LANGUAGE CORNER
Evoke/Invoke; Precipitate/Precipitous
Tripping Over Latin Roots
A news story said "Eminent domain . . . is usually evoked for highways . . . ," but the "oke" word was wrong. Make it "invoked," meaning called into play and by extension put into effect. We may invoke, for example, our Fifth Amendment rights.
"Evoke" is from the same Latin root, vocare (meaning, to call) so it, too, has to do with calling; "vocal" comes from the same place. But "evoke" means to call forth or call to mind. Often, evoking something involves emotion — Ah, how wonderfully cotton candy evokes childhood! — and remembering the two e words may help separate the two "oke" words.
Another article mentioned the brief removal of a foreign leader from power, and said the United States "precipitously endorsed the short-lived ouster."
"Precipitous" means steep, so the adverb means steeply or drastically, as with nasty declines in the stock market. The writer or editor wanted "precipitately," which has to do with undue speed. Both words come from the Latin root for "precipice," which both evoke, don't they? To remember the correct last syllable, it might help to think a, as in "precipitate" and "haste" (in which the United States acted, the article intended to say).
— CJR, Sept./Oct. 2003
