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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSespecially/specially
The words especially and specially, have just a hair's breadth of difference between them. Both can be used to mean "particularly." Especially tends to be more formal, while specially tends to be more informal:
Barney Frank can be ruthless in debate, especially when laying into opponents who try to evade the historical record.
This season, Essie Cosmetics is commemorating 2010 Breast Cancer Awareness month with specially created We Can Do It Pink!
But our words have finer points to them that are worthy of being understood. Especially carries with it a sense of something exceptional, implying that there is something else that is of lesser quality:
We came to win the game and I thought we played especially well in the first half.
Charlotte Daw Paulsen, a mezzo-soprano, as Jephtha's wife, was especially fine in her harrowing "Scenes of horror, scenes of woe."
Specially can refer to something with a distinct purpose, someone who stands apart from the rest, without insinuating that there is something or someone who is lesser:
Specially trained dogs may be useful in helping to calm autistic children.
Value Village's specially trained costume consultants will showcase the hottest costumes.
Now that you know the finer points, you can choose your words particularly/especially/specially carefully.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSexalt/exult
To exalt, means to glorify or elevate something, but to exult is to rejoice. Exalt your favorite pro-wrestler, Jesus, or your status in the world. Exult when you get the last two tickets to see your favorite band.
Exalt is a transitive verb, so it needs a direct object: you have to exalt something. If we glorify God, we exalt him. It can also mean to heighten something, to increase its effects. You can exalt, or raise, the Virgin Mary, or a level, like in these examples:
His devotional writings, which exalt Mary by superstitious tales of miracles, were extremely popular in all Catholic countries. (J.H. Kurtz)
At a less exalted level, we buy and sell attention all the time, usually as part of some other transaction. (Slate)
I'm afraid, though, that very few people walk on that exalted plane. (New York Times)
To exult (with a "u") is to whoop it up, celebrate, to be happy. If you rejoice at your team's big win, you exult in it. It's an intransitive verb, so it doesn't need an object — you exult all by yourself, any way you want:
Little wonder Ferry's fans were out in force Tuesday, but they had little reason to exult as the show opened in subdued style. (Chicago Tribune)
We do have our problems and we worry and whine and complain, but we also have to celebrate and exult. (Associated Press)
Coffers will bulge, fans will exult, civilization will fail to collapse. (New York Times)
If you think something is the best thing ever and you practically worship it, you exalt it. You have to exalt something. If you're just thrilled, and your sentence doesn't require a direct object, choose exult instead.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSexercise/exorcise
While both words can refer to ways to get rid of something — belly fat, Satan — that's where the similarities end. Exercise is physical activity but to exorcise is to cast out evil.
Exercise usually refers to working out:
Mrs. Obama has said she wants to help today's youngsters become adults at a healthy weight by eating better and getting more exercise.
Many studies have linked exercise with improved brain health later in life.
It also means to use something, like restraint, or you might even have warm-up exercises in music class.
On the other hand, if you went to see The Exorcist and expected a sports flick, you were in for a big surprise. You'll have to trade in your sneakers for some holy water if you are going to exorcise, orcast out the devil, like in these examples:
Any lingering Hampden Park ghosts were exorcised by within 34 ruthless minutes.
Mr. and Mrs. Metzler, who are devout Catholics, had Father Brown come to the house to exorcise the spirits that were tormenting them.
Although exorcise usually refers to a religious ritual to get rid of actual demons, people often use it to refer to emotions they'd like to purge:
In his view, acting has lent Ms. Schnabel "a vehicle to both exercise, and exorcise, these kinds of complicated demons."
In a way, she figured, she'd get two things done at once — advocate for kids and exorcise her own demons.
The "o" in exorcise is like the "o" in the oath when you vow to rid someone of evil. Don't get the two words mixed up, most demons don't respond to jazzercise.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSexpedient/expeditious
Something expedient is helpful to you. If you vote your friend in for student body president just because you know she'll hook you up — that's an expedient choice. But expeditious is speedy, like your expeditious exit from the voting booth because you know didn't do the right thing.
Expedient describes a politically advantageous choice. Expedient also describes something that's good for you or something that's useful. It dates back to the 1400s and has its roots in Old French (expedient) and Latin (expedientem). Here are some expedient examples:
Should the government, which promised to protect airline passengers last year, do the expedient thing — or the right thing? (Seattle Times)
But Mr. Kim's defiance, at times unshakeable, has been known to soften when politically expedient. (New York Times)
On the other hand, expeditious isn't up to anything, it just means speedy or prompt. Expeditious entered English in the late 1400s via expedition, which also has roots in Old French and Latin. If you want to speed things up, use expeditious:
Mr. Fine remains hopeful of a credible and expeditious review of the relevant issues by law enforcement authorities. (Seattle Times)
The bill was given an expeditious passage as the Senate suspended order 79 of its standing rules to amend the National Minimum Wage Act. (All Africa)
Although expedient and expeditious come from the same Latin root word for "to make ready or to prompt," they parted ways by the 1600s, when expedient became self-serving. Use expedient for "advantageous" and expeditious for "speedy," like how fast you plan for an expedition to Antarctica, or across the street.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSextant/extent
They sounds similar and both have exes, but extant means "still here," and extent refers to "the range of something." People get them mixed up to a certain extent.
Extant is something that's still around — you're surprised it's not extinct. It's more than just existing but also surviving when others have not. Here are some extant examples (yes, they're still here):
The roots, stumps, trunks, and foliage found in bogs are recognized as belonging to still extant species. (George P. Marsh)
He wrote in Latin an incorrect history of England, which is still extant. (Thomas Cantrell Dugdale)
Extent (with an e) means the range of something. Extent can also refer to a degree of something, such as goal achievement. Extent is also the space something covers or takes up. You might see the phrase to a lesser extent (not as much), or greater extent (more). Two is the extent of the examples below:
One's tongue slips in a longer speech to such an extent that the last word of the intended speech is said too soon. (Sigmund Freud)
He says he even sympathizes, at least to some extent, with the Occupy Wall Street protesters. (New York Times)
A helpful hint: something extant is still in existence, but the extent of something is just the range or limit, like the size, or extent, of your tent.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSfaze/phase
To faze is to disturb, bother, or embarrass, but a phase is a stage or step. It could faze your family if your princess phase lasts well into your college years.
