Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Is that a discreet bulge, or ...

I'm generally forgiving of homophone misspellings -- in fact, one of my pet peeves is the way language scolds like to label such misspellings "confusions," suggesting that people don't know the difference between then and than or loose and lose when the misstep is plainly (in context) a matter of spelling. The right word is intended -- nobody confuses the meanings of then and than -- but the letters are wrong.

The tougher cases come with words whose meanings can overlap significantly. Disperse for disburse is fairly common, and often can't be ruled absolutely wrong; party hearty and party hardy are both plausible; even reign in for rein in often makes a sort of sense. (As in the campaign literature of a just-defeated candidate for Mass. State Auditor who promised to "reign in wasteful political spending.")

And here's one from today's Wall Street Journal article on new FDA-approved technologies to zap body fat. Mitchell Levinson, chief scientific officer of Zeltiq (which freezes away fat cells), is quoted as saying "This is for patients who have a discreet bulge they want to get rid of." But wait: If the bulge is a "discreet" one, why pay thousands to reduce it?

I think Levinson, man of science, said discrete. But in stories about liposuction, plastic surgery, and the like, the word discreet is much more common -- roughly twice as likely in raw ghits. And it was that context, I suspect, that made discreet look OK to the writer or editor or both. (That's my theory, at least. Now I'll go ask Melinda Beck, author of the otherwise excellent article, whether I've guessed right.)

6 comments:

Steve Hall said...

Jan, I'm wondering if you're trying to introduce a new word with "ghits." I like it, by the way!

Anonymous said...

1. what does "raw ghits" mean?
2. what does a "discrete bulge" look like? A roll of fat isn't really discrete from the rest of the body, so I don't see how this would have made more sense. A "discrete bulge" sounds like something you could lop off with a scalpel (or hatchet).

Jan said...

Steve: No, ghits isn't mine -- I picked it up from Language Log, which credited it to Trevor at Kaleboel. Discussion is at:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000438.html

Anon: Raw ghits is short for raw google hits -- not checked for duplicates, irrelevancies, etc. A rough and ready way to compare frequencies at a given moment.

As for "discrete bulge," I'm guessing you're a male. Women were long lured by promises of "spot reducing" -- exercises to target just a tummy bulge or flabby arm -- till science finally said you couldn't exercise away such discrete fat deposits; you have to lose all over. Only since liposuction has there been a way to attack specific (i.e. discrete) bulges and bumps.

Anonymous said...

I'm not a male, and I am familiar with the debunked concept of "spot toning," but your explanation makes sense. Thanks for clearing that up. And I like ghits too!

Shay said...

I've run across the "discrete/discreet" mistake at least four times in the past month. That one and "gifted" really get to me.

Drake Sigar said...

I don’t think the self-proclaimed ‘recovering nitpicker’ blog description does you justice. :)