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Grammar Moses: A tortuous explanation of a torturous encounter

I have a habit - an annoying one, I'm sure - of walking down a row of cubicles in the office en route to a meeting and, with a mere glance at a computer screen, finding a spelling error or poor word choice.

And without interrupting my stride I'll point out said error. Not exactly thoughtful editing, I know.

I may not know much, but I do possess this savant-like skill.

I took a two-second peek at a colleague's pitch for an editorial recently, and without taking into account the excellent content of her argument I noticed something wrong.

"I believe the word is 'tortuous,'" I told her, the words landing in my wake as I headed toward the Page One meeting. "One R."

After the meeting I was greeted with an email detailing the differences between "tortuous" and "torturous."

Darn it, I hate the taste of crow, especially when there is egg on my face.

Thus beginneth the lesson.

What follows are pairs of words that are close, often misunderstood, misused or at least misspelled.

Torturous/tortuous

"Tortuous" means "full of twists," while "torturous" means "characterized by pain and suffering."

You might not expect this, but "tortuous" is by far the more common word.

Your trip down the mountain may be a torturous one - especially if you're out of shape and dressed for the beach - but the snowmelt has a tortuous path to the bottom.

Practical/practicable

If you were to assume that "practical" were the dominant of the two words, you'd be right. By a long shot. And the yardstick by which that is measured is their appearance in books, where learned editors ensure proper spelling and word choice.

In everyday speech, it's unlikely you'll ever hear anyone use "practicable."

If you do hear it, as I did, rush to a dictionary and make sure it's being used correctly.

Or simply laminate this column.

"Practical" has a variety of meanings, whereas "practicable" has one very narrow one.

For something to be practicable, it can be put into practice.

You can have practical shoes or a practical car. Neither of them will get you the looks you want, but they'll get you where you want to go.

If your plan to get to California cheaply by car, bus, train and hydrofoil is practicable, then knock your socks off.

Bonus round: The noun that corresponds to "practicable" is "practicability." The noun associated with "practical" is "practicality."

I'll give you a few more pairings next week. For now, how about something from the reader mailbag?

Presidential grammar

I'm not here to pick on President Trump. He's so unscripted that you know he eventually will say something that would make Yogi Berra do a doubletake.

But Bob Anderson couldn't help himself in describing Trump's trip to Europe in mid-July.

"Two days in history that will provide enough fodder for late night comedians and editorial writers to last for the rest of the year," Bob wrote. "I think first prize goes to his comment about his meeting with the European Union representatives: 'A great meeting. They were thrilled when I left.'"

Stephen Foust had this to say: "'Fake news' has long asserted that Donald Trump claimed the hacking of the DNC server could have been done by anyone, even some 400-pound guy sitting on his bed at home. I had occasion to listen to his actual statement. Trump actually said, 'It could have been some guy sitting on his bed that weighed 400 pounds.' Clearly Trump was referring to the bed weighing 400 pounds, not the guy sitting on it. I wouldn't not want to point out that egregious lie from the witch hunters."

Write - and speak - carefully!

• Jim Baumann is vice president/managing editor of the Daily Herald. Write him at jbaumann@dailyherald.com. Put Grammar Moses in the subject line. You also can friend or follow Jim at facebook.com/baumannjim.

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