984. This week, we talk about the subtle differences between words such as "stock" and "broth," "street" and "boulevard," "maze" and "labyrinth" and more with Eli Burnstein, author of "The Dictionary of Fine Distinctions." Confusion about colors got him started on this path, but along the way, he gained insights into language, culture, and the subtle differences that shape meanings.
984. This week, we talk about the subtle differences between words such as "stock" or "broth," "street" or "boulevard," "maze" or "labyrinth" and more with Eli Burnstein, author of "The Dictionary of Fine Distinctions." Confusion about colors got him started on this path, but along the way, he gained insights into language, culture, and the subtle differences that shape meanings.
| Find Eli at https://EliBurnstein.com
| Dictionary of Fine Distinctions: https://www.unionsquareandco.com/9781454952350/dictionary-of-fine-distinctions-by-eli-burnstein/
| Edited transcript with links: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/burnstein/transcript
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Mignon Fogarty:
Grammar Girl here. It's Mignon Fogarty and today, I have an interview with Eli Burnstein, author of the "Dictionary of Fine Distinctions" that looks at words with close meanings, like what is the actual difference between a street, an avenue, and a drive; stock and broth; a maze and a labyrinth? His work has been featured in The New Yorker, McSweeney's, and more.
Eli, thank you so much for being here.
Eli Burnstein:
Oh, my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Mignon Fogarty:
You bet. So, you know, the thing that surprised me most about your book as I was reading it is that there was so much in it that I didn't know. You know, I would think that a book about words, I'd think, "Oh, I would know those things." But I didn't.
So why don't you give people sort of the big picture of what the book is about and what inspired you to write it?
Eli Burnstein:
Sure. Well, first, let me say that makes two of us in terms of distinctions I didn't know before going in, which was what made the project such a treat.
It allowed me to teach myself a lot.
As for why I wrote the book, well, first, let me say what the book is about.
So it's called" Dictionary of Fine Distinctions."
As the title suggests, it's a collection of objects, ideas, words, natural phenomena that are commonly confused or that we didn't even know there was a difference between in the first place. So nuances, subtleties, things like that.
As for how I came to write the book, there's actually a backstory there, which is that my girlfriend would often make fun of me for not being able to tell the difference between colors that are slightly different from one another. So I would often confuse maroon and burgundy or fuchsia and magenta, lilac and lavender and so on and so forth. And I thought to spare myself future embarrassment, I'd make a study of it.
And pretty quickly, I realized that colors were just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the kind of things that I commonly confused or that I didn't even realize there was a difference between. And then I was off to the races.
Of course, the irony is actually that the book is in black and white. So those entries on color will have to wait for a future edition.
Mignon Fogarty:
Right. And aside, magenta is one of my favorite stories. It comes from the Battle of Magenta because the color was chemically made around the time of this great battle.
Eli Burnstein:
Yes, in fact, so that was the one thorough entry on color that I did write. So I came across that in my own research, but alas, it did not make it to the final cut.
Mignon Fogarty:
Yeah. Well, there's so much. I mean, the book is meaty. There's a lot there. And speaking of meaty, let's start with the food words. There were a few that caught my eye about food that I didn't know. So I grew up in Seattle, so I've been drinking coffee, you know, since I was a child, maybe not a child, but you know. And I always just get a latte. Like, it's just what I've always gotten. I'm a latte girl. But like, what would be different if I got a cappuccino or a flat white? I mean, as a Seattleite, it's embarrassing. I don't know the difference.
Eli Burnstein:
Yeah. Well, I wouldn't blame yourself because these things are kind of slippery and they do constantly evolve. So it is hard to pin down. And even if you do pin it down, it's going to change with time. And yeah, that's actually surprisingly, it may surprise readers that that's one of my longest entries. You would think something a little more substantial might get more, a higher word count. But yeah, the difference between a latte, a flat white, a cappuccino, and a cortado ended up taking a while to really pin down. And in particular, the difference between a flat white and a cappuccino, both of them contain steamed milk and espresso. And both of them are smaller than lattes and bigger than cortados. So we can kind of knock those two off. They're the two extremes. Lattes are the milkiest, cortados are the smallest and the strongest.
And the answer to the difference between a cappuccino and a flat white is it really depends on the location. Some coffee shops will treat them as identical. Some of them might not even have one or the other, but where the difference does exist, it usually is that a cappuccino is a bit airier. That's about it. So they will, they will aerate the milk a little bit more. And the result is a slightly fluffier texture. And because you use a little bit less milk in an equivalent cup size, the taste might be a bit stronger too. It's amazing how long you have to speak to get to the heart of it, but it does get quite technical. And it was fun actually. It's one of the few entries where I did a little bit of field research. And by that, I mean, I spoke to a dozen or more baristas as I went about my day.
Mignon Fogarty:
That was going to be my question, like, did you do research? Take the opportunity to check it out as many times.
Eli Burnstein:
Absolutely. I mean, I'm a big drink coffee drinker, but yes, sorry, continue.
Mignon Fogarty:
Did you have a new favorite after you did all this research? Did you switch your drinking or did you stick with what you always would get?
Eli Burnstein:
Well, hopefully this isn't going to discredit me, but I drink black coffee. So I usually drink drip or filter coffee or Americanos. So this is more for my own curiosity's sake than for my own drinking, although I will indulge in the odd milk drink, and I would probably get a flat white.
Mignon Fogarty:
Okay. And it sort of leads us to sort of a bigger picture question, because I was wondering, what is your sort of general philosophy about these nuanced differences between words? Because as you said, it can vary depending on location. So were there some where you felt like you ended up not including them because the distinction wasn't as strong as you thought or, like, what did it take to make the cut for you to say, you know, these things are different enough that I want to include them in the book?
Eli Burnstein:
Yeah, that's a good question. I would say that the short answer is to what merited inclusion is, whether or not it interested me. So it is ultimately an idiosyncratic list, but readers will find that the difficulty level definitely varies. And of course it will vary from person to person. So what one person might find subtle, others might argue “That's not that fine of a distinction.” So to give an example, the difference between Great Britain and the United Kingdom, I think a lot of Brits would say that's not that subtle, but admittedly, many others around the world either kind of mix them up, or they don't even realize there is a difference.
And on the other extreme, we have something like the difference between a hermit and an anchorite, which I think most of us would agree is a pretty subtle distinction. Many of us don't even know what these terms are. But then if you were to speak to, you know, a medieval history PhD, they might say, "Oh, that's obvious," right? So it is a little bit subjective.
Mignon Fogarty:
Yeah. So do tell me the difference between Britain and the UK. Did it change with Brexit? Because I feel like I knew, but now I'm a little confused.
Eli Burnstein:
So I'm going to betray my own ignorance in these matters, but I don't think so. No, I think these these distinctions predated Brexit, and they live after it. So the United Kingdom is a political term. It's actually short for "the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland." So it consists of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. So those four territories make up the country of the United Kingdom or the UK. Great Britain, on the other hand, is a geographical term referring just to the landmass that includes only three of those four countries. So there's three of those four territories.
So England, Scotland, and Wales are on the physical landmass of Great Britain, whereas Northern Ireland, of course, is on the landmass of Ireland, which is itself composed of the Republic of Ireland to the south, which is a much larger part, and Northern Ireland in the north, which is part of the UK. So one is a geographical term. One is a political term.
Is there is there one that people who live there prefer that we use when we refer to, you know, because I will say sometimes, you know, British English and talk about people who live in and it's like England, Great Britain, the UK, like, is there one that I should be using that is better than the others?
Eli Burnstein:
I think so, I've been living in the UK for just over a year now. And it seems to be the case that the UK would be the noun form that most people say. And British would be the adjectival form that you hear. So to be a Brit usually means actually that you're a citizen of the UK or a resident of the UK. So it could also include Northern Ireland.
So it gets confusing. It's one of those few entries where I have a slightly lengthier conversation about this at the back because you could just go on and on. There's also the Crown dependencies. There's all these little islands, the Isle of Man, and Jersey, and Guernsey, and the whole region kind of requires, you know, a flowchart, basically.
Mignon Fogarty:
Yeah, I saw a map once that had squares around all these different parts and they were all labeled differently. It was amazing.
Eli Burnstein:
Exactly. Yeah.
Mignon Fogarty:
Well, let's get back to food for a minute. Stock versus broth. I feel like I should have known this.
Eli Burnstein:
Yeah, that's another one where I did not know at all. And I'm embarrassed to say it took me a while to get right. In fact, I have to thank my copy editors for catching some errors, going above and beyond the call of duty and saying, you know, I actually don't think that's quite right. So I myself had to revisit that a couple of times, but that just tells you how bad of a cook I am.
Mignon Fogarty:
Copy editors are the best. They always, they save you, honestly.
Eli Burnstein:
Yeah. They do.
Mignon Fogarty:
So do tell what the difference between stock and broth. So other people who might not know.
