Dirt. This word means filth or anything that renders foul and unclean, and means nothing else. It is often improperly used for earth or loam, and sometimes even for sand or gravel. We not unfrequently hear of a dirt road when an unpaved road is meant.
Discommode. This word is rarely used; incommode is accounted the better form.
Disremember. This is a word vulgarly used in the sense of forget. It is said to be more frequently heard in the South than in the North.
Distinguish. This verb is sometimes improperly used for discriminate. We distinguish by means of the senses as well as of the understanding; we discriminate by means of the understanding only. "It is difficult, in some cases, to distinguish between," etc.: should be, "It is difficult, in some cases, to discriminate between," etc. We distinguish one thing from another, and discriminate between two or more things.
Dock—Wharf. The first of these words is often improperly used for the second. Of docks there are several kinds: a naval dock is a place for the keeping of naval stores, timber, and materials for ship-building; a dry dock is a place where vessels are drawn out of the water for repairs; a wet dock is a place where vessels are kept afloat at a certain level while they are loaded and unloaded; a sectional dock is a contrivance for raising vessels out of the water on a series of air-tight boxes. A dock, then, is a place into which things are received; hence, a man might fall into a dock, but could no more fall off a dock than he could fall off a hole. A wharf is a sort of quay built by the side of the water. A similar structure built at a right angle with the shore is generally called a pier. Vessels lie at wharves and piers, not at docks.
Donate. This word, which is defined as meaning to give, to contribute, is looked upon by most champions of good English as being an abomination. Donation is also little used by careful writers. "Donate," says Mr. Gould, "may be dismissed with this remark: so long as its place is occupied by give, bestow, grant, present, etc., it is not needed; and it should be unceremoniously bowed out, or thrust out, of the seat into which it has, temporarily, intruded."
Done. This past participle is often very inelegantly, if not improperly, used thus: "He did not cry out as some have done against it," which should read, "He did not cry out as some have against it"; i. e., "as some have cried out against it."
"Done is frequently a very great offender against grammar," says Cobbett. "To do is the act of doing. We see people write, 'I did not speak yesterday so well as I wished to have done.' Now, what is meant by the writer? He means to say that he did not speak so well as he then wished, or was wishing, to speak. Therefore, the sentence should be, 'I did not speak yesterday so well as I wished to do.' That is to say, 'so well as I wished to do it'; that is to say, to do or to perform the act of speaking.
"Take great care not to be too free in your use of the verb to do in any of its times or modes. It is a nice little handy word, and, like our oppressed it, it is made use of very often when the writer is at a loss for what to put down. To do is to act, and therefore it never can, in any of its parts, supply the place of a neuter verb. 'How do you do?' Here do refers to the state, and is essentially passive or neuter. Yet, to employ it for this purpose is very common. Dr. Blair, in his 23d Lecture, says: 'It is somewhat unfortunate that this Number of the "Spectator" did not end, as it might have done, with the former beautiful period.' That is to say, done it. And then we ask, Done what? Not the act of ending, because in this case there is no action at all. The verb means to come to an end, to cease, not to go any further. This same verb to end is sometimes an active verb: 'I end my sentence'; then the verb to do may supply its place; as, 'I have not ended my sentence so well as I might have done'; that is, done it; that is, done, or performed, the act of ending. But the Number of the 'Spectator' was no actor; it was expected to perform nothing; it was, by the Doctor, wished to have ceased to proceed. 'Did not end as it very well might have ended....' This would have been correct; but the Doctor wished to avoid the repetition, and thus he fell into bad grammar. 'Mr. Speaker, I do not feel so well satisfied as I should have done if the Right Honorable Gentleman had explained the matter more fully.' To feel satisfied is—when the satisfaction is to arise from conviction produced by fact or reasoning—a senseless expression; and to supply its place, when it is, as in this case, a neuter verb, by to do, is as senseless. Done what? Done the act of feeling! 'I do not feel so well satisfied as I should have done, or executed, or performed the act of feeling'! What incomprehensible words!"
Don't. Everybody knows that don't is a contraction of do not, and that doesn't is a contraction of does not; and yet nearly everybody is guilty of using don't when he should use doesn't. "So you don't go; John doesn't either, I hear."