2020-10-17 ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด I – Incidence – incidents- instance

Revision I

2020-10-17

ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด I – Incidence – incidents- instance

การใช้ภาษาอังกฤษ ที่ถือว่า ถูกต้อง ในที่นี้ เป็นไป ตามมาตรฐาน ของภาษา

การใช้ภาษาอังกฤษ ไม่กำหนดมาตฐาน ถือตามส่วนใหญ่ที่ใช้แต่ละท้องถิ่น

ความหมาย อาจยืดหยุ่น ขึ้นอยู่กับ ตำแหน่ง/หน้าที่ ในประโยค

Dictionary.com

ออกเสียง Incidence = ‘IN-si-duhns’

ออกเสียง incidents = ‘IN-si-duhnt’

ออกเสียง instance = ‘IN-stuhns’

Abused, Confused, & Misused Words by Mary Embree

incidence

the rate or range of occurrence or influence of something:

There is a high incidence of lung cancer in people who smoke.

Not to be confused with:

incidents – individual events; a distinct bit of action; occurrences:

There were several disturbing incidents during the peace march.

Abused, Confused, & Misused Words by Mary Embree

instance

an occurrence of something; an example:

The fistfight was an instance of student discord.

Not to be confused with:

instants – very brief time periods; almost imperceptible moments:

We experience only instants of pure joy.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language,

incidence

Usage Note:

The singular noun incidence usually refers to the rate at which something happens,

as in The city has taken measures to reduce the incidence of vandalism.

In this sense, it is used in the plural only in relatively rare situations

when several rates are being discussed

(for example, incidences of heart disease, cancer, and stroke).

However, incidence is often confused with the similar-sounding words

incident and instance,

which refer not to a rate but to a discrete event and are pluralized

as incidents (which sounds exactly like incidence)

and instances (which has an ending similar to incidences).

This confusion often leads people to use incidences as a plural referring to a number of events,

as in the sentence Incidences of religious intolerance are on the rise, creating tensions within many communities.

In our 2014 Usage Survey, 74 percent of Panelists found this sentence unacceptable, and many Panelists remarked that incidences should be replaced with incidents or instances.

The same sentence was unacceptable to 67 percent of Panelists in 2002, suggesting that there has been no increase in acceptability of this usage. A few Panelists remarked that this sentence might be acceptable if it were referring to rates of vandalism in several different places. A less ambiguous sentence (The election was marred by a few violent incidences) was rejected by 80 percent of the Panel.

In this sentence, incidents is the better choice.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Choose the Right Synonym for incident

Noun

OCCURRENCE, EVENT, INCIDENT, EPISODE, CIRCUMSTANCE

mean something that happens or takes place.

OCCURRENCE may apply to a happening without intent, volition, or plan. an encounter that was a chance occurrence

EVENT usually implies an occurrence of some importance and frequently one having antecedent cause. the events following the assassination

INCIDENT suggests an occurrence of brief duration or secondary importance. a minor wartime incident

EPISODE stresses the distinctiveness or apartness of an incident. a brief romantic episode in a life devoted to work

CIRCUMSTANCE implies a specific detail attending an action or event as part of its setting or background. couldn't recall the exact circumstances

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Choose the Right Synonym for instance

Noun

INSTANCE, CASE, ILLUSTRATION, EXAMPLE, SAMPLE, SPECIMEN

mean something that exhibits distinguishing characteristics in its category.

INSTANCE applies to any individual person, act, or thing that may be offered to illustrate or explain. an instance of history repeating itself

CASE is used to direct attention to a real or assumed occurrence or situation that is to be considered, studied, or dealt with. a case of mistaken identity

ILLUSTRATION applies to an instance offered as a means of clarifying or illuminating a general statement. a telling illustration of Murphy's Law

EXAMPLE applies to a typical, representative, or illustrative instance or case. a typical example of bureaucratic waste

SAMPLE implies a part or unit taken at random from a larger whole and so presumed to be typical of its qualities. show us a sample of your work

SPECIMEN applies to any example or sample whether representative or merely existent and available. one of the finest specimens of the jeweler's art

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Did You Know?

