Word Confusion: Ascent versus Assent

Revised as of
25 June 2023

I hate to assent to the ascent of misspellings, word confusions, poor punctuation, and more in writers today, but I’d be doing readers a disservice if I denied these issues are rising up more and more.

So I’m asking writers to be more thorough in their editing and slow the ascent of these problems, as readers see these errors in text and believe it’s correct. After all, it’s in print, so it must be right.

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 noire for you from either end.

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Ascent	Assent
Mountain Climbing with Rope by Michele Campeotto from Italia is under the CC BY-SA 2.0 license, via Wikimedia Commons. — An ascent of Erto in Italy.	The Yetee is courtesy of GIPHY. — Yep, nodding one’s head is a type of assent.
Part of Grammar:
Noun Plural for the noun: ascents	Noun, uncountable 1; Verb, intransitive 2 Plural for the noun: assent Gerund: assenting Third person present verb: assents Past tense or past participle: assented Present participle: assenting
A climb or walk to the summit of a mountain or hill An upward slope or path An instance of rising through the air A rise to an important position or a higher level	Noun: Expression of approval or agreement Official agreement or sanction Verb, intransitive: Express approval or agreement, typically officially
Examples:
The first ascent of the Matterhorn brought the sport of mountaineering into the public eye. The routes of ascent can be retraced. The ascent grew steeper as we continued up. The first balloon ascent was in 1783. His ascent to power was unprecedented. Mount Everest has seen many unsuccessful ascents.	Noun: There was a loud murmur of assent from the crowd. He nodded assent. The governor has the power to withhold his assent from a bill. Verb, intransitive: Roosevelt assented to the agreement. “Guest house, then,” Frank assented cheerfully.
Derivatives:
Noun: reascent	Adverb: assentingly Adjective: assentive, nonassenting Noun: assenter, assentiveness, assentor
History of the Word:
Late 16th century from ascend, on the pattern of the pair of descend, descent.	Early 14th century meaning consent or approval, from the Old French assenter, based on the Latin assentiri: ad- (toward) + sentire (feel, think). Circa 1300 from the Old French assentir meaning agree, which evolved from get used to in the 12th century, from the Latin assentare meaning to agree with, a frequentative of assentire, from ad- (toward) + sentire (feel, think).

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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!

Satisfy your curiosity about other Word Confusions on its homepage or more generally explore the index of self-editing posts. You may also want to explore Book Layout & Formatting Ideas, Formatting Tips, Grammar Explanations, Linguistics, Publishing Tips, the Properly Punctuated, Writing Ideas and Resources, and Working Your Website.

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Resources for Ascent versus Assent

Apple Dictionary.com

Dictionary.com: assent

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Pinterest Photo Credits

Climbing Wall has no machine-readable author provided, but Gede77~commonswiki is assumed based on copyright claims. It is in the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.