Eli Burnstein:
I might have to consult it myself, but I will, I guess the short answer is that a stock is primarily made from bones, whereas a broth is primarily made from meat. Now they're, one can have the other, but that tends to be the essential difference.
This is a bit of a tangent, but one of my favorite things that I learned in the course of writing this book is that it's often, the clue is often in the etymology. It's in the name, right? So stock, it's like stocky, it's like your bones, right? It's, and, or yeah, like the stock of an object. I think etymologically relates to the idea of someone's bones or frame. And so stock is bone-based and in order to extract the flavors from the bones, you have to simmer them for a really long time.
Whereas a broth, it's all on the meat.
You don't have to simmer it for as long of a time, but the result also is that in the, uh, bones and cartilage and joints, there is, um, collagen, which gives it a kind of a gelatinous texture at certain temperatures. So broth or sorry, stock is in addition to being a good flavoring agent is also a good thickening agent. And that is not the case with stock. Or, sorry. It's not the case with broth. See, these are fine distinctions. Even I continue to get muddled.
Mignon Fogarty:
So that's great to know that I'll keep that in mind next time I see a recipe. Here's one that, um, well, hors d'oeuvres and canapés. First of all, I can never spell "hors d'oeuvres." I always have to look that up, but I did again, I didn't realize there was a difference.
Eli Burnstein:
Yes. And that's one of those examples where one is more a subcategory of the other.
So a canapé is a type of hors d'oeuvre. An hors d'oeuvre might be any sort of one bite or one or two bite dishes, but the canopé is specifically an hors d'oeuvre served on a cracker or piece of bread.
So if you go to a cocktail party or, uh, you know, soiree of some kind, um, I don't know the last time I've been to one of those, but you get, you may be served canapés or other types of hors d'oeuvres.
So another example that I actually list in the definition is crudité, which is, I don't know why they're all French, but, uh, crudités are raw vegetables. So, you know, arguably the least appetizing of the type of hors d'oeuvres.
Mignon Fogarty:
Right. Yeah. And I was surprised there was a special name just for hors d'oeuvres served on crackers or bread, like very specific. And another fun part of the book was, um, the references that made me think of pop culture things. I ended up going to YouTube and looking up videos of things like for, um, you have, you know, maybe it doesn't seem that exciting but spear, javelin, lance, and pike.
But one of my favorite lines from a movie is in "A Knight's Tale" where they're talking, the main characters are sort of bantering, and then the woman walks off and the man is frustrated. And then they, she's talking about, like, boys with their sticks because he's doing jousting. And then his friend goes, "It's called a lance."
Eli Burnstein:
Yeah, exactly.
Mignon Fogarty:
So what is the difference between a lance and a pike and a spear?
Eli Burnstein:
That's a great line and a good example because it is a lance in that movie. So if you're jousting, uh, as the, uh, knights would do in the medieval times, uh, you would be doing so with the lance. So a lance was a type of spear, if we're going to use spear as the umbrella term, that you would use on horseback.
And in fact, if you were jousting as opposed to actually using a lance in battle, it would often be a blunt tipped lance and, or a hollow lance, to protect your opponent because it wasn't actually a fight to the death. It was a sport, right?
So in, in the cases of in the, in “A Knight’s Tale,” for instance, it was all meant, I mean, people could still get hurt, but it would be a safer version of a lance, but in battle, lances were sharp and they were not hollow. So they were very dangerous indeed.
But that's a lance, a spear would be one for holding in a one-on-one count combat or in army formation, military formation. A javelin, perhaps more people will know is for throwing.
And then a pike is a really, really long spear, essentially. And often the value of pikes would actually be in numbers. So it's not, it wouldn't as much be for one-on-one combat, but essentially a whole bunch of soldiers would group together. They would hold up their pikes, they would almost form a giant porcupine. And that would be a really good kind of collective defense and offense.
Mignon Fogarty:
Wild. Oh, I didn't know that. That's amazing. Yeah.
Eli Burnstein:
Yes. And in fact, I think one of their purposes was actually to defend against lance-bearing cavalry. And I also learned along the way that the pike eventually evolved into the bayonet. So at one point in the, I want to say the 18th century, they were fighting with pikes and guns, but the guns at the time were somewhat rudimentary, and eventually the guns got better and they said, well, we don't need the pikes. Let's just put it on the end of the gun.
