TPS News

Correct best answer: Replace “tracts” with “tracks.”

“Thailand’s rural music tradition dates only to the 20th century, when Latin American melodies were fused with Western movie sound tracks to create a style called Luk Thung.”

What a difference single letter can make. Sometimes the letter can turn a word into gibberish, which is embarrassing enough. Other times it turns a word into another word, which is embarrassing and confusing. A sound track is the part of a videotape that carries the sound of a movie, whereas a sound tract is a fertile or stable area of land. The words are not pronounced exactly alike but are close enough for verbal confusion. Written, the two words can easily pass for one another in the eyes of a skimming reader. Professors and other academic paper readers do not skim, however, so it is important that “almost-correct” words not be subbed for correct ones.
一字之差，差之千里。有時候只差一個字母，原來的詞彙就會變得毫無意義，這已經很窘了，有時候是甚至把原來的詞彙變成另一個詞彙，不僅尷尬還令人費解。「Sound track」（音軌）是電影錄像磁帶中帶有聲音的部分，「sound tract」則是肥沃或堅實的土地。兩字發音不大相同，但是拼法卻很像，容易混淆。掃讀時很容易忽略這兩個字的差別，但教授或閱讀學術文章的人，可不僅是匆匆瀏覽；所以要小心，可別讓「差不多」的字混充正確的字。