Answer: b.

Explanation:
A tortuous path is one with lots of twists and turns, as above. A torturous path may be just as twisty but might also include people at each turn of the path poking you with sharp sticks. Because torturous is the adjectival form of torture.

In this case, the path may have been tortuous AND torturous. There probably was some torture involved — nobody likes to be fired, of course. However, if you’re describing something with lots of twists and turns, the word you’re looking for is tortuous.

Lots of examples of errors in the online media. Here are a couple that popped up on the first page of results:

From the Orlando Sentinel:
Ban on texting starts torturous path in Legislature

From IAVI Report:
A less torturous path for antibodies

See more on the tortuous path of Apple Maps: (Hint: The article’s entitled “Google Maps is back on the iPhone and will fix everything that’s wrong with your life.”)

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Answer: Either.

Explanation:
Fount is short for fountain as a spring flows from the earth; metaphorically, it refers to a continuous source of something or other. A font, in this context, is more of a reservoir, like the baptismal font. So, although the original expression was “fount of all wisdom,” either works, depending on whether you consider someone to be an eternal source of wisdom or just a sort of holding tank for it. In either case, we often use “fount of all wisdom” sarcastically, implying that they may not be quite as wise as they are deemed to be.

I thought of writing this post because I referred to George Bush as a fount of malapropisms and other errors yesterday in a conversation on Twitter and then wondered about the relationship between the words fount and font.

They both derive from the Latin fons for fountain but came different routes:

From Merriam-Webster:
Fount: Middle English, from Old English, from Late Latin font-, fons, from Latin, fountain
Font: Middle English, from Old English, from Late Latin font-, fons, from Latin, fountain

I’m inclined toward fount, myself, but as Maeve Maddox wrote in her post Fount of Wisdom, “Do you see the figurative source of wisdom or information as a welling spring of water, or as a filled basin? I’ll stick with fount, but I’d hesitate to fault the speaker/writer who goes with font.”

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Answer: Either, although expropriated is more precise.

Explanation:
Appropriate (as a verb) and expropriate both mean to take something from someone else but expropriate also means to deprive someone of what you’re taking away, which is not necessarily the case with appropriate. If someone removes the X-Box from the staff lounge, that means that other employees won’t be able to gather for their noon Zumba Fitness Rush.

Expropriation suggests a high-handed approach, taking something through power, even if we might consider it to be an abuse of power or power assumed where it is not legitimate. The person who took the X-Box didn’t have the right to take it, they just went ahead and did it.

We often hear about government expropriation of property — the government, being the government, just takes it. They may pay the owner but they don’t give them the option of refusal.

Appropriation is often used to refer to the adoption of something that is not rightfully yours, although not necessarily depriving the rightful owner. It’s cultural appropriation, for example, when a Victoria’s Secret model struts down the runway in her skivvies and a Native-inspired war bonnet. In Literature, it’s considered appropriation of voice when one writer patterns their work on the distinctive style of another.

Grammarist looks at appropriate vs. expropriate and provides some examples of use.

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Which is correct?
I was _______ go to the staff party but, ironically, I had to work late.
a. suppose
b. supposed

Answer: b.

Explanation:
“Supposed,” in this context, means something like “expected.” People are sometimes confused about the expression because in speech it’s hard to hear the “d” on the end of the word next to the “t” of “to.”

See more about “suppose” vs. “supposed” here.

See 10 more holiday-themed grammar questions in this quiz: ‘Tis (or t’is?) the Season.

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a. hocking
b. hawking

Answer: b.

Explanation:

To hawk is to sell or attempt to sell something, especially to do so in a loud and intrusive manner. To hock is to pawn. So there is some  relationship between the words but they do not mean the same thing. Vendors hawk their products, for example. If they’re hocking them, on the other hand, that’s a bad sign. Avoid buying their stock.

Similarly, if lawyers were hocking compliance products it would mean they were taking them to the pawn shop to see what they could get for them. Also not a good sign — avoid hiring those lawyers.

***

Grammarist explains that hawker came before hawk:

“In the selling-related sense, hawk is a backformation from hawker, an Anglicization of an old German word.“

***

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Answer: a.

Explanation:
To wit means namely. To whit doesn’t mean anything. A whit is a teeny, tiny amount. You might say, for example, that you care not a whit that Mark Zuckerberg lost $8 billion in that IPO — especially since he’s still got several more billions (reportedly 9.4 of them) to tide him over. That should keep him in hoodies and running shoes for a while.

