Double-take, # 194

A fishy mangle, with dreadful pun, via Des Pond of Slough:

Source: The Telegraph, breadcrumb to ‘Twitter had the best response to a lorry shedding a load of fish in Scotland’

Until I investigated this mangle, I had no idea that there was a verb shed that meant — very precisely — ‘Park (a vehicle) in a depot’, the definition given by Oxford Dictionaries. The simple past tense and the past participle of this verb are shedded. The OED* offers two definitions: the obscure (it says) ‘To roof over’, and a broader equivalent of the Oxford Dictionaries’ entry, ‘To place in a shed’.

The other verb shed, which is the one intended by The Telegraph’s breadcrumb, is irregular, and both the simple past and past participle forms are shed.

shedded for shed

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The Wrong Word Entirely, # 10

Today's mangle is another of those pesky homonyms (but note in passing that the title of this series cries out for a comma):

Link: The Guardian/Observer, Your Problems with Anna Tims, 'instal'

The OED lists instal as a variant of install (v. 2), which means to pay by instalments. It also notes that the term is rarely found and is now obsolete, and lists only a single example, from 1679. It isn't the same word, or from the same etymological root, as the verb install (v. 1), which can mean to set in place or to invest with an office.

The related nouns follow the verbal spelling, thus instalment, which is still in use, for payments, and installment for being invested with an office, although being placed in position is denoted by the noun installation (which is also a viable variant for being invested with an office).

Oddly, Merriam-Webster lists instal as 'a chiefly British variant of install' (i.e., the obsolete word from OED v. 2).

Unless you're writing fiction set in the late seventeenth century and need a verb to describe someone making regular payments, it would probably be wise to set your spell-checker to replace instal with install.