Mignon Fogarty:
Oh, amazing. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's great. So, the next one, you had shotgun house versus railroad apartment. And I think I had only ever heard that in a Talking Heads song. “You may find yourself in a shotgun shack in the middle of …” so you know, and so I went and watched that video too. Thank you. But the difference. So what is the difference between a shotgun house and a railroad house?
Eli Burnstein:
Yes. So a shotgun house or a shotgun shack as it is also called is a home, usually a single story home, where one room is directly behind the next with no hallway running adjacent. So the idea is if you want to get to the far end of the house, you have to go through every single other room to get there.
Not necessarily a bad thing if you're a small group of people, but if you're a big family, it could be hard because that allows for very little privacy. And a railroad apartment is essentially the same thing, but it is in an apartment building. And again, if not the worst thing, if you're a small number of people, but if you're one family or multiple families, as was the case in the kind of era of tenement housing in New York City, say, these were very cramped and unpleasant spaces.
So this is an example actually where it's two different things that have kind of architectural features that overlap, but the shotgun house was more popular in the South, predominantly in New Orleans, but beyond there too. Whereas the railroad apartment is kind of archetypal of New York City, Chicago, and other big cities.
Mignon Fogarty:
Nice. And then, the other one that sort of took me back to my childhood was, "schlemiel" and "shlimazel." Like I went and watched the intro to "Laverne and Shirley" where they sing that song with "schlemiel, shlimazel." And I, I always wondered what, what that meant.
Eli Burnstein:
Yeah. What's the rest? Hasenpfeffer Incorporated or something.
Mignon Fogarty:
Yeah. Yeah. So do tell the difference between "schlemiel" and "shlimazel."
Eli Burnstein:
Sure. So the short … so they're both Yiddish words. And the short answer is these are two different kinds of loser. So, I always appreciate the ability to be, uh, nuanced and subtle in this area, but basically a schlemiel is a bumbling fool. So someone who's quite loudly clumsy or scheming, it doesn't have to be physical necessarily, but there's something kind of loud and overt about their incompetence.
So a classic example might be Kramer from "Seinfeld," that character, right? He's kind of always scheming and getting into trouble as well as making all kinds of physical pratfalls. Whereas a shlimazel is someone who is kind of a born loser or always gets the short end of the stick. And literally it, it translates from Yiddish to "bad luck," "shlimazel." So, again, you could maybe say that George from "Seinfeld" would be a good example of a shlimazel, because he, bad things happen to him.
I mean, he is also bumbling, so you could argue, well, they're both a bit of both, but he's probably more the shlimazel figure, right? So bad things are happening to him.
And the easiest way to, to remember the difference is that a schlemiel, this is a classic Yiddish joke, but a schlemiel is someone who spills their soup, and a shlimazel is someone onto whom soup is spilled.
Mignon Fogarty:
That's a good one. So, what are some of your favorite entries from the book?
Eli Burnstein:
I think I would have to say my favorite is the difference between a maze and a labyrinth. And I think that's because I used to love mazes as a kid. I'm sure like so many kids, you know, I thought they were so cool. I had my little books of puzzles, and I loved solving them, my little books of mazes. And then to learn so late in life that there's something called a labyrinth that's something else. And I had no idea my whole life that there was this other thing, they're called labyrinths, and it's got its own long history.
And just, I suppose for, for, for readers and listeners, I should expect viewers and listeners that I should explain the difference. So a maze is as most people know, a puzzle that consists of many paths or to use the technical term, it is multicursal, and it consists of many paths and dead ends. And the goal is to find your way out or to the center, but ultimately it's a puzzle, right? That kind of is meant to disorient you, and you have to figure your way out.
A labyrinth on the other hand, now the term, to muddy things a bit, can actually refer to a maze sometimes, but more strictly speaking refers to this second category. So a labyrinth is unicursal or single pathed and contains no dead ends, but rather is winding or circuitous and leads toward a center. So it, it, you cannot get lost in one. It is just one long winding path.
And whereas the function of a maze is to amuse and challenge and confuse. The purpose of a labyrinth is, actually nowadays, it actually has a therapeutic value.
The idea of, kind of the repetitive motion of walking in a spiral like formation can kind of relax you, but it's actually got a long history in religion and spirituality as a kind of, I think it performs similar things in those areas too. It's kind of got this calming and contemplative effect.
Mignon Fogarty:
Hmm. I've never been in a labyrinth. Have you?
