penguin reference

THE PENGUIN DICTIONARY OFAMERICAN ENGLISH USAGE AND STYLE

Paul W. Lovinger was a staff reporter and columnist fornewspapers for two decades. His freelance writings includeThe Marijuana Question (with Helen C. Jones), a widely ac-claimed study of the drug as viewed by scientists and users.He also writes songs, both music and lyrics (specializing inchildren’s and novelty). He lives in San Francisco.

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the PENGUIN DICTIONARY of

AMERICANENGLISH USAGE

AND STYLE���A Readable Reference Book,

Illuminating Thousands of Traps

That Snare Writers and Speakers���paul w. lovinger

ppenguin reference

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PENGUIN REFERENCEPublished by the Penguin Group,

Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England

Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, AustraliaPenguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

First published in the United States of America by Penguin Reference,a member of Penguin Putnam Inc., 2000

This eBook edition published in 2002

Copyright © Paul W. Lovinger, 2000All rights reserved.

Lovinger, Paul W.The Penguin dictionary of American English usage and style : a readable reference book,

illuminating thousands of traps that snare writers and speakers/ by Paul W. Lovinger.p. cm.

ISBN 0 7865 2886 9

Set in Minion with Schneidler InitialsDesigned by Betty Lew

Map and endpapers by Mark Stein Studios

Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringementand could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

First edition (electronic): November 2002

contents

introduction: watching our words vi i

general topics xi i i

lexicon, a to z 1

reference works 487

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Aim; FormThe volume in your hands is meant to

be both useful and enjoyable, a readabledictionary for all who are interested inour language.

In A-to-Z form, it is mainly a guide togood usage of English, the Americanvariety, contrasted with some 2,000quoted examples of misusage and ques-tionable usage. It does the job of “illumi-nating many traps and pitfalls in Englishusage” (as my editor puts it). I havesought to provide clear explanations inplain language. This book is designed forgeneral readers as well as those whowork with words.

The examples were drawn from thepopular press, broadcasting, books, anda variety of other sources, mostly in thelatter eighties and the nineties. Eachentry devoted to a specific word orphrase contains one or more of thosequotations. The troublesome forms arecontrasted with the proper forms (whichare emphasized by italics) and defini-tions are given.

Entries on general topics are pre-sented too; they deal with matters ofgrammar, punctuation, style, and so on.A list of them, with further descriptionof the two types of entry, appears under“General Topics,” following this intro-duction.

With few exceptions, the exampleshave determined the choices of word

entries. Thus the book in part amountsto an informal survey of contemporaryproblems in English usage.

Both perennial problems and newones come up. Of the misuses discour-aged by earlier books on English usage,some persist; others have not turned up,but, as though to take their place, newoffenses against the language haveemerged.

Here are some hints for finding your wayaround the volume:

• Main entries, headed in boldface,are arranged alphabetically, letter byletter.

• Many entries are divided intosections, which are numbered andtitled. The sections of an entry arearranged alphabetically, and theirtitles are listed at the beginning,after the main title. Some sectionscontain subsections, distinguishedby letters and titles.

• There are numerous cross-references, some standing alone andothers within entries. For instance,in the C’s under Comma it says SeePunctuation, 3, referring the readerto the entry. Many entries refer torelated entries. Alphabetical order is used in listing any series of cross-references and various other series.

last entry vii

introductionWatching Our Words

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ViewpointThis work could be viewed as an anti-

dote to laissez-faire lexicography andanything-goes grammar. The doctrinethat whatever emerges from people’s lipsis the language and that many verbalwrongs make a right is not advocatedhere. Nor is the cliché of English as “aliving language” dragged in to justifybad English.

On the contrary, I do not hesitate todistinguish between right and wrongusage when the difference is clear. Myinclination is to question deviant forms,challenge innovations to prove them-selves, and resist senseless fads. (See alsothe final section of this introduction.) Ithereby risk being labeled a “purist” bysome critics—as though impurity weredesirable.

Perhaps in a long-range, philosophi-cal sense there is no verbal right andwrong. But that view does not help youand me in choosing our words andputting together our sentences clearlyand properly according to the educatednorms of society. Those holding the per-missive views follow most of the normsthemselves. They do not say or write,“Them guys hasn’t came,” or “I ain’t didnothin nohow,” although some peopleare apt to do so. For the most part, thelaws of grammar have not been re-pealed.

Not that one should be pedanticeither. The book does not flatly condemnsplit infinitives, prepositions at the endof sentences, conjunctions at the begin-ning, sentence fragments, or phrases like“It’s me.” But it does value precisionover fashion, logic over illogic, and

grammatical correctness over “politicalcorrectness.” (In my view, those whomutilate our language for politicalmotives do wrong.)

At times the difference between cor-rect and incorrect usage is hazy. Englishhas an abundance of words,* more thanany other language, and multiple waysto express almost any idea. Our lan-guage is so complex that nobody everlearns it all and that even its leadingauthorities occasionally stumble. Theydisagree and one finds fault with an-other. Their differences concern bothspecific points and standards of strict-ness or looseness in the use of words andgrammar.

Some loose uses of words or phrasesand some slang that may pass harmlesslyin informal conversation are inappropri-ate when transferred to serious writingor even serious speech. This book willhelp the reader to make sound choices.

ExamplesSamples of sentences that clearly fall

into the wrong category follow. The firstfew are (alternately) by professionals ofbroadcasting and journalism. A correc-tion follows each quotation. (Eachcomes up in the main text.)

“There were roofs completely toreup.” Torn up.

“I like to serve it with croutons . . .that is flavored with olive oil.” Are fla-vored.

“Police said ——— and ——— builtthe bombs theirselves.” Themselves.

“It would be more racism showing it’sugly head again.” Its.

“There is a way to empower your

viii introduction

*The Oxford English Dictionary, seeking to record all English words, says it covers morethan 500,000 words and phrases in its twenty volumes. The Guinness Book of WorldRecords places the count at more than 600,000 words plus 400,000 technical terms, a totalexceeding a million. It numbers the Shakespearean vocabulary at 33,000 words and expressesdoubt that any person uses more than 60,000.

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children and make them far more bet-ter . . . students.” Delete “more.”

“Women have smaller brains thenmen.” Than.

“The . . . campaign has got to breakinto the double digits to be respectful.”Respectable.

(Headline:) “Be Happy She Prys.”Pries.

Additional slip-ups, by people in otherfields, include these:

(Advertising:) “I always wanted toloose weight.” Lose.

(Book publishing:) “Allow someoneelse to proofread [edit?] it . . . who willnot be affraid to be biased in their opin-ion.” Afraid to be unbiased in his opin-ion.

(Diplomacy:) “It is quite clear that thecrisis has reached a critical point.”Better: the dispute or the situation.

(Education:) “Me and my kids live ina dormitory.” I and.

(Law:) “No one is free to flaunt thetax laws.” Flout.

(Medicine:) “We’re obligated to dothat biopsy irregardless of the physicalfindings.” Regardless.

(Psychology:) “Their child don’t lookso good.” Doesn’t look.

The book debunks some widespreadmisbeliefs. If we do not fully understand

the meanings of certain words or if weaccept some clichés on their faces, wemay believe that fury rages in the “eye”of a storm; a “fraction” is a small part;the character “Frankenstein” was amonster; to “impeach” an official is tooust him from office; a jury can find adefendant “innocent”; pencils containthe metal “lead”; a “misdemeanor” isnot a crime; prostitution is the “oldestprofession”; an exception “proves” arule; the Constitution guarantees “thepursuit of happiness”; and so on.

The criticism of any extract does notnegate the overall merit of the work thatis quoted.*

ClarityClarity is a leading theme of this

book. More than 100 entries deal withthe problem of ambiguity (noun): thestate of being ambiguous (adjective),able to be interpreted in two or more dif-ferent ways. Consider this sentence:“When P—— was hired by H——, hehad a criminal record.” Which one is“he”? (That example is from Pronouns,1. Consult also the cross-referenceAmbiguity and the next section of thisintroduction, Wounded Words. Generalexamples of fuzzy prose appear inVerbosity and other entries.)

Clear expression requires clear think-

introduction ix

*Of 2,000-odd examples of misusage or questionable usage, almost half originated withnewspapers, news agencies, or magazines; about a fifth each with broadcasters and books;and a tenth with people in many other fields or miscellaneous sources, described in the text.A few appeared in other reference works.

The single most frequent source of examples was The New York Times (usually thenational edition), which occasionally is quoted here approvingly too. Newspapers distributedin the San Francisco Bay area and TV and radio broadcasts heard there were significantsources. Dozens of other newspapers, from most regions of the country, yielded examples too.So did 120 books, mostly nonfiction. Some correct or incorrect examples, not counted above,were composed where fitting.

The sources of the quotations are not usually identified by name. Space did not permit thepublication of a list of such sources (although it had been contemplated). But a variety of ref-erence works consulted as sources of information are listed in the back of the book.

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ing. It helps also to be versed in the dis-tinctions among words and in the ele-ments of grammar, including tense,number, mood, parts of speech, sentencestructure, and punctuation. Even so,clarity may not survive hastiness, inabil-ity to express ideas simply, intentionalhedging, lack of facts, language that istoo pompous or too slangy, obscurity ofideas or terms, overloading of sentences,overlooking of double meanings, stingi-ness in using words or punctuation, toolittle thought, or too much abstractionand generality without concrete exam-ples.

Then, too, muddiness and confusioncan overcome our best efforts. Writerson the English language often compare itwith other languages and glory in itscomplexity, variety, and subtlety. Yet thelanguage is so complex, with varieties ofexpression so vast, subtleties so fine, andsuch a proliferation of word meanings,that it can trap any of us at some time orother. Unqualified praise helps no one.Let us be aware of the difficulties and tryto overcome them.

Greater efforts to write and speakclearly, accurately, and sensibly wouldmean more understanding, somethingthat society needs.

Wounded WordsOne of the problems is that English is

being deprived of the benefit of manydistinctive words as looser meaningsdevelop. The addition of the new mean-ings renders some of the words ambigu-ous. I call them wounded words.

Examples of those words and their

strict meanings follow; loose meaningsare in parentheses. Which meaning awriter or speaker has intended is notalways plain from the context.

A fabulous story is one that is charac-teristic of a fable (or a good story). Animpact is a violent contact (or an effect).A legendary figure is mythical (orfamous). One who is masterful is dicta-torial (or skillful). To scan a document isto examine it carefully and systemati-cally (or quickly and superficially). If ascene is a shambles, it shows evidence ofbloodshed (or disorder). If an incidenttranspired this year, this year is when itbecame known (or happened). When anultimatum is given, a threat of war isissued (or a demand is made). Thatwhich is viable is able to live (or feasi-ble).*

Many loose or questionable uses arewidespread. Does that mean we have tofollow suit? Of course not.

Save the LanguageNew words continually appear. Those

that fill needs are generally desirable.What ought to be questioned or resistedare the watering-down of distinctivewords that we already have, the creationof ambiguity and fuzziness, the break-down of grace and grammar, and irra-tional verbal fads.

Change characterizes the history ofEnglish; but whereas innovations in themain language used to be tested slowlyby time, and street slang usually stayedthere, they are now both thrust upon thepublic almost instantly by the media ofmass communication.

x introduction

*Among words in similar condition are these: accost, alibi, anticipate, bemuse, brandish, bru-talize, burgeon, careen, classic, cohort, compendium, connive, cool, culminate, decimate, des-ecrate, destiny, dilemma, disaster, effete, eke, endemic, enormity, erstwhile, exotic, fantastic,formidable, fortuitous, fraction, gay, idyllic, incredible, increment, internecine, jurist, literal,livid, marginal, mean (noun), minimize, neat, obscene, outrageous, paranoid, pristine, quite,sure, travesty, unique, utilize, verbal, virtual, vital, weird, wherefore, willy-nilly. The wordsemphasized in this section have separate entries.

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Our language is an invaluableresource, as much a part of our heritageas forests, wildlife, and waters. Yetwhere are movements for verbal conser-vation? Who campaigns to save endan-gered words? When do we ever seedemonstrations against linguistic pollu-tion?

To support the cause of good English,you and I need not join a group, attendrallies, or give money. We can contributeevery day by knowing the language,shunning the fads, and watching ourwords.

P.W.L.San Francisco

introduction xi

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AbbreviationActive voice and passive voiceAdjectives and adverbsAnachronismBACK(-) prefix and pairsBackward writingBI- and SEMI- prefixesCapitalizationCIRCUM- prefixClauseCliché clashClichésCollective nounsComparative and superlative degreesComparisonComplementConfusing pairsContractionsCrimes (various felonies)DehumanizationDivision of wordsDouble meaningDouble negative

Double possessiveEllipsisExpletivesFACT- wordsGerundGuilt and innocenceHawaiiHomophonesI and iInfinitiveIranItalic(s)-IZE endingJoining of wordsMetaphoric contradictionModifiersModifyingMoodNANO- prefixNounsNumber (grammatical)NumbersParagraph

xiii

general topics

Here is a list of the titles, or headings, of this book’s main topic entries—that is,entries that deal with general topics.

They are distinguished from word entries—which discuss how to use the particu-lar words in their titles. (Those entries are not listed.)*

Following this list comes a list of cross-reference titles on general topics.

*The titles in the two categories differ in their use of capital or lower-case letters:

• The title of a topic entry, such as Punctuation or Verbs, is printed in lower-case letters,except for an initial capital. (Prefixes and suffixes, in capitals, are a further excep-tion.)

• The title of a word entry, such as AFFECT and EFFECT or COMPRISE, is printed incapital letters, except for any incidental word, like and.

(In a word entry, the lower-case and indicates a contrast between the main words. Acomma—as in BEMUSE, BEMUSED—separates forms or words in the same category.)

