More words that are easy to confuse.

Prescribe/ proscribe

The verb prescribe, often used to describe the activities of a doctor, means to recommend a medicine or other treatment. Such medicines and treatments are often recommended in writing, with what is called a prescription. More generally, outside of the field of medicine, to prescribe something means that it is being suggested or promoted. The verb prescribe has its origins in a Latin term meaning to determine something in advance by writing it down. Note that in the wider meaning of the verb prescribe, which is not always about medicine, there is no need for writing to be involved. Something may be prescribed without anything being written down, as long as it is recommended or endorsed. If we change one letter in the word prescribe, we get the word proscribe, which has the opposite meaning of the word prescribe. This is one of the challenges of writing English for academic research or theses. Even native English speakers make this mistake sometimes. For writers of Thai English, it is especially difficult because since both words, prescribe and proscribe, are accepted words in English, spell check programs will not help remind us of which one to use. Instead, we must have an idea of our own about the two words and what separates them.

The verb proscribe means to denounce or condemn, as well as forbid.  If something is proscribed, usually some authority has done it and often the legal system is involved. More generally, we can speak of parents proscribing something if they do not wish their children to do it. If something is made illegal or outlawed, it is proscribed. The verb proscribe derives from a Latin term meaning to publish in writing. Since two words meaning the opposite thing are so close in spelling, how can we be sure to tell them apart? The more we learn about words, the more likely it is that we will remember an associated word that may give us a clue about spelling. When we think of proscribe, there is another word that also starts with the letters pro that has a similar meaning. The verb prohibit means to forbid something by using authority. If something is proscribed, people in positions of authority have definitely said it was bad, but it may not always be forbidden. Since both verbs, proscribe and prohibit, are so close in meaning, we may think of them together. We should then realize that if we want to refer to something that is not allowed or denounced, the word we are looking for begins with the letters pro. This should prevent us from using the verb prescribe by mistake. Another approach would be to invent a sentence to help us remember the correct spellings:

Steroids were proscribed for the pro basketball player.

People on a protein-free diet are proscribed protein.

The pre-school student who had a headache was prescribed aspirin by the doctor.

The youngster pretended to be a doctor prescribing candy for all his classmates.

The meaning of the above sentences is not important, but linking in our memory words that begin with the letters pre or the letters pro should be useful when we must decide whether to spell a word as prescribe or proscribe. Here are some other usage examples:

• History would proscribe continued military expense.
• Buddhism is about tolerance, and Buddhist edicts now being applied to alcohol consumption in fact only proscribe being intoxicated – substances remain undefined.
• In Thailand the importation of shisha molasses is illegal under the Tobacco Control Act and the substance is also proscribed under two other pieces of legislation.
• The Ninth and Tenth amendments proscribe the use of firearms to compromise other implicit rights as they may become apparent.
• That means strictly enforcing all relevant UN Security Council resolutions and cutting off the financial lifelines that enable North Korea’s proscribed programmes.
• President Gloria Arroyo’s government has intensified efforts to crush the guerrillas, who have been waging a 38-year Marxist rebellion in the countryside, with military offensives and a plan to proscribe the rebel group under a new terror law.
• Existing WTO provisions do not proscribe many investment subsidies and equity restrictions, though they do prohibit most Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMs) along with direct export.
• There has long been proscription against gambling within Thai society. In Buddhism, gambling is one of four vices which lead to ruin. In Thai this concept is known as abaiyamuk (อบายมุข), the “portals of hell”. For the layperson, gambling is something to be avoided if one wishes to be free from suffering.
• On December 11, 2001, the Thai cabinet approved the two draft amendments of the Penal Code and the Anti-Money Laundering Act to proscribe financing of terrorism as a serious offense under the Thai criminal law and to empower the AMLO to freeze terrorist funds as mandated by the United States Security Council.
• The Antidumping Act does not proscribe transactions which involve selling an imported product at a price which is not lower than that needed to make the product competitive in the U.S. market, even though the price of the imported product is lower than its home market price.
• Thailand has also seen the emergence of civil society forms beyond NGOs. At the other extreme, Laos and Myanmar proscribe local NGOs. Vietnam provides some space for nongovernment organisations, but they are quite different entities from those in Thailand.
• “We have started with the move to allow judges to exercise their judgement to decide whether a convict should be sentenced to death or life imprisonment – instead of prescribing death sentence as the only penalty for certain offences,” the Rights and Liberties Protection Department’s director-general, Pitikan Sithidej, said yesterday. Thai laws now prescribe the death sentence for those convicted in 63 offences, including drug offences.
• The new set-up prescribes five rounds of recruitment for university admission.
• The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) board resolution states that Over-The-Top (OTT) operators must operate under Thai law, including the broadcasting law, which empowers the NBTC to regulate the broadcasting and telecom sectors. It is the NBTC’s duty to prescribe rules to regulate it.
• State and private hospitals will be allowed to prescribe pseudoephedrine-based medication after Dr Paijit Warachit, permanent secretary of the Public Health Ministry, signed a directive revoking the ban yesterday.
• The Public Health Ministry disclosed yesterday that many hospitals across the country were allegedly prescribing large amounts of cold medicines that contain a precursor chemical used to make amphetamines.
• “When you go to see the doctor and they prescribe you antibiotic pills, you have every right to ask the doctor if your symptoms are caused by a virus or bacteria,” Dr Niyada said. “If it is bacteria then take the pills, if it is a virus then say no.”
• Good governance in public utility administration prescribes that the role of policy-making, regulation and service provision should be clearly delineated.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons).