I’ve posted before about the place of precision within more effective technical writing, such as when I described the difference between almost and most. Today I’ll address another example of confusion between similar words: allude, elude, and refer.
To allude means to reference something not specifically mentioned indirectly. To elude means to avoid notice or detection. To refer means to reference something directly. Because the reference is direct, whatever is referenced is specifically mentioned. Thus, to allude and to refer have related but essentially opposite meanings. To elude gets confused in the mix because of its similar spelling with to allude.
Consider the example sentence in the cropped graphic above. Apparently a committee was investigating a shutdown and released a final report. Although the committee did avoid highlighting any one failure mode as the primary root cause, the committee is not the nominative in the introductory phrase where the writer uses eluded. There the nominative is report, and reports don’t play hide and seek. They don’t avoid because they have no choice. They simply are.
Thus, eluded is the wrong word here. A better word would be alluded, since the committee, not demarcating any one failure mode as the primary root cause, would produce a report that references indirectly failure modes that may or may not be mentioned. Alluded communicates that meaning effectively. Here is how the rewritten sentence would look.
To allude means to reference something not specifically mentioned indirectly. To elude means to avoid notice or detection. To refer means to reference something directly. Because the reference is direct, whatever is referenced is specifically mentioned. Thus, to allude and to refer have related but essentially opposite meanings. To elude gets confused in the mix because of its similar spelling with to allude.
Consider the example sentence in the cropped graphic above. Apparently a committee was investigating a shutdown and released a final report. Although the committee did avoid highlighting any one failure mode as the primary root cause, the committee is not the nominative in the introductory phrase where the writer uses eluded. There the nominative is report, and reports don’t play hide and seek. They don’t avoid because they have no choice. They simply are.
Thus, eluded is the wrong word here. A better word would be alluded, since the committee, not demarcating any one failure mode as the primary root cause, would produce a report that references indirectly failure modes that may or may not be mentioned. Alluded communicates that meaning effectively. Here is how the rewritten sentence would look.
Although the final report alluded to the root cause of failure, the committee did not specify any one failure mode as primarily responsible for the shutdown.
The sentences could sound very identical when read aloud, but the written forms are very different. More effective technical writing follows from more effective use of language, and that demands precision. So don’t elude the differences between allude, elude, and refer. A more effective presentation of you and your brands is always preferable to a less effective one.
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