When choosing between a pair of homophones like allide or allied, you have to choose carefully so you don’t make an embarrassing blunder.
If I were to present you with a pair of words — Allide or Allied — you might assume that the former was a misprint. After all, anyone who reads anything about World War II certainly will encounter the latter. But allide isn’t a word we see that much of.
In fact, I honestly don’t recall ever having encountered it until recently. I saw it in a news release from the U.S. Coast Guard. The story in question focused on a rescue of nine people — seven adults and two children. Coast Guardsmen rescued them after a boating accident. Their 20-foot boat collided with an oyster bed near Daufuskie Island.
But collided wasn’t the word they used in the news release. They chose the word allided.
I knew allied wasn’t the word they meant. But I had to look up allided...so you won’t have to!
Allied
Normally, when I explain the difference between two words, I go in alphabetical order. But this time, I’m getting the easy one out of the way first.
Merriam-Webster lists a few definitions for allied. The most common involves being connected by having a close association.
The second is joined in alliance by compact or treaty. That’s the definition that makes the word pop up when you hear talk about World War II. It was during that war that three great Allied powers — Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union — formed a Grand Alliance that was the key to victory.
The National World War II Museum reminds us that those three didn’t always agree on everything. But through their alliance, they were able to work together well enough to win the war.
Allide
Merriam-Webster doesn’t have a listing for allide. But it does have two definitions for the word’s noun form, allision. The second definition for allision is “the running of one ship upon another ship that is stationary.” It then adds, “distinguished from collision.”
Several years back I told you about a controversial ruling from the Associated Press Stylebook with respect to the word collision. The traditional definition for collision involved two moving objects striking each other. But back in 2018, AP Style relaxed that rule a bit, saying that collision didn’t necessarily require that both objects were moving.
I hated the rule then. I still hate it now.
To collide, in my book, means two objects are in motion. The co– prefix implies two, after all. But to allide, particularly in nautical terms, is for one moving ship to hit a non-moving ship.
I certainly wouldn’t call that a case of two ships colliding. But I wouldn’t call it alliding, either, since it’s so rare a word that no one would understand it.
I would go for “crashing into,” which, despite taking two words instead of one, paints a word picture that is so much easier to understand.
After all, isn’t that what communication is supposed to be about?
