Image by Anna Zielińska from Pixabay
Read has nothing to do with ready, and test has nothing to do with testy. We can tell these pairs apart easily. However there are some pairs that are difficult for non-native speakers like me to distinguish one from the other. No matter how many times I learn to tell them apart, the next encounter is still going to be confusion all over again. To these words, I am like those people who never learn, you know, those who will fall for a bad relationship no matter how many bad relationships (the same kind) they have already been through.
Here I am listing these words out. Still, probably I will still have the problem next time I see them, but the process of listing them makes me feel good, as if I’ve achieved something, as if by pointing them out I have solved the problem even if I haven’t.
Board, Broad, Aboard, Abroad,
These four words look very easy, but every time I see them, I have to pause a moment to ask myself, “Am I seeing what I see? Am I making a mistake?” A sentence that can include all four words is like this: The board members are on the broad staircase, trying to climb aboard the ship to go abroad.
Vindicate and Vindictive
This pair is also in my forever confusion list. Whenever I hear “he is vindicated” in a crime drama, I would ask myself if this person is being cleared of a suspicion or this person is very vengeful. And often in a crime drama, the two words appear more frequently than under other circumstances.
vindicate: clear (someone) of blame or suspicion. show or prove to be right, reasonable, or justified
vindictive: having or showing a strong or unreasoning desire for revenge.
Sanction and Sanctity
When I first learned the word “sanction”, I was completely confused since the word means both disapproval and approval. How can this be possible? Many years later, I finally realized what this word means when I was reading a book that says, “I cannot love somebody in a cage–meaning love has to be free and a person cannot love when she is under sanction.” Here the meaning of sanction is very clear–it means both disapproval and approval by an authority in real existence or in imaginary existence. When the authority is in imaginary existence, we basically sanction ourselves.
sanction: 1. a threatened penalty for disobeying a law or rule. 2. official permission or approval for an action.
sanctity: the state or quality of being holy, sacred, or saintly.
Overlook and Oversee
The two words are similar, but the meaning is very different.
overlook: fail to notice
oversee: supervise (a person or work), especially in an official capacity.
Stamp and Stampede
stamp: bring down (one’s foot) heavily on the ground or on something on the ground.
stampede: a sudden panicked rush of a number of horses, cattle, or other animals.
Prerogative and Pejorative
prerogative: An exclusive right or privilege held by a person or group, especially a hereditary or official right.
pejorative: expressing contempt or disapproval.
Haoyan Do 
‘pejorative’ is new to me. Thank you for sharing!
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It is a very tricky word and I am trying to write a post about this word. Thank you for inspiring me.
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Rather, your post is vindicated to be awesome …? Now I’m confused. Anyway, cool post!
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I can never get vindicated and vindictive right. LOL.
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LOL 😂
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Your post is vindicated as awesome. 😊
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Hahaha. I feel vindicated by your wonderful comment.
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I never thought about this type of phenomena in the English language. I learn something new everyday!
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I forgot what kind of phenomena there are now and WP is making it impossible for me to trail our chain of conversation.
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The phenomena I was referring to is the confusing word pair, about how two words that sound similar can have different meanings.
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Yes, they were so confusing to me for years. LOL.
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It’s so interesting, that “overlook” and “oversee” have practically opposite meanings even though “look” and “see” mean nearly the same thing.
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So true. I used to get confused. The two are supposed to be similar, but end up not being so.
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They are confusing ones. Makes one do a double-take. But that’s the way the English language is. 🙂
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So true. It is a language with sooooo many words.
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The most misunderstood difference: that between ‘Can I?’ and ‘May I?’
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I can never figure out the difference. Often “may I’ is spoken with a little sarcasm, which is even more confounding.
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Can I? Is it possible? – May I? Am I allowed? As you rightly say, few people use ‘may I?’ properly
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The bored and bearded board members on the broad staircase boards are trying to climb aboard to go abroad without falling overboard.
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Love this sentence of yours. It is wonderful. I want to quote it in all my future post about these confusing words.
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I am flattered. It was inspired by your sentence!
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That’s a nice sentence you have, including even more words.
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I usually Google words like these when I use them just to make sure I’m using the correct one. I’m still not sure how to use prerogative properly though.
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So true. Prerogative is a word I can’t have a feel about. It just doesn’t stick to my mind in the “usable” section. I don’t know why.
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Same here. I’m glad someone else feels that way since it’s a pretty commonly used word. It’s just never stuck with me for whatever reason and I just never know how to properly use it.
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Thank you for saying that. You just inspired me to write a post about prerogative.
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Most words belong to the families of nouns, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns etc. Once you identify what family the word belongs to while in context, your problem should be alleviated.
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Yes, true. Thank you for stopping by and commenting.
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