Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Collaborate and Corroborate
A few days ago I heard someone say "collaborated by" repeatedly when he should have said "corroborated by". There are lots of examples of this mistake in appellate court decisions, e.g. Doe v. State, 94 N.M. 548, 549-50, 613 P.2d 418, 419-20 (1980):
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It is abundantly clear that Doe's confession of shop-lifting liquor from Albertson's store was collaborated by other substantial circumstantial evidence.An intransitive verb such as "collaborate" should not be used passively (although cf. Latin "itur").
