Don’t be such a bore of a boor! Boors generally love to eat boar, for wild pig is such a treat. I would assume it’s even a treat for Boers.
All right, so much for fun and games. The serious word confusion is between boor and bore. Many writers believe that the words are interchangeable. No. A boor is more of a foolish country bumpkin, a buffoon without discretion or taste while a bore will probably make you fall asleep, for they are so tedious to listen to. They’ll probably bore you to tears, they’re that uninteresting in their conversation.
Now, a Boer is actually an ancestor of the Afrikaners of South Africa, a migration of Dutch settlers way back in the day.
As for boar . . . yummy. I do like a tasty bit of pork.
These heterograhs will be the death of us!
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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| boar | Boer | boor | bore |
|---|---|---|---|
Ausgewachsenes Wildschwein beim Suhlen is 4028mdk09’s own work under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license, via Wikimedia Commons. — Grown wild boar wallowing. |
_(14595821067).jpg)
A Boer Family of Sharpshooters at Johannesburg courtesy of Internet Archive Book Images with no restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons. |
Immigrants Approaching Statue of Liberty by Edwin Levick is in the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. — Immigrants were commonly viewed as boors by Americans. |
Bored, Bored, Bored is under the CC0 license, via PxHere. |
| Part of Grammar: | |||
| Adjective; Noun
Plural for noun: boar, boars |
Adjective; Proper Noun
Plural for noun: Boers |
Noun
Plural for noun: boors |
Noun 1, 2, 3; Verb 1, intransitive & transitive 2 Plural for the noun: bores Third person present verb: bores Bore is also the simple past tense of bear |
| Adjective: [South Midland and Southern US; of animals] Male, especially full-grown Noun: [Also wild boar] A tusked Eurasian wild pig from which domestic pigs are descended
An uncastrated domestic male pig
|
A South African of Dutch descent
Adjective: Of or relating to the Boers Proper Noun: |
Tasteless buffoon
An unrefined, ill-mannered person
Peasant |
A hole or not interesting
Noun: The hollow part inside a gun barrel or other tube 1
Short for borehole A person whose talk or behavior is dull and uninteresting 2
A steep-fronted wave caused by the meeting of two tides or by the constriction of a tide rushing up a narrow estuary 3 Verb, intransitive: Make one’s way through a crowd Verb, transitive:
To weary by dullness, tedious repetition, unwelcome attentions, etc. 2 |
| Examples: | |||
| Adjective: A boar cat can be good hunting. “The 42-year-old was hit as she and her husband unwittingly rode into the middle of a boar hunt” (Sun). “There were three hundred and sixty boar pigs, and the herdsman’s four hounds, which were as fierce as wolves, slept always with them” (Homer). “Perhaps the boar’s Head had something to do with it, but certainly the footman had” (Dickens). “Aren’t you going to give me some of the boar’s head with pistachio nuts?” (Zola). Noun: “This affable gent will take you on a customized walk, hike, or boar hunt around town” (Hunt). “If every bear and boar were kept in a den — what a fine world this would be” (Leigh). “The oaths were ratified by the sacrifice of a bull, a wolf , a boar, and a ram over a shield” (Xenophon). “The boar, watching its fate, squealed, and the python advanced” (Stuart). “The story of the boar and the tortoise too, can be traced back to the Vedic literature” (Muller). |
Adjective: Conflict with the British administration of Cape Colony after 1806 led to the Great Trek of 1835–37 and the Boer Wars. The Boer republics of Transvaal and Orange Free State became part of the Republic of South Africa. There’s a Boer settlement up ahead. Proper Noun: The Boers’ present-day descendants are the Afrikaners. |
At last the big obnoxious boor had been dealt a stunning blow for his uncouth and belligerent manner.
I find Paul to be such a boor. The boor would never have understood what I said. The countess is certainly not married to some boor from the countryside! Kevin felt such a boor for having thought she would like his gift. |
Noun: We’ll need a large bore, if we’re going to use these melons. He carries a small-bore rifle. He shot a guard in the leg with a twelve-bore. Look at the size of this bore in that oak! Housecleaning and laundry are such a bore. It’s such a bore cooking when one’s alone. David is a bore. If I have to listen to him one more time, I’ll snap. He is a crashing bore who tells the same old jokes over and over. “The phenomenon of the tidal bore is sometimes seen on the Humber (Hudson). “This had been in comparatively quiet water all the way, with nothing much to look out for save the tidal bore at the lower end” (Freeman). Verb, intransitive: He bored through the crowd with ease. Verb, transitive: They bored holes in the sides. You’ll need to bore a number of small holes, if you want this to drain properly. Try to bore the tunnel at the correct angle. Have you tried boring it bigger? His speech bored me to tears. Rather than bore you with all the details, I’ll hit some of the bright spots. She bore him three children. |
| Derivatives: | |||
| Adjective: Boer Noun: boerbul, boerbull |
Adjective: boorish Adverb: boorishly Noun: boorishness |
Adjective: bored, boring Adverb: boredly, boringly Noun: boredom, borehole, borer, borescope, boringness |
|
| History of the Word: | |||
| Old English bār is of West Germanic origin and related to the Dutch beer and the German Bär. | From the Dutch boer meaning farmer. | Mid-16th century in the sense of peasant, which is from the Low German būr or the Dutch boer meaning farmer. |
|
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.
Resources for Boar vs Boer vs Boor vs Bore
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Apple Dictionary.com
Dictionary.com: Boer, boor, and tidal bore
Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. lci-eBooks, 2013. Web. n.d. <https://amzn.to/3SwpNy1>.
Freeman, Lewis R. Down the Columbia. Project Gutenberg, 2011. <http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38249/38249-h/38249-h.htm>. 2011, <https://amzn.to/3D8rhsx>. Ebook.
Homer. Samuel Butler (trans.) Timothy Power and Gregory Nagy (eds). The Odyssey. ICU Publishing, 2011. <https://amzn.to/3FczCOz&gr;.
Hunt, Jolie. “Gal With a Suitcase.” Daily Beast. 20 Feb 2010. Web. n.d. <https://www.thedailybeast.com/gal-with-a-suitcase-5>.
Leigh, Percival. The Comic Latin Grammar. Project Gutenberg, 2009. <https://www.gutenberg.org/files/29456/29456-h/29456-h.htm&lgt;.
Muller, F. Max. India: What Can It Teach Us? Book Tree, 1999. Originally published 1882. <https://amzn.to/3eZXaf7>.
Stuart, Florence Partello. The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy. Digireads.com, 2004. <https://amzn.to/3TR690Q>.
The Sun. Collins Dictionary. 2015. Web. n.d. <https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/sentences/english/boar>.
Xenophon. H.G. Dakyns (trans.) Anabasis. Project Gutenberg, 2013. <https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1170/1170-h/1170-h.htm>. Digireads.com, 2004. <https://amzn.to/3N6by1J>.
Zola, Emile. The Fat and the Thin. Public Domain Books, 2009. <https://amzn.to/3gHpcfR>.
Pinterest Photo Credits:
Mafikeng Second Boer War by Skeoch Cumming W is in the public domain. Musket Ball with Hole is Rosser1954’s own work under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license. Wild Boar Rubbing is Richard Bartz, Munich Makro Freak’s own work under the CC BY-SA 2.5 license. All three are via Wikimedia Commons. Nerdboy, <https://visualhunt.com/photo/266306/>, by J. Chris Vaughan, <https://visualhunt.com/author/813bf7>, is under the CC BY-SA 2.0 license, via VisualHunt.
Revised as of 6 Apr 2024
By: Kathy Davie