The Right Words and the Wrong Words

ingenious / ingenuous
An ingenious person has skill and inventiveness, and the products of
his cleverness are also ingenious. The w ord ingenuous once meant
straightforward and candid but now indicates (especially w hen qualified
as over-ingenuous) not mere lack of duplicity but rather over-simplicity,
naivety and even gullibility.
junction / juncture
A junction is the point at w hich two things join, especially used of the
place where a road or a railway line divides into two. The w ord juncture
is now generally used for a point in time at w hich the convergence of
events creates a significant m om ent, perhaps a m om ent o f crisis ( In the
autum n he lost his job, and at this juncture his wife chose to leave h im ).
loathe I loath (loth)
To be loath or loth to do something is to be reluctant, unwilling to do
it (I was loth to part w ith my collection o f stamps). The verb to loathe
means to detest. Because the spelling loath, for reluctant, is now m ore
often used than the spelling loth, confusion w ith the verb loathe
occurs.
luxuriant I luxurious
Both w ords are related to the w ord luxury. The w ord luxuriant is used
to describe things (such as houses, artefacts, gardens, works of art) that
are richly ornate and profusely decorative. The w ord luxurious overlaps
in meaning, but conveys m ore the sense o f w hat indulges hum an appetite
for ease and comfort, and for all that delights the senses (In retirement
he was able to live a luxurious life in luxuriant surroundings).
militate / mitigate
Here the similarity in sound between the two verbs causes confusion in
spite o f the totally different meanings they convey. To militate is to
combat or oppose (Our genteel upbringing militated against the call to
go and w ork dow n the m ines). In fact the w ord is rarely misused. The
verb to m itigate means to soften or soothe (His daughters decision to
come and live w ith him somewhat mitigated his grief at the loss of his
w ife), but it gets used mistakenly in the place o f militate.