More words that are easy to confuse.

Cue/ queue

Fans of billiards, snooker, and pool know that a cue is also a stick used to hit a ball into a pocket. A cue is also a noun meaning something that tells someone it is time to do something. A cue for actors is a line reminding them that they must now do or say something onstage. A queue is a line of people or things, waiting in turn for something. In British English, queue is often referred to, while in American English, people usually just speak of a line to stand or wait on or in. Queue is also familiar as a verb, meaning that people are organizing themselves into a line to wait for something. Computer experts are familiar with the term queue used to describe a structure which has objects are added to one end – the tail – and removed from the other – the head. The words cue and queue sound exactly the same, so the context should tell us how they should be spelled and which one is meant. Some examples:

• The National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) will introduce a smart-card system for the taxi queue at Suvarnabhumi Airport in a bid to end the “mafia-style operation” there.
• Fried chicken aficionados queued for hours at Myanmar’s first KFC restaurant Tuesday, as the US fast food chain became the latest big foreign brand to open an outlet in the long-cloistered nation.
• A number of Vietnamese queued up for lucky mobile-phone SIM cards from local telecoms company Vinaphone in the north and the south of Vietnam yesterday.
• Japanese are well known for their good manners, and particularly so for their queue etiquette.
• Hundreds of people lined up at the Khon Kaen passport office yesterday to get queue cards for the issuing of passports.
• That was the cue for Titiphan Suriyavith, aka DJ Que of True Music, to come out on stage along with a translator to interview the Korean actor.
• The Friese-Greene Club -Tonight, cue the banjo music for a relaxing canoe trip with Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox in “Deliverance”, part of a month-long tribute to the late cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond.
• A new online game for smartphones and tablets takes its cue from wuxia novelist Gu Long.
• NBTC takes its cue from NCPO orders.

Envelop/ envelope

The verb envelop means to surround. In standard English pronunciation, the emphasis is on the second syllable of the word envelop, so that it should sound like enVELop. The last syllable should rhyme with the word up. The noun envelope is a wrapping that covers things, as in the familiar envelopes used to contain letters. The standard pronunciation of envelope puts the accent on the first syllable, so it should sound like ENvelope. Also envelope should rhyme with the words soap or hope. Lots of fields of study involve concepts about one thing being wrapped with another. For this reason, the word envelope is useful and has specific meanings in geometry, as a mathematical curve, surface, or higher-dimensional object. The popular expression to push the envelope, meaning to go beyond what is usual, derives from the mathematical use of the word envelope. If we push the envelope, we extend previously defined boundaries. In aeronautics, a flight envelope refers to how fast any aircraft may travel, as well as engine power, wind speed, altitude, and other conditions. Beyond those limits would be pushing the envelope. The word is used in electronics to mean a curve that bounds another curve or set of curves. In computing it refers to the information used for routing an email that is sent along with the email’s contents. Biologists call an envelope a cover such as a membrane and engineers use it to describe limits in any technological system beyond which it cannot work. Astronomers call an envelope the cloudy cover of part of a comet. Clearly envelope is an important word, with so many practical meanings. Adding to possible confusion is that fact that an ENvelope can be described as something that enVELops. Examples:

• Metropolitan Police Area 6 chief Pol Maj General Wittaya Rattanawit said police were processing the bead, envelope and letter for fingerprints.
• Will the envelope contain a love letter?
• Spreadsheets That Push the Envelope.
• Billions of online money transfers have taken place in China as the ancient Lunar New Year tradition of handing out red envelopes of cash met the Internet age.
• Snow envelops northern mountains in Vietnam.
• The lack of sanitary facilities caused a stench to envelop the compound.
• Heavy Fog Envelops Parts of Europe, Canceling Flights.
• But the more crucial Rove game plan is to envelop the entire presidential race in a thick fog of truth-telling.

One way to get the spelling right is to remember that the noun envelope rhymes with many other words ending with the letters ope. They include:

antelope

cope

gyroscope

hope

horoscope

isotope

microscope

misanthrope

oscilloscope

periscope

pope

rope

scope

slope

spectroscope

stethoscope

telescope

tightrope

By associating the noun envelope with these other nouns rhyming with it and ending with the letters ope, it is less likely that we will carelessly spell the word envelop when we mean the noun. Similarly, if we associate the verb envelop with another common similar verb, develop, we may recall that the verb does not require a final letter e.

Forbear/ forebear

To forbear is a verb meaning to hold back, not do something, refrain from doing it. Forbearance means that someone will not actively pursue a matter for a given time. A forebear is a noun meaning an ancestor, someone who came before us. The word forebear is similar to forefathers, another term meaning ancestors, even though these days it is not much used because it seems to ignore mothers and only mention fathers of the past. It has nothing to do with a bear. Instead it is related to a medieval word meaning someone who exists, a be-er. Some sample usage:

• What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. – Abraham Lincoln.
• Mark C. Rodgers, a spokesman, said it was too soon to say whether Citi would adopt the F.D.I.C.’s six-month forbearance policy.
• The Company launched the forbearance solicitation to obtain the consent of holders of the notes to forbear from taking any action.
• The reduced intake of food calms passions and emotions, resulting in patience, forbearance, steadfastness and discipline.
• Benjamin Franklin, too, included moderation as one of his famous 13 virtues: “Moderation: avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.”
• Many more have Chinese roots among their forebears.
• Elwyn L. Simons, Who Discovered Early Human Forebears, Dies at 85.
• Obama’s Mother Had African Forebear, Study Suggests.
• Think of the talent of our ancient forebears who only had rudimentary tools to create their masterpieces.
• These figures demonstrate just how much room there is for individual consumers to take the lead from their forebears and change the way they buy, store and consume food.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons).