Different vocabulary9 pptx

file:///C|/Temp/livres/commonerrors/errors/errors.txt

"Degrade" is much more flexible in meaning. It can mean to lower in

status or rank (like "downgrade") or to corrupt or make contemptible;

but it always has to do with actual reduction in value rather than mere

insult, like "denigrate." Most of the time when people use "downgrade"

they would be better off instead using "insult," "belittle," or "sneer

at."

DEJA VU

In French "deja vu" means literally "already seen" and usually refers to

something excessively familiar. However the phrase, sans accent marks,

was introduced into English mainly as a psychological term indicating

the sensation one experiences when feeling that something has been

experienced before when this is in fact not the case. If you feel

strongly that you have been previously in a place where you know for a

fact you have never before been, you are experiencing a sensation of

deja vu. English usage is rapidly sliding back toward the French

meaning, confusing listeners who expect the phrase to refer to a false

sensation rather than a factual familiarity, as in "Congress is in

session and talking about campaign finance reform, creating a sense of

deja vu." In this relatively new sense, the phrase has the same

associations as the colloquial "same old, same old" (increasingly often

misspelled "sameo, sameo" by illiterates).

"It seems like it's deja vu all over again," is a redundantly mangled

saying usually attributed to baseball player Yogi Berra. Over the

ensuing decades clever writers would allude to this blunder in their

prose by repeating the phrase "deja vu all over again," assuming that

their readers would catch the allusion and share a chuckle with them.

Unfortunately, recently the phrase has been worn to a frazzle and become

all but substituted for the original, so that not only has it become a

very tired joke indeed--a whole generation has grown up thinking that

Berra's malapropism is the correct form of the expression. Give it a

rest, folks!

DEMOCRAT PARTY/DEMOCRATIC PARTY

Certain Republican members of Congress have played the childish game in

recent years of referring to the opposition as the "Democrat Party,"

hoping to imply that Democrats are not truly democratic. They succeed

only in making themselves sound ignorant, and so will you if you imitate

them. The name is "Democratic Party."

DEPENDS/DEPENDS ON

In casual speech, we say "it depends who plays the best defense"; but in

writing follow "depends" with "on."

DEPRECIATE/DEPRECATE

To depreciate something is to actually make it worse, whereas to

deprecate something is simply to speak or think of it in a manner that

demonstrates your low opinion of it.

DESERT/DESSERT

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