Common Misconceptions

While reading the paper yesterday, I came across the sentence, "It was such a travesty that [blah blah blah]". This sentence became the inspiration for this most recent post. There are a good deal of words misused in English with startling frequency. Travesty is one such word. The actual definition of a travesty is a grotesque imitation of a literary or theatrical work, a kind of parody, and thus is not to be used interchangeably with tragedy, as it often is.

A personal pet peeve of mine is the rampant misuse of till. Even national chains advertise with, "Open Late, Saturday 'Til 8!" 'Til is a hypercorrection of till -- people assume that it derives from until, with the apostrophe replacing the un-, when in actuality, till was the original form, and until developed from that with the addition of the prefix un-, meaning "up to". This hypercorrection dates back as far the 18th century, with people assuming 'till was the shortened form, and as such it has become a somewhat accepted use -- but it's still incorrect.

Peruse, contrary to popular belief, doesn't mean to hastily glance at or skim -- in fact, its definition is quite the opposite. meaning to read thoroughly. The word derives from post-classical Latin peruti, perusitare, meaning "to use up, wear out" (branch I), as well as from Anglo-Norman peruser, "to examine" (branch II). Susan has added the following note:

Branch 1 is obsolete, but "peruse" was once used to mean "to use up." I don't know if the old sense has any connection with the current (although it's possible to wear out an inquiry by too frequent scrutiny, I suppose?) but Branch 2 comes from Anglo-Norman, which means that it likely had some roots in Latin as well. Yet another thing for which we have the French to thank-- I'll be posting more about that come Tuesday :D.

--happy foreshadowing-- :)