Redundant Relevance

Yahoo!News kills me.

Today they wrote: "Billy Joel's lyrics still have relevancy."

Online dictionaries do list "relevancy" as a word. But it already exists in noun form: "relevance." "Billy Joel's lyrics still have relevance." or in adjective form: "Billy Joel's lyrics are still relevant."

Allude vs. Elude

Homonyms like Allude & Elude cast an illusion of sameness. Both allude to playfulness; both elude precise definitions. Synonyms stick to them like pink on Juicy Fruit. Let's pin them down:

Allude: to make an indirect reference. It comes from the Latin "allusio" – a play on words or game.
"Superman comics allude to the Jesus & Hercules stories, but they never explicitly cite any parallels.

Elude: to escape using trickery and cleverness.
"The Flash eluded his captors with super-speed."

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Language is a big game of algebra.

When you write abc, xyz, the, etc...

You want the audience to understand the meaning of X.

But English is the motherload differential equation of all languages. We love homonyms, homograms, borrowed words, e-words. List all the nuanced meanings of the word "fishy" and you could wallpaper the Chrysler Building.

Tune in Friday when we begin differentiating grey and gray, rapt/wrapped/rapped, council vs. counsel, Cavalier vs. Maverick, and what IS a San Francisco 49er anyway?

Submit your own differentiation requests in the comments :)