Thing To Do Today: recount something.

 When you recount something, are you checking its total, or are you telling a story?

Until recently, you would have been telling a story, but the modern fashion for dispensing with hyphens means that nowadays you could mean either.

This, rather oddly, follows the pattern of the word tale, which historically could mean either a story or a totalling-up. Or, indeed, both:

It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury

Signifying nothing.

(Poor old Macbeth.)

Still, we got over the tale/tale confusion, didn't we, so with any luck we'll soon find a way round the recount one.

The easiest way to do it would be to put the hyphen back.

Thing To Do Today: recount something. This word comes from the Old French reconter, to tell or relate. Conter is the ancestor of our word count (as in numbers) and comes from the Latin computāre, to calculate.

The word tale comes from the Old English talu, list, which makes the link between the two meanings of both words rather clearer.