actually going to put a star here because 90% of the people I know are using
this absolutely wrong. Okay it's completely misused. Disinterested and uninterested do
not mean the same thing. people actually think that disinterested and uninterested are two
different words but they mean the same thing and they actually use them in the same context.
Let me tell you, they do not mean the same thing. Now disinterested actually means somebody
who has no common interest or somebody who is unbiased, okay. Now let's say two friends
are fighting and I am the disinterested party. Does not mean that I'm not interested in the
fight. It means that I'm the party or I'm the person who is not biased in this fight,
who doesn't have a particular opinion that sides either with one party or the other.
I am the neutral party which means I'm the unbiased party or the disinterested party.
Okay, moving on, uninterested is fairly simple. It means you are just interested, okay. Not
interested. the movie was uninteresting meaning it just did not catch or hold my interest.
I didn't find it interesting, okay. But I will not say that I was disinterested in the
movie. I will say I was uninterested in the movie because if I said, I was disinterested
in the movie it meant that I had no opinion of the movie. I didn't particularly like it
or dislike it. I was completely unbiased towards the movie. I hope I've made this difference
clear and that you will be very careful next time when you are using disinterested and
uninterested.
Moving on, the next one, now this one's a complete killer because this can really; really
make me burst into laughter. Enormity and enormousness. Most people think that these
two words actually mean the same thing. So they actually things like, the enormity of
the ocean move my heart and they believe that they are being very poetic and very polished.
Let me tell you that the meaning of enormity is, it's gonna surprise you, great evil. okay
which means enormity cannot be used for something as beautiful and poetic as the ocean. It needs
to be used for something as negative as a tornado or a Tsunami. So the enormity of the
destruction that the Tornado caused was overwhelming, right? because enormity means great evil or
great negative. Now enormousness means something that is really, really large or enormous.
okay so you could say, the enormousness of the ocean is very overwhelming. or the enormousness
of the ocean makes me feel like a very small human being. okay so you get the difference,
enormity stands for great evil not to be confused with enormousness and enormousness stands
for something that's large, expansive, massive, huge. Enormousness is to do with great size
and this has to do with great evil.
Okay, moving on we have our last pair for today and that is hung and hanged. Okay now
this is really simple, okay for hung, I'm just gonna draw something, okay. Let's say
this is a nail, okay and you hang something on it, okay or you suspend something on it.
Then I can say I have hung my rope on the nail. So hung actually means when you suspend
an object on top of something, okay. right, whereas hanged is when you hang a person in
a prison and you hang the person to death. Okay, so when I say that, if I say the rope
was hung on the nail meaning the rope was suspended on the nail, i will never say that
the rope was hanged on the nail because it is absolutely and completely wrong. and let's
say, there's a person who receives death penalty and is actually going to be hanged to death,
we cannot say that the prisoner was hung because if we say that, it means that the prisoner
was suspended on top of an object and kept there, when they are actually trying to say
that the prisoner was hanged meaning the prisoner had a rope tied around his neck and he was
hanged and suspended till he died. I hope you are able to get the difference.
Well those were my words which are most often misused in English, I really hope today's
lesson was enlightening for you and that from now on wards you will use these words correctly.
It's time for me, Rima to sign out, say bye and take care, I will catch you very, very
soon with yet another lesson.