Stationary, Stationery
Make sure you're stationary, or still, while you jot down a love letter on your fancy stationery, so the writing isn't all squiggly.
Why do these words sound so similar? They're kissing cousins.They both come from the Latin stationarius, meaning "a seller in a fixed location." Our modern stationary means still, unmovable, like bad weather that lingers or a parked car:
Stationery (with an "e") also comes from stationarius, but not as directly. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, "Roving peddlers were more common in the Middle Ages; sellers with a fixed location were often bookshops licensed by universities," thus the connection between paper and staying still. Today, stationery is writing paper, the kind you put resumes and wedding invitations on:
An easy way to keep stationary and stationery straight is to connect the er in stationery to the paper it's made from. (Description from Vocabulary.com) |