Concrete Detail



I was taking a class in college and the professor mentioned he was offering a class on how to read your college textbooks to maximize your study time.  Hey, guess what, I went to the class.  While I was in the class he mentioned that we didn’t need to peruse the text but could simply skim the content if we used his method.

So, as you can imagine, I was there scratching my head.  I thought to peruse meant to skim or glance over quickly.  Apparently, I was not the only person.  Being the ever inquisitive human that I am, I raised my hand and asked him to explain, as I thought peruse means to glance or skim over.  He laughed and said, I use that word to see if people are paying attention.  He went on to share there are many words that are often misused, and peruse is one of those words.   This example was also to help his students to understand that even book writers use words incorrectly, and to be careful to NOT be one of those writers.  As you can imagine, I started keeping a list of words that are often misused.  This week I will be sharing some of the words on my list.

The exciting thing about learning about words that are often misused is REGARDLESS of your past, you can always start using them correctly. (NOTE: Irregardless is not a word, thus, will not make this week’s list. I am only sharing words that are actual words.)

I’d like to offer a thank you to Dr. Diaz for teaching me to appreciate the importance of being on alert of commonly misused words.

5 thoughts on “That doesn’t mean what you think…

  1. I had thought it meant skim as well!

  2. I am also a new word hunter ma’am. As soon as I saw here I listened the pronunciation from my phone dictionary. Now I know this word and it’s in my list. Thank you for sharing ma’am. X

  3. Golda says:

    Too funny. I actually knew both of those. Not that I get them all correct, but I do love words. Had a lot of fun teaching my kids words, as they were growing. It helped that we are a family that LOVES to read.

  4. Ah I love these! Once dated someone who would always use the word “erroneous” like it meant “random.” He’d be like, “I can’t worry about all these erroneous details!!” Took me a few months to find the guts to correct him and tell him that he was using the word erroneous…erroneously.

    1. This is a fantastic story. I would bet now he appreciates you pointing out the erroneous manner in which he used that word. (heehee) Imagine if no one ever told him.

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