Faze entered English around 1830 through American English as a variant of feeze, to mean "frighten." It's often in the negative, like when your mellow brother is unfazed by your crazy Cinderella costumes. Don't let these examples faze you:
Gasser didn't seem fazed by his teammates' early shooting woes. (Seattle Times)
Morgan doesn't seem fazed by Google overwhelming influence in the tech world. (Forbes)
A phase is a stage, like the phases of the moon or the awkward phase of teenage rebellion. As a verb, it means to do something in stages, like to phase something in or out:
Education officials are now considering phasing out the middle school grades and possibly housing a new district or charter middle school in the same building. (New York Times)
We will finish Phase One, and then we will look at Phase Two," says Peter Voser, Shell's chief executive officer. (Business Week)
I never know if musicians see bands going through all these different phases the way outsiders or music critics do. (Time)
Confusing phase for faze is an error that usage guru Bryan Garner notes as being at stage 2 of language change: having spread to a "significant fraction of the language community" but remaining "unacceptable in standard usage." So don't get them mixed up.
To keep them straight: something that fazes or bothers you might make you want to fight, but please pass through your princess phase as soon as possible.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSfiguratively/literally
Figuratively means metaphorically, and literally describes something that actually happened. If you say that a guitar solo literally blew your head off, your head should not be attached to your body.
Most of us were taught that figuratively means something other than literal, and that literally means "actually" or "exactly." Somewhere along the line, literally began to be used as, well, figuratively, like this:
But they're also going to create literally a tidal wave of data. (Washington Post)
There wasn't an actual tidal wave, just a lot of data. Here are some examples that make word nerds literally smile:
Today, protesters literally occupy Wall Street, camping in Zuccotti Park at the heart of New York's financial district. (Washington Post)
They're really, actually there.
People can literally drown in their own body fluids. (Scientific American)
"We literally had fish blood running through the parking lot," he says. (Forbes)
Ew, but true.
Figuratively is more imaginative, it's used when you mean something didn't really happen. It's metaphorical, as in these examples with boats and feathers:
Besides, figuratively speaking, they are still in the same boat. (Mayne Reid)
So Josh—as he figuratively put it—had not a feather to fly with. (Burford Delannoy)
Although literally has been horning in on figuratively's turf, they're really not the same, in fact the two words are often go together to complete a picture:
Watching a waterfall drowns out — literally and figuratively — everyday cares. (Seattle Times)
"The Piano Lesson" tells a more haunting story, both literally and figuratively. (New York Times)
Will people understand you if you use literally when you mean figuratively? Sure. Most people will recognize that when you say, "The guitar solo literally blew my head off" it was an awesome solo, but your head is, in fact, still on your neck.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSflair/flare
Flair is a talent for something, like what the pro-wrestler Nature Boy Ric Flair had back in the day. Flare is on a candle or the shape of bell-bottoms that kids rocked back in the heyday of wrastlin'.
Flair is a noun meaning an aptitude or eagerness for something or a distinctive style. You might have a flair for photography, wrestling, or dressing like a flapper. If you describe food as having a certain flair, such as a Latin flair, you mean it has the distinctive style of Latin food. Flair isn't a synonym for flavor. Style is more than flavor. Here are some flairs, ta da:
Charming and gregarious with a flair for grand gestures, he was haunted by drug addiction. (New York Times)
Nice has always boasted an Italian flair; La Promenade respects that tradition by serving firm pasta, an outlier in a world of overcooked French noodles. (Business Week)
Flare has fun, too, in many different ways. As a noun, flare is a shape that is wider at one end, such as bellbottoms, also called flares. It can also be a flickering light, as with the flare of a match. To flare might be widen or to suddenly burn. A disease can flare up, or become worse, while your skirt can flare out, or widen. Flare on:
One oak is hollowed and flared at the bottom like an arched, empty shell. (New York Times)
Sudden anger flared up in the girl's blue eyes, though, he knew it was not directed against him. (Harold Bindloss)
If you're not sure which f-word you want, choose flare. After all, flair just refers to that special something, it's restricted to being a noun that means stylishness or an aptitude for something. Flare means everything else! (Almost
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSflaunt/flout
Flaunt is to show off, but flout is to ignore the rules. Rebels do both — they flaunt their new pink motorcycles by popping a wheelie, and flout the law by running a red light.
Flaunt means to work it, to preen like a peacock. You could flaunt your new Harley, your wealth, or even your bright colors:
Prosperous Chinese are less shy about flaunting their wealth than people in other countries. (Economist)
Daffodils flaunted golden cups at their more gorgeous neighbors, the tulips. (Lucy Foster Madison)
Flout, on the other hand, means to show a blatant disregard or contempt for. If you scoff when told what to do, you flout the rules. Here are some rules being flouted in the news:
In other words, the euro zone is based on a gentleman's agreement that's widely flouted. (Salon)
Baseball's rulebook is routinely ignored, flouted and evaded. (New York Times)
The problem is that people use flout to mean flaunt. If you mix up the words in the sentences above, the meaning changes. It would be weird to flout your wealth or your golden color. Garner's Modern American Usage identifies this error at widespread: it can be seen in the writing of well-educated people. However, Garner advises (and we concur) that the distinction between flaunt and flout be preserved.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSflounder/founder
To flounder is to struggle, but to founder is to sink like a stone and fail. Both are fun as nouns, not so fun as verbs.
A flounder is a fish, but as a verb, it means to blunder about, to be in serious trouble. In the following examples, something is struggling but hasn't completely failed:
He set out for it, limping, while the sharp gravel rolled under his bleeding feet as he floundered up the climbing trail. (Harold Bindloss)
It is a war that has floundered for nine years without a rational strategy and may endure for another decade. (Sydney Morning Herald)
Just as he turned around that floundering business, he suggests, so too could he reverse the country's sagging fortunes as its chief executive. (Washington Post)
A founder is someone who starts something, but as a verb, founder literally means "to sink." Figuratively, it's "to collapse or fail completely." Here are some examples of sinking and failing:
Pratt resisted the impulse of most Mormons to head back to the foundering ship. (Salt Lake Tribune)
Xinhua, in an English-language commentary, said China could not stand by while its largest trading partner foundered. (Reuters)
Yet negotiations over new gas contracts have foundered. (Economist)
Flounder and founder are happy little nouns that don't get mixed up. But it all falls apart when they're verbs — if you're floundering, you're struggling. If you're foundering, you're failing completely. You're sunk! You can't even hold onto the letter l.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSformerly/formally
Formerly is something that happened before, like when a pop star changed his name to a squiggle, he became known as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince. But formally comes from formal, or fancy, like the prom.
Former is at the root of formerly, referring to something that occurred earlier. If you changed your name, you'd be referred to as formerly known as whatever-your-name-used-to-be. It's not just for pop stars. If you want a word that means in the past or before, formerly fits the bill:
Movies, books, television shows, the journalistic outlets formerly known as newspapers, podcasts, YouTube videos, actual museums, tweets—they all comprise the noise. (Slate)
Erskine Bowles, formerly President Bill Clinton's chief of staff, said, "I'm worried you're going to fail." (Business Week)
At the root of formally is formal, an adjective that describes something as following custom, regulations, or ceremonies. You might speak formally during your speech, but chat casually with everyone after. Formally describes something official:
Delaware spent years piloting and fine-tuning their system before putting it in place formally state-wide. (Washington Post)
The current council will formally disband within the next few days. (Time)
Remember where these two words came from and you'll keep them straight: formerly former, and formally formal.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSformidable/formative
Formidable describes a foe you're slightly afraid of, but formative describes what formed you. Perhaps a formidable gymteacher scared the pants off you during your formative years in grade school, and now you're a world-class athlete. (Or a bookworm, depending on how you react to formidable foes.)
If you're a software designer, Microsoft is a formidable opponent. Such an enemy is one you dread, or perhaps respect or are awed by, because of its power, size, or capabilities. If you have a formidable vocabulary, you have a lot of words to choose from:
"A really formidable fighter can be worth more than a horse," he said. (New York Times)
Temple turned out to be more formidable than most expected. (Washington Post)
Heath Shuler is taking on an even more formidable opponent: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. (Knoxville News)
Something formative shapes or forms a person or thing. Your early years are generally considered formative because they greatly influence who you are. Let's form an idea from some examples:
Psychologists have always stressed the formative influence of parents, but siblings have been studied less. (New York Times)
Marc Webb's film explores the formative years of Peter Parker, previously played on screen by Tobey Maguire. (BBC)
Naturally, he has formative memories built around the intersection of the team with his life. (Seattle Times)
Remember: your formative period was when you were learning to become a formidable foe for words with unruly definitions. And mean gym teachers.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSfortunate/fortuitous
Get our your lucky rabbit's foot! Fortunate is lucky, but fortuitous means by chance or accident. Silly rabbit, these words aren't the same.
Fortunate means having good fortune that you're born with or win somehow. You're fortunate if you're rich, good looking, and in love. Here are some examples full of fortunes:
Let's say you are fortunate enough to have a good job and some savings. (Business Week)
More fortunate refugees have been taken in by local families. (Reuters)
Fortuitous traditionally refers to something that happens by accident or chance — either good or bad. It descends from the Latin forte, meaning "by chance." People often use fortuitous to mean lucky because they want to sound fancy, but you don't have to be one of them. Let's stumble upon these fortuitous examples:
Meetings with other individuals in the course of foraging, basking, or seeking shelter, are fortuitous and have no social significance. (John M. Legler)
There are also fortuitous street finds, like the Eames lounge chairs he discovered near their apartment in Greenwich Village. (New York Times)
Fortuitous has also been used to mean fortunate for so long that the meaning is morphing. Fortuitous is still separate from fortunate, though — it's closer to serendipity. The usage guru Bryan A. Garner notes that this usage of fortuitous is at stage 3 in his Language Change Index: "the form becomes commonplace even among many well-educated people but is still avoided in careful usage."
Don't thank that rabbit foot for your being so fortunate; after all, it wasn't so lucky for the rabbit. But if you're superstitious, it's fortuitous that you found it right before you bought that lottery ticket
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSgibe/jibe
To gibe is to sneer or heckle, but to jibe is to agree. Funny thing is, though, jibe is an alternate spelling of gibe, so surprise! People get them mixed up.
A gibe is a pointy comment, an insult, a verbal thump on the forehead. Despite being taunted, gibe hasn't changed in years — since the 1500s it's been a verb meaning, "to make a remark that is taunting or sarcastic." Soon after, gibe was used as a noun referring to the remark. The etymology is uncertain, though it could be borrowed from the Middle French giber, meaning to handle roughly. Here are some gibes in context:
The last sentence was spoken in taunting tones, and Slade's face showed that the gibe had gone home. (Herman Landon)
Dr. Prince walked off very triumphantly after this parting gibe. (E.M. Delafield)
Jibe is a two-headed verb:it means to agree, but it's also a nautical term meaning to shift a sail on a ship. (This nautical jibe is spelled gybe in British English). Here are some jibes agreeably appearing in sentences:
"We thought about getting married in Massachusetts, but it just didn't seem to jibe right," said Dorr. (Salon)
The drop in jobless rate doesn't jibe with recent job gains. (Wall Street Journal)
With a bit of practice, you can steer, turn, tack, and jibe a boat with just her sails. (John Jamieson)
Should you use jibe as an alternate spelling of gibe? No. Just don't gibe, or pick on,people who do, instead just jibe with them and admit it's accepted in some dictionaries.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSgorilla/guerrilla
You might see a gorilla in a zoo, but a guerrilla (sometimes spelled with one "r"), is someone who belongs to a group of independent fighters. If you remember your high school Spanish, you'll know the difference.