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ParticiplePersonificationPlurals and singularsPossessive problemsPRE- prefixPrepositionsPronounsPronouns’ classificationPunctuationQuotation problemsRange, true and falseReversal of meaningRun-on sentenceSELF- prefixSentence fragment

Series errorsSpellingSubjunctiveSynonymic sillinessTautologyTenseTitlesTrademarksTwinsVerbal unmentionablesVerbosityVerbs-WISE ending-Y ending

xiv general topics

The following list presents cross-reference titles on general topics. They are foundin their alphabetical places in the text. (Cross-reference titles on specific words are notlisted. Additional cross-references, untitled, may be found within many entries.)

Absolute constructionsAbstract nounAccuracy and inaccuracyAccusative caseAdverbsAgreement in number“A” instead of personal pronounAmbiguityANTE- and ANTI- prefixesAntecedentApophasisApostropheApposition, appositiveArticles (parts of speech)Attributive adjectiveAuxiliary verbs (helping verbs)BibleBracketsBulletCase of lettersCase of pronounColonCommaCommon nounsCompounds (words)Concrete nounConditional sentencesConjunctionsContrast

Copula or copulative verb (linkingverb)

Correlative conjunctionsCreatures, pluralDanglersDashDativeDeclarative sentenceDefining clauseDigits spelled outDouble entendreDouble genitiveDoubling of letters-EN, -REN pluralsEnumerationsExclamation point-F endingFiguresFireFractions-FUL endingFused participleFuture tenseGenitive (possessive)GermanismsHelping verbs (auxiliary verbs)Homographs and homonymsHYPER- and HYPO- prefixesHyphen

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-ICS endingIF clausesImperativeIncomplete sentenceIndicativeInflected and uninflected forms-ING form of verbInitialsINTER- and INTRA- prefixesInterrogative sentenceIntransitive and transitive verbsInversions-ISE endingJuvenile languageLaw, courts, legal termsLists-LY endingMeasures, quantitiesMetaphorMisquotationNames of productsNames, pluralNegativesNominative caseNondefining clauseNonrestrictive clauseObject(ive) complementObject, objective case-O endingPairs of wordsParenthesesPassive voicePast tensePer cent, percentPerfect infinitivePerfect tensesPeriodPerson (grammatical)PhrasePositive degreePredicatePredicate adjective

Predicate noun (predicate nomina-tive)

PredictionPrefixPresent tensePreterit, preterite (past tense)ProbabilityProgressive tensesProper nouns (names)Quantities, measuresQuestion markQuotation marksReflexive pronounsRepetition and its avoidanceRestrictive clauseScientific writing-SELF, -SELVES endingsSEMI- and BI- prefixesSemicolon-S endingSequence of eventsShakespeareSibilant endingsSingulars and pluralsSlashSplit infinitiveStatisticsStealingSubjectSubjective caseSubject(ive) complementSubject-verb agreementSubstantiveSuffixSuperlativeTimeTransitive and intransitive verbsVirguleVoiceWill (legal)WitWords that sound alike

general topics xv

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the PENGUIN DICTIONARY of

AMERICAN ENGLISH USAGE

AND STYLE���

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A and AN. The choice of using a oran before a word depends on the soundof the word. Use a if the next word be-gins with a consonant: a daisy, a goodegg. Use an if the next word begins witha vowel: an ape, an easy victory.

The wrong choice showed up in threenewspapers. A federal official wasquoted (or misquoted) as saying, “Weare concerned any time there is a allega-tion of serious wrongdoing. . . .” In an-other news story, an investor “filed a$800 million lawsuit.” In a column, apresidential candidate drove “a M-1tank.”

Corrections: It is “an allegation,” be-cause allegation begins with a vowelsound. It is “an $800 million lawsuit,”because eight begins with a vowelsound. (The number phrase would bepronounced as eight-hundred-million-dollar.) And it is “an M-1 tank”: Al-though m normally is a consonant, theletter as such is pronounced em.

A precedes the sound of the y conso-nant, even if the initial letter is usually avowel: a European, a ewe, a uniform.The use of an before such a word is notstandard.

An precedes a word starting with asilent h: an hour, an honorable man. Us-ing an before a pronounced h, in a wordwhose h was once silent, like historic orhumble, is an uncommon practice in theU.S.A. but more common in Britain. It is

observed by a few American writers andspeakers, such as an anchor woman whosaid, “NASA today called off an historicspace mission.”

The foregoing rules assume that oneneeds a or an (indefinite article) and notthe (definite article). A or an goes beforea word or phrase denoting a person orthing (noun) but not a specific one. Theperson or thing is usually singular butsometimes plural: a few good men, agreat many people.

A or an is properly omitted fromsome common constructions. One vari-ety contains no followed by an adjective:“no better time” / “no more beneficialdiscovery” / “no such animal.” Anothercontains kind, sort, type, species, or thelike: “that kind of gem” / “this sort ofthing” / “some type of evergreen.”

Meaning can hinge on the presence orabsence of a or an. “A novelist and poetspoke” suggests one person. For twopersons, an extra a is necessary: “A nov-elist and a poet spoke” (although “bothspoke” makes it clearer). “The zoo willacquire an apteryx, or kiwi”—two alter-native names for the same creature. But“The zoo will acquire a koala or a wom-bat”—one or the other.

In writing certain phrases that con-tain a, particularly a lot and a hold,some people erroneously affix the a tothe noun. A while may be properly writ-ten as one word sometimes, but not al-

a and an 1

A

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ways. See A WHILE and AWHILE;HOLD; LOT.

See also THE.

Abbreviation. 1. Code letters. 2.Three forms.

1. Code lettersA newspaper article uses the initials

“APS” eleven times but never says whatthey stand for. In the same issue, anotherarticle mentions “WIPP” twice withoutexplaining it. Another newspaper men-tions “North Carolina A&T State Uni-versity” three times in an article, neverinforming the readers (mostly non-Carolinians) what “A&T” stands for.

A piece by a news agency cites a“DOE study done by Aerospace Corp.of Los Angeles.” The context indicatesthat the research did not involve femaledeer. But the uninitiated reader has noway to relate those three letters to “En-ergy Department,” which is mentionedseveral paragraphs before and after“DOE.”

Unless initials are as widely known asU.S., C.O.D., M.D., and the letters ofthe broadcasting networks, the full nameor phrase should be used at first. If theinitials will be used thereafter, the fullname may be linked to them in this way:“Albuquerque Public Schools (APS)” or“Department of Energy (DOE).”

Often initials are unnecessary. In sub-sequent references it may be clearer torefer, for example, to the schools or thedepartment. Better yet, repeat the fullname, if it is not too long.

Even when initials are explained atthe start, they can challenge one’s mem-ory if there are too many of them. Abook on international law containsstatements like this: “. . . The remaining40 NNNS parties to the NPT had stillnot . . . [concluded] a safeguards agree-ment with the IAEA.” One chapter usessuch forms some 300 times. A readerneeding a reminder has to go back andhunt for it.

In telling of the bags O. J. Simpsontook to “LAX,” was a television re-porter lax in assuming that everyoneknew the airline industry’s code for theLos Angeles airport? San Francisconewscasters continually spell out“SFO,” never identifying it as their air-port’s code. It has at least eighteen othermeanings.

One of those newscasters said on theradio, “There will be no water rationingthis year for East Bay MUD [pro-nounced “mud”] customers.” Some lis-teners may have heard of the East BayMunicipal Utility District. Others maywonder who would want to buy mud.

2. Three formsTechnically, three main condensed

forms may be distinguished, though allthree are often lumped under the wordabbreviation.

An abbreviation, strictly speaking, is ashort version of a word or phrase inwriting, such as Rep. for Representativeand etc. for et cetera.

An acronym is pronounced like aword; it is formed from initials or partsof a name or phrase. Examples are AIDSfrom acquired immune deficiency syn-drome and LORAN from long-range(aid to navigation).

An initialism is composed of initialsthat are spelled out in pronunciation, let-ter by letter, such as FBI for Federal Bu-reau of Investigation and cc for cubiccentimeter(s).

See also Punctuation, 8; and Titles, 2.

ABDOMEN. See STOMACH.

ABIDE and ABIDE BY. To abidesomething usually means to endure it, totolerate it. “Can you abide such hotweather?” It can also mean to await it.

A columnist thinks that the press hastreated a certain local politician tookindly. The politician “has succeeded inmaking himself the personification of thecity.” An attack on him therefore be-

2 abbreviation

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comes an attack on the city “and no onecan abide by that.” It should be “and noone can abide that.” Omit “by.”

To abide by something is to complywith it, conform to it. “I abide by thelaw.” / “I’m a law-abiding citizen.”

The past tense and past participle ofabide is abode or abided.

ABOUT TO. See NOT ABOUT TO.

Absolute constructions. See Modi-fiers, 1D.

Abstract noun. See Nouns, 1.

ACCEPT confused with EXCEPT.See EXCEPT and EXCEPTING; Homo-phones.

ACCORDING TO. According to isa common phrase that is used in sen-tences like these: “A promising discoveryin the fight against flat feet was made thisweek, according to a local professor.” /“According to the sect, the world willcome to an end next Thursday.”

It tells us that the statement is madeon the authority of the one quoted. It im-plies that the writer does not vouch forthe veracity or sense of the statement ormay even question it. Thus it should beused with caution.

News people sometimes append “ac-cording to” to what should be matters ofobjective fact. For example:

According to the administration,Contra aid will run out September 30.

Will it or won’t it? If the writer has anydoubt, he should find out for himself.

Some statements are too obvious toneed any attribution, let alone the “ac-cording to” form. This item is no scoop:

Many Jewish students at SF Statewill not be attending class today dueto Rosh Hashana, the Jewish NewYear, according to A—— S——, Di-

rector of Programs of the NorthernCalifornia Hillel Council. [See alsoDUE TO.]

Is the reporter so afraid of sticking herneck out that she requires the weight ofauthority behind an announcement of aholiday?

ACCOST. To accost is to approachand speak to someone first. A panhan-dler and a person seeking directions ac-cost people on the street. Some have themistaken idea that it means to assault orattack.

A news report on national televisionsaid that several friends were “accostedby a white mob.” Probably attackedshould have been used instead of “ac-costed.”

A city official, speaking about assaultson parking officers, referred to “theirchances of being accosted.” He meantassaulted.

Accuracy and inaccuracy. See Num-bers, 5; Quotation problems, 1; Reversalof meaning.

Accusative case. See Pronouns, 10 A.

ACCUSED, ALLEGED, RE-PORTED, SUSPECTED. 1. Ac-cused in the news media. 2. Twoadverbs.

1. Accused in the news media“An accused mass murderer finally

gets his day in court,” it was announcedon local television. This would havebeen a better way to phrase it: “A manaccused of mass murder finally. . . .”What the newscaster essentially calledhim was a mass murderer who had beenaccused.

Such misuse of the participle accusedhas become fairly common among newspeople. They assume that it protectsthem from any libel suit. When they de-scribe someone as an “accused thief,”

accused, alleged, reported, suspected 3

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for example, they mean he is not defi-nitely a thief, just one who has been ac-cused of being a thief. But to callsomeone an “accused thief” is still call-ing him a thief. “Accused” modifies“thief”; it does not mollify it. Similarlyan “accused doctor” or “accusedlawyer” is a doctor or lawyer who hasbeen accused.

The misuse of alleged, as a synonymfor “accused” in its objectionable sense,has long been established among jour-nalists. An example: “Dazed and bleed-ing from a vicious assault . . . LaurieM—— pleaded with alleged attackerDavid A—— to take her to a hos-pital. . . .” Alleged normally means de-clared as such without proof. But thesentence essentially says the accused mancommitted the crime; “alleged” scarcelymitigates the nastiness joined to hisname. A fairer phrasing would be:“. . . Laurie . . . pleaded with her at-tacker—alleged to be David . . . —totake. . . .”

Suspected is apt to be treated in themanner of the other two questionablewords. The comments about accusedhold for suspected. A “suspected as-sailant” is an assailant who is suspected,according to the literal meaning of thewords. In stating that “serious damagehas been done to national security byconvicted or suspected spies,” two news-paper by-liners show that they regard“suspected spies” the same as convictedspies. (See Guilt and innocence, 3.)

The word reported often is used in asimilar grammatical way. Although usu-ally applied to incidents, rather thanpeople, its presence can raise questions.For instance, when a news story men-tions a “reported crime,” is it referringto a crime that has been reported to thepolice, or is it just using “reported” in itsvague, journalistic sense, as a supposedhedge against legal action, or as if to say:“We’re not sure that it happened, but wewere told that it did”?

Writers and editors should be awarethat none of the four words in questionwill protect them against suit. It is notenough to say “There really was an ac-cusation”—or “allegation” or “report”or “suspicion”—if its substance wasfalse or erroneous. As a rule of thumb,avoid charged prose if there is nocharged defendant.

2. Two adverbsAllegedly and reportedly (a later ar-

rival) occupy the domain of the newsmedia, and there they should be con-fined. They are used in this way: “Theaccused man allegedly [or “reportedly”]struck the victim.” In grammaticalterms, the selected adverb modifies theverb, struck. Someone ought to explainin what manner the accused personstruck the other when he “allegedly”struck him or “reportedly” struck him.

During our Persian Gulf war, a bannerin an American newspaper cried: “Hus-sein reportedly asks for asylum in Alge-ria” (referring to President Hussein ofIraq). The “report” came from a Frenchnewspaper, which cited no source. Nomore was heard of it. We need not pon-der the unimaginable act of “reportedlyasking”; a larger question is involved:When an editor finds a story so shakythat he must qualify its headline with“reportedly,” should he not think twicebefore running it at all?

ACRONYM. See Abbreviation.

ACROPHOBIA. See HOMOPHO-BIA.

“ACROSS FROM.” These two sen-tences, which appeared in newspapers inTexas and New York, raise questions:“The farm is across from the plant.” /“. . . This man’s brother was across fromthe President’s house with a gun. . . .”Across what? The tracks? The street?The park? Use of the slang term “across

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from” requires that the topographicalentity in the way be obvious.

Active voice and passive voice. Anannouncer broadcast the following sen-tence, and in a sense he spoke with twovoices.

If you’re in the market for high-quality furniture, this sale should notbe missed.

Notice how weak the sentence gets afterthe comma. It starts out in the activevoice and finishes in the passive voice. Itwould have more punch if it followedthrough actively: “. . . don’t miss thissale” or “you should not miss this sale.”The inconsistency as much as the relativeweakness of the passive voice impairedthe announcement.

Voice is the form of a verb that indi-cates whether the subject of a sentenceperforms the action or receives the ac-tion. The two sentences that follow ex-press the same thought in two ways.

• “Matilda found a chinchilla” is inthe active voice. The subject(Matilda) performed the action.

• “A chinchilla was found byMatilda” is in the passive voice. Thesubject (a chinchilla) received theaction.

The active voice is more direct andusually more forceful than the passive.Nevertheless, the passive has a place.You may want to emphasize the doingand play down the doer. The identity ofthe doer may be obvious, unknown, in-significant, or indefinite: “Letterpressprinting is not used much now.” / “Flagsare being lowered to half-mast.” / “Thepackage was delivered yesterday.” / “Itjust isn’t done.”

A book on world history says, “TheNeolithic stage in culture is character-ized by the following important innova-

tions:” Five numbered paragraphs fol-low. Such a format lends itself to the pas-sive.

Too much passive can get dull. Scien-tists load their writing with it. If youread research papers, you can get theidea that scientists never do anything.Somehow everything is done, as thoughby magic. Take the following descriptionof an experiment, from a biology annual(emphasis added).

Stock suspension of normal eryth-rocytes were prepared from freshlyheparinized rat blood. . . . The plasmaand buffy coat were removed, and thecells were washed. . . . The super-natant of the first washing wasdiscarded, and the cells were resus-pended and diluted. . . . NACl dis-solved in 10 ml sodium buffer, at theappropriate Ph, was chosen for thepreparation of the hypotonic solu-tions. . . . The required standard 50%hemolysis was reached by adjustmentof the NACl concentration.

The combining of voices can producea sentence that is not just weak but alsoungrammatical. It happens when a verbin the active part does not agree withanything in the passive part. Such a sen-tence appears in the foreword of a gener-ally admirable dictionary. The sentencepreceding it says the editors do not givemerely the essence of a definition.

Instead, the reader is given the neces-sary additional connotative informa-tion, even if it means devoting a gooddeal of space to doing so. . . .

The sentence is passive up to the secondcomma; thereafter it is active. That factalone does not spoil it. The trouble isthat the words “doing so” do not referto anything. If, for instance, the sentencebegan (in an active voice) “Instead, weinsist on giving the reader the

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necessary . . . ,” doing so would fit. An-other way to correct the sentence is tomake the second part “. . . even if it re-quires a good deal of space.”

Double passives can be awkward.This is acceptable (though not an illus-tration of energetic reporting): “The sus-pect was said to be wanted in threestates.” This, however, is too clumsy forpublication: “The peak was again at-tempted to be climbed.” Better: “An-other attempt was made to climb thepeak.” A passive believed, reported,said, or thought will tolerably combinewith another passive. Many others willnot: attempted, begun, forgotten, pro-posed, sought, and so on.

AD and ADD. See Homophones.

ADAPT and ADOPT. To adaptsomething is to adjust or change it so asto make it suitable for one’s purpose.Hollywood writers often adapt novels tothe screen.

To adopt something is to accept ortake it as one’s own—unchanged—asone would adopt a child.

An anchor man who referred to “theplatform that the Democrats adapted inAtlanta” chose the wrong word. Itshould have been adopted.

By the way, adopted children haveadoptive parents.

Adjectives and adverbs. 1. In gen-eral. 2. Placement.

1. In generalAn adjective describes someone or

something. (In terms of grammar, itmodifies a noun or pronoun.) Examplesof adjectives are green, wet, and Euro-pean.

An adverb describes an action, or itfurther describes a description. (It modi-fies a verb, an adjective, or another ad-verb.) Examples of adverbs are thinly,probably, and increasingly.

It seems as though every piece of writ-ing about improving one’s English has tocontain some mistake. (The book youare now reading is probably no excep-tion.) So a newspaper article on legal En-glish indirectly quotes a judge “whoadvises lawyers to write like good news-paper reporters: simple and straightfor-ward.” And ungrammatically?

You may write a simple piece or writea piece that is simple—this word is anadjective only. But you write simply—this word is an adverb only.

Unlike simple and simply, straightfor-ward may be used either as an adjectiveor as an adverb.

Among other words that serve both asadjectives and as adverbs are down, far,fast, first, little, much, same, straight,very, and well. They have one form only.(They are sometimes called flat adverbs.)The following are more examples ofwords that double as adjectives; used asan adverb, each has an alternative formending in -ly, the form of most adverbs:bright, cheap, loud, quick, sharp, slow,strong, sure, and tight. Some writersconsider the -ly form—brightly, cheaply,etc.—more formal or fancy.

In some cases, adding -ly changes themeaning. Each of these is a combinedadjective and adverb: hard, high, late.And each has an -ly form with a differentmeaning: hardly, highly, lately.

Hyphens should never be attached to adverbs ending in -ly: “a stronglyworded letter” / “the rapidly movingtrain.” (Some adjectives end in -ly andare subject to hyphenating when at-tached to participles. See Punctuation,4D.)

Sometimes an adjective is erroneouslyused for an adverb and vice versa. An at-torney general said, “We take it very se-rious”—instead of seriously, the adverb.A psychologist said, “You’ve done all ofthose things that sound wonderfully”—instead of wonderful, the adjective.(Sound is a linking verb. See Verbs, 1F.)

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Descriptive terms ought to be stinted,used only when needed to paint a pic-ture. Some writers and speakers shovelthem out when the unadorned factswould suffice. In prose characteristic ofsupermarket tabloids, a reporter said ona television network, “Amazing new re-search has led to an astonishing discov-ery” (about the migration of brain cells).See also CELEBRATED; GRISLY (etc.);Synonymic silliness.

Adjectives or adverbs come up in hun-dreds of word entries and such topic en-tries as Comparative and superlativedegrees; Comparison; Double negative;Joining of words; Modifiers; Modifying;Nouns; Participle; Possessive problems;Series errors; Tautology; Verbs.

2. PlacementAn adjective may go just before the

noun it modifies, as in “A yellow birdappeared” (an attributive adjective); or itmay follow a linking verb, as in “Thebird was yellow” (a predicate adjective).

Contrary to the syntax of many lan-guages, in English we would not belikely to speak of “a bird yellow.” Nor-mally an adjective does not immediatelyfollow the noun it modifies. Exceptionsare found in poetry, for instance: “thy spirit . . . With its life intense andmild. . . .” See also “PROOF POSI-TIVE.”

Where to put adverbs often perplexespeople. Typically an adverb goes just be-fore a simple verb: “They often bringflowers.” It may go at the beginning of asentence or clause or at the end, particu-larly if it gets emphasis: “Unfortunatelyshe failed.” / “The river is rising rapidly.”

The placement of an adverb can dras-tically affect the meaning of a sentence,such as this one: “A plan for reducingthe work force slowly has been pre-pared.” The sentence is ambiguous.Does it refer to “A plan for slowly reduc-ing the work force” or does it mean thatthe plan “has slowly been prepared”?

If an auxiliary is helping the verb, it isperfectly proper for the adverb to go be-tween them: “We will soon know the re-sults.” / “His support would quicklyvanish.” Some writers have the mistakennotion that an adverb cannot split a verbphrase, such as will know or would van-ish. That notion seems to stem from theconcern about split infinitives.

A news story said “her family’s homebadly was damaged.” The sentencestructure has a Germanic flavor. Tellingthe story orally, the writer would proba-bly say “her family’s home was badlydamaged.”

Similarly, a news story in another pa-per said “the stadium measure heavilywas favored.” Better: “the stadium mea-sure was heavily favored.”

An author wrote, “I have no great ob-jection to . . . its [Cockney] being deniedofficially the status of a dialect.” Better:“being officially denied. . . .”

If a verb has more than one auxiliary,it gets complicated. The adverb normallygoes after either the first or second auxil-iary, depending on what it is supposed tomodify.

• “You will always be welcome in ourhouse.” Here the adverb applies tothe whole compound, will bewelcome, and follows the firstauxiliary, will.

• “He will be sharply reprimanded.”Here the adverb specially applies tothe main verb, reprimanded, andgoes right before it.

When in doubt, one can play by ear. Ifit sounds right, it is likely to be right.

An adverb made up of a number ofwords often follows a verb phrase. “Ihave said it again and again.”

When it comes at the beginning, anadverb can modify an entire sentence orclause. “Usually she arrives early andbakes the bread.” Usually applies toboth arrives and bakes. It is a mistake to

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overlook the effect of the adverb on thesecond verb, in this manner: “Skillfullyhe concluded the difficult operation butcollapsed from exhaustion.” Make it“He skillfully concluded” to avoid say-ing, literally, that he skillfully collapsed.

As a rule, an adverb should not sepa-rate a verb from its object. “Liza solvedquickly the puzzle” should be “Lizaquickly solved the puzzle.”

See also Infinitive, 4; Verbs, 4.

ADMISSION. 1. Acknowledgment.2. ADMISSION and ADMITTANCE.

1. AcknowledgmentWhen it does not have anything to do

with entry, admission is acknowledg-ment that a statement is true, a state-ment that reflects more or lessunfavorably on the one making the ac-knowledgment.

Admission can range in seriousnessfrom a trivial concession for the sake ofargument to a confession of a crime. Itcan be used in a general sense (“Takingthe Fifth Amendment is not admission ofguilt”) or specifically, applying to some-thing acknowledged (“His admissionthat he took an illegal drug did not pre-vent his election”).

Your acknowledgment of a fact thatdoes not reflect upon you, except per-haps favorably, is not an admission. Theword does not fit this sentence, from anarticle by a news service:

A new 13-city survey finds Phila-delphia diners, by their own admis-sions, to be the most generous tippersof the lot. . . .

The finding may be based on their ownaccounts, figures, numbers, reports, re-sponses, statements, statistics, or words.But it is not based on their own “admis-sions,” because being a generous tipperis not usually considered something tobe ashamed of, at least in American soci-ety.

2. ADMISSION and ADMITTANCENow for the kind of admission that

does have to do with entry: it is the actor fact of being allowed to enter, theright to enter, or, loosely, a charge for en-tering.

In the sense of entry, admittance issimilar. It too means the act or fact of be-ing allowed to enter or the right to enter.However, admittance usually is limitedto literal entry into a specific place. (“Alocked gate prevented our admittance tothe garden.” / “Admittance to thekitchen is restricted to employees.”)

Admission often has the added impli-cation of a privileged entry, as into agroup, a profession, or a place of enter-tainment. (“Your admission to the soci-ety has been approved.” / “What is thecost of admission to the show?”) More-over, admission may be used figuratively.(“The judge permitted the admission ofher testimony.”)

For both nouns, the usual adjective isadmissible, meaning able to be acceptedor admitted. (“Hearsay generally is notadmissible evidence.” / “Only those withtickets are admissible.”) Admittable israre.

See also ADMIT.

ADMIT. 1. “ADMIT TO.” 2. Han-dled without care.

1. “ADMIT TO”A main headline in a California news-

paper identifies a politician who “QuitsSenate, Admits to Corruption.” And anOregon newspaper reports on a brokerin trouble: “. . . he denied today ever ad-mitting to the $18,619 in missingfunds.”

Admit, when used in the sense of ac-knowledge or confess, should not be fol-lowed by “to.” English idiom allowsadmits wrongdoing or admitting a mis-take but not “admits to” or “admittingto” an action. (Just omitting the “to”will not rescue the second sample. Hedenied admitting, not “the $18,619,”

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but the disappearance of it. Or he deniedadmitting that $18,619 was missing.)

Admit to is proper when the meaningis to permit one to enter a group or pro-fession: “She was admitted to the club”or “The state admits to the bar onlythose who pass the examination.” Admitto is correct also in the sense of permit-ting physical entrance: “The gate admitsto the house.” / “The guards will not ad-mit to the plant anyone lacking properidentification.”

2. Handled without careOne of the meanings of admit is to

confess wrongdoing. The word is socommonly used in that sense that it mustbe handled with care when a more neu-tral use is intended. Admit (as a transi-tive verb) can mean also to concede thetruth of a trivial allegation or to ac-knowledge a shortcoming that is quiteinnocent: “I admit I’ve been slow to an-swer my mail lately, but I’ve been busy.”

The word tempts headline writers byits brevity and can mislead them andtheir readers. A headline read, “Mon-toya Admits Forgeries.” It seemed to saya U.S. senator had confessed crimes, butthe text said something much different:While acknowledging that a campaignfinance report of his filed in New Mex-ico bore false signatures of two cam-paign officers, he said he was shocked tolearn of it. A safer headline—perhaps“Forgeries ‘Shock’ Montoya”—wouldhave avoided the incriminating juxtapo-sition.

See also ADMISSION; CONFESS.

ADMITTANCE. See ADMISSION,2.

ADOPT and ADAPT; ADOPTEDand ADOPTIVE. See ADAPT andADOPT.

“ADULT.” See EXOTIC.

Adverbs. See Adjectives and adverbs.

ADVERSE and AVERSE. See Con-fusing Pairs.

ADVICE and ADVISE. Advice is thenoun, meaning an opinion on what todo about a problem. “I’m going to thelawyer for advice.” Advise is the verb,meaning to recommend or to give ad-vice. “The lawyer will advise me.”

All that is common knowledge, is itnot? Maybe not. A sign in a window of-fers “TAROT CARD READINGS BYMISS GLORIA” and “ADVISE ONALL PROBLEMS.” (One problem is hername. A sign on a wall calls her “Mrs.Gloria.”)

Some authorities object to the use ofadvise to mean inform, notify, say, state,or tell. It is common in business—“Please advise which model is de-sired”—and can suggest business jargonwhen used elsewhere.

One who advises is either an adviseror an advisor. The press customarily in-sists on the e spelling. The o spelling is inline with the adjective advisory, which isspelled only that way.

ADVOCATE. The verb advocatemeans to recommend or promote (acause). It is a transitive verb only. Thatis, it must transmit its action to an ob-ject. You advocate something.

It was misused in these press quota-tions: “Herlihy . . . has been advocatingfor the name change. . . .” / “The new or-ganization . . . is advocating for a one-year moratorium. . . .” Omit each “for.”The man “has been advocating the namechange.” The group “is advocating aone-year moratorium.”

If “advocating” were changed, say, toarguing, pleading, pressing, or pushing,both quoted sentences could accept for.All four verbs are intransitive (not need-ing an object) as well as transitive. Onecan also argue an issue, plead a case,press charges, or push a broom.

A policeman used advocate unid-iomatically in another way: “They advo-

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cated other people to violate the law.”He may have been thinking of anotherword: “They encouraged other people toviolate the law.”

An advocate (noun) is one who pro-motes a cause or who pleads someone’scause, perhaps as an attorney. “The sen-ator is an advocate of lower taxes.” /“She acted as his advocate at the hear-ing.”

As a verb, advocate is pronouncedAD-vuh-kate. As a noun, it may be pro-nounced the same way, but more often itis pronounced AD-vuh-kit.

AFFECT and EFFECT. 1. AFFECT:the more common verb. 2. EFFECT: thenoun to remember.

1. AFFECT: the more common verbTo affect is to influence or make a

change in (something). A newspaper ar-ticle used the wrong verb:

It [the Senate] is also a position ofpower, an opportunity to effect one’sworld.

A senator can affect the world, not “ef-fect” it.

Similarly, “effecting” should be affect-ing in this sentence, from an editorial inanother paper:

Until these cases are resolved, suspi-cion will hang over the White Houselike a noxious plume, effecting every-thing that goes on beneath. [Watchout for noxious feathers!]

Another meaning of the a verb is tofeign or give the appearance of (some-thing). For example: “Actors ably affectaccents.”

To effect is to bring about, carry out,or accomplish (something). Example ofthe e verb: “Each executive effectedeconomies.” It is used much less oftenthan the other verb.

Instead of “affect,” this headline

should have used effect: “How to affecta peaceful overthrow.”

2. EFFECT: the noun to rememberAs nouns, the two words are easier to

choose between. You will probably wantto use effect, the result of a cause.

Affect refers to emotion or feeling.Only psychologists seem to have affec-tion for affect. It is pronounced with em-phasis on the first syllable, unlike theother noun and the two verbs.

In both of these press examples, “af-fect” should be effect:

Texaco Inc. has announced a deal thatseems certain to set off a major debatein the United States about its affect onenergy security. . . .

The Justices Are People[;]Climate of Their Era May Have an

Affect

Another newspaper got both the nounand the verb wrong in the same article:

. . . It’s not clear what affect the nomi-nations will have on the polls. . . .“The PRI has tried to effect social policy by driving away poor fami-lies. . . .”

Change “affect” to effect and change“effect” to affect. See also IMPACT.

AFTER. After (preposition) is some-times replaced by subsequent to, a correct but pretentious synonym. “Sub-sequent to dinner” is no improvementover “after dinner.” The modest after isa useful word on all levels of English,though sometimes overused.

After (conjunction) is a well-worntool of the press, used to string episodestogether in reverse chronological order.As shown by the newspaper excerpt be-low, the word is not limited to one useper sentence. A state supreme court af-firmed a robber’s conviction, finding that

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a revolver taken from his car without asearch warrant was valid evidence.

C—— is serving a five-year sen-tence after pleading no contest to thecharge that he robbed a gas stationmini-market in Long Beach, afterbrandishing a revolver. [See BRAN-DISH.]

The sentence is overstuffed with ideasand its double after runs the sequence ofevents backward. Better: “C—— hadused the revolver to rob a gas stationmini-market in Long Beach. Chargedwith the robbery, he pleaded no contestand received a five-year sentence, whichhe now serves.”

Some authorities prefer after to fol-lowing (as a preposition): “He spoke af-ter [not “following”] dinner.” Onegrammarian accepts that use of follow-ing only when the two events are relatedby more than time: “Following the riotin Union Square yesterday, six men willappear in Circuit Court today.”

See also CONDITION, 1.

AGGRAVATE. To aggravate is tomake an undesirable condition worse;for instance, “A chill aggravates the flu.”An aggravation is (1) a worsening of thatcondition, or (2) the thing that makes itworse. A trouble or burden, not a per-son, is aggravated.

The extracts, from three metropolitannewspapers, illustrate none of thosemeanings, only the loose use of thewords to signify annoy(ance), vex-(ation), stir(ring) up, or the like. Such useis common in colloquial speech and ca-sual writing; it is out of place in moreformal media.

The measures apparently were cali-brated to be harsh enough to undercutpressure from Congress for additionalsanctions but not so harsh as to aggra-vate Beijing into a deep breach in theChinese-American relationship. . . .

The gas men returned in the nick oftime, but the aggravation led theBrooklyn woman to ponder the frag-ile dependency of modern life.

Usually when world leaders makestate visits, the local population is un-interested at best, or perhaps slightlyaggravated by the inconveniences,such as rerouted traffic and disruptedschedules at the airport.

The first could have used provoke; thesecond, annoyance, irritation, or vexa-tion; the third, annoyed, irritated, orvexed.

AGORAPHOBIA. See HOMO-PHOBIA.

Agreement in number. See Number(grammatical).

AHEAD (time). See FORWARD andBACK (time).

A HOLD. See HOLD.

“-A” instead of HAVE. See HAVE,HAS, HAD, 2.

“A” instead of personal pronoun.See Pronouns, 2 A.

“AIN’T.” It is hard to imagine a syndi-cated writer who does not know that“ain’t” is widely impugned as illiterate,so let us assume that this one used it de-liberately:

And Giuliani got to run in a yearwhen everybody knows that whateverit is that’s just around the corner ain’tprosperity.

Why “ain’t”? Was it humor of somekind or verbal slumming? Is not or isn’tor is no would have fit the sentence andspared the writer the appearance of ig-norance.

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The same questions may be addressedto the scientific author who titled a chap-ter “Black Holes Ain’t So Black.” Hisreason for avoiding the proper Are Notor Aren’t is equally obscure.

The American Heritage Dictionaryhas called the word “beyond rehabilita-tion.” Only 1 to 6 percent of its usagepanel (105–166 members) has approvedof its serious use in writing; 16 to 19 per-cent, in speech.

Merriam-Webster has viewed it differ-ently: The word is “used orally in mostparts of the U.S. by many cultivatedspeakers. . . .” That comment in Web-ster’s Third New International Dictio-nary provoked ridicule; one wagwondered “where Webster cultivatedthose speakers.”

“Ain’t” is common in the most casualof colloquial speech as a substitute foram not, are not, is not, have not and hasnot. It may be suitable for writing whenthe writer is quoting someone or simu-lating spoken slang. It appears in manysongs, like “It Ain’t Necessarily So.”

“Say it ain’t so” (plus a name) has be-come a cliché. Its legendary origin in aboy’s challenge to an arrested baseballplayer is well known. So when a newspa-per corrected the expression in a head-line—“Say it isn’t so, Joe” (about afootball star’s lawsuit against anothernewspaper)—it looked wrong.

See also “AREN’T I?”

ALIBI. Alibi is a legal term. It is a de-fense in which a defendant contends ortries to prove that he was somewhereelse than at the scene of a crime when itwas committed. In Latin, the word’ssource, alibi means elsewhere. An alibimay be truthful or not, as any other typeof defense may be.

Unfortunately, that noun has come tobe used conversationally to signify anexcuse for a misdeed, often an excusethat rouses suspicion or is downrightspurious. Outside of the legal commu-

nity, the popular misuse casts a shadowon the legitimate use of the word.

An associate of a peace foundationrecommended that Washington outlinecriteria for Russian admission to the In-ternational Monetary Fund to “offer theGovernment some alibi for unpopularausterity measures.” Change “alibi” toexcuse or justification.

ALIVE. See LIVE, 1.

ALLEGED, ALLEGEDLY. See AC-CUSED, ALLEGED (etc.).

ALL NEW. The bombardment forgenerations by “new” products, “new”services, and “new” entertainment mayhave desensitized the public to novelty.Now many advertisers and TV networksseem to feel that anything new has to beannounced as “all new” just to get any-one’s attention.

So on four networks we hear these an-nouncements: “the all-new Mazdatruck” / “an all-new ‘Simpsons’ ” / “theall-new Mitsubishi Galant” / “Herbie’sback with an all-new adventure.” Theitems are not brand-new in all respects.Each is just a new model or new episode,but evidently the writers of the commer-cials do not consider that new enough.

ALLOT. See LOT.

ALL READY. See ALL TOGETHERand ALTOGETHER (etc.).

ALL RIGHT. Many people seem un-aware that all right is composed of twosimple words, all and right. The phraseis frequently misspelled, sometimes as“allright” but usually in this manner:

“Henry took a turn for the worse al-right.”

Putting it in a quotation (that one was ina medical book for the layman) does not

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absolve a writer. And the fact that somepermissive dictionaries condone the mis-spelling is no excuse as long as it iswidely viewed as a sign of ignorance.

All was not right with Henry. The in-tended meaning there was certainly.That is the meaning in the odd sentencebelow (another quotation, this one in aleading newspaper).

“Virginia has made history, alright, allright, but race is still very much some-thing that has to be contended with.”

Perhaps an editor inserted the right ver-sion but forgot to delete the wrong one.

In addition to that meaning and theliteral meaning of entirely right, all rightembraces a variety of other, more or lessinformal meanings: adequate, agreeable,correct, good, O.K., permissible, safe,satisfactory, uninjured, well, yes. It isboth an adjective and an adverb.

It should be placed after the word itmodifies. “This restaurant is all right.”Placed before the noun—“This is an all-right restaurant”—it becomes slang.

“Alright” may have been hatched byanalogy with already. But “alright” andall right have the same meanings and thesame pronunciations; the two syllablesget about equal stress. Already and allready, however, have different meaningsand different pronunciations. Alreadystresses the first syllable, whereas allready gives the first and second syllableseven stress. See also ALL TOGETHERand ALTOGETHER, -READY, -MOST.

ALL THAT. See Anachronism, 4;THAT, ALL THAT.

ALL-TIME RECORD. See RECORD.

ALL TOGETHER and ALTO-GETHER, -READY, -MOST. Anauthor erroneously wrote that people“came altogether” instead of “came alltogether.”

All together (adjective phrase) meansin a group: “At last our family is all to-gether.” Altogether (adverb) means en-tirely, all told, or on the whole: “Therumor is altogether false.” / “Altogether107 were present.” / “How was theshow altogether?”

Similarly all ready, meaning com-pletely prepared (“The group is all readyto go”), differs from already, meaning bythis or that time (“but the plane has al-ready taken off”).

An editor dictated a letter that shouldhave said, “Your comments are all mostheartening.” Instead of all most, his sec-retary typed “almost,” suggesting thatthe addressee’s comments were not quiteheartening.

See also ALL RIGHT.

ALLUDE and ELUDE. See Confus-ing pairs.

ALONG WITH. See WITH, 2.

ALREADY. See ALL TOGETHERand ALTOGETHER (etc.).

“ALRIGHT.” See ALL RIGHT.

ALSO. 1. Adverb, not conjunction. 2.Placement. 3. Synonyms. 4. Wrong use.

1. Adverb, not conjunctionAlso, an adverb, should not be forced

to do the work of a conjunction, or con-nector—at least in writing. That is theconsensus of grammatical authorities.For instance: “He carries nickels, dimes,and quarters, also half-dollars.” Tackingon an afterthought to a written sentencein that manner is considered juvenile. Af-terthoughts in impromptu speech cannotbe helped.

Some of those authorities object tostarting a sentence with also: “I was run-ning to escape the rain. Also I didn’twant to be late for work.” Better: “I wasrunning to escape the rain and also to get

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to work on time.” The “also” could evenbe omitted.

To start a sentence with also is a jour-nalistic peculiarity. This is typical: “Alsonamed were. . . .” A more idiomatic startmight be: “Others named were. . . .”

2. PlacementThe placement of also, like that of

some other adverbs, can substantially af-fect the meaning of a sentence. Thesetwo sample sentences are the same ex-cept for the location of also:

• “He was also charged with theft.”(It was one of multiple chargesagainst him.)

• “He also was charged with theft.”(He as well as another person wascharged with that offense.)

The misguided belief that compoundverbs may not be split sometimes leads awriter or editor to choose the secondform when the first is right. A newsagency reported a prison sentence for aman paid to influence an attorney gen-eral. The next paragraph:

E. Robert ———, a legal consultantfor Wedtech, also was fined $250,000for misrepresenting the funds he re-ceived from the company.

Inasmuch as no one else was fined$250,000, make it “was also fined . . .”

A quotation from a magazine illus-trates the opposite error:

The new Central Park Zoo will alsohave an underwater window to seetheir polar bears.

Also would have been in the right placeif the magazine’s previous sentence haddescribed other features planned for thenew zoo. Actually that sentence de-scribes an underwater window to see po-lar bears at a zoo in another city. “The

new Central Park Zoo also will have”one. (The sample has another fault:“their” should be its. See Pronouns, 2B.)

See also Adjectives and adverbs, 2.

3. SynonymsToo, likewise, in addition, and besides

are synonyms for also and can be moreprecise at times. But use one at a time.

Warning of the danger of winds’knocking over trees, a city park officialsaid redundantly, “Nature’s pretty butit’s also dangerous too.” The sentencecan take either also or too but not both.

4. Wrong useA different misuse of also, as well as

other faults, is illustrated by this passage(dispatched by a news agency two yearsbefore the collapse of the U.S.S.R.):

The chairman of the House ArmedServices Committee says Soviet Presi-dent Mikhail S. Gorbachev appears tobe carrying out his pledge to makesizeable cuts in Soviet Forces in East-ern Europe.

But Rep. Les. Aspin, D-Wis., addedthat Soviet forces have also increasedartillery strength in Eastern Europe.

If the first of the two sentences told of,say, increased infantry strength, “also in-creased” would pass muster. As itstands, only artillery is increased, so“also” makes no sense.

By “also,” the writer may have meantat the same time. That is not what alsomeans. See 3.

The passage illustrates another jour-nalistic peculiarity: The first sentencementions “The chairman” and the sec-ond sentence mentions “Aspin,” butnothing ties the two together. Either thefirst sentence should have named him(“Rep. Les Aspin . . . , the chairman ofthe House Armed Services Committee,says . . .”) or the second sentence shouldhave mentioned his rank (“But Rep. Les

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Aspin . . . , the chairman, adds . . . ”—present tense, as in the first sentence). Asimilar illustration is the news dispatchin 2.

See also NOT ONLY, a phrase oftenaccompanied by but also.

ALTAR and ALTER. See Homo-phones.

ALTERNATE and ALTERNA-TIVE. See Confusing pairs.

ALTOGETHER. See ALL TO-GETHER and ALTOGETHER (etc.).

A.M. See A.M., P.M., NOON, MID-NIGHT.

Ambiguity. See Adjectives and ad-verbs, 2; ANOTHER; APPARENT, AP-PARENTLY; AS, 1, 4, 5; AS and LIKE,1; BECAUSE, 1; BETWEEN, 3; BI- andSEMI- prefixes; BILLION; DATA; Dou-ble meaning; Double negative, 2; Doublepossessive; Ellipsis; FARTHER andFURTHER; FORWARD and BACK(time); FORMER; FREE, 2; GAS, 1; GOOFF and GO ON; GREAT; HAVE,HAS, HAD, 1; Infinitive, 4; Introduction(to the book), Clarity (ambiguity de-fined), Wounded Words (65 words listed,representing entries); LATTER, 1 (end);LET, LET’S, 1; LIKE, 1; Modifiers, 3B;NEAR MISS; NOT; Nouns, 4; Num-bers, 1, 10; Participle; Prepositions, 2, 5;Pronouns, 1; Punctuation, 3, 12; Rever-sal of meaning; Run-on sentence; SPEAKTO, TALK TO; Synonymic silliness, 2;THAT, 2; THAT, ALL THAT; THATand WHICH, 1, 2; THE, 1, 2; THIS, 2;TO, 2; TOO, 1; UNLIKE, 1; WHICH,1; WHO, 1.

AMBIGUOUS and AMBIVA-LENT. See Confusing pairs.

AMERICAN INDIAN. See RACEand NATIONALITY.

AM NOT. See “AREN’T I?”

AMONG. See BETWEEN, 1.

AMOUNT and NUMBER. Acomputer book says, in explaining adesktop publishing program, “The totalamount of hyphens appearing in oneparagraph can also be determined.”

“Amount” should be number. Thefollowing colloquy helps to explain theuse of the two words.

“How much are lemons?”“A dollar a pound.” (The amount of

money.)“How many are in a pound?”“Four or five.” (The number of

items.)“How much fruit will I need for half a

gallon of lemonade?”“About a pound.” (The amount of

fruit.)Use amount when you are interested

in “how much”—how much money,fruit, labor, or anything else. It pertainsto a singular noun.

Use number when you are interestedin “how many”—how many lemons,people, hyphens, or other items. It per-tains to a plural noun.

A.M., P.M., NOON, MIDNIGHT.“The shoot-out took place right after 2A.M. this morning,” a newscaster an-nounced redundantly.

In his sentence, “A.M.” and “morn-ing” meant the same thing: the periodfrom immediately after midnight to im-mediately before noon. He could havesaid “right after 2 A.M. today” or “rightafter 2 o’clock this morning.”

A.M. stands for the Latin phrase antemeridiem, meaning before noon. An En-glish adjective with the same meaning isantemeridian.

P.M. stands for the Latin phrase postmeridiem, meaning the same as the En-glish adjective postmeridian: after noon.It represents the period from immedi-

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ately after noon to immediately beforemidnight.

In referring to the stroke of 12, youcan say 12 noon or 12 midnight, or justnoon or midnight. To avoid confusion,do not abbreviate. Sometimes “12 M.”(meridian) is used for noon and “12P.M.” for midnight. But the “M.” can bemisinterpreted as an abbreviation of“midnight” and people may not knowwhat to make of the “P.M.”

Midnight ends a day. So “midnightWednesday” is the end of Wednesday,not the beginning of Thursday.

A.M. and P.M. are spelled also withlower-case letters (a.m., p.m. or a.m.,p.m.) or small capitals (A.M., P.M.).

AN. See A and AN.

Anachronism. 1. Historical revision.2. Illogical captions. 3. Retroactive reti-tling. 4. Untrue dialogue.

1. Historical revisionIn 1867 Secretary of State William H.

Seward signed a treaty “to purchaseAlaska from the Soviet Union”—at leastthat is what the hostess on a national ra-dio show said (111 years later). Variouscommentators have called Seward aheadof his time; he would have had to be fiftyyears ahead to deal with the SovietUnion, which came into existence in1917. The treaty was with Russia.

That is an example of an anachro-nism, a verbal or graphic misplacementin time, a chronological error. Chronol-ogy shares with anachronism the rootkhronos, Greek for time. (Ana- meansbackward.) Sometimes anachronism isused erroneously in place of anomaly orcontradiction, but time is the key.

We are concerned here mainly withthe distortion of history by the intrusionof things that came later, particularlynames, terms, and expressions. Anachro-nisms are inevitable in fiction represent-ing the future: 1984 turned out

differently from 1984 (a fact that doesnot detract from the eminence of Or-well’s book).

An almanac anachronistically statedthat the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)was “founded in 1862.” It was sonamed in 1953 as a new identity for theBureau of Internal Revenue. A televisioninterviewee said Al Capone, the gangster,was arrested for “IRS violations.” Makeit tax violations. Capone died in 1947.

This statement was made in a TV doc-umentary about the search for the miss-ing link by archaeologists in Africa:

Tools were first recognized by LouisLeakey, when he came to this remotecorner of Tanzania in 1931.

Leakey went to Tanganyika. Tanzaniawas formed in 1964 (from the union ofTanganyika and Zanzibar).

2. Illogical captionsCaptions of photographs published in

the popular press are apt to juxtaposepast and present illogically, as this cap-tion in a Sunday paper does:

UNDER THE GAZE of a mannequinSaturday, Steve C—— . . . tries sal-mon sausage . . . at the Pittsburg Seafood Festival, which continues to-day.

“Saturday,” yesterday, he “tries” it?“Tries” should be tried. The writer hasforced upon the present tense the impos-sible task of representing the past as wellas the present (the festival “continues to-day”). Having set an action in the past, asentence cannot bring in the presenttense to represent that action.

To write that “strawberries awaitbuyers Thursday at Whole Foods market. . .” would normally imply that buyerscould expect them next Thursday. Butthe quotation is the caption of a picturetaken yesterday, Thursday, and pub-

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lished today, Friday. It should have (1)left out the day, or (2) said “strawberriesawaited buyers Thursday . . . ,” or (3)said “strawberries are pictured [or “areshown”] awaiting buyers Thursday. . . .”Then the present tense would not beforced into a role it could not fulfill.

See also Tense for discussion of theproper and improper mixing of time ele-ments.

3. Retroactive retitlingThis sentence was attributed to a

news service:

Time magazine reported Sunday thatindependent counsel Donald Smaltz isinvestigating a charge made by a for-mer pilot for Tyson Foods that hehelped convey cash payments fromthe company to President Clintonwhile Clinton was governor ofArkansas.

Impossible. No “payments from thecompany to President Clinton” couldhave been made while he was governorof Arkansas. He held those offices at twodifferent times. Change “President” toBill. Anyone who does not know thatBill Clinton was elected president wouldnot be likely to read the story. One couldspeak also of now President Clinton, al-though such use of now, as an adjective,is uncommon. (The allegation has notbeen proved. The statement involves sev-eral layers of hearsay.) See also FOR-MER.

4. Untrue dialogueIn portrayals of historical eras on tele-

vision, the dialogue is liable to containexpressions that did not come into vogueuntil later. Sometimes loose grammar ofthe future is thrust into characters’mouths.

By a decade or two, three series por-traying the past anticipated such con-temporary expressions as “That’s for

sure” / “Give me a break” / “I don’t be-lieve this” / “I love it!” / “We’re [or“I’m”] out of here” / “all that” (“Shewasn’t here all that long. . . . I didn’tthink it was all that serious”).

AND. 1. Excess. 2. Lack.

1. ExcessAmong pedagogic rules that went too

far was the one that forbade anyone tostart a sentence with And. Few if anypupils thought to say, “But the Bibledoes it.”

An occasional use of And to begin asentence can be beneficial: It can associ-ate that sentence with a related onewhen putting them together in one sen-tence would be unwieldy.

There is less justification for starting aparagraph with And. The purpose of anew paragraph is to separate its ideafrom what preceded. But on rare occa-sions such use of And may be warrantedas a stylistic device.

Some journalists seem to be reactingvigorously to that pedantic shall-not bygoing to the other extreme:

And the trend toward greater special-ization . . . also adds to costs.

And Dr. Sidney Wolfe says costsrise because patients do not have toworry about the bills—the govern-ment and insurance companies do itfor them.

And Wolfe cautions that with moredoctors now owning a share in newtesting equipment, there is an increas-ing incentive for them to order extratests.

And the number of physiciansclearly is growing.

All of the four quoted sentences—threeof which start paragraphs—come from

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one newspaper story. One in every sevensentences begins with “And.”

2. LackAnd (a conjunction: it connects

words, phrases, etc.) can mean also, inaddition, plus, together with, and as aresult. Sometimes and is incorrectly re-placed by “but” or “plus.” See BUT, 1;PLUS.

Having more than one and in a series,or enumeration, is not wrong and maybe necessary. An irrational avoidance ofand results in a common mistake. See Se-ries errors.

AND THAT, AND WHICH,AND WHO. See THAT, 3; WHICH,3; WHO, 2.

ANECDOTE and ANTIDOTE.An anecdote is a short, often amusing,account of an incident. An antidote is amedicinal substance that counteracts apoison. (Both words are Greek in origin.The first is from anekdotos, unpub-lished, from an-, not; ek-, out; anddotos, given. The second is from antido-tos, antidote, from anti-, against, and thesame dotos.)

Occasionally the two words aremixed up. This dialogue was said tohave taken place in a university class:

[Instructor:] If a person gets poi-soned, what do you do?

[Coed:] Give him an anecdote.

Laughter may be a good medicine, butyou can carry it too far.

ANNIVERSARY. One televisionnewscaster said of Romania, “Thisweekend is the six-month anniversary ofthe revolution.” Another said the Czechs“were marking the one-month anniver-sary of the bloody police crackdown.”From a book: “As the unprecedentedprior restraint reached its two-week an-niversary. . . .”

They all spoke nonsense. Anniversarystems from the Latin anniversarius,which means returning yearly. The pre-fix, anni-, originated in annus, year, outof which developed the English wordsannual and annuity. The suffix, -versary,came from the Latin vertere, to turn.

So an anniversary is the yearly returnof the date of an event, or an observanceor celebration of the event on that datein a later year. “Today is the tenth an-niversary of” an event is enough. “Ten-year anniversary,” as some are saying, isredundant.

A lesser period than a year may becommemorated in other ways: “It is six months since . . .” or “one monthsince . . .” or “As two weeks passed sincethe unprecedented prior restraint wasimposed. . . .”

If enough people deem it important to commemorate an event of a recentmonth, possibly a new word would beuseful. I nominate lunaversary. It allowsus to say, “Today is the first [or sixth] lu-naversary of” the given event. The prefixis from luna, Latin for moon. Two-weekcommemorations are not common.

ANOTHER. Another (adjective andpronoun) is paradoxical, at times em-phasizing similarity, at other times em-phasizing difference. It can mean (1) onemore of the same kind (“I’ll have an-other portion”) or (2) one that is differ-ent (“They speak another language”).Sometimes it can suggest (3) resem-blance (“This city is becoming anotherManhattan”) or (4) variations on atheme (“We’ve had one problem afteranother”).

Although a flexible word, it is not ageneral substitute for additional, more,or others. Some question its use with un-equal numbers. It is correct to say,“We’re giving a $100 bonus to Betty andanother $100 to Charlie.” Another em-phasizes the likeness. What is question-able is a use like this: “The Yanks scoredfour runs in the first inning and another

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three runs in the second.” The “an-other” serves no function there butwould be useful if the Yanks scored “an-other four.” Make it “and three runs inthe second” or, for emphasis, “and threemore runs in the second.”

“Another” does serve to prevent am-biguity in this sentence: “Five peoplewere treated at the hospital and anotherthree were admitted”; but a better phras-ing is “and three others were admitted.”

This sentence, from a book about theEnglish language, has more than one de-fect:

The number of words in use with fullentries in the OED is 171,476, plusanother 47,156 which are obsolete.

Omit “another”; the second numberdoes not match the first. Nor does thesecond category match the first: The47,156 words are not part of “The num-ber of words in use.” This is a possiblerevision (with the appropriate parallelsand pronouns): “The number of wordswith full entries in the OED is 218,632,comprising 171,476 words that are inuse plus 47,156 words that are obso-lete.”

A related problem concerns other.“Of eleven men questioned, five werecharged with gambling and the other sixwere cleared.” The first set does not havesix, so it is not technically right to speakof “the other six.” The six others wouldbe proper. Better yet, just delete “theother.”

See also NOTHER.

ANTE- and ANTI- prefixes. SeeHomophones.

Antecedent. See Pronouns, 1; THIS,2; WHICH, 1; WHO, 3.

ANTICIPATE. The Latin verb antici-pare means to take action beforehand.That is the primary meaning of its En-glish offspring anticipate (verb, transi-

tive). It is to act in advance of an event,either to forestall it or to meet it with theappropriate preparation. “He is a greatchess player and anticipates his oppo-nent’s moves long in advance.” / “Theyanticipated the crash by selling most oftheir stocks.”

Usually, however, it serves merely as afancy, four-syllable synonym for expect.“We anticipate visiting our in-laws thisholiday.” So common has that use been,it may not be easy to tell if someone isusing the word loosely or strictly.

