More words that are easy to confuse.

Militant/ militate/ mitigate

The adjective militant means preferring to be confrontational or aggressive to support a cause. The noun militant means someone who is aggressive in defending a cause. The word derives from a Latin word spelled the same way, meaning to serve as a soldier. Militate is a verb, meaning to be strong factor in preventing something from happening. Often the word militate is followed by the word against. If something militates against something else, it tends to prevent or works against or discourages it from being accomplished. Like the word militant, the word militate also derived from a Latin term referring to serving as a soldier. The verb mitigate means to make something less bad. If something is not good, it usually could have been worse without something to mitigate it. The word mitigate originated in a Latin term meaning to make softer or milder. Students and ajarns in the TU Faculty of Law will have heard of the term mitigating circumstances. This means something that lessens the degree of guilt over a crime. Someone who was prosecuted for a crime may not be put in jail because of mitigating circumstances. This may be anything from details about cicumstances surrounding to the offense to background information, such as the fact that the accused works to support a large family who would suffer if he were imprisoned. Many universities have extended the term mitigating circumstances to apply to when students do not do as well as they hoped and expected with assigned work or exams. One university website in the United Kingdom defines mitigating circumstances in an academic setting this way:

Mitigating Circumstances (MCs) are serious unforeseen, unpreventable circumstances that significantly disrupt student performance in assessment. As a student, you are expected to plan your work so you can meet assessment deadlines at the same time as other obligations you may have both inside and outside the University. The mitigating circumstances process should only be used if you experience significant disruption to your studies due to circumstances that were unforeseen and out of your control. There are four absolute conditions for the acceptance of an MC claim, and failure to meet one or more of these will mean your claim is rejected. Your original, independent documentary evidence must demonstrate that the circumstances:

    were unforeseen

    were out of your control and could not have been prevented

    relate directly to the timing of the assessment

    meet the relevant specific conditions relating to documentary evidence.

The three words militant, militate, and mitigate look similar, and two of them derive from the same root. Keeping them apart is a challenge, especially when writing an academic research paper or thesis. One way to avoid confusion is to look closely at the spelling of the words. Two of them start with the letters milit. Those are the two words which have something to do with the military or army. Since both refer to aggressive action, it can help to compare the word militant with related adjectives. When a word ends with the letters ant, this can mean full of something. Other words ending with the letters tant include:

blatant

constant

counterirritant

decongestant

disinfectant

distant

equidistant

exorbitant

expectant

extant

exultant

hesitant

important

inconstant

instant

irritant

mutant

noncombatant

repentant

resistant

resultant

unimportant

unrepentant

If we place militant among other words ending with the letters tant, it is likely we will remember its meaning and correct context. Similarly, by looking at the verb militate, we see that it ends with the letters ate, often seen at the end of verbs, meaning to make. Among other verbs ending with the letters tate:

agitate

amputate

annotate

cogitate

debilitate

decapitate

devastate

dictate

facilitate

gravitate

hesitate

imitate

incapacitate

irritate

lactate

levitate

meditate

necessitate

notate

overstate

palpitate

regurgitate

rehabilitate

reinstate

resuscitate

rotate

vegetate

Again, thinking of words in groups is always more informative than trying to puzzle out their meaning individually. When we group words together, if we understand the usage of one of them, chances are we will have an idea about what to do with all of them. Looking at the verb mitigate, we find that it also ends with the letters ate, in a verb possibly meaning to make. Yet the word begins differently from the terms referring to the military. Instead, let us look at other words ending with the letters gate that may be usefully grouped with mitigate:

negate

abnegate

fumigate

irrigate

litigate

navigate

relegate

castigate

conjugate

corrugate

expurgate

instigate

propagate

segregate

subjugate

congregate

promulgate

desegregate

interrogate

investigate

circumnavigate

Some usage samples for militant, militate, and mitigate:

• Travelers interested in learning to identify threats and mitigate risks from the pros can take a new online course that covers awareness and emergency response from AKE International, a global security firm that specializes in corporate travel and protecting high-net-worth individuals (the course costs about $65).
• A raft of studies — from environmental organizations, Citibank, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development — argue that a failure to mitigate the effects of climate change could cost the economy trillions of dollars.
• “Modernity is increasing the forces that tend historically to push human rights along — communications, education and reason,” he said. “If history is a guide, these trends militate towards long-term expansion of freedom and rights.”
• The very qualities that made the terminal unique — soaring spaces without a right angle anywhere — seemed to militate against plans for adaptive reuse.
• At the same time, as the laggard in the race, and someone to whom debates have not always been kind, Mitt Romney could not afford a mistake — which militates against risk-taking.
• Asked whether his regulations would have prevented the medical scandal, the American surgeon said they would “militate against such fraud” but the key issue was that once they were sold there had been no follow up to check the implants.
• Reflected the Evening Post as time went by: “Even those who had thought that his peculiarities would militate against an efficient administration had to admit that the very simplicity that showed up at times so awkwardly on the stump was a valuable adjunct in cutting away red tape and achieving the reforms that he had in mind.”
• Mrs Pankhurst believed it would take an active organisation, with young working class women, to draw attention to the cause. The motto of the suffragettes was deeds not words and from 1912 onwards they became more militant and violent in their methods of campaign. Law-breaking, violence and hunger strikes all became part of this society’s campaign tactics.
• The Gray Panthers are militant. They are militant because they challenge (in non-violent ways) rather than passively accept stereotype of aging (weakness, despair, hostility). These stereotypes are damaging to the lives of people because they become self-fulfilling prophecies. The Gray Panther movement was initiated in 1970 when Maggie Kuhn and five of her colleagues experienced forced retirement and looked for new ways to address social issues which had concerned them throughout their careers.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)