A gorilla is a type of large African ape. Sure they fight, but that's not why they're called gorillas. When they show up in the news, they're usually just monkeying around:
This short clip of a Silverback gorilla in Kent walking upright on his hind legs, like a human, has become an internet sensation. (BBC)
Anaklet says we're going to surprise some gorillas eating breakfast. (Time)
A guerrilla, on the other hand, is a fighter who's a part of a rebellious group that's battling a government or other authority, and likes to raid and ambush. The word has picked up a casual meaning of describing anything that's meant to take you by surprise. Here are some examples:
Al-Shabab had spoken of a switch to guerilla warfare, which could mean more suicide bombings as well as grenade attacks and land mines, he says. (BBC)
Guerrilla Marketing is a phrase coined by Jay Conrad Levinson as a take-no-prisoners way of marketing. (Guerrilla Marketing)
So how will knowing your high school Spanish help you keep them straight? Guerrilla comes from the Spanish word for a war made up of skirmishes. That guerilla is related to guerra for (you guessed it), war. If you remember that guerra is war and guerrilla is little war, you'll remember that in English, independent fighters are guerrillas, no matter how hairy they are.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSgrisly/gristly/grizzly
Blood, guts, and man-eaters, oh my! Feint of heart turn back now! Grisly means relating to horror or disgust, gristly means related to gristle or cartilage, and grizzly is a big ol' bear. That can eat you.
Grisly describes blood and guts, horror movie fodder, something totally repulsive. It shows up in these blood-curdling examples:
The grisly massacre — some bodies were grotesquely mutilated and defiled — shocked the country and made global headlines. (Time)
Television video showed a heavily damaged building and a grisly scene inside, with clothing and prayer mats scattered across a blood-splattered floor. (New York Times)
Gristly is gross, too, but it means related to gristle or cartilage, that yucky hard stuff in a chicken leg, for example, or the tough chewy part in any meat. Or person. Here are some gristly examples to gnaw on:
In a ham sandwich is a cold, pink punch in the face, an angry thing marbled with gristly neglect. (Guardian)
This is surrounded by a sheath of connective tissue, at first merely membranous, later becoming cartilaginous or gristly. (John Mason Tyler)
Grizzly refers to a species of brown bear found in North America. Grizzly can also refer to the color gray or gray hair: Grizzlies get their name from the white hairs that grow in their brown coats, making them look grizzled (streaked with gray).
He makes a face like a threatened grizzly bear: mouth wide open, snout muscles flexed, teeth bared. (New York Times)
All in all, if you're going out on a bear hunt, avoid grisly, gristly, and even grizzly bears. Hunt for teddy bears instead.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDShealthful/healthy
Healthful describes something that will create good health, like apples, yoga, and fresh air. Healthy describes someone fit, trim, and utterly not sick.
Healthful food and exercise fills you full of health! Healthful has meant something that will create good health since 1398, and that remains the main definition of the word:
Choosing the most healthful foods for your family is no easy task. (Time)
Tilapia crusted in pulverized plantain chips, with sweet maduros on the side, was a relatively healthful departure. (New York Times)
Healthy is used to describe someone or something that enjoys all that good health. If you're healthy, whether you're a tree, a bank account, or a human, you're well, thank you very much. Here are some healthy tidbits from the news:
Any team interested in Sizemore will need to be convinced he is, finally, healthy again. (Washington Post)
Healthy forests are built to withstand severe natural disturbances. (New York Times)
This word pair, healthful and healthy, has been causing debate for over a century. The question is whether these adjectives can both be used to mean conducive to good health. This is what gets some word mavens' blood boiling. Healthy, they say, cannot be used to mean conducive to good health. But according to the Oxford English Dictionary, healthy has been a synonym for healthful since its earliest appearance in print... in 1552.
So it's OK to use healthy and healthful as synonyms for conducive to good health: have a healthy snack or a healthful one. But if you're referring to someone who enjoys good health, however, use healthy because it'd be weird to call a person healthful. Save healthful for the granola and healthy for your personal trainer.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDShistoric/historical
Something historic has a great importance to human history. Something historical is related to the past. People with big egos get them mixed up if they say they had a historic family background. Unless they helped win a war, it was probably just historical.
Historic describes something huge that happened in the past, something that affected human history. Historic things can be important figures, like Abraham Lincoln, or pivotal events, like the invention of the printing press. Historic lows are the lowest in history. Here are some historic examples from the news:
The last one closed in October as the museum moves historic objects out of its west wing for a major renovation beginning early next year. (Washington Post)
A private funeral for the rap legend will be held at the historic Grace Baptist Church in Mount Vernon, just north of New York City. (Seattle Times)
Germans have little incentive to save, with interest rates at historic lows. (Business Week)
Something historical, like an event or an object, doesn't have to concern all of human history or be of worldwide importance, it's just something connected to the past, like these examples:
Other blow-by-blow historical Twitter efforts have run aground. (New York Times)
Kugel regularly furnished historical information that other Madoff employees used to fabricate trades, the government charged. (Washington Post)
Our package also included photos, video, story, historical timeline, readers' memories and polls. (Seattle Times)
The Battle for Bunker Hill was an important battle in the Revolutionary War, making it historic. While the battle for the last piece of your mom's chocolate cake might live in your family history as huge event, it's historical.
And by the way, if you pronounce the h- in either historic or historical, you should use a rather than an before it.
