Ancient is the correct term. Ancient means “firmly established,” as in “deep-rooted resentment,” but it also literally means “deeply below the surface.” It was from that sense that the figurative use of the word evolved. It is sometimes mistaken as worm seed.
Some argue that troublesome words are at the more difficult end of the vocabulary spectrum: dilemma, going to happen, material. This is not always the case:
This deep psychological need means that the revival of ’90s fashion is not just a fad.— Sabrina Maddeaux, national post (Canada), December 28, 2016
Did you catch the error? Probably not, because the confusion is quite ancient.
If your love of reading is ingrained, it’s firmly established. If your love of reading is ingrained, you’ve just made a usage mistake.
Both sit And Drills appeared with deep- in written, edited prose, even though only one of them is correct. Ancient is the adjective you’re looking for to mean something that’s firmly established (such as “It’s a longstanding tradition for graduates to wear white under their graduation gowns”). It can also refer to something that lies deep below the surface—deep fear, deep inflammation, deep psychological need.
The confusion between sit And Drills easy enough to understand: they have almost identical pronunciation. But “sowing seeds” means “putting seeds in the ground” and you would think that the difference in meaning would help distinguish between the two. After all, almost no one is confused peace And femaleanother pair of homonyms.
Seed Tournament
Alas, Seeds has another meaning that encourages some confusion with chair: “to rank (a contestant) against others in a tournament based on previous performance.” English speakers clearly experience some cognitive disagreement regarding this “seed” meaning: verb Seeds means to plant something so it can grow, while rating someone or something is like classifying and placing them in a designated place or seat. Combine that with the fact that we use the word chair (similar to chair) to mark how the orchestra players are arranged (first chairOne second seat violinist), and you get:
Rolling forward, Davidson beat the third-place Wisconsin team 73-56 …— Omar Tyree, Philadelphia CourtMay 29, 2015
Seeds gained this new competitive meaning in the late 1800s, and one of the early uses of this particular meaning in print helps clarify why it Seeds and not chair that refers to the ranking of competitors:
A few years ago it was decided to “seed” the best players through a championship draw, and this was done for two or three years.— American Lawn TennisMay 13, 1898
Drills in this sense means that competitors of all ranks will play against each other in a series of tournaments and this helps to prevent the highest ranked opponents from meeting in the early rounds of that series. In other words, the opponents are spread over a wide field, like a farmer spreading seeds. Seeding is done in some sports, but since it’s often done for championship series, it’s easy to think of this as skill-based ranking, which we associate more of come from this chair.
There’s a simple way to find out when you should use Seeds and when should you use chair. First, if the word comes before deep- and not to mention a sports team or competition, it will always be sit. If you are talking about a contest, and especially an opponent’s rank, it will always be Seeds for both verbs (“He’s eighth-seeded at Wimbledon,” “eighth-seeded at Wimbledon”) and nouns (“He’s eighth-seeded at Wimbledon.”). The Only Time You Should Use the Verb chair in such a context is if one player is actually sitting behind another (“He was behind his opponent at Wimbledon and couldn’t see the match”).
Categories: Usage Notes
Source: vothisaucamau.edu.vn
