Exulted/Exalted

When I read the phrase “exulted status” in today’s New York Times I immediately realized that the writer meant “exalted status.” My reaction was to sigh (once again) at the Times' lax proofreading.

And then I had to check it out in Google. Just a little over 1% of Web authors use the incorrect form, so at first I decided I would not write a “Common Errors” entry about it on my Web site and instead add it to my “More Errors” page.

This is where I put various linguistic confusions that I don’t feel merit a full entry but which are worth a mention. Quite a few people stumble on that page from a search engine and don’t realize it’s part of a much more extensive Web site, though I highlight that fact in red at the top of the page. This list is not part of the published book version of the Web site, but it’s very popular among people who find it.

Occasionally I discover that I’ve inadvertently written up a full entry on an item which was previously featured only on the “More Errors” page. I don’t make a systematic effort to prune the list by looking for such duplications, but I appreciate it when people call them to my attention.

Some people also write me to say that some of the words in the left-hand column are perfectly correct. They are quite right, but they mistake the function of that column because they haven’t grasped the meaning of the labels at the head of the two columns: “What was said" and "What was meant.”

To “exult” is to be extremely joyful whereas to “exalt” is to raise something in esteem or power or to intensify something. The adjectival forms are “exultant” and “exalted.” The spelling “exulted” should be used only for the past tense of the verb “exult”: “The candidate exulted in her victory.”

I decided to search for the word “exulted” by itself and discovered a host of misuses. Here are just a few:

the grand exulted leader
LeBron’s Exulted Brand Takes Detour
Our Lady of Sorrows Music Ministry sings “He Is Exulted”
At Taz Solutions online marketing company, we are each exulted rulers of our jobs.
Why are politicians vilified but businessmen exulted?
Serge Gainsbourg said “She Exulted Femininity”
I‘m thinking of running for exulted ruler of my of my delusional world
God‘s Greater Glory: The Exulted God of Scripture and the Christian Faith [a book title!]

All of these in the first ten pages of hits in Google search.

That did it—no “More Errors” page for you, “exulted.” You get your own entry.