CHOOSE YOUR WORDSespecially/specially
The words especially and specially, have just a hair's breadth of difference between them. Both can be used to mean "particularly." Especially tends to be more formal, while specially tends to be more informal:
Barney Frank can be ruthless in debate, especially when laying into opponents who try to evade the historical record.
This season, Essie Cosmetics is commemorating 2010 Breast Cancer Awareness month with specially created We Can Do It Pink!
But our words have finer points to them that are worthy of being understood. Especially carries with it a sense of something exceptional, implying that there is something else that is of lesser quality:
We came to win the game and I thought we played especially well in the first half.
Charlotte Daw Paulsen, a mezzo-soprano, as Jephtha's wife, was especially fine in her harrowing "Scenes of horror, scenes of woe."
Specially can refer to something with a distinct purpose, someone who stands apart from the rest, without insinuating that there is something or someone who is lesser:
Specially trained dogs may be useful in helping to calm autistic children.
Value Village's specially trained costume consultants will showcase the hottest costumes.
Now that you know the finer points, you can choose your words particularly/especially/specially carefully.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSexalt/exult
To exalt, means to glorify or elevate something, but to exult is to rejoice. Exalt your favorite pro-wrestler, Jesus, or your status in the world. Exult when you get the last two tickets to see your favorite band.
Exalt is a transitive verb, so it needs a direct object: you have to exalt something. If we glorify God, we exalt him. It can also mean to heighten something, to increase its effects. You can exalt, or raise, the Virgin Mary, or a level, like in these examples:
His devotional writings, which exalt Mary by superstitious tales of miracles, were extremely popular in all Catholic countries. (J.H. Kurtz)
At a less exalted level, we buy and sell attention all the time, usually as part of some other transaction. (Slate)
I'm afraid, though, that very few people walk on that exalted plane. (New York Times)
To exult (with a "u") is to whoop it up, celebrate, to be happy. If you rejoice at your team's big win, you exult in it. It's an intransitive verb, so it doesn't need an object — you exult all by yourself, any way you want:
Little wonder Ferry's fans were out in force Tuesday, but they had little reason to exult as the show opened in subdued style. (Chicago Tribune)
We do have our problems and we worry and whine and complain, but we also have to celebrate and exult. (Associated Press)
Coffers will bulge, fans will exult, civilization will fail to collapse. (New York Times)
If you think something is the best thing ever and you practically worship it, you exalt it. You have to exalt something. If you're just thrilled, and your sentence doesn't require a direct object, choose exult instead.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSexercise/exorcise
While both words can refer to ways to get rid of something — belly fat, Satan — that's where the similarities end. Exercise is physical activity but to exorcise is to cast out evil.
Exercise usually refers to working out:
Mrs. Obama has said she wants to help today's youngsters become adults at a healthy weight by eating better and getting more exercise.
Many studies have linked exercise with improved brain health later in life.
It also means to use something, like restraint, or you might even have warm-up exercises in music class.
On the other hand, if you went to see The Exorcist and expected a sports flick, you were in for a big surprise. You'll have to trade in your sneakers for some holy water if you are going to exorcise, orcast out the devil, like in these examples:
Any lingering Hampden Park ghosts were exorcised by within 34 ruthless minutes.
Mr. and Mrs. Metzler, who are devout Catholics, had Father Brown come to the house to exorcise the spirits that were tormenting them.
Although exorcise usually refers to a religious ritual to get rid of actual demons, people often use it to refer to emotions they'd like to purge:
In his view, acting has lent Ms. Schnabel "a vehicle to both exercise, and exorcise, these kinds of complicated demons."
In a way, she figured, she'd get two things done at once — advocate for kids and exorcise her own demons.
The "o" in exorcise is like the "o" in the oath when you vow to rid someone of evil. Don't get the two words mixed up, most demons don't respond to jazzercise.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSexpedient/expeditious
Something expedient is helpful to you. If you vote your friend in for student body president just because you know she'll hook you up — that's an expedient choice. But expeditious is speedy, like your expeditious exit from the voting booth because you know didn't do the right thing.
Expedient describes a politically advantageous choice. Expedient also describes something that's good for you or something that's useful. It dates back to the 1400s and has its roots in Old French (expedient) and Latin (expedientem). Here are some expedient examples:
Should the government, which promised to protect airline passengers last year, do the expedient thing — or the right thing? (Seattle Times)
But Mr. Kim's defiance, at times unshakeable, has been known to soften when politically expedient. (New York Times)
On the other hand, expeditious isn't up to anything, it just means speedy or prompt. Expeditious entered English in the late 1400s via expedition, which also has roots in Old French and Latin. If you want to speed things up, use expeditious:
Mr. Fine remains hopeful of a credible and expeditious review of the relevant issues by law enforcement authorities. (Seattle Times)
The bill was given an expeditious passage as the Senate suspended order 79 of its standing rules to amend the National Minimum Wage Act. (All Africa)
Although expedient and expeditious come from the same Latin root word for "to make ready or to prompt," they parted ways by the 1600s, when expedient became self-serving. Use expedient for "advantageous" and expeditious for "speedy," like how fast you plan for an expedition to Antarctica, or across the street.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSextant/extent
They sounds similar and both have exes, but extant means "still here," and extent refers to "the range of something." People get them mixed up to a certain extent.
Extant is something that's still around — you're surprised it's not extinct. It's more than just existing but also surviving when others have not. Here are some extant examples (yes, they're still here):
The roots, stumps, trunks, and foliage found in bogs are recognized as belonging to still extant species. (George P. Marsh)
He wrote in Latin an incorrect history of England, which is still extant. (Thomas Cantrell Dugdale)
Extent (with an e) means the range of something. Extent can also refer to a degree of something, such as goal achievement. Extent is also the space something covers or takes up. You might see the phrase to a lesser extent (not as much), or greater extent (more). Two is the extent of the examples below:
One's tongue slips in a longer speech to such an extent that the last word of the intended speech is said too soon. (Sigmund Freud)
He says he even sympathizes, at least to some extent, with the Occupy Wall Street protesters. (New York Times)
A helpful hint: something extant is still in existence, but the extent of something is just the range or limit, like the size, or extent, of your tent.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSfaze/phase
To faze is to disturb, bother, or embarrass, but a phase is a stage or step. It could faze your family if your princess phase lasts well into your college years.
