Advice about revenge and duplicity

In the classic film The Princess Bride, Inigo Montoya seeks revenge on an elusive villain. The master swordsman repeats throughout the movie:

“Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”

In another movie series, The Avengers, superheroes seek retribution for – or avenge – crimes against others.

Revenge is a noun.

Avenge is a verb.

I wonder, then, why there is such an epidemic of writing like this:

The grieving mother has sworn to revenge the wrongful death of her son …
Our foreign policy was intended to revenge the military actions of …
What would you have done to revenge 911 …?

To avenge something is to seek revenge. The words are not interchangeable.

Mother’s Day brings out a flood of tributes to moms who always gave good advise.

Advice is a noun.

Advise is a verb.

Mom gave good advice. To advise someone is to give advice. The words are not interchangeable.

Those two examples are at least related in meaning, and there is some weak justification for the confusion. But this one is inexplicable:

“I have two versions of my resume, and there is a lot of duplicity between them.”

Duplication means repeated content.

Duplicity means deception.

Within a single version of your resume, duplication makes it wordy. And two versions of your resume might highlight different skills but contain the same basic information, a necessary duplication. The difference is that duplicity suggests double-dealing or deceitfulness. No one with duplicity in his resume is likely to admit it.

When job-seekers ask my advice, I advise them to avoid both duplication and duplicity. If you lie to get a job, your manager will avenge the act and exact this revenge:

“Hello. I am Your Boss. You lied on your resume. Prepare to be unemployed.”

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