Wednesday 27 May 2020

Flouted and Flaunted

From The Hill, which I thought observed minimum standards of literacy:
Sean Hannity ripped partygoers who flaunted social distancing guidelines at Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks over Memorial Day weekend, The Hill reports.
Of course the writer meant the partygoers flouted the guidelines.  Many lexical confusions start this way: One somewhat unusual word sounds like another unusual word that is not too far away in meaning, so it's an easy mistake to make.  We'll see if the bug takes hold.