Faze entered English around 1830 through American English as a variant of feeze, to mean "frighten." It's often in the negative, like when your mellow brother is unfazed by your crazy Cinderella costumes. Don't let these examples faze you:
Gasser didn't seem fazed by his teammates' early shooting woes. (Seattle Times)
Morgan doesn't seem fazed by Google overwhelming influence in the tech world. (Forbes)
A phase is a stage, like the phases of the moon or the awkward phase of teenage rebellion. As a verb, it means to do something in stages, like to phase something in or out:
Education officials are now considering phasing out the middle school grades and possibly housing a new district or charter middle school in the same building. (New York Times)
We will finish Phase One, and then we will look at Phase Two," says Peter Voser, Shell's chief executive officer. (Business Week)
I never know if musicians see bands going through all these different phases the way outsiders or music critics do. (Time)
Confusing phase for faze is an error that usage guru Bryan Garner notes as being at stage 2 of language change: having spread to a "significant fraction of the language community" but remaining "unacceptable in standard usage." So don't get them mixed up.
To keep them straight: something that fazes or bothers you might make you want to fight, but please pass through your princess phase as soon as possible.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSfiguratively/literally
Figuratively means metaphorically, and literally describes something that actually happened. If you say that a guitar solo literally blew your head off, your head should not be attached to your body.
Most of us were taught that figuratively means something other than literal, and that literally means "actually" or "exactly." Somewhere along the line, literally began to be used as, well, figuratively, like this:
But they're also going to create literally a tidal wave of data. (Washington Post)
There wasn't an actual tidal wave, just a lot of data. Here are some examples that make word nerds literally smile:
Today, protesters literally occupy Wall Street, camping in Zuccotti Park at the heart of New York's financial district. (Washington Post)
They're really, actually there.
People can literally drown in their own body fluids. (Scientific American)
"We literally had fish blood running through the parking lot," he says. (Forbes)
Ew, but true.
Figuratively is more imaginative, it's used when you mean something didn't really happen. It's metaphorical, as in these examples with boats and feathers:
Besides, figuratively speaking, they are still in the same boat. (Mayne Reid)
So Josh—as he figuratively put it—had not a feather to fly with. (Burford Delannoy)
Although literally has been horning in on figuratively's turf, they're really not the same, in fact the two words are often go together to complete a picture:
Watching a waterfall drowns out — literally and figuratively — everyday cares. (Seattle Times)
"The Piano Lesson" tells a more haunting story, both literally and figuratively. (New York Times)
Will people understand you if you use literally when you mean figuratively? Sure. Most people will recognize that when you say, "The guitar solo literally blew my head off" it was an awesome solo, but your head is, in fact, still on your neck.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSflair/flare
Flair is a talent for something, like what the pro-wrestler Nature Boy Ric Flair had back in the day. Flare is on a candle or the shape of bell-bottoms that kids rocked back in the heyday of wrastlin'.
Flair is a noun meaning an aptitude or eagerness for something or a distinctive style. You might have a flair for photography, wrestling, or dressing like a flapper. If you describe food as having a certain flair, such as a Latin flair, you mean it has the distinctive style of Latin food. Flair isn't a synonym for flavor. Style is more than flavor. Here are some flairs, ta da:
Charming and gregarious with a flair for grand gestures, he was haunted by drug addiction. (New York Times)
Nice has always boasted an Italian flair; La Promenade respects that tradition by serving firm pasta, an outlier in a world of overcooked French noodles. (Business Week)
Flare has fun, too, in many different ways. As a noun, flare is a shape that is wider at one end, such as bellbottoms, also called flares. It can also be a flickering light, as with the flare of a match. To flare might be widen or to suddenly burn. A disease can flare up, or become worse, while your skirt can flare out, or widen. Flare on:
One oak is hollowed and flared at the bottom like an arched, empty shell. (New York Times)
Sudden anger flared up in the girl's blue eyes, though, he knew it was not directed against him. (Harold Bindloss)
If you're not sure which f-word you want, choose flare. After all, flair just refers to that special something, it's restricted to being a noun that means stylishness or an aptitude for something. Flare means everything else! (Almost
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSflaunt/flout
Flaunt is to show off, but flout is to ignore the rules. Rebels do both — they flaunt their new pink motorcycles by popping a wheelie, and flout the law by running a red light.
Flaunt means to work it, to preen like a peacock. You could flaunt your new Harley, your wealth, or even your bright colors:
Prosperous Chinese are less shy about flaunting their wealth than people in other countries. (Economist)
Daffodils flaunted golden cups at their more gorgeous neighbors, the tulips. (Lucy Foster Madison)
Flout, on the other hand, means to show a blatant disregard or contempt for. If you scoff when told what to do, you flout the rules. Here are some rules being flouted in the news:
In other words, the euro zone is based on a gentleman's agreement that's widely flouted. (Salon)
Baseball's rulebook is routinely ignored, flouted and evaded. (New York Times)
The problem is that people use flout to mean flaunt. If you mix up the words in the sentences above, the meaning changes. It would be weird to flout your wealth or your golden color. Garner's Modern American Usage identifies this error at widespread: it can be seen in the writing of well-educated people. However, Garner advises (and we concur) that the distinction between flaunt and flout be preserved.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSflounder/founder
To flounder is to struggle, but to founder is to sink like a stone and fail. Both are fun as nouns, not so fun as verbs.
