Today’s note on usage

You wouldn’t know it from reading me, but I’m an obsessive proofreader. This headline over the ABC News story by Jordyn Phelps therefore jumped out at me (screenshot below): “Trump flouts chummy relations with Netanyahu ahead of Israeli election.” The confusion of flaunt/flout is not one that people in the news business should make, but there it is.

We all rely in one way or another on the intelligible transmission of words, but they are in the business of those peddling words for a living. Now let’s review: bazaar/bizarre, breach/ breech, complement/compliment, dual/duel…oh, well.

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