2020-11-04 ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด M - Medal meddle metal

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2020-11-04

ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด M - Medal meddle metal

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Dictionary.com

ออกเสียง Medal & meddle = ‘MED-l’

ออกเสียง metal & mettle = ‘MET-l’

Abused, Confused, & Misused Words by Mary Embree

medal

a metal decoration; a reward: She received a medal for her bravery.

Not to be confused with:

Meddle – intervene; intrude; pry: Don’t meddle in other people’s business.

Abused, Confused, & Misused Words by Mary Embree

Metal = a hard substance such as gold, silver, or copper

Not to be confused with:

mettle– inherent quality of character; fortitude; courage

Common Errors In English Usage Dictionary

Medal - mettle – meddle - metal

A person who proves his or her mettledisplays courage or stamina.

The word “mettle” is seldom used outside of this expression,

so people constantly confuse it with other similar-sounding words.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Choose the Right Synonym for mettle

COURAGE, METTLE, SPIRIT, RESOLUTION, TENACITY

mean mental or moral strength to resist opposition, danger, or hardship.

COURAGE implies firmness of mind and will in the face of danger or extreme difficulty. the courage to support unpopular causes

METTLE suggests an ingrained capacity for meeting strain or difficulty with fortitude and resilience. a challenge that will test your mettle

SPIRIT also suggests a quality of temperament enabling one to hold one's own or keep up one's morale when opposed or threatened. her spirit was unbroken by failure

RESOLUTION stresses firm determination to achieve one's ends. the resolution of pioneer women

TENACITY adds to RESOLUTION implications of stubborn persistence and unwillingness to admit defeat. held to their beliefs with great tenacity

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Is mettle Connected to Metal?

Originally,

mettle was simply a variantspelling of the word metal

(which dates to at least the 13th century),

and it was used in all of the same senses as itsmetallic relative.

Over time, however, mettle came to be used mainly in figurative senses referring to the quality of someone's character.

It eventually became a distinct English word in its own right, losing its literal sense altogether.

Metal remained a term primarily used for those hard, shiny substances such as steel or iron, but it also acquired a figurative use.

Today, both words can mean "vigor and strength of spirit or temperament,"

but only metal is used of metallic substances.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Usage Notes

Know Your Metals

And your medals, and mettle, too. (We won't meddle.)

In metal, medal, mettle, and meddle,

we have four words that see all kinds of overlap.

Their basic meanings, however, are distinct.

Their pronunciations, however, are not so distinct.

Metal refers to a substance that is often lustrous,

conducts electricity and heat, and can be melted and reshaped. Iron, aluminum, lead, and platinum are classified as metals. There are elements classified as metals for the properties they share, and other kinds, termed alloys, that are formed by combiningtwo or more metals.

Medal refers to an object that resemblesa large coin,

is often stamped with an image or design,

and that is given as an award for excellence or achievement.

The Congressional Medal of Honor rewards meritorious actions involving the risk of life during military combat.

The Fields Medal honors scholarly achievement in the field of mathematics.

It’s understandable for medal to get confused with metal

—after all, the awards given for military excellence or athletic prowess are often made of gold, silver, or bronze, all of which are themselves metals. (The first two are elements, categorized with the metals on the periodic table; the third’s an alloy.)

But medal is not related to metal—the former derives via Middle French, Old Italian, and Vulgar Latin from the Latin medius, meaning “middle.”

Here is an example that shows distinctive use of both words:

His bonnet displayed a medal of gold, he wore a chain of the same metal around his neck, and the fashion of his rich garments was not much more fantastic than those of young gallants who have their clothes made in the extremity of the existing fashion.
— Walter Scott, Quentin Durward, 1823

Now let’s get to meddle and mettle.

The verb meddle has seen increased usein popular media due to accusations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election.

It means “to interest oneself in what is not one's concern”

or “to interfere without right or propriety.”

Some have argued that meddle is too benign a term for the actions for which the alleged operatives are accused, and they are right in that it’s traditionally reserved for matters of a more personal nature,

such as butting your nose into your neighbor’s scandalous affair

or asking your teenager annoying questions about her dating life.

Mettle might be the most literaryof the four words,

referring to a temperament or spirit that is often strong,

 or the abilityof a person or thing to last or endure.

In the dozen years since Fantasia Barrino claimed victory on "American Idol," the singer has more than proved her mettle. She has sold millions of records, released a New York Times best-selling memoir, won a Grammy, anchored a hit reality series and become a Broadway star.
— Gerrick D. Kennedy, The Los Angeles Times, 17 Aug. 2016

Mettle implies durability,

so perhaps it’s not surprising that the word was at one time simply a variant spelling of metal, used even torefer to the substance.

