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- each other/one another: when two persons are concerned, use each other (We cared about each other.), use one another; when more than two persons are involved, one another is the correct choice (All in the community should care about one another.)
- eager/anxious: eager is enthusiastic anticipation; anxious is to be “distressed” or “worried”
- ecology/environment: ecology is study of the interrelationships between surroundings and organisms and is not synonymous with "environment"; environment in this sense is the mix of chemical, physical and factors such as as living things, climate and soil that influence life forms or communities
- economic/economical: economic is about serious academic or large-scale finances; economical concerns thrift or cost efficiency
- edible/eatable: edible means fit for consumption; eatable denotes minimal palatability
- eerie/aerie: eerie is spooky, uncanny, or weird; an aerie is a bird of prey’s next on a cliff
- effect/affect: effect is usually a noun meaning “ a result” or “an outcome” and is also a verb meaning “to make happen” or “to produce”; affect is typically a verb meaning to “have an effect on” or “to influence” and can be a noun with a specialized psychological meaning in relation to mood
- effrontery/affront: effrontery is an outrageous act; affront is an insult
- e.g.: abbreviation for exempli gratia
(for example);use “for example,” unless the Latin abbreviation is required for scholarly style
- elevation/altitude: elevation is a relative distance above something; altitude is absolute distance
- elicit/illicit: elicit is a verb meaning to draw or call forth (to seek to bring about); illicit is interchangeable with “illegal”
- elude/illude/allude: elude is to avoid being captured; illude is to deceive; allude is to indirectly refer to something
- embargo/boycott: embargo is a prohibition of goods from entering or leaving a country, instituted by a law; a boycott is refusal to by a particular product or service from either a provider or nation
- emend/amend: emend means “to correct”;amendis to “add to” or “to change”
- emigrate/immigrate: to emigrate is to leave one’s country to reside in another; to immigrate is to enter a country from another to establish residence; a person who has left Ireland to live in the USA is an emigrate in Ireland and immigrant in the USA
- empathy/sympathy: empathy is vicarious understanding of another's position; sympathy is compassionate sorrow
- enervate/innervate to enervate is to deplete or sap of vigor; to innervate is to generate or stimulate energy
- engine/motor: an engine produces its own power (typically through internal combustion or pressure of air, steam, or water interacting with a cogged wheel; a motor is dependent on power from an outside source (such as with a hydraulic motor or electric motor)
- enough/adequate/sufficient: enough is a modifier of nouns of number (either of count or mass); adequate is about the aptness of something in a specific situation; sufficient deals with an amount of stuff (mass nouns), as in sufficient water (mass nouns, can’t be counted), but not as in sufficient people (count nouns: can be counted)
- ensure/insure/assure: to ensure is to verify that something will or will not happen; to insure is to underwrite for financial risk; to assure is to promise or give comfort that all is well
- enthuse: do not use as an adjective and avoid as a verb
- enumerable/innumerable: enumerable means something can be counted; innumerable is an amount so large it can’t be counted
- envious/jealous/covetous: an envious person wishes ill of another because the other has more of something or some that the person wanted; one who is jealous resents another because the other infringes on what one has; one who is covetous wishes for what another has
- epicenter: means point on earth's surface directly above focus of an earthquake; not a synonym for center
- epidemic/endemic/pandemic: epidemic describes a disease that infects a large number of people (typically in a given geographical area) for a given time; endemic describes a disease that always remains in a given population or region; pandemic is about a disease that covers a broad areas, such as a country, hemisphere, or entire world
- epitome: epitome is a typical or ideal example: the essence or an abstract or summary; not to be confused with “acme” or “height of”
- equal: as an adjective has no comparative form; more equal [sic] is correctly stated as more equitable
- et al.: the abbreviated form of et alii (“and others”: people); as al. is an abbreviation, the period is required; do not precede with "and," as this is redundant with "et"
- etc.: abbreviated form of et cetera (“and other things”) that should not be used for people; often overused
- every day/everyday: every day is the adverbial form, with everyday as the adjective form
- every one/everyone: every one expresses “each” emphatically (Every one of the candidates made a point.); everyone is a pronoun interchangeable with “everybody” (Everyone heard the candidates.)
- exalt/exult: to exalt is to raise in rank; to exult is to express joy
- except/accept: except means either to exclude or unless; accept is to receive
- expect/anticipate: expect means to look forward to or to consider sensible; anticipate means to forestall or to accomplish in advance
- experience: Too often, experience is used when a more precise, simple word works better.
As a noun, experience means knowledge gained through direct observation or participation. [not a toileting experience, but going to the bathroom.
As a verb, experience means to learn by doing something. It is not a synonym for "do" or another specific verb. No: She experienced a drive downtown. Yes: She drove downtown.
- explicit/implicit: explicit is purposeful material leaving no question about meaning or intent; implicit is material that is suggested strongly enough to be understood through inference
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