U.S. Attorney William ——— saidhere last night he anticipates droppingthe local case and deferring the prose-cution to San Diego.

Does it simply mean he expects to dothose things? Or does it mean that he ismaking the necessary preparations? An-ticipate is a wounded word. (Anothertrouble with the sample is the shift intense: “said [past] he anticipates [pre-sent].” See Tense, 2.)

ANTIDOTE and ANECDOTE.See ANECDOTE and ANTIDOTE.

ANXIOUS. To be anxious is primar-ily to feel anxiety or anxiousness; that is,apprehension, concern, foreboding, oruneasiness of mind. “I’m anxious aboutthe verdict.” / “The people are anxiousfor the war to end.” / “She’s anxious toget the test over with.” This adjectivecomes barely changed from the Latinanxius, meaning distressed.

The word often is watered down, par-ticularly in informal conversation, sothat the main idea behind it—the anxi-ety—is lost. “I’m anxious to see the Yan-kees play,” Joe tells his friend. Pleasant,not worrisome, anticipation, is all thathis “anxious” implies. He might find ea-ger, the pedagogue’s alternative, toofancy for him. One of these, however,should express his meaning and keephim grammatical to anyone’s satisfac-

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tion: “I can hardly wait to see” / “I wantvery much to see” / “I’m excited aboutseeing” / “I’m keen on seeing” / “I’mlooking forward to seeing. . . .”

Although the use of anxious in thosecarefree senses is widespread in collo-quial speech, authorities are divided asto its propriety. One who is writing hasmore resources and less cause to take lib-erties with the word than conversingfriends have. A book says:

There is a tendency among Euro-peans to romanticise the nomads,which I was anxious to avoid.

There was no cause for anxiety. The au-thor could write what he wanted. If hedid not want to romanticize the nomads(or romanticise them, using the Britishspelling), he did not have to do so. In-stead of anxious, one of these phraseswould have served him well: “deter-mined to avoid” / “eager to avoid” /“hoping to avoid” / “inclined to avoid” /“seeking to avoid” / “desirous of avoid-ing” / “intent on avoiding.”

ANY. 1. In general. 2. With BODY orONE. 3. With MORE. 4. With PLACE.5. With TIME. 6. With WAY.

1. In generalIt is a mistake to think that any must

always be joined to body, one, place,time, or way whenever the two wordsappear next to each other.

In general, any- combined with theother element stresses just the any inmeaning and speech; as separate words,both get stress, in meaning and speech.Any and more should not always bejoined either, even though more isstressed in anymore. Each pair will beconsidered in the sections below.

Anyhow, anything, and anywhere areinvariably single words.

Anywhere should have no s attached.“Anywheres” is substandard.

Any and all, as in “Any and all viola-tors will be prosecuted,” is legalese andredundant. Pick any or all—or neither.

Sometimes any is wrongly used in acomparison, such as “The Acme widgethas more features than any widget onthe market.” Any other. As it stands,Acme illogically remains in the sameclass as all the others; other would set itapart.

The use of any with a superlative, e.g.,“the biggest ears of any animal,” botherssome critics, who would prefer “of allanimals.” Others defend the expressionas idiomatic and established. You maychoose.

Any as an adjective has these mean-ings: one, of several, no matter whichone (“Any brand will do”); some (“Haveyou any mangoes?”); even a bit of (“Idon’t have any wool left”); and every(“Any child knows that”).

Any can be an adverb, meaning at all(“I can’t make it any tighter”). When itdoes not precede a comparative adjective(“It can’t hurt any”), it is regarded as in-formal.

Furthermore, any can be an indefinitepronoun (“I don’t have any of thosebooks”). As a pronoun, any may be con-strued either as singular, in the sense ofany one (“Is any of these pictures toyour liking?”); or as plural, in the senseof some (“Are any of them for sale?”).

See also Double negative; ONE aspronoun, 3.

2. With BODY or ONEAnybody and anyone have the same

meaning. As a single word, each is a pro-noun meaning any person. “Anybody[or “anyone”] can do it.” / “Does any-one [or “anybody”] have a knife?” Thechoice depends on personal preference.If rhythm or conciseness matters, the ad-ditional syllable and letter in anybodycan make a difference. In the pronuncia-tion of either word, the first syllable isstressed.

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Occasionally the adjective any is sepa-rate from the noun, body or one.

Any and body are kept separate whenboth words are important and both arestressed when spoken, as in mentions ofany (human) body or any body of water.

Any and one are kept separate whenthe meaning is any single thing or personand both words are stressed when spo-ken: “Pick any one.” / “Any one of themcan do the job alone.”

Some critics consider it unreasonableto combine a superlative with anyone inan expression of this order: “He is thesmartest person of anyone I know.”They would replace anyone with all oromit “of anyone.” Others consider thecombination a time-honored idiom. It isyour decision.

See also ONE as pronoun, 3; Pro-nouns, 2C.

3. With MOREThe writers of these sentences

wrongly connected any and more:

“If I never get anymore, I’m happy,”she says, explaining her fear of be-coming an obsessed collector.

. . . Travis said, “Come ON, Dad,we’re not gonna see anymore trees,are we?”

You cannot go wrong keeping anyand more separate. Some authorities in-sist on any more in all uses.

When any more means an indefiniteadditional amount, degree, or number(serving as an adjective)—the meaning inthe sentences above—its words must bekept separate.

When it concerns time (serving as anadverb)—when it suggests from now on,since a certain time, or now—it is eitheranymore or any more. Then it goes in amore or less negative statement (“Hepromised not to do it anymore” or “anymore” / “I hardly go there anymore” or

“any more”) or a question (“Do youvisit her anymore?” or “any more?”).And note that it always ends a thought.

In some regions “any more” is usedcolloquially in positive statements as asynonym for now. An example comesfrom a radio talk show, whose hostasked, “Has the ——— Church gottenso out of touch with reality that it’s just abig joke any more?” Sometimes it evenstarts a sentence: “Any more we don’tsee them.” Such uses are not standard.

4. With PLACEAn architectural critic was quoted as

saying, “I’d never seen anyplace so beau-tiful” (as San Francisco in the forties). Itshould be: “I’d never seen any place sobeautiful.” (Any serves as an adjective,place as a noun.)

As one word, anyplace (adverb)means at, in, or to any place. It sharesthat meaning with anywhere, althoughanyplace is more informal. Some author-ities scorn anyplace or any place used asan adverb.

Insofar as anyplace is acceptable, it isinterchangeable with anywhere, as in thesentence “I’ll go anyplace for a goodjob.” You cannot substitute anywherefor “anyplace” in the opening quotation.

5. With TIMEAny time is preferably used as two

words. The one-word form has notgained general acceptance. A criticwrites, “The one-word anytime is non-existent in the English language”; yetdictionaries list it: “adv. at any time.”Britain does not use anytime.

Street signs say, “No Parking Any-time.” Telephone books say, “You cancall it [an information line] anytime.”Those uses can pass; but any time or,strictly, at any time is better, allowingtime due emphasis. As a rule, anytimeis tolerable when at any time can be sub-stituted.

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The words unquestionably must bekept detached in this sentence: “I can’tfind any time for my hobby nowadays.”There any serves as an adjective; time isthe noun that it modifies. The singleword must be an adverb.

6. With WAYAs a word (adverb) anyway means

nevertheless or in any event. “Aware ofthe risks, they embarked on the expedi-tion anyway.” / “He probably didn’t doit, and anyway there’s no law against it.”As a phrase (adjective and noun), anyway means in some manner, no matterwhich. “Make the repair any way youcan.” (Some dictionaries confusedly givesuch a definition for the single word.)

Anyway should have no s attached.“Anyways” is substandard.

APE and MONKEY. When a moviecharacter calls a chimpanzee “bad mon-key!” and a pair of movie reviewers re-peatedly refer to it as a “monkey,”someone ought to speak up for the de-graded creature.

Let it be said here that a chimpanzee isnot a “monkey.” It is an ape, one of thegreat apes at that. Apes do not have tails;monkeys do. Apes have more complexbrains and can stand and walk nearlyupright. They are our closest relatives inthe animal kingdom.

Other great apes (family Pongidae)are the bonobo, gorilla, and orangutan.The gibbon and siamang are lesser(smaller) apes (family Hylobaeidae). The so-called Celebes black ape and Barbary ape (of Gibraltar) are reallymacaque monkeys, misnamed in the be-lief that they lacked tails; their tails aretiny.

Both ape and monkey belong to theorder Primates; so do the lemur andman. The designation of all nonhumanprimates as “monkeys” is a hoary collo-quialism; note the sobriquet of theScopes (“Monkey”) Trial of 1925.

See also PRIMATES.

Apophasis. See Verbal unmention-ables.

Apostrophe. See Punctuation, 1.

APPARENT, APPARENTLY. Ap-parent (adjective) has two nearly contra-dictory meanings. It can mean open toview (“The damage to the building wasimmediately apparent”) or obvious (“Itis apparent from these figures that our fi-nancial situation is perilous”). The wordcan also mean seeming, based on ap-pearance but not necessarily so. (“Theapparent art treasure has turned out tobe a fake.”)

Dictionary definitions of apparently(adverb) include plainly or obviously,but now its most common meaning isseemingly. (“The magician apparentlysawed a woman in half.”)

News media use apparent or appar-ently often. Its purpose is not always ap-parent. This is from a nine-sentencenews story:

Two men were apparently killed inseparate shooting incidents, one oc-curring Tuesday night and the otherWednesday morning. . . . A driver hadapparently lost control and crashedhis vehicle. . . . Police are investigatingthe apparent homicide.

“Apparently killed” is absurd. If the“apparently” was meant to apply tosomething else (“separate” or “shoot-ing”?), it was misplaced. (Incidentally,“one occurring” and “the other” are un-necessary.) The other “apparently” and“apparent” are acceptable.

“Apparently” was misplaced and mis-leading in another story:

Tenant power apparently defeatedProposition E, which would havelifted rent controls. . . .

“Apparently defeated” implies doubtthat the proposition was defeated. Per-

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haps this was meant: “What appeared tobe tenant power defeated Proposition E. . . .”

A police chief and a victim of a pursesnatcher both died “of an apparent heartattack.” Such journalistic use of theword has been called ambiguous. Itcould signify that the diagnosis was ob-vious; that the fatal ailment merely gavethe appearance of being a heart attack;or that a heart attack was evidently,probably, or possibly the cause of death.

Evident or evidently applies to thatwhich facts point to. It stresses evidence,whereas apparent or apparently stressesappearances. Probable or probably ap-plies to that which is likely to be true;possible or possibly, to that which mayor may not be true.

A news service reported that WilliamColby, a former CIA director, was “miss-ing and presumed drowned in an appar-ent boating accident” in Maryland. Thathe had gone canoeing on a river wouldhave been a more accurate detail than aconjecture about an accident, eventhough qualified by “apparent.” Afterthe body was found, a medical examinerdetermined that Colby had drowned fol-lowing a heart attack.

APPENDIX. See Plurals and singu-lars.

Apposition, appositive. See Nouns,1; OR.

APPRAISE and APPRISE. To ap-praise is to evaluate or estimate as toworth or quality. “The house was ap-praised at a million dollars.”

To apprise is to inform or notify. Of-ten of follows. “We must apprise thepresident of this news.”

A woman said in a television inter-view about her divorce, “I was not ap-praised that our marriage was havingsome rocky points.” A man calling a ra-dio advice program said, “He was dyingand I never was appraised of this.” The

word needed in each instance was ap-prised.

APT. See LIABLE.

“AREN’T I?” This expression enterscasual remarks and profound writingsalike: “. . . Porter said with a grin, ‘Iguess I am a little detail-oriented, aren’tI?’” / “Aren’t I equally determined bythe grand unified theory?”

Many people who never would say“ain’t I?” are drawn to “aren’t I?” Topoint up the absurd character of thatgenteelism, let us turn the phrasearound, making a declarative sentenceout of it: “I aren’t.” Or let us expand thecontraction: “Are I not?” In the declara-tive form: “I are not.” In short, I and aredo not mix.

Until the widely maligned “ain’t” ac-quires respectability or amn’t (a contrac-tion of am not, used colloquially inScotland and Ireland) gains general ac-ceptance, our best recourse may be thephrase am I not?—and what is wrongwith that?

“I guess I am a little detail-oriented,am I not?”

“Am I not equally determined by thegrand unified theory?”

See also “AIN’T.”

ARGUE. See ADVOCATE.

AROMA. An editorial complainsabout panhandlers at rail stations: Someobstruct the passageways; others are ag-gressive. “And sometimes in the hallsand entrances there is the aroma of hu-man waste.”

“Aroma” does not describe what thewriter is talking about. An aroma is agood smell. It may be spicy or pungent,but it is never bad.

Any of four other words could havebeen chosen: Smell and odor can begood or bad or neither. Stink and stenchemphasize badness, just as fragrance andaroma emphasize goodness. Scent sug-

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gests an identifying and usually delicateemanation.

We have discussed seven nouns. Adjec-tives are related to five of them: Aromaticand fragrant refer to pleasant-smellingodors. Odorous usually is unpleasant;smelly and stinking always are.

AROUND. See ESTIMATE, ESTI-MATED.

ARRANT and ERRANT. See Con-fusing pairs.

ARREST WARRANT. See WAR-RANT.

Articles (parts of speech). See A andAN; THE.

AS. 1. Ambiguity. 2. Excessive use. 3.Lack of a pair. 4. With NOT. 5. WithWELL.

1. AmbiguityThe little word as can cause a great

deal of confusion. It starts many an un-clear phrase, an example of which ap-pears in the sentence below. By trying tojam a bunch of different ideas into onesentence, the writer may have savedsome space but lost his readers.

While Wan is not seriously ill andcut short a U.S. trip for political andnot medical reasons, as was stated lastweek, he too is said to be receivingmedical treatment, for a heart condi-tion.