The words incident, incidence, and instance may seem similar

(and, in fact, incident and incidence are closely related),

but they are not used identically.

In current use,

incidence usually means "rate of occurrence" and is often qualified in some way ("a high incidence of diabetes").

Incident usually refers to a particularevent, often something unusual or unpleasant ("many such incidents go unreported").

Instance suggests a particular occurrencethat is offered as an example ("another instance of bureaucratic bumbling");

it can also be synonymous with case ("many instances in which the wrong form was submitted").

The plural incidences sometimes occurs in such contexts as "several recent incidences of crime," but this use is often criticized as incorrect.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Usage Notes

'Accidental' vs. 'Incidental'

A word's meaning is no accident. Or is it?

What to Know

Accidental and incidental can both mean "something happening by chance,"

but usage suggests that "accidental" also implies an element of carelessness or inattention

while "incidental" implies the occurrencewould have happened with or without attention or care.

The words accident and incident are often confused, and for good reason.

They have intersecting histories, both stemming from the same ultimate Latin root, cadere, meaning “to fall," and their Latin antecedents had similar meanings: accidere meant, among other things, “to fall down” and “to happen” and incidere meant “to fall into” and (also) “to happen.” Plus, they kind of sound alike.

Shared Origins of Accidental an Incidental

Both accident and incident were formed from the present participles of the Latin verbs (they could be roughly translated as “accidenting” and “incidenting”), which became nouns in French before crossing into English in the 14th century. The Germanic equivalent to “accidenting” would be befalling, which gives us some perspective on how to understand the original meaning of accident: the verb befall is defined as “to happen especially as if by fate,” and the obsolete noun befall is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as “a case, circumstance, incident, accident.” The oldest meanings of accident are “a chance event” or “something that was unforeseen and unplanned”—which could also be described as “a happening” or “a befalling.”

Accident and incident share the idea of a sudden and unpleasant occurrence, the former usually referring directly to something that causes damage or injury, the latter referring to a specific moment or instance of unpleasantness or unlawfulness:

a traffic accident

isolated incidents were reported

Separate Meanings

The words next go their separate ways.

Incident becomes more abstract in the language of diplomacy, referring to something likely to have diplomatic consequences:

a border incident

Accident has a distinct abstract sensereferring to any fortuitous or nonessential property, fact, or circumstance:

an accident of birth

Among its more concrete set of meanings is the all-too-concrete euphemistic use when referring to the acts of babies and pets:

The puppy had an accident on the floor.

Subtle Differences

Their related adjectives pretty much stay in their lanes: accidental refers to something happening by chance (chance another word that descends from cadere), but also sometimes implying inattention or carelessness:

an accidental discovery

the timing was accidental

an accidental fire

Incidental means “minor” or, when it means “by chance” or “without intention or calculation,” the idea of carelessness is absent. (Incident is also sometimes used as an adjective in technical or legal contexts.)

incidental expenses

played an incidental role

an incidental finding

Language sometimes evolves in unpredictable and illogical ways.

The parallel noun forms incidence and accidence have very imbalanced comparative usage, with incidence a fairly common word meaning “an occurrence or rate of occurrence” (as in “a high incidence of crime”) and accidence a rare one, referring only to “a part of grammar that deals with inflections.”

So it might be said that all those irregular verb tensesthat require memorization when studying a new language are the “unforeseen or unplanned” changes in a language's course—accidents along the way in the history of a language.

Common Errors in English Usage Dictionary

INCIDENCE/INCIDENTS/INSTANCES

These three overlap in meaning just enough to confuse a lot of people.

Few of us have a need for “incidence,” which most often refers to degree or extent of the occurrence of something

(“the incidence of measles in Whitman County has dropped markedly since the vaccine has been provided free”).

“Incidents,” which is pronounced identically, is merely the plural of “incident,” meaning “occurrences” (“police reported damage to three different outhouses in separate incidents last Halloween”).

Instances are examples (“semicolons are not required in the first three instances given in your query”).

Incidents can be used as instances only ifsomeone is using them as examples.