那些年，我們常搞混的單詞們②

英語詞彙中充滿了你難以意識到的陷阱，都有哪些單詞成羣結伴迷惑我們呢？

When you add information to a sentence with parentheses, you’re more likely to need e.g., which means “for example,” than i.e., which means “in other words” or “which is to say ...” An easy way to remember them is that e.g. is eg-zample and i.e. is “in effect.”

當你想要用括號往句子裏添加信息時，比起表示“換句話說”或“也就是說”的i.e. ，你更需要用表示“舉個栗子?”的e.g.。一個記住他們的方法就是，e.g.是eg-zample，而i.e.是“in effect.”

People didn’t have as much trouble with these two before websites came along and everyone started talking about sites a lot more than they used to. A site is a location or place. Cite, on the other hand, is a verb meaning to quote or reference something else. You can cite a website, but not the other way around. If you’re using site as a verb, it’s probably wrong.

在網絡出現之前人們在區分這兩個詞上沒有什麼問題，現在人們比過去也更多得多開始談論sites這個詞。site指的是位置或地點。另一方面，cite是一個表示引用或參照別的東西的動詞。你可以引用（cite）一個網站，而不是另外那個詞。如果你把site用作動詞，那很可能是錯的。

People sometimes use disinterested when they really mean uninterested. To be uninterested is to be bored or indifferent to something. Disinterested means impartial or having no personal stake in the matter. You want a judge or referee to be disinterested, but not necessarily uninterested.

人們想要表示uninterested的時候，有時會用成disinterested。to be uninterested是對某件事物感到無聊或表現冷漠。disinterested表示公正的，或者在這件事上沒有個人利益的。你希望法官或裁判能夠公正（disinterested），但不一定不感興趣（uninterested）。

Are you talking about showing off? Then you don’t mean flout, you mean flaunt. To flout is to ignore the rules. You can think of flaunt as the longer showier one, with that extra letter it goes around flaunting. You can flout a law, agreement, or convention, but you can flaunt almost anything.

你是在談論炫耀嗎？那麼你說的就不是flout，而是flaunt。flout是無視規矩。你可以把flaunt看作是因爲額外多了一個字母，更長而更值得炫耀的一個單詞。你可以輕視（flout）法律、協議或慣例，但是你沒什麼是不能炫耀的（flaunt）。

Phase is the more common word and usually the right choice, except in those situations where it means “to bother.” If something doesn’t bother you, it doesn’t faze you. Faze is almost always used after a negative, so be on alert if there is an isn’t/wasn’t/doesn’t nearby.

phase這個詞更常見，通常用它都是對的，除了在表示“麻煩（to bother）”的情況下。如果某件事沒有麻煩（bother）你，那它也就不會打擾（faze）你。faze幾乎都是用在否定句裏，所以如果單詞附近有isn't / wasn't / doesn't 時要保持警惕。

Loath is reluctant or unwilling, while to loathe is to hate. You are loath to do the things you loathe, which makes it confusing, but you can keep them clear by noting whether the word has a "to be" verb on one side and a to on the other (he is loath to), in which case loath is correct, or it can be substituted by hate (I loathe mosquitoes), in which case you need the e on the end.

loath是勉強的或不願意的，而loathe是討厭。你討厭（loathe）去做不願意（loath）做的事，這很容易搞混，但是你也可以通過這個詞是否一邊有“to be”而另一邊有“to”來搞清他們(他不願意 he is loath to），在這個情況下，loath就是正確的。或如果它能被hate替代（我討厭蚊子 I loathe mosquitoes），那在這個情況下你就應該在結尾處加上e了（loathe）。

The word wave is far more frequent than waive and has a more concrete meaning of undulating motion. It’s often used for waive, "to give something up," perhaps because it fits well with the image of someone waving something away. But when you waive your rights, or salary, or contract terms, you surrender them. You can think of the extra i in waive as a little surrender flag in the middle of the word.

wave這個詞用的要比waive多得多，而且有表示“波動”意思的更有形的含義。waive常用作“放棄某事某物”，或許因爲它很適合人們揮手告別的畫面。但是當你waive你的權利、或薪水、或合同條款時，你就放棄了它們。你可以想象waive裏多出來的字母i就像單詞裏的一個投降小白旗。

Intensive is a word that means strong or extreme, but that’s not what’s called for in this phrase. To say “practically speaking” or “in all important ways” the phrase you want is “for all intents and purposes.”

intensive表示猛烈的或極端的，但在這個短語裏並不是這個意思。要表達“實際上”或“就所有的重點來說”，你想要用的短語就是“for all intents and purposes（總的來說；無論怎麼看）”

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