Ineffective/Ineffectual: Fraternal Twins

This morning, I heard a weathercaster on the CBS morning news say that the salt used to melt the ice in the streets was ineffectual. What? Didn’t he mean ineffective? Since most newscasters trip over their tongues trying to sound correct, I ran to my trusty Garner and the OED, just to be sure.

If something is ineffective, it means it has a low degree of success. So, the salt dumped on city streets by the NYC Dept. of Sanitation did melt some ice, but it didn’t melt it completely. It was only somewhat effective, because it didn’t produce the desired result, which was a100-percent ice melt.

Ineffectual is not the same as ineffective. “Ineffectual usually describes a person . . . ,” writes Garner. If our weathercaster had wanted to say mean things about the salt-truck drivers, he could have said they were ineffectual spreaders of salt, but I’m sure that’s not what he meant. Here’s the example in the OED: “”We spent a year . . . in a science class taken by an absurd and ineffectual master.”

Bryan A. Garner comes through once again. You should buy his book.