I had to look no further than my own column in last week's Insider to immediately find fault – with myself. I wrote that “people seem adverse to simply putting an s on a word ending in i – witness all those bar menus that describe specialty martini's.”
Adverse should have been averse.
Adverse means hostile or unfavorable. Adverse weather conditions should make us drive more slowly, and an adverse reaction to a certain food might be caused by an allergy. It is properly applied to things, like conditions or reactions. Its most common noun form is adversary, or opponent.
Averse means disinclined or possessing a strong dislike for something. If I am averse to eating liver, it isn't because I have an allergy. I just don't like the taste and texture. This word is applied to my feelings about things, whuch means that I am averse to driving in bad weather. Its noun form is aversion, or antipathy (literally, an anti feeling).
See how one misplaced letter can make even the Grammarnator say “Mea culpa” about two words that come from the same Latin root (vertere, to turn).
Oh – split infinitives (“to immediately find”) are okay. After all, English isn't Latin.
The Grammarnator wasn't the only one to catch his folly this week. Former Ask the Elders columnist Steve Leavenworth sent us a note to make sure the grammatical legend saw the error of his ways:
Dear Insiders,
Back at him: I always have believed that if you were against or opposed to something, you were “averse” to it, not “adverse” to it. I am averse to smoking. Adverse just means the opposite. The adverse of high wind is low wind. The again, I have been known on rare occasions to be wrong, completely wrong.
