Word Confusion: Emaciation versus Emancipation

Posted January 18, 2022 by Kathy Davie in Author Resources, Self-Editing, Word Confusions, Writing


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I couldn’t help it, lol! Darynda Jones kept giving Aurora Vicram “grief” with her mispronunciation of emancipation in A Good Day for Chardonnay, lol. It’s been preying on my mind, so I simply had to do a word confusion on emaciation versus emancipation.

Essentially, emaciation is an unhealthy loss of weight.

Emancipation is about freedom.

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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Emaciation Emancipation

Three thin and weak prisoners of war.

Indian Prisoners of War by Chris Turner is under the CC BY 2.0 license, via Wikimedia Commons.

—

Occupying troops discovered grave cases of malnutrition and emaciation in most of the camps.
The central scene shows the interior of a freedman's home with the family gathered around a Union wood stove. The father bounces his small child on his knee while his wife and others look on. On the wall near the mantel hang a picture of Abraham Lincoln and a banjo. Below this scene is an oval portrait of Lincoln and above it, Thomas Crawford's statue of Freedom. On either side of the central picture are scenes contrasting black life in the South under the Confederacy (left) with visions of the freedman's life after the war (right). At top left fugitive slaves are hunted down in a coastal swamp. Below, a black man is sold, apart from his wife and children, on a public auction block. At bottom a black woman is flogged and a male slave branded. Above, two hags, one holding the three-headed hellhound Cerberus, preside over these scenes, and flee from the gleaming apparition of Freedom. In contrast, on the right, a woman with an olive branch and scales of justice stands triumphant. Here, a freedman's cottage can be seen in a peaceful landscape. Below, a black mother sends her children off to Public School. At bottom a free Negro receives his pay from a cashier. Two smaller scenes flank Lincoln's portrait. In one a mounted overseer flogs a black field slave (left); in the other a foreman politely greets Negro cotton-field workers.

Emancipation, 1 Jan 1865, was created by Thomas Nast, engraved by King & Baird, and published by S. Bott is in the public domain, via Picryl.
Part of Grammar:
Noun

Plural: emaciation

Noun

Plural: emancipation

Abnormal thinness caused by lack of nutrition or by disease

The process of flesh gradually wasting away

The fact or process of being set free from legal, social, or political restrictions

  • Liberation
  • The freeing of someone from slavery
  • [Legal; of minors (a person under the age of 18)] The act of removing a minor from the care and control of parents and said minor assuming most adult responsibilities for their own care
Examples:
She was thin to the point of emaciation.

The poison induced extreme emaciation and a slow, agonizing death.

After many days of fasting, the hunger strikers present a progressively more serious deterioration, emaciation and profound dehydration.

If you need to stave off emaciation without blowing your budget, this unprepossessing little bistro is surely in the city’s top ten destinations.

He was metaphorically hit over the head by the emancipation of feminist ideas.

The old ideas, in the old organizations, represented quite the opposite of social emancipation.

President Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation on 22 September 1862.

The struggle for emancipation from slavery had begun much, much earlier.

Perhaps the bicycle’s most important legacy is its effect upon some women’s emancipation.

The rights for a minor’s emancipation vary from state to state.

Derivatives:
Adjective: emaciated
Verb: emaciate 		Adjective: emancipated, emancipatory
Noun: nonemancipation, preemancipation, self-emancipation
Verb: emancipate
History of the Word:
1655–65 from the Latin ēmaciāt(us) (emaciate + -ion). 1625–35 from the Latin ēmancipātiōn- (stem of ēmancipātiō), equivalent to ēmancipāt(us) (emancipate + -iōn).

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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 Emaciation versus Emancipation

Apple Dictionary.com

Dictionary.com: emaciation, emancipation

Heinig, Melissa. “Emancipation of Minors.” Nolo.com. n.d. Web. 4 Jan 2022. <https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/emancipation-of-minors-32237.html>.

Lexico.com: emaciation, emancipation

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Pinterest Photo Credits:

Concentration Camp Victims, 1945, by PingNews.com is in the public domain, via Flickr and courtesy of the National Archives.

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