Occasionally, the figurative sense of mettle would be couched in phrasings that treated it as though it were a material:

But she said gently, "No, it won't kill your mother. She's made of finer mettle than that. …”
— Lucy Maud Montgomery, Rilla of Ingleside, 1921

Over time, however, mettle came to be its own distinct word,

referring to the character trait and losing its literal sense altogether.

Metal sometimes sees occasional use in this way.

And let’s of course not forget metal asthe adjective for something impressive

that alludes to the musical genre known as heavy metal.

So to summarize:

1. 1. Medals are often made of metal;
2. 2. You can meddle in the affairs of another;
3. 3. But you won’t win a medal for doing so;
4. 4. Resisting the urge to do so shows mettle, somewhat.

The American Heritage® Student Science Dictionary

Met·al (mĕt′l)

1. Any of a large group of elements, including iron, gold, copper, lead, and magnesium, that conduct heat and electricity well. Metals can be hammered into thin sheets or drawn into wires. They are usually shiny and opaque. All metals except mercury are solid at room temperature.

2. An alloy, such as steel or bronze, made of two or more metals.

Usage

We think of metals as hard, shiny materials used to make things like paper clips and cars.

But for chemists, a metal is a chemical element that loses electrons in a chemical reaction. Metal atoms do this because of the structure of their electron shells—the layers in which electrons are arranged around an atom's nucleus. If an element's outermost electron shell is filled, the element is stable and does not react easily. But if the shell contains only a few electrons, the atom will try to share them with another atom in a chemical reaction, thereby becoming stable. Elements having only one electron in their outermost shell are the most reactive; all they have to do to become stable is lose this electron. Such elements are alkali metals like sodium and potassium, and they are listed in the left-hand column of the Periodic Table at Periodic Table. The metals farther toward the right side of the Periodic Table, such as tin and lead, have more electrons in their outermost shell and are not as reactive because sharing or losing all these electrons would require more energy. The elements that fall between these extremes are somewhat reactive and are called transition elements. They include elements like iron, copper, tungsten, and silver.

THE AMERICAN HERITAGE® SCIENCE DICTIONAR

Metal

USAGE

Most metallic elements are lustrous or colorful solids that are

good conductors of heat and electricity, and readily form ionic bonds with other elements. Many of their properties are due to the fact that their outermost electrons, called valence electrons, are not tightly bound to the nucleus.

For instance, most metals form ionic bonds easily because they readily give up valence electrons to other atoms, thereby becoming positive ions (cations).

The electrical conductivity of metals also stems from the relative freedom of valence electrons.

In a substance composed of metals, the atoms are in a virtual ”sea“ of valence electrons that readily jump from atom to atom in the presence of an electric potential, creating electric current.

With the exception of hydrogen, which behaves like a metal only at very high pressures,

the elements that appear in the left-hand column of the Periodic Table are called alkali metals. Alkali metals, such as sodium and potassium, have only one electron in their outermost shell, and are chemically very reactive. (Hydrogen is exceptional in that, although it is highly reactive, its other metallic properties are manifest only at very high pressures.)

Metals farther toward the right side of the Periodic Table, such as tin and lead, have more electrons in their outermost shell, and are not as reactive.

The somewhat reactive elements that fall between the two extremes are the transition elements, such as iron, copper, tungsten, and silver.

In most atoms, inner electron shells must be maximally occupied by electrons before an outer shell will accept electrons, but many transition elements have electron gaps in the shell just inside the valence shell.

This configuration leads to a wide variety of available energy levels for electrons to move about in, so in the presence of electromagnetic radiation such as light, a variety of frequencies are readily emitted or absorbed.

Thus transition metals tend to be very colorful, and each contributes different colors to different compounds.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language

Metal

Word History:

Not only do metal and mettle have exactly the same pronunciation,

the two terms are—etymologically, at least—exactly the same word.

Middle English borrowed metal from Old French in the 1200s; Old French metal, metail, came from Latin metallum, from Greek metallon, "mine, quarry, ore, metal."

By the 1500s, English metal had also come to mean "the stuff one is made of, one's character," but there was no difference in spelling between the literal and figurative senses until about 1700, when the spelling mettle, originally just a variant of metal, was fixed for the sense "strength of character." English has numerous examples of similar word pairs that are (historically speaking) spelling variants of the same word,including flour/flower and lightening/lightning.