We are forced into a guessing game.What “was stated”: (1) everything be-fore “as,” (2) that Wan “cut short a U.S.trip for political and not medical rea-sons,” or (3) “medical reasons”? (Thethird choice seems the most plausible,but “medical reasons” and “was stated”do not go together.) And who “stated”it: (1) someone in a foreign government,(2) the writer, or (3) somebody else?

The best repair for such a defectivesentence is rewriting. Put each idea into aseparate sentence. A possible revisionfollows. (We are guessing what the factsare.)

Wan too is said to be receivingmedical treatment, for a heart condi-tion. Last week a spokesman in theChinese government stated that Wanhad cut short a U.S. trip for medicalreasons. Actually the reasons were po-litical. Wan is not seriously ill.

“As was,” seen in the initial sample, isa form that looks artificial and invitesambiguity. So is any phrase combining asand a misplaced verb, like “as are” or“as did.” A news story described a pro-gram drafted by an African politicalparty.

It refers to the party as the vanguard“of the Mozambique people” ratherthan “the worker-peasant alliance” asdid the program approved at the pre-vious party congress.

The previous program “did” what?“Did” does not hook up with any verb.Perhaps the writer was trying to reuse“refers,” but “did refers” would not begrammatical.” Here is first-aid: “. . . asthe program approved at the previousparty congress referred to it.” Thatwould still leave a double use of “as”and a complex sentence. Again we turnto the two-sentence solution. The quotedsentence could end with “people.” A sec-ond sentence could read as follows:

The program approved at the previ-ous party congress called Frelimo [theparty’s short name] “the worker-peasant alliance.”

It can be uncertain whether as is in-tended to mean because or at the sametime that: “As the rain began falling, Iwent inside.” Rephrasing is needed, e.g.,

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“The rain began falling, so I went in-side” (cause); or “I went inside just asthe rain began falling” (time).

(As is used as a conjunction in the ex-amples above. It is also classified as anadverb, pronoun, and preposition.)

2. Excessive useA mere two letters long, as is a

workhorse in the press. In journalese it isa favorite conjunction for stringing to-gether ideas, related or unrelated. News-paper writers do not restrict themselvesto just one as per sentence:

The assessment was borne out byyouthful protesters today as they sur-veyed wrecked banks as plumes ofcobalt-blue tear-gas smoke rose in thenarrow streets.

Why does everything need to be packedinto one sentence? Try chopping the sen-tence in two.

The assessment was borne out byyouthful protesters today. They sur-veyed wrecked banks as. . . .

The message becomes less unwieldy. (Letus pretend that we know what “The as-sessment” is.)

3. Lack of a pairOne as is usually not enough when a

sentence likens two things in a simile orcontrasts them in a comparison. Idiomcalls for an as . . . as pair: “as happy as alark” or “twice as high as last year’sprice.”

A television newscaster told what re-searchers knew about left-handedness:

They do know that men are threetimes as likely to be left-handers thanwomen.

“As . . . than” is wrong. A correction:“. . . men are three times as likely aswomen to be left-handers.” It replaces

“than” with as and moves those beingcompared closer together.

Several words must sometimes sepa-rate the first as and the second. This isfrom another TV program:

Costs of health plans are climbingnearly twice as much at midsizedcompanies than at larger companies.

Change “than” to as. (The sentenceneeds more fixing. Just what it means toclimb twice as “much” is unclear. Fast orhigh, depending on the facts, would beclearer.) See also THAN, 2A.

Another problem is the faulty“as . . . or . . . than” construction. It is il-lustrated by a business executive’s re-mark that the decisions made byworkers can be “as good or better than”the decisions made by management. Thenecessary second as is missing: “as goodas or better than. . . .” It may be clearerto put the or phrase at the end of the sen-tence: “as good as the decisions made bymanagement, or better.” Another possi-ble correction: “at least as good as. . . .”Similarly, a history book says:

The new law would permit the com-pany to send its tea directly to Amer-ica from India, and sell it at a tax ofbut three cents a pound, making thisAmerican potable as cheap, orcheaper, than smuggled tea.

The sentence can be fixed in either oftwo ways: (1) “as cheap as smuggled teaor cheaper”; (2) “as cheap as or cheaperthan smuggled tea.” (All of the commasexcept the second one are unnecessary.Commas are acceptable in this way: “ascheap as, or cheaper than, smuggledtea.”)

The examples above each lacked thesecond as of the as . . . as pair. In the ex-ample below, the first as is missing.

It may be hard to imagineWalken—often as not a slick villain in

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his movie roles—tromping around infarmer’s boots and overalls.

Change the phrase in dashes to “as oftenas not. . . .” The sentence appeared in anewspaper’s television review. Was theomission of a two-letter word meant tosave space? Plenty of it remained at theend of the paragraph.

Sometimes the as . . . as pattern iscopied when it is not needed: “As hot asit was, I shivered.” The opening “As” isunnecessary (and archaic). There is nosimile or comparison here. The secondas means though.

“As best as” is not a legitimate form.See AS BEST.

A personal pronoun followingas . . . as can be subjective or objective:“He is as big as I” (that is, as big as Iam). But “They pay Sam as much as me”(that is, as much as they pay me). Seealso Pronouns, 10E.

A sentence may need only a single as ifone of the two things being comparedcame up in a previous sentence. “It sellsfor $1,500. The competing product istwice as expensive” or “just as expen-sive.” Just as appears to be the model forredundancies in the press like “equallyas speedy.” Equally speedy would becorrect.

4. With NOTIn a negative comparison, switching

to so . . . as is an option. You can say ei-ther “Charles is not as tall as his sister”or “Charles is not so tall as his sister.” Afew grammarians prefer the latter form.

A construction that can be confusinggoes as follows: “The line-item veto isnot an economy device, as a number ofreformers think.” Do they think it is or itis not? Literally the sentence is express-ing the negative, but that may not be theintended meaning. Similarly, a lexicogra-pher writes:

. . . Orm had not used unntill (as theeditors of the work and of the OED

believed) but its northern variant inn-till. . . .

Literally the parenthetical clause says theeditors believed the negative, althoughthe context suggests the reverse. Aclearer wording would be “theeditors . . . believed that he had doneso.”

(What follows “but” does not makegrammatical sense. Either add a verb,e.g., “but had used its northern variant,”or place “not” after “used.” See BUT, 6.)

This was stated in a news broadcaston a radio network:

The VA considers alcoholism willfulmisconduct, not a disease, as most ofthe medical profession does.

“Does” ties in with nothing; but sincethe only other verb in the sentence is“considers,” the second clause seems to say that most of the medical profes-sion also considers alcoholism willfulmisconduct. An opposite message mayhave been intended, although there wasno explanation. Whatever the messagewas should have been in a separate sen-tence.

5. With WELLThe phrase as well as has primarily

meant and not only. Though forced tobear the extra sense of and in addition, ithas not fully adapted itself to that role.Classified as a conjunction, it is consider-ably weaker than the conjunction and.

This is an example of its distinctiveuse: “Gertrude, as well as I, is going tothe meeting” (not “are” going or “am”going). The number of the verb remainssingular, and the person of the verb con-forms to the main subject. As well as im-plies the addition of a new fact (thatGertrude is going) to a fact alreadyknown (that I am going).

A dictionary’s sole example is “skill-ful as well as strong,” which illustratesthe newer use, that of simple addition.

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The phrase becomes merely a drawn-out replacement for and. Sometimes one cannot tell which meaning was in-tended.

When as well as is put between twoverbs, the verb form is the same. In thissentence, from a biography, one wordcould well be changed:

In the three days they covered at leastfifty miles as well as climbing twomountains of around 3000 feet.

To match covered, change “climbing” toclimbed. Besides would go with climb-ing.

The grammarian H. W. Fowler took iton himself to “come to the rescue of thephrase as well as [a conjunction] . . . be-ing cruelly treated” like the prepositionbesides. Among examples: “His deathleaves a gap as well as creating a by-election in Ross”—make “creating” cre-ates, or replace “as well as” withbesides. “You were there as well asme”—make “me” I.

Both should not go with as well as.See BOTH, 2.

As well, without the second as, canmean in addition (“He wins the moneyand a car as well”) or with similar effect(“We might as well give up”). It shouldnot open a sentence, as it did on the ra-dio: “As well we’ve got another [road]closure.” Although unnecessary, “aswell” would have been more idiomaticat the end of the sentence.

AS and LIKE. 1. Confusion. 2. In-comparability.

1. ConfusionLike is proper in this sentence:

“Sometimes I feel like a motherlesschild.” Or this one: “He looks like you.”It conforms to the rule: Like (a preposi-tion) may be followed by a noun or pro-noun that is not allied to a verb. As (aconjunction) introduces a clause, agroup of words with a subject and verb.

Like is not acceptable in these sen-tences, from radio and daily press:

Tonight it will cool off, like it al-ways does.

Like they did last week before theAssembly Judiciary Committee,judges were expected yesterday to askfor a delay in legislative action.

. . . He looked like he had put onsome of the weight he had lost.

In the first and second of the three sam-ples, change “like” to as. In the third,change “like” to as if or as though.

The “like”—after “likes”—lookseven worse in the sample below, from abook. Change “like” to as.

At other times, he likes to producespectacular effects, like when he putsan imposing beret made of crumpledpaper onto his picture of The Studentwith a Pipe. . . .

Sometimes when like is needed,people who have become afraid of itsubstitute “as.” Comprehension can suffer: “Harold, as his brother, appearedin a movie.” If the message is that both were in movies, not that Haroldportrayed his brother, change “as” tolike.

One may reasonably take issue withthe rule, on grounds of literary history.Shakespeare and other celebrated, long-gone writers did not avoid like withverb. Nor do most people in colloquialspeech. Some authorities defend such us-age. But after generations of insistenceby grammarians, editors, and teachers, awriter or careful speaker today emulatesShakespeare et al. at the risk of havinghis literacy questioned.

2. IncomparabilitySimply following the rule will not res-

cue an error in logic. When you liken

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one thing to another, they must be com-parable. This sentence is defective:

Like the days before interstatetravel . . . Albuquerqueans are usingAlbuquerque’s main street.

The writer seems to be likening a time towhat people are doing, but the two con-cepts are incomparable. Change “Like”to As they were doing in.

See also LIKE, 2; UNLIKE, 2.

AS BEST. “As best as could be deter-mined, no dailies failed to print . . .”(from a report on a flood, in a magazinefor the newspaper industry).

“As best as” should be removed fromone’s vocabulary. No superlative, such asbest, longest, happiest, or bravest, belongsin the as . . . as form. A phrase like “asbrave as a lion” expresses the degree of aquality, but a superlative per se expressesthat; the degree is the highest. No onewould say, “He was as bravest as a lion.”

The sample could well begin “As faras” (and, to be still more idiomatic, “itcould be determined” or “anyone coulddetermine . . .”).

The error typically appears in thisform: “She painted as best as she could.”It can be corrected in any of three ways:(1) change “best” to well; (2) change “asbest as” to the best; “She painted thebest she could”; (3) omit the second“as”: “She painted as best she could.”The single as there means in the mannerthat (she could paint best).

See also AS, 3; BETTER and BEST(etc.); Comparative and superlative de-grees.

“AS EVERYONE KNOWS” or“AS IS WELL KNOWN.” See OFCOURSE, 3.

AS FAR AS. See FAR.

AS MUCH AS. See Numbers, 2(end).

ASPIC. See JELL-O.

ASSAULT. See Crimes, 1.

ASSISTANT. The abbreviation of as-sistant is asst. Do not omit the t and theperiod, as a television station did. In a re-port on a fire, the station interviewed anassistant fire chief, identifying him with acaption on the bottom of the screen thatplaced the title of “Ass Chief” before hisname.

ASSURE, ENSURE, and INSURE.1. The differences. 2. More about AS-SURE.

1. The differencesTo assure is to make (someone) sure

of something, to give confidence, or topromise confidently. Usually the word isdirected at people, not things; and it im-plies the use mainly of words, not deeds,to set one’s mind at rest. “We assuredthem of our support for this worthycause.”

To insure is to make (something) sureor certain, to guarantee, to make safe orsecure, to protect (against), or to agree topay money in the event of loss. Usuallythis word is directed at things, notpeople; and it implies deeds, rather thanmere words, to make something certainor secure. “We must observe our budgetstrictly to insure that we stay solvent.”

Except in the sense of indemnify,when insure is the only verb to use (“Thecompany insures my property againstfire” or, intransitively, “The company in-sures against fire”), ensure has the samemeaning as insure and usually is pro-nounced the same (in-SURE). Thespelling of ensure is less common. TheBritish prefer ensure in every sense except the financial, but almost noAmerican authorities insist on such discrimination.

The related nouns are assurance andinsurance. Again, it is a matter of wordsand deeds. “You have our assurance that

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the product is safe.” / “The scrupuloustesting we do is the best insurance of ourproduct’s safety.”

Life assurance is a term traditionallyused by British insurance companies. Lifeinsurance is the American term, notwith-standing the Equitable Life Assurance So-ciety of the United States, whose archaicname insures its distinction.

2. More about ASSUREYou assure a person or a group. (As-

sure is a transitive verb). You do not just“assure” in general, contrary to the be-lief of a reporter. This statement is bothunidiomatic and misleading: “The Presi-dent had assured the troops would notbe sent into the city.” At first it looks asthough he “assured the troops” of some-thing. The sentence should have readsomething like this: “The President had assured the senator that the troopswould. . . .” (The journalistic avoidanceof that contributed to the trouble. SeeTHAT, 1, 2.)

AS TO. See IN TERMS OF, 1; TO, 1.

AS WELL AS. See AS, 5.

ATE and EATEN. See Tense, 5A.

ATOMIC. See NUCLEAR.

ATTENDANCE. See IN ATTEN-DANCE.

“AT THIS POINT IN TIME.”The televised hearings in the Watergatescandal of the seventies popularized awordy and roundabout adverbialphrase. More than twenty years later, aspokesman for major league baseballsaid, upon announcing a concession toend a strike, “We are happy to have thisdone at this point in time.” And a motorvehicles dealer said, in commenting onthe settlement of a trade dispute withJapan, “At this point in time we’ve allgot a lot more cars than we need.”

