Thursday 4 September 2014

Grow Your #Vocabulary: This post has been brought to you by the Letter J

Five words commonly misused, confused or misspelled.

Jalapeno: (ha le pein yoh) "a hot green or orange-red pepper".

Jewellery vs Jewelry: Jewellery is the British spelling, while Jewelry is the American spelling. Both are correct.

Jibe vs Jive: Jibe is a sailing term, and can also mean to be "in accord, agree, harmonize". Whereas Jive is a type of music, a dance, and slang for "teasing and exaggeration", or to "fool, be insincere or deceptive".

Just Deserts: The term correct term is Just Deserts and dates back to the 1300's, from the root word deserve. It means gets what one deserves (either good or bad), or "an out come in which virtue triumphs over vice (often ironically)". The term has nothing to do with sweets, but the confusion seems to come from the fact that desert and dessert in this case are pronounced the same. The term Just Desserts is often used in reference to food as a play on words, and in that case Just Desserts is correct.

Judgment vs Judgement: The proper spelling is judgment, and means "a determination of a court of law, or judicial decision". That being said, Judgement with an "e" has become very common and an accepted spelling when used in a non-legal context.  


Yep, just me Cathy thinking out loud about the letter "J".

1 comment :

  1. I didn't know that about judgment. Now that I look at it, writing it "with the e" doesn't look right but then again, it's late ;) Love these memes.

    Besos, Sarah
    Blogger at Journeys of The Zoo

    ReplyDelete