Commonly Confused Words in English: Academia vs Academic

It is so heart-warming to know that lots of people around the world reading Akademia are getting informed and educated by the day. Keep reading, keep learning and keep sending your feedback! This post is titled: Commonly Confused Words Series: Academia vs Academic. Why this title? Now, there are thousands of words in the English Language lexicon and one interesting thing about these English words is that most of them sound alike, have similar spellings, but with different meanings.

We call them Homonyms. Some have different spellings and meanings but sound alike. These ones are Homophones while others have same spellings with different meanings and sounds. We call words in this group Homographs. This closely related words usually cause confusion for users of English and to this end, I have put together this post, Commonly Confused Words in English: Academia vs Academic, to solve this challenge and shed light on such words we commonly mix up.

Commonly Confused Words in English: Academia vs Academic

In this post, I will begin these two interesting words that have to do with the field of education. We will look at the definition of each word and the Parts of Speech they belong to. We will also consider how we should use them citing various illustrative examples for the purpose of clarity. Users of English confuse many words and many words confuse them. There are hundreds of such words. I will endeavour to treat as many of such words as possible so that you can clearly understand how to use them when next you have to. Come along as we begin this journey of enlightenment.

Academia vs Academic

Academic, as an adjective, we use it to describe scholarly or educational matters or what we associate with academia or academy, e.g.

  • He has a child with academic rather than sporting interests.

It also means theoretical rather than actual or practical; what is hypothetical, and not expected to produce an immediate or practical result. E. g.

  • He was wasting time discussing matters of purely academic concern.
  • The student has an academic mind.
  • They are a group of academic thinkers.

In modern use and frequently, academic also mean irrelevant, e. g.

  • Whether you vote for him or not is academic; he is certain of a majority of votes.

As a noun, academic means an educator who works at a college or university; that is, a member of an institution of learning. Some refer to a person in this category as an academician, a faculty member, an educator or a pedagogue. Academia, on the other hand, refers to the academic world; academic life, scholars and students of the academic world and their activities; we also refer to this as academe. E. g.

  • The E-mail revolutionised communication in academia.
  • The slogan in the academia is ‘publish or perish’.

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Author

  • Jaymz Boanerges

    I am a teacher of English. I have a passion is to impart the knowledge of the English language to the teeming populace in Nigeria and beyond, especially students at all levels of education, so that they can acquire both linguistic competence and linguistic performance in the language, gaining mastery of and comprehending the nitty-gritty of the language.

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