“Portend” and “Portent” are different words for no reason

Today in “things that exist”: 2 words no modern human has any business using are basically the same but have a different letter at the end and structure their definitions in nonsense ways.

Confused?

No problem. I gotchyu.

Being one of those humans that frequently does things that no modern human has any business doing, I used the word “portend” in a sentence and I think misspelled it as “portent” or something – idk – but somehow I came across the version with the “T” and in looking up the difference I found this:

Portend is a verb that be a sign or warning that (something, especially something momentous or calamitous) is likely to happen.

Portent is a noun that is a sign or warning that something, especially something momentous or calamitous, is likely to happen.

Still confused? You and Britney Spears’ mom aren’t the only ones.

You may have noticed that those are the same damn thing. And also that “Portend”‘s definition is written like a Pirate wrote it with that crap thats all “is a verb that be a sign or warning, Yarg!”. Wtf? Why doesn’t it says “is a verb that is a sign or warning” like the definition of Portent says? Bro, idk man. but that’s how Bing – which is a search engine on the internet – displayed the definitions of each word.

Oh you think I’m lyin? Well I brought the receipts…

So there you go.

Also – is that GIF response thing gonna get as outdated as using Britney Spears as a culturally relevant icon, you think? Cuz on the one hand I feel like inserting GIF reactions is a timeless form of performance but I also have to observe that it’s a very trendy thing that didn’t exist for most of the first few decades that GIF’s existed so that makes me wonder if it’s just a trend that will make this post age worse than Britney and I think we can agree that no one wants that. Also, what’s the deal with picking on B-Spearulina? Hardly seems fair. Probably portends bad things for the future. Is that the correct usage? Who cares. It’s not portent. -Now that one is definitely wrong but so are Britney Spears’ life choices from 2002 and beyond so I’m gonna say that absolves me.

Portend that.

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