If by thinking we mean being rational and clear minded, then making sharp distinctions between the words we use is at the heart of it. In language it is the function of adjectives to mark the differences between nouns, and of verbs to distinguish between actions of one sort or another. The finer the choices we make in deciding on just the right word, the better our thinking and writing and speaking.
What, for example, is the difference between the adjectives disinterested and uninterested? These two adjectives show up on almost every list of words commonly confused, not for reasons of grammatical etiquette but because each means in reality something quite different. Adjectives name the characteristics of something, so if we speak of a disinterested judge, we’re paying a compliment to that person, no matter what negative connotation we might otherwise commonly associate with the adjective. A disinterested judge is an unbiased one; an uninterested judge is just that—not interested, which is not the one we want presiding over any proceeding anywhere.
Or what about the adjectives attractive and alluring? Someone might wish to interest us, for example, in working for their firm and propose generous terms of compensation, to which we might reply, “That’s an attractive offer.” The adjective attractive literally means drawn to (the letters t-r-a-c-t are the same ones in the noun tractor, which draws soil across a field). An attractive proposal is, then, one to which we are drawn, just as we would mean something similar in describing another person as attractive. But alluring? That adjective derives, say the dictionaries, from an old word for bait. Both persons and things may be alluring, but if they are, they come close to tempting us, just as bait might a fish.
And what would be the difference between growing and increasing? Both have to do with the idea of becoming greater, but when something, say a company’s profits, is described as growing, it has become greater gradually, in the same way as a garden will grow slowly over the spring and summer. The adjective growing, in fact, has derived from the word green, the color associated with gardens and natural growth. But if that company’s profits expanded suddenly after winning a lucrative contract, we would have to speak of our profits as increasing, not growing: things may increase suddenly or gradually, but they can only grow gradually over time.
In addition to these six adjectives, we should also be careful in distinguishing between some common verbs. First, the famous and infamous lay and lie. Sorting out these two troublesome verbs is really a simple affair—if we can disregard what we hear and if we can remember this one grammatical observation: when a verb aims its action directly at something (that is, when it has a direct object), that verb is called transitive; when it doesn’t, it’s called intransitive. In the present tense (and that’s all we’re talking about here) the verb lay is transitive and the verb lie is intransitive: I lay the book on the table and I lie on the beach in the sun. The book is the something I am laying on the table, but when I lie on the beach, I’m just lying there.
And finally, how do the two verbs erupt and explode differ? When something erupts, it breaks or bursts suddenly apart. The letters r-u-p-t are the same as those in the word rupture, and they derive from a Latin participle meaning broken. We speak commonly of a volcano erupting, where molten rock suddenly breaks through the crust of the earth, and we may also say figuratively that war has erupted between the nations. But when the bursting has to do with noise, not structure, we say that it has exploded: bombs exploded when war erupted—a beautifully subtle distinction between different kinds of destructive action.
And not to be missed is the unexpected derivation of the verb explode, explained here under the two headings Etymology and Word Origin at the end of this entry for the verb in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/explode. Just more proof that a dictionary is the first and fastest friend of every writer.
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Exceptionally well written, exquisitely interesting this idea, itself, is worthy of a book. A Thesaurus of nuanced distinction, rather like the acute subtle differences which describe wines. Perhaps the working title might “Roget’s Sommelier Thesaurus.”