Word Confusion: Crewel versus Cruel

Posted May 28, 2020 by kddidit in Author Resources, Self-Editing, Word Confusions, Writing

I suppose it can be cruel to force a girl to do crewel work, but it is much more cruel to butcher the English language with crewelty. Yep. Crewelty.

I don’t know if the writer was trying to be cute à la Piers Anthony or what, but it was downright cruel to my brain how they butchered this pair of heterographs (a subset of homophone).

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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Crewel	Cruel
Crewel Embroidery for Chair Seat, c. 1937, by Lawrence Peterson is courtesy of the National Gallery of Art and is in the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.	Kidnapped and Tied Up Barefoot by Nite Searcher is in the public domain, via Flickr. — That hogtie looks mighty cruel.
Part of Grammar:
Noun Plural: crewels	Adjective; Adverb; Verb, transitive Third person present verb: cruels Past tense or past participle: cruelled Present participle: cruelling
A thin, loosely twisted, worsted yarn used for tapestry and embroidery	Adjective: Willfully causing pain or suffering to others Feeling no concern about causing pain or suffering Enjoying the pain or distress of others Causing or marked by great pain or distress Rigid Stern Strict Unrelentingly severe Cruel events or situations make people suffer in a way that seems unfair [Slang] Cool Awesome Neat Adverb: [Nonstandard] To a great degree Terribly Verb, transitive: To spoil or ruin (one’s chance of success) [Australia] To violently provoke (a child) in the belief that this will make them more assertive
Examples:
It was a lovely piece of fancy work, the crewel work old Mrs Johnson was embroidering. One can also use silk instead of wool in working crewel. The yarn used in crewel work was originally a worsted wool. I’ve always wanted to work crewel bed curtains using a Jacobean design. The Bayeux Tapestry is one of the earliest surviving examples of crewel work. She had been working half-heartedly at the crewel embroidered shawl for some time. Most often the handiwork of women in prosperous New England households from about 1720 to 1800, crewel embroidery consists of slackly twisted yarns that are stitched onto plain-woven fabrics, usually linen, using a variety of stitches. The silk shoes and the crewel panel at the Connecticut Historical Society enlarge the meaning of the bed sheet in the Beinecke. I have crewel yarn and silk thread, and I’m determined to make something of it. To her, however, there was no distinction between plain linen and high-style crewel.	Adjective: Unfortunately, there are people who are cruel to animals. That was a cruel remark, Agnes. The winters are long, hard, and cruel. He was known as a cruel-hearted man. The cruel spectators of the gladiatorial contests enjoyed the mayhem and violence. Suffering the loss of a limb is a cruel affliction. It’s a cruel world. Closing the school would be a cruel blow to this community. Adverb: “I’ve never got arthritis, though my old dad had it something cruel” (Greenwood). Verb, transitive: Ernie nearly cruelled the whole thing by laughing. A shortage of berth space for mega container ships will restrict capacity at Melbourne’s port, cruelling Labor’s attempts to get maximum value from its privatization, a leading shipping expert has warned. This 30-year-old is being tipped to go places — if we haven’t completely cruelled her chances by giving her a name check in Crikey. I was referring to the area where you were talking about this practice of cruelling; the pinching of babies, sometimes so hard that their skin breaks and may go septic.
Derivatives:
Noun: creweler, crewelist, crewelling, crewelwork	Adjective: crueler, cruelest, crueller [British], cruellest [British], cruelty-free, uncruel Adverb: cruelly, uncruelly Noun: cruelness, cruelties, cruelty
History of the Word:
Late 15th century of unknown origin. Possibly from an earlier crule.	Middle English, via the Old French from the Latin crudelis meaning hard, severe, cruel and related to the Latin crudus meaning raw, rough.

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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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