Friday, May 21, 2010

Deceptively - English editing.

Deceptively belongs to a very small set of words whose meaning is genuinely ambiguous in that it can be used in similar contexts to mean either one thing or its complete opposite. A deceptively smooth surface is one which appears smooth but in fact is not smooth at all, while a deceptively spacious room is one that does not look spacious but is in fact more spacious than it appears. But confusion sets in with phrases such as a deceptively steep gradient – is it steep without appearing to be, or does it look gentle but turn out to be steep? And what is a person who is deceptively strong? To avoid confusion, it is probably best not to use deceptively at all when it can be ambiguous.
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