More commonly confused words.

Bear/ bare

The word bear as a noun refers to the familiar mammals that live in Asia, Europe, and America. Business students and ajarns are aware that a bear market means when stock values are falling and people try to sell off investments. The origins of this term are much debated, but no explanation is universally accepted. As a verb, bear has many possible meanings. It may mean to carry or support or put up with. In a literary context, the verb bear may refer to childbirth, as when mother bears a child. It can also mean to go a certain way, as in road directions instructing a driver to bear left, or turn that way. With all these potential meanings, it is important to pay attention to the sentence where the word appears to make sure the verb is used correctly. The adjective bare means having nothing to cover it. It may also mean just the basic things, with nothing extra added, as in the expression the bare necessities. Some usage examples:

• Wildlife group raises alarm over Asia’s bear trade. At least 2,800 bears in Asia were traded for their parts over the past decade, according to a report issued Thursday by an anti-wildlife trafficking group. The figure was arrived at after analysing nearly 700 bear-related seizures, and it likely represents a fraction of the overall number of bears affected by the trade, said the Traffic report.
• Inuit hunters are celebrating their victory after the proposal by the US to ban cross-border trade in polar bears and their parts was defeated last.
• Rice farmer’s switch to melon farming bears fruit.
• Justin the polar bear at Night Safari Chiang Mai is luring visitors with his famous Gangnam style dance.
• New York, New Jersey bear brunt of Sandy’s damage.
• The jars – one brand stamped with an image of Angkor Wat and labelled in Khmer as “Siem Reap prahok” – bear the fine print “Product of Thailand.”
• How did we go far beyond bare necessities?
• Some patients may experience a recurrence of the condition following application of a bare-metal stent, but the recurrence rate for the bare-metal stent is lower than for balloon angioplasty alone.
• He plays the “orphan-turned-man-cub” Mowgli, bare-chested, barefooted and sporting nothing but an orange loincloth and a mop of matted hair, and raised in the Indian jungles by a pack of wolves, a panther and a bear.
• Bare store-fronts are transformed – temporarily – for nightly exhibitions, cocktails and artful discourse.
• Asia Times exists only as a bare-bones online operation.

When in doubt about whether to spell a word bear or bare, it may help to imagine a little story about which one refers to the mammal. If we tell ourselves, be afraid of the bear then we should recall that the word for the dangerous animal is spelled starting with the letters bea. Likewise, if we think that a baby is born bare, wearing no clothes, then it may help us to spell the word bare correctly when it is needed. Even native users of English sometimes confuse these two words, but it is worth trying to avoid the common mistake.

Fortunate / fortuitous

The adjective fortunate means lucky. The word derives from the Latin name of an ancient Roman goddess, Fortuna, who embodied luck or chance. Fortuitous is also an adjective, describing something that happens by chance instead of being planned. It means not accidental. Something that is fortuitous may be good, but not always. Whereas something that is fortunate is always a positive thing. Some examples:

Some Thais even took the phenomenon as a fortuitous omen.

A fortuitous draw will be the first step in making their medal dreams come true.

However, it might not have been easy to pursue such a dream were it not for a fortuitous meeting with someone from the Bangkok Post Foundation.

How fortuitous that we ran into the ‘Vegetarian Festival‘ which is held in the 9th lunar month of the Chinese Calendar.

I was reminded of how fortunate most of the people I know, including myself, are.

He travelled to Thailand in search of a job. He was fortunate enough to find one at a seafood processing factory in Ranong, then even luckier to be promoted to oversee the refrigeration at a plant in Mahachai.

Caring for less fortunate people must take priority over concerns for animals.

“I also feel the need to ‘give back’, because along my career path I was fortunate to work with, learn from and be inspired by many different people in the hospitality industry.

If it is not certain whether to use the words fortunate or fortuitous in a sentence, try to remember that some of the best writing in English is the simplest, with the shortest words. Sometimes Thai English style is to try to use longer words to seem more dignified or to impress the reader with the intelligence of the writer. When the wrong word is chosen, the impression is not ideal. It is always better to use a short word that the writer is certain about, rather than a long word that may cause problems. With a word such as fortuitous, there is also the possibility that it will be spelled wrong. For these reasons, it may just be better not to use the word fortuitous, and instead substitute the word chance. It is fine to write in a term paper or research publication that there was a chance encounter or development instead of a fortuitous one. If the word fortuitous must be used, for whatever reason, then one way to remember how to use it and spell it might be to think about words also ending with the letters itous. They include:

ubiquitous

gratuitous

circuitous

duplicitous

serendipitous

oversolicitous

In English, some nouns ending with the letters ity may be changed into adjectives by replacing the letters ity with itous.  In that way, the noun serendipity is changed to the adjective serendipitous, for example. It may be simplest to try to remember that fortunate means lucky and fortuitous means by chance, and just use the shorter and simpler words whenever possible when writing, rather than the longer ones.

(Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons).