TOME? TOMB? There is a difference!

Thanks once more to Editor Mark LaFlaur who sent along another good example of a word mixup that a spell checker would not catch. Here is the sentence from an Amazon reader review:


Many people recommended this guide to me for advice about professional writing, but until I got to read this tomb, I didn't see fully appreciate why they were so emphatic about it.


Whoops! This reader obviously meant "tome," which is, as Mark pointed out, "a highfalutin' ten-cent word" for a big book. Tomb-reading? Sounds like something the servant of a pharoah might do. The sentence should read as follows:

Many people recommended this guide to me for advice about professional writing, but until I got to read this tome, I didn't fully appreciate why they were so emphastic about it.

Mark suggested a moral for this story: "Sometimes it's simpler to use the common word (uh, "book"?) than a highfalutin' ten-cent word if you can't spell the ten-cent word."

I agree. The only time for a ten-cent word is when you need something very specific and the simpler word won't carry the meaning. And then, you MUST check your spelling!