A flounder is a fish, but as a verb, it means to blunder about, to be in serious trouble. In the following examples, something is struggling but hasn't completely failed:
He set out for it, limping, while the sharp gravel rolled under his bleeding feet as he floundered up the climbing trail. (Harold Bindloss)
It is a war that has floundered for nine years without a rational strategy and may endure for another decade. (Sydney Morning Herald)
Just as he turned around that floundering business, he suggests, so too could he reverse the country's sagging fortunes as its chief executive. (Washington Post)
A founder is someone who starts something, but as a verb, founder literally means "to sink." Figuratively, it's "to collapse or fail completely." Here are some examples of sinking and failing:
Pratt resisted the impulse of most Mormons to head back to the foundering ship. (Salt Lake Tribune)
Xinhua, in an English-language commentary, said China could not stand by while its largest trading partner foundered. (Reuters)
Yet negotiations over new gas contracts have foundered. (Economist)
Flounder and founder are happy little nouns that don't get mixed up. But it all falls apart when they're verbs — if you're floundering, you're struggling. If you're foundering, you're failing completely. You're sunk! You can't even hold onto the letter l.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSformerly/formally
Formerly is something that happened before, like when a pop star changed his name to a squiggle, he became known as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince. But formally comes from formal, or fancy, like the prom.
Former is at the root of formerly, referring to something that occurred earlier. If you changed your name, you'd be referred to as formerly known as whatever-your-name-used-to-be. It's not just for pop stars. If you want a word that means in the past or before, formerly fits the bill:
Movies, books, television shows, the journalistic outlets formerly known as newspapers, podcasts, YouTube videos, actual museums, tweets—they all comprise the noise. (Slate)
Erskine Bowles, formerly President Bill Clinton's chief of staff, said, "I'm worried you're going to fail." (Business Week)
At the root of formally is formal, an adjective that describes something as following custom, regulations, or ceremonies. You might speak formally during your speech, but chat casually with everyone after. Formally describes something official:
Delaware spent years piloting and fine-tuning their system before putting it in place formally state-wide. (Washington Post)
The current council will formally disband within the next few days. (Time)
Remember where these two words came from and you'll keep them straight: formerly former, and formally formal.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSformidable/formative
Formidable describes a foe you're slightly afraid of, but formative describes what formed you. Perhaps a formidable gymteacher scared the pants off you during your formative years in grade school, and now you're a world-class athlete. (Or a bookworm, depending on how you react to formidable foes.)
If you're a software designer, Microsoft is a formidable opponent. Such an enemy is one you dread, or perhaps respect or are awed by, because of its power, size, or capabilities. If you have a formidable vocabulary, you have a lot of words to choose from:
"A really formidable fighter can be worth more than a horse," he said. (New York Times)
Temple turned out to be more formidable than most expected. (Washington Post)
Heath Shuler is taking on an even more formidable opponent: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. (Knoxville News)
Something formative shapes or forms a person or thing. Your early years are generally considered formative because they greatly influence who you are. Let's form an idea from some examples:
Psychologists have always stressed the formative influence of parents, but siblings have been studied less. (New York Times)
Marc Webb's film explores the formative years of Peter Parker, previously played on screen by Tobey Maguire. (BBC)
Naturally, he has formative memories built around the intersection of the team with his life. (Seattle Times)
Remember: your formative period was when you were learning to become a formidable foe for words with unruly definitions. And mean gym teachers.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSfortunate/fortuitous
Get our your lucky rabbit's foot! Fortunate is lucky, but fortuitous means by chance or accident. Silly rabbit, these words aren't the same.
Fortunate means having good fortune that you're born with or win somehow. You're fortunate if you're rich, good looking, and in love. Here are some examples full of fortunes:
Let's say you are fortunate enough to have a good job and some savings. (Business Week)
More fortunate refugees have been taken in by local families. (Reuters)
Fortuitous traditionally refers to something that happens by accident or chance — either good or bad. It descends from the Latin forte, meaning "by chance." People often use fortuitous to mean lucky because they want to sound fancy, but you don't have to be one of them. Let's stumble upon these fortuitous examples:
Meetings with other individuals in the course of foraging, basking, or seeking shelter, are fortuitous and have no social significance. (John M. Legler)
There are also fortuitous street finds, like the Eames lounge chairs he discovered near their apartment in Greenwich Village. (New York Times)
Fortuitous has also been used to mean fortunate for so long that the meaning is morphing. Fortuitous is still separate from fortunate, though — it's closer to serendipity. The usage guru Bryan A. Garner notes that this usage of fortuitous is at stage 3 in his Language Change Index: "the form becomes commonplace even among many well-educated people but is still avoided in careful usage."
Don't thank that rabbit foot for your being so fortunate; after all, it wasn't so lucky for the rabbit. But if you're superstitious, it's fortuitous that you found it right before you bought that lottery ticket
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSgibe/jibe
To gibe is to sneer or heckle, but to jibe is to agree. Funny thing is, though, jibe is an alternate spelling of gibe, so surprise! People get them mixed up.
A gibe is a pointy comment, an insult, a verbal thump on the forehead. Despite being taunted, gibe hasn't changed in years — since the 1500s it's been a verb meaning, "to make a remark that is taunting or sarcastic." Soon after, gibe was used as a noun referring to the remark. The etymology is uncertain, though it could be borrowed from the Middle French giber, meaning to handle roughly. Here are some gibes in context:
The last sentence was spoken in taunting tones, and Slade's face showed that the gibe had gone home. (Herman Landon)
Dr. Prince walked off very triumphantly after this parting gibe. (E.M. Delafield)
Jibe is a two-headed verb:it means to agree, but it's also a nautical term meaning to shift a sail on a ship. (This nautical jibe is spelled gybe in British English). Here are some jibes agreeably appearing in sentences:
"We thought about getting married in Massachusetts, but it just didn't seem to jibe right," said Dorr. (Salon)
The drop in jobless rate doesn't jibe with recent job gains. (Wall Street Journal)
With a bit of practice, you can steer, turn, tack, and jibe a boat with just her sails. (John Jamieson)
Should you use jibe as an alternate spelling of gibe? No. Just don't gibe, or pick on,people who do, instead just jibe with them and admit it's accepted in some dictionaries.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSgorilla/guerrilla
You might see a gorilla in a zoo, but a guerrilla (sometimes spelled with one "r"), is someone who belongs to a group of independent fighters. If you remember your high school Spanish, you'll know the difference.
