Wee sea trouble

JUNE CASAGRANDE

Sum thymes, sum word pears our a reel pane.

Translation: The creation of the English language was just part of

a huge cosmic conspiracy to frustrate me and others like me.

Here’s a little test to determine whether you can count yourself

in that group: What’s the difference between troop and troupe,

between disk and disc, between preventive and preventative?

If you know the answer to all of these, then you’re doing three

times as well as I am. (I’ll look up all three in a minute.)

The above are just a few examples that a crack team of Daily Pilot

experts came up with after I asked for suggestions on commonly

confused word groups. But it turns out I wasn’t even educated enough

to ask the question, because I didn’t know what to call these

confusing groups. So, with a fuzzy recollection of a seventh-grade

lesson on homonyms, synonyms, antonyms and other -nyms, I set out to

find an answer.

A homonym, according to American Heritage Dictionary on Yahoo!, is

“one of two or more words that have the same sound and often the same

spelling but differ in meaning.”

Well, that wasn’t it exactly. I was thinking more of words with

different spellings. So after some pell-mell Internet searching, I

came across this word: “Homophone: One of two or more words, such as

night and knight, that are pronounced the same but differ in meaning,

origin and sometimes spelling.”

That’s better, but I still wasn’t sure that was exactly what I was

trying to say.

Luckily, I’m a journalist, which means I have a certain genius for

phrasing things in a way that conceals gaps in my understanding of

any and every subject.

Thus, reverting to the “cover-my-backside” phraseology, here are

just a couple examples of the word groups suggested by colleagues

that I hereby term “these confusing word groups.”

Preventive/preventative made my list because I never knew which

one to use. I do now. While Webster’s New World College Dictionary

lists preventative as a variation on preventive, the “Chicago Manual

of Style” is a little more judgmental. “Although the corrupt form

preventative is fairly common, the strictly correct form is

preventive.”

Why is it that every time I open this book, I feel like I’m in the

presence of someone wielding a hickory stick or a ruler with which to

whack my “corrupt” little knuckles?

Moving on ... .

Apparently, neither of my style books cares to weigh in on the

subject of troop vs. troupe. Even the dictionary seems a little shaky

on this one. Believe it or not, the one with the U is listed as an

Americanism. That’s the opposite of the lesson of words such as

color/colour and behavior/behaviour, in which the British spelling

takes the U.

If we are to trust our American dictionary on this one, troupe

means “a group of actors, singers, etc.” whereas troop is much

broader: a group of people or animals.

Disc/disk is the one I knew without even looking. I’d be proud,

but apparently, it’s one everyone seems to know without looking. I’m

constantly amazed by this one because, subtle as the difference is, I

don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone get it wrong.

To test this theory, I asked Pilot columnist Lolita Harper to

explain, off the top of her head, the difference.

“I usually think of disk with a K as computer disk and disc with a

C as a compact disc,” Lolita said.

Yup. That’s it.

Here’s the longer version, according to the cruel Chicago school

marms:

“‘Disk’ is the usual spelling. But ‘disc’ is preferred in a few

specialized applications, ‘compact disc,’ ‘disc brakes.’”

Sea? Theirs know reel pane hear four ewe.

* JUNE CASAGRANDE covers Newport Beach and John Wayne Airport. She

may be reached at (949) 574-4232 or by e-mail at

june.casagrande@latimes.com.