Recently, while browsing in my happy place (the bookstore), I came across an interesting find. It’s a book titled, The Artful Nuance: A Refined Guide to Imperfectly Understood Words in the English Language by Rod L. Evans, Ph.D. What this little volume lacks in humor and creativity, it makes up for in fascinating language facts. It is chock-full of interesting distinctions between similar words and usages that have been lost over the years. Some are obvious to those of us who study the language, others are more obscure and trivial, but all are worthy of at least a moment of our consideration.

Now, I realize that I’m in a shrinking minority of people who actually care about this kind of stuff, but when I start thinking and learning about commonly confused words, I find it difficult to stop. For example, do you know there is a difference between a rascal and a scoundrel? A bush and a shrub? An obstacle and an obstruction? Most people don't, nor do they care.

So that begs the question, does it really matter? If 90% of the population couldn’t care less about the difference between avert and avoid, why should you? Well, because if you ever write or speak, you never know when some smart-ass word geek might be waiting to pounce on your misuse or misunderstanding of a word or phrase. And we can’t have that now, can we?

So here’s a quick test. Do you know the difference between:

Delay and postpone?
Intellect and Intelligence?
Partly and partially?
Naked and nude?
Young and youthful?
Number and numeral?
Glue and paste?
A harbor and a port?

No, I’m not going to give you the definitions for these pairs of words; you have to find those for yourself. But that’s a good thing, because that means you care more than 90% of readers and writers. And the next time someone calls you a “twit,” you can say, “No, you may think I’m a contemptible, insignificant twerp, but I am not a foolish twit. A twit would likely be too stupid or silly to know the difference between a twit and a twerp. That makes you the twit and me the twerp, you twit.”

Or something like that.

Write on!