{"id":650,"date":"2018-12-06T13:25:36","date_gmt":"2018-12-06T18:25:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/?p=650"},"modified":"2018-12-06T13:25:36","modified_gmt":"2018-12-06T18:25:36","slug":"words-of-the-week-elusive-illusive-allusive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/2018\/12\/06\/words-of-the-week-elusive-illusive-allusive\/","title":{"rendered":"Words of the Week! Elusive, Illusive, Allusive"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Desert<\/a>This week we have a pair of homonyms, illusive<\/a> and elusive<\/a>, that students confuse. OED links are given. At a colleague’s suggestion I added a quasi-literary term that we rarely encounter, allusive<\/a>. The mnemonic for getting them sorted out is not too difficult, so we’ll have a go at it now.<\/p>\n

If something is “illusive,” think of an illusion<\/strong>. It only seems real. It deceives you, as in “His quest a quick fortune led him toward many illusive investments, all of which collapsed.” “Elusive” is something that eludes<\/strong> us, so “While he invested a lot of money, good returns on his investments remained elusive.”<\/p>\n

I well recall my first highway travel as a child. I kept warning my father of water ahead on the road. These were illusions, mirages. All such are illusive.<\/p>\n

Writers may know, and use, literary allusions. Something that is allusive alludes<\/strong> to something else, literary or ordinary, as in “The state’s early and difficult frontier history left so many allusive place names: Last Chance, Broken Promise, Dead Man, Murder Creek.”<\/p>\n

Since all three words sound nearly alike when spoken, it’s best to try the mnemonics given, before writing anything down.<\/p>\n

Please nominate a word or metaphor useful in academic writing by e-mailing me (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or leaving a comment below.<\/p>\n

See all of our Metaphors of the Month\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and Words of the Week\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week we have a pair of homonyms, illusive and elusive, that students confuse. OED links are given. At a colleague’s suggestion I added a quasi-literary term that we rarely encounter, allusive. The mnemonic for getting them sorted out is not too difficult, so we’ll have a go at it now. If something is “illusive,” … Continue reading Words of the Week! Elusive, Illusive, Allusive<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":589,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2516,1172,1,2520,40197],"tags":[2522],"class_list":["post-650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-writing","category-language","category-uncategorized","category-usage","category-vocabulary","tag-word-of-the-week"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcsCNV-au","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/589"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}