That example is how the phrase is generally used, too: I care not a whit, rather than I don’t care a whit. If I care not a whit seems a little starchy to you, there’s a rhyming expression that’s more in the common vernacular: I don’t give a ____. Essentially means the same thing but won’t have your friends making fun of you.

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The Grammarphobia blog explains more about to wit:

In Anglo-Saxon days, a now-archaic verb “wit” meant something like to know, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED’s earliest example of this usage is in King Alfred’s translation of Boethius from around the year 888.

The expression “to wit,” first recorded in 1320, originally meant “it is to be observed, noted, or ascertained.” Later (around 1400), it came to mean “to be sure” or “indeed” or “namely.”

The “wit” part of the phrase was written all sorts of ways for the first few hundred years: “wite,” “witen,” “wetynge,” and so on.

It wasn’t until the late 16th century that the expression “to wit” took on its modern meaning: namely or that is to say. The earliest citation in the OED (from 1577) says “the beginning of vertue is of Nature, to wyt of Perfect Nature.”

As a nature junkie, I especially like this citation from an 1875 book about the history of Maine: “Thrice nine ridges … to wit, nine of bog, nine of smooth and nine of wood.”

If you’d like to read more about Peter Cohan’s valuation of Facebook, his Forbes post is here.

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Answer: b.

Explanation:
“Someday” refers to an unspecified time in the future, as in “Someday my prince will come.” As two words, “some day” refers to an unspecified but specific day: The interview will be scheduled for a particular but unspecified day the following week. “Someday” is incorrect in that context.

Confusingly, you can substitute “some day” for situations where “someday” works — but not vice versa.

Grammarist explains more about “someday” vs. “some day.”

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Explanation:
With due respect is an acknowledgement of the respect that the entity deserves — all the respect that is due (owed) to them. The phrase is used to soften a negative statement, such as a criticism or an unfavorable comparison.

I came across a few references online to “do respect” meaning “showing respect through actions” and “do diligence” meaning “diligence in actions.”

Here’s one example:

“I remember that this phrase used to be kicked around quite a lot. “Do” diligence was to invest totally into the task at hand. At least that is the way I heard it used growing up and applied it myself.”

That’s a reasonable assumption to make if you hear “do diligence” and consider the definition. However “due diligence” means the diligence that should be applied, such as the degree of effort required by regulation.

Paul Brians list of common errors includes “do respect.”

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a. dependent
b. dependant

Answer: a.

Explanation:
Dependent is an adjective meaning reliant upon. Dependant is a noun, meaning one who is dependent, as a child is reliant upon her parents.

The value of the dependent variable depends on the input to the equation:

In a simple mathematical equation, for example:

a = b/c

the dependent variable, a , is determined by the values of b and c.

@grammarmonster provides more examples of dependent vs. dependant and a quiz.

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Explanation:
This one’s for my husband, Douglas Malcolm, who reaped the worldwind in his time as an English prof (along with other gems like “bethatasitmay” and an essay on the myth of Icarus and Dicarus*).

Worldwind (sometimes spelled world wind) is an eggcorn. (According to Nancy Friedman (@fritinancy), an eggcorn is “a mis-heard term that’s assigned a creative spelling (and definition too, usually). The Eggcorn Database lists six citations of world wind for whirlwind, and they’re probably just the tip of the cyclone.”

Friedman reaped her worldwind and reported on it in a 2009 post, Eggcorns Caught in Love Nest. She was shocked by a deeply purple email from disgraced NC governor Mark Sanford to his Argentinian mistress. Well, it was not the deep purple prose that shocked Friedman (Sample: “the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of night’s light”), but a totally G-rated phrase: “taking the family to China, Tibet, Nepal, India, Thailand and then back through Hong Kong on world wind tour.”

World wind. I’m a little iffy on public disclosure of private matters, like affairs. But I do feel that an error like world wind tells us something about the writer — and it may be something that means they shouldn’t be allowed to hold public office.

*Correction:

Husband: I think you did some creative remembering about Icarus and Dicarus.

Me: It was something along those lines. Diddleous?

Husband: Maybe Diddleous. The one I remember the most was the character Fortunato in Poe’s Cask of Amontillado which spell check converted to Fourteenth and was referred to with great confidence throughout the essay as Fourteenth, as in “Fourteenth said …”

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