Word Usage — Cultured and Cultural, Historic and Historical

Today’s writing tip is on word usage. We’re going to look at four different words that people tend to use incorrectly.

Let’s start with cultured and cultural. Cultured means sophisticated. Someone might speak French, take ballet lessons, or visit fine art museums in an effort to become more cultured. Cultural is completely different. It relates to aspects of culture, such as customs, beliefs, or traditions. I remember being very embarrassed once when I wrote a condolence letter to a high-powered lawyer I had been working with during my days of advocating on behalf of wrongly convicted men. This lawyer’s mother had passed away, and in my email, I said, among other things, that his mother had been very cultural. Wrong, Sig! She had been cultured, but you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. I had already sent the email when I realized my error, and it was out there in the world. I felt foolish.

Historic and historical are similar. They don’t mean the same thing. You don’t want to use one when you mean the other. Historic means something significant, something that may only happen once every decade or every 70 years, like Haley’s Comet. It’s unusual, unprecedented, and important. Historical relates to history or something that happened in the past. For example, Columbus discovered America in 1492, although this is debatable as to whether someone can “discover” a country that had been inhabited for thousands of years! Nonetheless, this is considered an historical fact. It can be mundane, boring, or unimportant.

My point here is that these terms are not interchangeable. You don’t want to use "cultured" when you mean "cultural," and you don’t want to use "historic" when you mean "historical," and vice versa. But don’t beat yourself up if you make a mistake. I am still berating myself 15 years later for misusing the word 'cultured,' and I need to let it go. My hotshot lawyer, David Asper, probably forgot about it 10 minutes after he read the email, but I’m still thinking of it years later.

 

 

Today's Writing Tip Is about Clichés and Origin Stories

 Clichés and Origin Stories

Rome wasn’t built in a day.

It’s raining cats and dogs.

Only time will tell.

She treated him like a dog.

The cat is out of the bag.

I slept like a baby (have you ever known a baby who slept through the night? Where did this saying come from?)

It’s interesting to look at the history of some of these clichés, particularly those about animals. Let’s start with “raining cats and dogs.” Its exact origin is uncertain, but one of the first writers to use it was Jonathan Swift in 1782. It is thought the expression originated because London, England, was very rainy, and in many old European cities, animals often washed up dead in the streets during heavy rain.

What about he treated me like a dog? Everybody I know treats their dog at least as well as they treat their children, and maybe better.  Again, this comes from Britain during the days when dogs were dirty, roamed the streets and were considered low-status. So sad and infuriating to those of us who love our animals so much!

Lastly, what about who let the cat out of the bag? Whoever put the cat in the bag in the first place? It means revealing a secret, and it dates back to Britain in the 1700s, when animals were put in bags to be transported or taunted. There is also a rumor that dishonest merchants sold cats instead of piglets. I shudder to think about it. As Steven Pinker says in all of his fabulous books, despite what people think about our current society in terms of its imperfections, there has never been a better time to be alive in all of history. This is certainly true for animals—not all but many.

As much as you possibly can, avoid clichés in your writing. Writing always involves rewriting, and when you go back to reread or rewrite your article or manuscript, be conscious of using clichés. It’s better to come up with your own lame original idea than to recycle something that’s been around for hundreds of years.

One of the few areas where I almost always make exceptions is in dialogue. If you have a particular character, and you want to give him or her a flaw or an eccentricity, talking in clichés is a good way to go.