This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

JAMA. 1970;213(2):290-291.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

And editors, and copy editors, and proofreaders, and even writers of scientific articles: JAMA recently printed an unforgivable blooper—a malapropism. In the synopsis-abstract to an otherwise impeccable essay, this statement appeared: "Thus, our negative results mitigate against medium deficiency as contributing toward positive effects." Never mind the context, note the word "mitigate."

Readers responded promptly. One tore out the page (easy to do with "perfect binding"), circled the word in red, and wrote "Shame!" Another commented that mitigate is often used when militate is intended but that the reverse is never seen.

Words that sound alike or look alike play tricks on the unwary or the unknowing. To mitigate is to moderate, to abate, to soften. That should be easy to remember because there are t's in all those words and nary an I. Militate derives from the same source as military, which has to do with soldiery and fighting, . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?