Wood On Words
Can’t get enough words about words with Sunday’s newspaper column? Then this blog’s for you, my word-craving friend. I work the late shift, so don’t look for responses until the next day.

You could — and should — look it up

May 20th, 2008 at 06:45am Barry Wood

A reader asked about the use of “emplies” in a recent cartoon dialogue balloon. There is no such word, although “imply” came to us from the Old French “emplier.” But its older Latin ancestor is “implicare.”

There are no all-encompassing rules for determining which of the four prefixes, “im-,” “em-,” “en-” or “in-,” is correct in any particular circumstance. Likewise, good luck guessing whether a word should end in “-able” or “-ible.”

Some things just need to be looked up. There is no shame in it. And even if you could memorize all the various permutations of such words, imagine what your brain could do with all the space taken up by that.

Entry Filed under: prefixes

5 Comments Add your own

  • 1. leonard jacobs  |  May 20th, 2008 at 3:12 pm

    Although not the subject, what about indentation? It appears that paragraphs on the computer (such as yours) leave a line open between paragraphs and then do not make an indentation to start another paragraph.

  • 2. Karl Vocal  |  May 21st, 2008 at 8:35 am

    Indentation is old school. It really isn’t used anymore, is it?

  • 3. Barry Wood  |  May 23rd, 2008 at 12:58 am

    I think indenting of paragraphs remains standard in most traditional publishing — books, magazine, newspapers. I still write an occasional letter — with a pen! — and use it there, too. I think it looks better. But it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I’m “old school” on some things. After all, I’m nearly 60.

  • 4. Leonardo duh Vinci  |  May 23rd, 2008 at 8:12 am

    I’m trying to figure out if there is a difference in using AN OTHER and ANOTHER..

  • 5. Barry Wood  |  May 23rd, 2008 at 11:22 pm

    In the case of “another” and “an other,” the difference is about 500 years. According to “The Oxford Dictionary of Word Histories,” the one-word version replaced the two-word in the 16th century.
    I can’t think of an instance where “an other” would be preferable to “another” these days. It would have to be something unusual.
    However, “another” is often misused and in general overused. I think I smell another blog in the works.

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