Eli Burnstein:
I actually have, there's a, there's one in Toronto in, in High Park, uh, and it's just a pattern on a floor, and you'll actually see them, that now that I've, this is a classic example of now that I've learned the difference. I see them everywhere as designs on walls or as art, or if you go into a park, you might see one. Certain cathedral floors have them. But yes, it’s just a kind of design basically. And you can walk along it almost like a complex form of hopscotch or something. And another aspect of why I find it interesting is, you know, again, many people will be familiar with the myth of the labyrinth from ancient Greek mythology, where Theseus has to go into the labyrinth to kill the Minotaur.
Now there's actually a kind of niche academic debate about whether or not the ancient Greek labyrinth was in fact a labyrinth or whether or not it was a maze.
And the reason that makes it complicated is that, uh, or hard to decide is that, according to the myth, Theseus uses a length of thread, kind of leaves a length of thread behind him as he weaves his way towards the center to kill the Minotaur.
That would suggest it's a maze because why would he need the string unless if it were to find his way out, but from all the coins from the ancient Greek and Roman period that depict the labyrinth, depict it as a labyrinth, which is to say not as a maze, but as a unicursal pattern.
So, but then, why did he need the string? Maybe it was dark in there. He just needed kind of a handrail. So it's kind of an open, uh, debate and kind of an unsolved mystery.
Mignon Fogarty:
Very cool. I think the last one I want to talk about from the book is the one that blew my mind. And also I think will be so useful in the future if I, you know, when I visit new cities, is the difference between a street, an avenue, a drive, a place, a court. And now I feel like when I see an address now, I'm going to know more about the place that is at that address, because there are differences between these words.
Eli Burnstein:
Absolutely. It's a great example of how there really are no two words that are exactly the same. That every word contains, is a little packet of information that contains all these subtleties. And that was a fun one to kind of learn more about as well. Because like you, I didn't know this either going in, but streets are urban. Roads are usually rural, although that tends to be the umbrella term.
Boulevards are wide, often have a median down the middle, and avenues are kind of the tricky ones. So avenues are kind of switch hitters. They can, they could be like streets, or they could be like boulevards depending on the city. But I think the implication often is that it is, it is an upgraded street.
So, whether it's upgraded because it's wide like a boulevard or because it ends in a nice view or at a park or whatever, but certain cities like New York, for instance, and I'm trying to remember some of the others I logged in the book. I want to say Memphis, streets and avenues run perpendicular. Chicago. Thank you. Yes. Streets and avenues run perpendicular to one another, which is interesting. So all the streets go one way and then turn a corner and all the avenues go the other. So they're kind of like the X Street. They'll be what you need them to be.
Mignon Fogarty:
Yeah. It's amazing. I never noticed. I've been in those cities. I've never noticed that the avenues go one way, and the streets go the other, but now I'll know. It's amazing. So helpful. So useful.
Well, it's "The Dictionary of Fine Distinctions," but before we go, I also want to hear, you do … you put on spelling bees, and I would love to hear about that.
Eli Burnstein:
That's right. Sure. Yes. So yeah, my love of language has other forms, but for about six or seven years now, I've been running a spelling bee as a monthly bar event. There was obviously a big hiatus with COVID, and in the wake of that and the move to the UK, I'm kind of just getting the ball rolling again, but yes, it is a monthly spelling bee event called Spelling Bae.
And I'm trying to kind of bring the classic kids spelling bee to the adult world so that people in bars can, can come up to the mic and let her rip. And yes, I kind of devised it as an alternative to trivia, which is also really fun, but spelling, something about spelling really brings out the nerves in people and it makes for great, it's a great spectator sport.
Mignon Fogarty:
True. Wonderful. Well, again, the book is "The Dictionary of Fine Distinctions."
Eli, tell people where they can find you.
Eli Burnstein:
Absolutely. So, my website is EliBurnstein.com, and that's Burnstein, B-U, which is a less common spelling. Um, I'm on Twitter and Instagram and you can find my book, uh, online at most major retailers. So Amazon, Barnes and Noble, you name it as well as in bookstores.
Mignon Fogarty:
Yeah. "The Dictionary of Fine Distinctions." You will love it. So thank you, Eli. Thank you so much for being here today.
Eli Burnstein:
Thank you, Mignon.
Mignon Fogarty:
I hope you all enjoyed my conversation with Eli Burnstein.
I'll be back Tuesday with a regular episode. We found the origin of the phrase "a whim-wham for a mucket"! And then check your feed again Thursday for our next installment of Grammar Girl Conversations when I'll be talking with Erin Brenner about her new book the "Chicago Guide for Freelance Editors." We'll be dropping all kinds of productivity tips for people who work with words..
That's all. Thanks for listening.