The sounds-like syndrome manifests itself when a word, usually one just a bit more refined that most people can handle, becomes confused with and then used as a pretentious substitute for another word that is similar in sound but different in meaning. If the error is repeated by enough people, often the result is that we lose one perfectly good word with a deserving role in the language and wind up with two words that mean the same thing —one the common word that has quietly done its job all along, the other an ostentatious and officious upstart.

In short, the sounds-like syndrome refers to pairs of words that are consistently confused because of their similar sound, with one word tending to eclipse the meaning of the other. Let me give you a few examples of these commonly confused words. As you read them, ask yourself if you can distinguish their meanings: fortuitous and fortunate; apprise and appraise; comprise and compose; deprecate and depreciate; enormity and enormousness; precipitous and precipitate; and parameter and perimeter.

All right, are you confused enough yet?

In each example given, the two words do not have the same or even a similar meaning. Yet every day one member of each pair is wrenched from its proper place in the language and forced to do the work of the other, as if it were a nut or bolt in a piece of machinery that could fit here or fit there, and serve as well holding one part together as another. But words are not like nuts and bolts—mass-produced, nondescript, interchangeable. They are more like the people who use them—individual, distinct, and irreplaceable.

Why do such confusions happen? First, because people make mistakes and appropriate the errors of others without realizing it. I am not a member of the school that maintains there is a conspiracy at work to corrupt the English language. No one is out there plotting to spread bad usage. What happens is that people hear or read something, and because they respect the person who said or wrote it, or they like the way it sounds, they think it must be right. Then they leave it at that, unaware that what they have just assimilated may be a solecism. (As you may recall from the discussion in Level 6 of words derived from Greek names, a solecism is a gross error of grammar or usage.)

The second reason these confusions happen may be attributed to human nature. Because people get bored using the same old words to say the same old things, and because they fear they will appear boring to others if they use the same old words everyone else uses, they start looking for novel ways to express themselves. This restless eagerness to impress others often leads people to substitute an ostensibly more elegant word for a familiar one, or to experiment with an unusual word they have not taken the trouble to learn. For example, they think, “Fortuitous looks like fortunate and sounds like fortunate, so it probably means pretty much the same thing. If we slip it in when we mean fortunate, we’ll sound more intelligent and no harm done, right?” I’m sorry, but that kind of logic just doesn’t wash. The arbitrary substitution or appropriation of a word, whether intentional or not, almost always has a deleterious effect upon the language.

Fortuitous means happening by chance, accidental, unexpected. Though we usually use fortuitous to refer to what the dictionaries like to call “happy accidents,” and though we rarely use it to refer to a chance event of an unfortunate nature (for instance, you wouldn’t say “a fortuitous earthquake”), the fact remains that in precise usage fortuitous is not interchangeable with fortunate. Allow me to give you an example that I think will illustrate the point. It’s not unreasonable to infer from the phrase “a fortuitous meeting” that the meeting may be a fortunate, or lucky, one. But consider how the meaning of fortuitous becomes clear when I finish the sentence in this way: “A fortuitous meeting with Mr. Percival Sneed was the cause of his death.” There’s no way you can use fortunate in that sentence, unless you are trying to be droll. (If you need to remind yourself of the precise meaning of droll, it’s word 36 of Level 5.)

Now let’s take a moment to distinguish the other pairs of words I mentioned earlier as examples of the sounds-like syndrome.

Apprise (uh-PRYZ) and appraise (uh-PRAYZ): To apprise means to inform. To appraise means to evaluate or estimate the worth of. You apprise a coworker of what went on in the office while she was away. You appraise antiques, rare books, and works of art.

Comprise and compose: As I noted way back in Level 2, comprise properly means to include, contain, or consist of. It should not be used to mean compose, which means “to make up.” The rule for comprise is that “the whole comprises its parts; the parts compose the whole.” Do not say the United States is comprised of fifty states, or that fifty states comprise the United States. Say the United States comprises fifty states, or the United States is composed of fifty states.

Deprecate (DEP-ri-KAYT) and depreciate (di-PREE-shee-ayt): To deprecate means to express disapproval of. To depreciate means to belittle, disparage, lessen in value. When you deprecate something you show your disapproval of it; a deprecating look is a disapproving look. When you depreciate something you belittle it, treat it as inferior or of little value; a depreciating remark is a disparaging remark, one that shows a lack of appreciation for something.

Enormity and enormousness: Many people erroneously use enormity to mean enormousness. Enormousness means the state or quality of being enormous, extremely large or great. We speak of the enormousness of the Rocky Mountains or the enormousness of a project, not the enormity of them. Enormity refers to something morally outrageous or appalling, a monstrous evil or offense. We speak of the enormity of a crime, or the enormity of Adolph Hitler’s diabolical “final solution.”

Precipitous (pri-SIP-i-tus) and precipitate (pri-SIP-i-tit): Precipitous means steep, like a precipice. Precipitate means rash, reckless, hasty, or sudden, abrupt, unexpected. The problem occurs when precipitous, steep, is used in place of precipitate, rash or abrupt, in such constructions as “a precipitous decision to change jobs,” or “an escalating crisis heading precipitously toward war.” A sudden or unexpected decision should be a precipitate decision, and a crisis that moves with reckless haste toward conflict should head precipitately toward conflict. Use precipitous only when you mean steep. A steep rise in profits is a precipitous rise. A precipitous decline in unemployment is a steep decline.

Parameter and perimeter: Most people who use parameter have no idea that it’s an obscure mathematical term that has been pressed into service not only as a substitute for perimeter, which means a limit or boundary, but also as a pretentious synonym for characteristic and feature. And so today we hear and read such enormities of English prose as “We have to work within certain parameters,” and “The design has several new parameters,” when clearly what is meant is that the work must go on within certain limits (perimeters) and the design has several new features or characteristics. To me, the word parameter sounds extraterrestrial, and ought to be shot on sight. To borrow a quip from the respected language authority Bergen Evans, who borrowed his quip from one of the greatest quipsters, Mark Twain, you could start building a very expressive vocabulary just by leaving parameter out.

In closing this discussion of the sounds-like syndrome, I should note that if you look up these or other commonly confused words in a dictionary, you may find them listed as synonyms, often without comment. Don’t be bamboozled by that: their equation in the dictionary does not necessarily justify interchanging the words or substituting one for the other; it is simply a reflection of their continual misuse by people who are not aware that careful writers and speakers take pains to preserve their distinctions in meaning. Keep in mind that dictionaries, being descriptive rather than prescriptive documents, eventually will recognize common errors of usage, even though careful writers and speakers continue to eschew those errors and criticize them.