Tenets and Tenants
Tricksy Twins
A tenet is something held. Thus, we speak of the tenets of a faith because those are things that believers hold to be true.
A tenant is someone who holds something. A person who rents an apartment, for example, is a tenant because enjoys possession, however temporary, of the premises in question.
One way to remember this difference is to think of a lieutenant, an officer who sometimes takes the place of his superior, the captain. The word is a gift to English from the French, who assembled it from lieu, meaning “place,” and tenant, meaning … you guessed it … “a person who holds.”
Lieu also gives us loo, which we use to designate a place we would rather not mention directly.
For Further Reading:
I remember doing training with the Aussie Army and being called “Leff-tenant” 🇦🇺
Why are you doing this? I have other things to make word salads out of an’ I don’t need help. I can’t avoid it because its in your title. Thus I shall see your tricky pair and raise you a plot thickener.
A) Don’t think of a purple alligator.
B) If Dennis is a Menace, what then, is Enis?