A gorilla is a type of large African ape. Sure they fight, but that's not why they're called gorillas. When they show up in the news, they're usually just monkeying around:
This short clip of a Silverback gorilla in Kent walking upright on his hind legs, like a human, has become an internet sensation. (BBC)
Anaklet says we're going to surprise some gorillas eating breakfast. (Time)
A guerrilla, on the other hand, is a fighter who's a part of a rebellious group that's battling a government or other authority, and likes to raid and ambush. The word has picked up a casual meaning of describing anything that's meant to take you by surprise. Here are some examples:
Al-Shabab had spoken of a switch to guerilla warfare, which could mean more suicide bombings as well as grenade attacks and land mines, he says. (BBC)
Guerrilla Marketing is a phrase coined by Jay Conrad Levinson as a take-no-prisoners way of marketing. (Guerrilla Marketing)
So how will knowing your high school Spanish help you keep them straight? Guerrilla comes from the Spanish word for a war made up of skirmishes. That guerilla is related to guerra for (you guessed it), war. If you remember that guerra is war and guerrilla is little war, you'll remember that in English, independent fighters are guerrillas, no matter how hairy they are.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDSgrisly/gristly/grizzly
Blood, guts, and man-eaters, oh my! Feint of heart turn back now! Grisly means relating to horror or disgust, gristly means related to gristle or cartilage, and grizzly is a big ol' bear. That can eat you.
Grisly describes blood and guts, horror movie fodder, something totally repulsive. It shows up in these blood-curdling examples:
The grisly massacre — some bodies were grotesquely mutilated and defiled — shocked the country and made global headlines. (Time)
Television video showed a heavily damaged building and a grisly scene inside, with clothing and prayer mats scattered across a blood-splattered floor. (New York Times)
Gristly is gross, too, but it means related to gristle or cartilage, that yucky hard stuff in a chicken leg, for example, or the tough chewy part in any meat. Or person. Here are some gristly examples to gnaw on:
In a ham sandwich is a cold, pink punch in the face, an angry thing marbled with gristly neglect. (Guardian)
This is surrounded by a sheath of connective tissue, at first merely membranous, later becoming cartilaginous or gristly. (John Mason Tyler)
Grizzly refers to a species of brown bear found in North America. Grizzly can also refer to the color gray or gray hair: Grizzlies get their name from the white hairs that grow in their brown coats, making them look grizzled (streaked with gray).
He makes a face like a threatened grizzly bear: mouth wide open, snout muscles flexed, teeth bared. (New York Times)
All in all, if you're going out on a bear hunt, avoid grisly, gristly, and even grizzly bears. Hunt for teddy bears instead.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDShealthful/healthy
Healthful describes something that will create good health, like apples, yoga, and fresh air. Healthy describes someone fit, trim, and utterly not sick.
Healthful food and exercise fills you full of health! Healthful has meant something that will create good health since 1398, and that remains the main definition of the word:
Choosing the most healthful foods for your family is no easy task. (Time)
Tilapia crusted in pulverized plantain chips, with sweet maduros on the side, was a relatively healthful departure. (New York Times)
Healthy is used to describe someone or something that enjoys all that good health. If you're healthy, whether you're a tree, a bank account, or a human, you're well, thank you very much. Here are some healthy tidbits from the news:
Any team interested in Sizemore will need to be convinced he is, finally, healthy again. (Washington Post)
Healthy forests are built to withstand severe natural disturbances. (New York Times)
This word pair, healthful and healthy, has been causing debate for over a century. The question is whether these adjectives can both be used to mean conducive to good health. This is what gets some word mavens' blood boiling. Healthy, they say, cannot be used to mean conducive to good health. But according to the Oxford English Dictionary, healthy has been a synonym for healthful since its earliest appearance in print... in 1552.
So it's OK to use healthy and healthful as synonyms for conducive to good health: have a healthy snack or a healthful one. But if you're referring to someone who enjoys good health, however, use healthy because it'd be weird to call a person healthful. Save healthful for the granola and healthy for your personal trainer.
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CHOOSE YOUR WORDShistoric/historical
Something historic has a great importance to human history. Something historical is related to the past. People with big egos get them mixed up if they say they had a historic family background. Unless they helped win a war, it was probably just historical.
Historic describes something huge that happened in the past, something that affected human history. Historic things can be important figures, like Abraham Lincoln, or pivotal events, like the invention of the printing press. Historic lows are the lowest in history. Here are some historic examples from the news:
The last one closed in October as the museum moves historic objects out of its west wing for a major renovation beginning early next year. (Washington Post)
A private funeral for the rap legend will be held at the historic Grace Baptist Church in Mount Vernon, just north of New York City. (Seattle Times)
Germans have little incentive to save, with interest rates at historic lows. (Business Week)
Something historical, like an event or an object, doesn't have to concern all of human history or be of worldwide importance, it's just something connected to the past, like these examples:
Other blow-by-blow historical Twitter efforts have run aground. (New York Times)
Kugel regularly furnished historical information that other Madoff employees used to fabricate trades, the government charged. (Washington Post)
Our package also included photos, video, story, historical timeline, readers' memories and polls. (Seattle Times)
The Battle for Bunker Hill was an important battle in the Revolutionary War, making it historic. While the battle for the last piece of your mom's chocolate cake might live in your family history as huge event, it's historical.
And by the way, if you pronounce the h- in either historic or historical, you should use a rather than an before it.