While collision and collusion are both nouns and both about conflict, collision is strictly a crash, whether it’s computing or physics or a clash of interests or ideas. At its most basic, it’s a crash between two objects.
A collusion is either a secret and/or an illegal plot that intends to cheat others.
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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| Collision | Collusion |
|---|---|
| Credit to: Apple Dictionary.com; Lexico.com: collision | |
Collision at a Glass Factory Fight by Admiral Lebioda is under the Pixabay License, via Pixabay. |
Pills by Rodrigo Senna is under the CC BY 2.0 license, via Flickr. — Are purveyors of vitamins in a collusion promoting fear? |
| Part of Grammar: | |
| Noun
Plural for noun: collisions |
Noun
Plural for noun: collusions |
An instance of one moving object or person striking violently against another
[Computing] An event of two or more records being assigned the same identifier or location in memory
[Physics] The meeting of particles or of bodies in which each exerts a force upon the other, causing the exchange of energy or momentum |
Secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy, especially in order to cheat or deceive others
|
| Examples: | |
| The collision resulted from the collusion over traffic signs.
Collision insurance covers the cost of repairs to your car, if it is in a wreck. She’s on a collision course with destiny. A midair collision between two aircraft was narrowly averted. The device increases the chances of collision. The group experienced a collision between experience and theory. It was cultures in collision. Collision avoidance has become a fundamental topic in computer science. This causes collisions, transmission errors, and resultant retries that degrade overall system performance. The strikers are on a collision course with the government. “In elastic collisions all of the energy remains as kinetic energy” (Physics). |
The armed forces were working in collusion with drug traffickers.
It’s been pretty obvious this past year that there’s collusion between media owners and political leaders. Some of his employees were acting in collusion to rob him. It was a collusion of husband and wife to obtain a divorce. |
| Derivatives: | |
| Adjective: anticollision, collisional Noun: collider Verb, intransitive: collide |
Noun: colluder, noncollusion, precollusion Verb, transitive: collude |
| History of the Word: | |
| Late Middle English from the late Latin collisio(n-), from the Latin collidere meaning strike together. | Late Middle English from the Latin collusio(n-), from colludere meaning have a secret agreement. |
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!
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Resources for Collision versus Collusion
Brodwin, Erin. “Vitamins are the Biggest Con of Your Life.” Business Insider. Yahoo! News. 4 Apr 2017. Web. 3 Apr 2021. <https://ca.news.yahoo.com/vitamins-biggest-con-life-gwyneth-192300920.html>.
“Collisions.” Isaac Physics.org. University of Cambridge. n.d. Web. 3 Apr 2021. <https://isaacphysics.org/concepts/cp_collisions>.
Pinterest Photo Credits:
Stop the Steal by Chad Davis is under the CC BY-SA 2.0 license, via Flickr.
