Today we’re continuing with our newest feature, Word Knots, where we look at common situations involving words that are often confused or misused. 

We primarily use two highly recommended sources: The Dictionary of Disagreeable English by Robert Hartwell Fiske (Chicago: Writer’s Digest Books) and Usage and Abusage by Eric Partridge (New York: W.W. Norton).

Rather than take a stern ‘grammar police’ approach we try to keep it light and in each installment point out examples of semantic confusion that should be considered “must to avoid.”

From Partridge:

Eatable

Whether as a noun or as an adjective, these words are correct. They are not quite synonymous.

■

Let’s look at the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary definitions:

eatable 

adjective

: fit or able to be eaten

eatable

noun

: something to eat

edible

adjective

: fit or able to be eaten

edible

noun

: something that is suitable or safe to eat

■

MW  lists edible as a synonym of eatable, but I’m not alone in taking issue with that.

As Partridge points out, edible “chiefly means ‘suitable to be eaten, not poisonous’, whereas eatable tends to mean palatable.”

From MW:

palatable

adjective

: agreeable to the palate or taste.

■

Like this post? Follow Virtus Publishing on LinkedIn!