trickykitty | Avoid Avid Ambivalence (and Alliteration)

"We should vouch more often, if we’re not going to avouch. But then we don’t aver much either, and Fowler states that avouch is a solemn averring. So be lighthearted in the use of aver, but be solemn about avowing (or avouching, or vouching.)"

I work on easy and moderate level crosswords often. This has been going on since I was a teen. Right now, I attack the daily puzzle at USAToday during my lunch hour at work, and sometimes at home on the weekends.

I'm quite used to a lot of the repetitive words and clues that pop up, but as I mentioned in my last post, I'm consciously paying more attention to words, word roots, and word meanings in an effort to study for the GRE.

So, when "declare firmly" is given as the clue, and I am not sure if the answer is avow or aver, I take to the internet to figure out the differences between the two. Most websites are of no help at all, but the one I linked above has a wonderful description of the two along with their etymological histories.

Both avow and aver mean "declare firmly" but differ in the content of what is being declared.

Aver - the content is based on facts and proof

Avow - the content is based on acknowledgement/acceptance of feelings and/or circumstances

Many people will get these confused in general because they also get the concepts of facts versus feelings confused.

A person can avow that there is a God, but a person cannot aver that there is a God. (Yes, my bias against the Bible is unapologetically showing.)

Likewise, as the article mentions that avow comes from the same root that gives us the word advocate, a lawyer may avow their client's innocence in a court of law, because he is representing the client regardless of the facts, even though outside of the courtroom he may aver his client's guilt to a co-councel because he knows the truth of what happened.