How to Tell Fate from Destiny
Charles Harrington Elster
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The difference between these words is the difference between performance and potential, between doing something and doing something more.
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Concur implies agreement reached independently. When you concur with a statement, you agree on your own without pressure from the person or source that made it.
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If you pronounce it as a word, it’s an acronym: AIDS, PIN, NASA, SARS, NAFTA, OSHA, DARE, ZIP (code). If you pronounce the letters, it’s an initialism: CD, FYI, LOL, SUV, DOA, HIV, UFO.
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Ado is busy or troublesome activity, fuss, commotion, as in much ado about nothing.
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It may help to remember that averse is invariably followed by the preposition to, while adverse is usually followed by a noun.
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“If you affect something, there will be an effect.”
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When something is effected, accomplished, brought about, people are affected, influenced, by it. One thing can affect (influence) another, and when it does there is an effect (result) that has been effected (brought about).
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More specifically, an era is a time in history “marked by a new or distinct order of things” (Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary): the Precambrian era; the Christian era; the Renaissance era; an era of technological innovation. An
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An alternate route is a backup route, the one you take when you can’t take your regular route. An alternative route is a route you choose to take because there’s less traffic, it’s more scenic, or you’re bored with the usual route. An alternate plan is the plan you adopt when the original one fails. An alternative plan is an additional plan that you consider or that you choose because you don’t like the original plan.
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Altogether means “completely, entirely, thoroughly, wholly” (an altogether different situation, altogether wretched weather), or sometimes “on the whole” (altogether a success) or “in all” (has published ten books altogether). All together means “all united, all in the same place or at the same time” (all together on stage).
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An amateur, by derivation, is someone who pursues an activity out of love for it (from the Latin amāre, to love) rather than for personal gain. Amateurs may be very good at what they do and even compete at the highest levels (as in the Olympics), but the word still connotes a nonprofessional who engages in something for pleasure.
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Vagrant is related to the Latin vagārī, to wander, and means “wandering about with no fixed purpose.”
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Observing the distinction between anxious and eager qualifies you as a conscientious user of the language, a person who makes decisions about usage based not on how words are habitually used but on how they are intelligently used.
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a priori, a posteriori These terms, used in logic and philosophy, refer to opposite types of reasoning. A priori, which means literally “from what comes before,” is also known as deductive reasoning. When you reason a priori, you reason from the general to the specific, reaching conclusions or determining consequences from presuppositions or self-evident principles. A posteriori, which means literally “from what comes after,” is also known as inductive reasoning or empirical reasoning. When you reason a posteriori, you reason from observation or experience, from the specific to the general, reaching conclusions, making generalizations, or developing theories based on facts.
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In law, the notion that a defendant is innocent until proved guilty is called “presumption of innocence,” which Black’s Law Dictionary defines as “the fundamental principle that a person may not be convicted of a crime unless the government proves guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, without any burden placed on the accused to prove innocence.”
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Serendipity means “the ability to make, or the act of making, desirable and fortunate discoveries by accident.”