tenet: noun 1. any opinion, principle, doctrine, dogma, etc., especially one held as true by members of a profession, group, or movement.
tenant: noun 1. a person or group that rents and occupies land, a house, an office, or the like, from another for a period of time; lessee. 2. Law. a person who holds or possesses for a time lands, tenements, or personalty of another, usually for rent. 3. an occupant or inhabitant of any place. verb (used with object) 4. to hold or occupy as a tenant; dwell in; inhabit. verb (used without object) 5. to dwell or live (usually followed by in).
It drives me a bit batty to see 4th graders writing for so many news organizations. I hear morons like Jeh Johnson get it wrong all the time too, which is more aggravating since he shows to the whole world the level of illiteracy and intellectual laziness this country seems to bask in.
Pronunciation note The word tenet , defined here, should not be hard to pronounce. For speakers of American English, say the number ten, then add the pronoun it , and you have tenet , pronounced (ten ʹ it). Unfortunately, there is a similar-looking and similar-sounding word in English that is much more commonthe word tenant , meaning someone who rents and occupies an apartment, office, etc. This word is pronounced (ten ʹ ənt), and its pronunciation is frequently used in error by people who intend to say tenet . Because both words involve sequences of the same letters t and n both of which are pronounced with the tongue in the same place, touching the upper palateit is easy for the extra n of the more common word tenant to creep into the pronunciation of tenet . With care, one can learn to pronounce these two words differently and appropriately.
OK.
So is Obama a tenant? Or a pResident? Or just borrowing the White House until the destruction of America is done?