Talk about discreet… Or is that discrete? It would depend upon whether you were discussing behavior versus sorting. Is it a time to be careful in what your character says or how s/he behaves or is your character sorting out clues, creating categories with minute differences?
A Regency romance, well, any historical novel, would likely require discretion, for the character to be discreet whereas a science fiction novel is more likely to consider discrete amounts or types of a thing.
Word Confusions…
…started as my way of dealing with a professional frustration with properly spelled words that were out of context in manuscripts I was editing as well as books I was reviewing. It evolved into a sharing of information with y’all. I’m hoping you’ll share with us words that have been a bête noir for you from either end.
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| Discreet | Discrete |
|---|---|
| Credit to: Apple Dictionary.com; Dictionary.com: discrete | |
“Discreet Conversation” by Albert Raudnitz (1814-1899) is in the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons |
Example of a discrete set of records. |
| Part of Grammar: | |
| Adjective | Adjective |
| Behavior
Careful and circumspect in one’s speech or actions, especially in order to avoid causing offense or to gain an advantage
|
Categories, separation
Individually separate and distinct [Mathematics; of a topology or topological space] Having the property that every subset is an open set
[Medicine] Not joined to or incorporated with another
[Statistics; of a variable] Having consecutive values that are not infinitesimally close, so that its analysis requires summation rather than integration
|
| Examples: | |
| You can rely on him to be discreet.
We made some discreet inquiries. I tried a discreet cough to keep from interrupting the speaker. |
Speech sounds are produced as a continuous sound signal rather than discrete units.
There are a finite number of discrete categories. Integers are discrete values whereas real numbers are continuous. I prefer discrete fields in my databases. “For discrete variables, the probability distribution is a plot of the probability of all possible values of a variable (Leung, 42). |
| Derivatives: | |
| Adjective: discreeter, discreetist, overdiscreet Adverb: discreetly, overdiscreetly Noun: discreetness, overdiscreetness |
Adverb: discretely Noun: discreteness |
| History of the Word: | |
| Middle English from the Old French discret, which is from Latin discretus meaning separate; it is a past past participle of discernere meaning discern, the sense arising from the late Latin discretio | Same origins as discreet, however, there are discrete differences. |
C’mon, get it out of your system, bitch, whine, moan…which words are your pet peeves? Also, please note that I try to be as accurate as I can, but mistakes happen or I miss something. Email me if you find errors, so I can fix them…and we’ll all benefit!
Pinterest Photo Credits:
“Having a Peek Out the Blinds” by Nicole McDaniel is freely available, via FreeImages.
