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Suit is a noun meaning an article of clothing; it is also a verb meaning to make/be appropriate. Suite is a noun meaning a set of things forming a series or set. [109] Standard: He got dressed in his new suit. Standard: Before leaving the hotel suite, she checked her lipstick in the mirror. Non-standard: That wall color will suite our apartment ...
Definitional retreat – changing the meaning of a word when an objection is raised. [23] Often paired with moving the goalposts (see below), as when an argument is challenged using a common definition of a term in the argument, and the arguer presents a different definition of the term and thereby demands different evidence to debunk the argument.
For the first portion of the list, see List of words having different meanings in American and British English (A–L). Asterisked (*) meanings, though found chiefly in the specified region, also have some currency in the other dialect; other definitions may be recognised by the other as Briticisms or Americanisms respectively. Additional usage ...
Such errors are sometimes called "Fay–Cutler malapropism", after psycholinguists David Fay and Anne Cutler, who described the occurrence of such errors in ordinary speech. [ 7 ] [ 9 ] Most definitions, however, include any actual word that is wrongly or accidentally used in place of a similar sounding, correct word.
A statue in Hartlepool, England, commemorating the "Hartlepool monkey", a primate who was mistaken by locals to be a French soldier and killed.. Some researchers have argued that the dichotomy of human actions as "correct" or "incorrect" is a harmful oversimplification of a complex phenomenon.
For the second portion of the list, see List of words having different meanings in American and British English: M–Z. Asterisked (*) meanings, though found chiefly in the specified region, also have some currency in the other region; other definitions may be recognised by the other as Briticisms or Americanisms respectively. Additional usage ...
Examples These errors can be semantic, in which the meaning of the word is related to that of the intended word (car for van, for example). [16] Semantic paraphasias can be further subdivided into six different types. [12] Coordinate semantic paraphasias replace the target word with one that is from the same category, such as tiger for lion.
In all the examples that follow, the word after the acronym repeats a word represented in the acronym. The full redundant phrase is stated in the parentheses that follow each example: "I forgot my PIN number for the ATM machine." (Personal Identification Number number; Automated Teller Machine machine) "I upgraded the RAM memory of my computer."