Before Watergate, they might haveused at this time or at this point or, if in-clined toward plainer talk, now or rightnow or no adverb at all. Just leaving out“at this point in time” would give suchmessages more punch and not impairthem any. Obviously the time is the pre-sent.

A variation came from an ex-congressman: “I think at that point intime that I admitted I broke the Houserules.” At that time or simply thenwould be a good replacement. (The sec-ond “that” would make more sense after“think” but could be omitted.)

ATTORNEY and LAWYER. “Theparents’ lawyer, . . . a Corte Madera at-torney who specializes in suits againstschool districts said. . . .” The writer hasreversed the two terms. The sentenceought to read, “The parents’ attorney,. . . a Corte Madera lawyer who. . . .”

Attorney often serves as a pompoussynonym for lawyer. In its narrowersense, however, attorney means a personwho has been appointed or empoweredto act for another in a legal or businessmatter. One who acts as an attorney isusually—but not necessarily—a lawyer.A lawyer is a person whose profession is the practice of law. Smith, a lawyer, isBrown’s attorney. Brown, a layman, isSmith’s client. Each is an attorney or aclient in relation to the other person.Lawyer may be used in the more specificsense too: Smith is Brown’s lawyer.

A lawyer in a trial is often spoken ofas counsel. “In all criminal prosecutions,the accused shall enjoy the right . . . tohave the assistance of counsel for his de-fense” (Sixth Amendment, U.S. Consti-tution). Counsel can be singular orplural. The judge in a trial often ad-dresses a lawyer as counselor.

See also Titles, 3.

Attributive adjective. See Adjectivesand adverbs, 2.

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Auxiliary verbs (helping verbs). SeeAdjectives and adverbs, 2; Infinitive, 4(end); Verbs, 1, 4.

AVENGE and REVENGE. See Con-fusing pairs.

AVERAGE. See Collective nouns, 2;LIFE EXPECTANCY (etc.); MEAN(noun); Numbers, 10E; PER CAPITA.

AVERSE and ADVERSE. See Con-fusing pairs.

AVOID and EVADE. See Confusingpairs.

AWAKE, AWAKEN. See WAKE,AWAKE (etc.).

AWARD. Organizations and govern-ments award people honors and money.That is, they give them things as a resultof judgment. An award (noun) is thatwhich one is awarded (verb).

A transit district’s newsletter reportedthat a committee had “awarded four busoperators . . . with plaques recognizingtheir excellent aid to seniors and dis-abled passengers.” Omit “with.” Thecommittee awarded the operatorsplaques. One could say instead that itpresented the operators with plaques orthat it honored them with plaques. It issimply a matter of idiom.

AWAY and AWEIGH. See Homo-phones.

A WHILE and AWHILE. Somehave the notion that whenever they findthe words a and while next to each other,they must stick them together as oneword, regardless of meaning. Not so.

Awhile means for a period of time. Itis an adverb, not what the four samplesbelow need. Each should have been giventhe indefinite article a with the nounwhile, meaning a period of time. (Three

are from daily newspapers; the fourth isfrom an annual book for writers.)

It was awhile before Mr. Pietsch, whois from Ohio, the son of a minister, en-tirely recovered his sense of humor.

“After awhile it becomes easy toknow things. . . .”

Once in Awhile, First Time Can Be aCharm

For most writers it takes awhile to getthe knack.

Change each “awhile” to a while. Forexample, let us correct the first sentence:“It was a while before Mr. Pietsch en-tirely recovered his sense of humor.”(What does his Ohio origin or his kin-ship to a minister have to do with hissense of humor? See Modifiers, 2.)

Never write “for awhile.” For is partof the meaning of awhile. Each of thefollowing three samples contains that error. Awhile can stay in each, but notpreceded by “for.” (They are by a colum-nist, a news service, and a history bookrespectively.)

Koppel let it slide for awhile, but fi-nally he whacked Bush with it.

“So she played the slot machines forawhile, then got a bite to eat.”

In Virginia the assembly actuallygained the upper hand for awhile.

Omit each “for”: e.g., “let it slideawhile.” As an alternative, keep the“for” but sever a and while: “let it slidefor a while.” In the sample below (by an-other columnist) “awhile” cannot stay;make it “For a while. . . .”

For awhile, victory would seemwithin his grasp.

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A while is not often used adverbially,in the manner of the final sample (fromanother book for writers). Using it thatway is acceptable to some authoritiesbut not to others.

Every agent who’s been in business awhile has been contacted by writersunhappy with their present agents.

Either awhile or for a while would beunquestionably correct.

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BACHELOR and SPINSTER. Amovie review said, “William Hurt playsGraham Holt, a male spinster whoshocks neighbors when he decides toadopt a 10-year-old.”

“Male spinster” is as contradictory as“female bachelor.” A spinster is a femaleby definition: She is a woman beyondthe usual age for marrying who has notbeen married. (In some contexts, likeBritish law, age is not relevant. Neitheris sex on rare occasions: in a primordialuse of spinster as a professional spinnerof fiber.)

The actor described in the movie re-view plays a bachelor. Numerous dictio-naries define bachelor as “an unmarriedman.” That definition is incomplete.The word often implies that the man (1)is of the usual age for marrying, or be-yond, and (2) has never been married.At least two dictionaries recognize bach-elorette and the synonymous bachelorgirl. Of course a college graduate of ei-ther sex may be a bachelor of arts, sci-ence, or some special field. But only amale can be a plain bachelor.

One who is unmarried as a result ofdivorce is a divorcée (woman) or divorcé(man), pronounced dih-vaur-SAY eitherway. A divorced person, without regardto sex, is a divorcee, pronounced dih-vaur-SEE. One who has been bereavedof a spouse and who has not remarriedis either a widow (woman) or a widower(man). Any unmarried status is com-

monly called single, although the Bureauof the Census has long defined single as“never married.”

BACK(-) prefix and pairs. A newsarticle described a drug trial in Floridaand added, “Locally it took a backseatto news of the crack cocaine epidemic inJacksonville. . . .” When used as a noun,the term back seat consists of twowords: “Locally it took a back seat . . .”or “The passenger sat in the back seat.”The two words are hyphenated whenused as an adjective, usually in back-seatdriver. (The article’s joining of thephrase contradicted the newspaper’sown style rule.)

The same goes for back room: twowords as a noun (“Come into the backroom”), hyphenation as an adjective (“Itwas a back-room deal”). It has to dowith pronunciation. Unifying the wordswould indicate that the first syllableshould be stressed. Actually, each sylla-ble gets about equal stress in back seat,and the same is true for back room. It isalso true for the two-word nouns backroad and back yard. The latter is oftenspelled “backyard,” although the nounfront yard is always two words. The Associated Press understandably callsfor back yard as a noun, backyard as anadjective. In a phrase like backyard barbecue, the stress shifts to the first syl-lable.

As nouns, back door and back stairs

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give the syllables about equal stress. Asadjectives, when each initial syllable isstressed, they become single words:backdoor, backstairs. Both adjectivescan mean secret or underhanded, in ad-dition to their literal meanings. The lat-ter has an alternate form: backstair.

These twenty nouns are all singlewords, stressing the first syllable: back-ache, backboard, backbone, backcourt,backdrop, backfield, backfire, back-ground, backhand, backlash, backlog,backpack, backrest, backside, back-space, backspin, backstop, backstroke,backwash, backwater.

Backstretch and backwoods, whichstress the syllables about equally, areanomalies.

Generally either backward or back-wards may be used as an adverb (“Thecar went backward[s]”), though somepress organizations avoid the latter. Onlybackward serves as an adjective (“abackward glance”).

BACK (time). See FORWARD andBACK (time).

Backward writing. 1. Looking-glasssyndrome. 2. Some causes and cures. 3.“Upcoming”: Germanisms.

1. Looking-glass syndromeBackward run often sentences. Turvy

topsy turned are idioms. Reversed arephrases. Journalese is it.

The compulsion to write backward isnot known to reach such an extreme, ex-cept in Lewis Carroll’s Through theLooking Glass, but newspapers fromcoast to coast are replete with sentenceslike these:

Suspected are cadmium, nickel, cop-per, mercury and hydrocarbons.

Affected were eggs, vegetables, sugarand pork—the staple meat in the Chi-nese diet.

Trying for a comeback is MauriceFerre, a polished Puerto Rican busi-nessman who was Mayor for six con-secutive terms. . . .

Fishing for trout with Baker duringthe week of the July 18 Democraticconclave in Atlanta will be veteranCalifornia political consultant StuSpencer . . . and Rep. Richard Cheneyof Wyoming.

The normal sequence of a declarativesentence is (1) subject, or noun, and (2)predicate, or verb. All of the samplesabove reverse the normal sequence.

Inversions, as they are called, are nec-essary in questions (“Where am I?”).They suit the Bible (“Blessed are themeek”), poetry (“While follow eyes thesteady keel”), and old-style prose (“Tothe victors belong the spoils”). They arefound in exclamations (“How forcefulare honest words!”), commands (“Getthee to a nunnery”), and hypotheticalclauses (“Had I only known”). An inver-sion can provide a transition betweenthoughts (“Next comes the matter of fi-nances”), emphasize a negative idea(“Never . . . was so much owed by so many to so few”), and set a scene (“In a village of La Mancha . . . therelived . . .”).

Reasonable inversions of other typesappear now and then, formed with style,in idiomatic English. The idiom sampledearlier is quintessential journalese. Notonly does the sentence structure appearawkward and depart from the standardmanner of speech, but also it may shiftthe emphasis away from that which ismost important. In the fourth example,is “Fishing for trout” more significantthan the meeting of three politicos?

Often the first part of a sentence is anormal quotation, direct or indirect, butthe attribution that follows is inverted:“. . . charges a supervisor” / “. . . pointedout Eve” / “. . . explains Bunny.” The

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people are not being charged, pointedout, or explained; they are performingthe actions. Simple, unambiguousphrases like “said Tom” or “replied Mrs.Green” are tolerable when not overused.

2. Some causes and curesThe persistence and ubiquity of in-

verted writing may have several causes:perhaps widespread imitation of a Timemagazine idiosyncrasy, perhaps a beliefthat distorting sentences helps to makewriting readable. Another explanation isthat journalists often see the distorting asthe solution to a problem:

In a typical case, a reporter has thenames and individual details of peoplecaught in a police raid. His problem is toput them in a coherent sentence. Ratherthan start with a tedious list and endwith the words “were booked,” he be-gins with “Booked were” and then givesthe list. But he could start with a phraselike Those booked were and not have tocontort the sentence at all.

Our first two examples can be re-paired easily by preceding “Suspectedare” and “Affected were” with shortphrases: “The chemicals suspected [oftoxicity] are cadmium, nickel, copper,mercury and hydrocarbons” and “Thefoods affected [by price rises] were eggs,vegetables, sugar and pork. . . .”

An effort to crowd too much into onesentence is often a factor. Our third quo-tation in section 1 is brief but abridged;the sentence in the newspaper was fiftywords long. Instead of putting forty-fivewords ahead of “is trying for a come-back,” the reporter wrote: “Trying for acomeback is Maurice Ferre, a polishedPuerto Rican businessman who. . . .” Abetter course would be to turn that in-verted structure right-side up and add a sentence: “Former Mayor MauriceFerre is trying for a comeback. He is apolished Puerto Rican businessmanwho. . . .”

In an article about attitudes towarddivorce, a paragraph begins this way:

“Comments Marion Solomon, a West-wood therapist and author of. . . .” Thetitle and subtitle of her book and thename of its publisher intervene beforewe get to read her comment. The re-porter could have written something like“Marion Solomon, therapist and author,comments: . . .” and postponed the de-tails.

3. “Upcoming”: GermanismsSometimes a simple phrase containing

a verb and an adverb is twisted around,joined together, and used in a mannerthat is more Germanic than English. Ex-amples are “ongoing” and “upcoming”used as verbs in place of going on andcoming up. See ONGOING; OUTPUT;PLAY DOWN and DOWNPLAY; UP-COMING.

See also “PROOF POSITIVE”—notGermanic but an expression that re-verses the normal positions of adjectiveand noun.

BACTERIA and BACTERIUM.Bacteria is a plural word, denoting twoor more of the microscopic, single-celledorganisms that cause disease, putrefac-tion, and fermentation. In speaking ofjust one specimen of those organisms,that is, one cell, use bacterium, the singu-lar. It is New Latin, from the Greek bak-terion, small stick.

The excerpts are from a television fea-ture, an article by a news agency, and astatement by a biologist, respectively.

One resistant bacteria can becomesixteen million in twenty-four hours.

It should start: “One resistant bac-terium.”

. . . Any method that sets the whiteand causes the yolk to begin to con-geal will kill the bacteria unless it’spresent in high numbers.

“It’s” should be they’re or they are.

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For this bacteria . . . there’s practicallyno effect on any of them.

“For these bacteria . . .”We may also speak of a single strain

(or form or colony) of bacteria: “A newstrain of bacteria has caused the out-break of influenza.”

BAD and BADLY. A local reporterand a Senate leader made essentially thesame mistake on television. The first wasfollowing up a crime; the second was de-scribing reaction to a change in the pres-ident’s budget policy:

Merchants and residents feel badlyabout what happened.

Some Democrats who want to playpolitics and not address the issues feelbadly.

Change “badly” to bad. One who is illor unhappy feels bad, not “badly.” Andpeople, or things, may look bad, not“badly.” Feel or look (a linking verb)links the person or persons (the subject)to bad (adjective) and is not modified byit. Similarly, one feels sad, not “sadly.”

Theoretically someone could feelbadly if he lost his sense of touch. Thenfeel (verb) would be modified by badly(adverb). This is more likely: “My foothurts badly.” Badly, this time meaningintensely, modifies hurts (verb). To say“My foot hurts bad” would be as un-grammatical as saying “I feel badly.” Ei-ther remark would be enough to make agrammarian or English teacher feel bad.

See also FEEL.

BAIL and BALE. See Homophones.

BAN. See FORBID, PROHIBIT, andBAN.

BAND-AID. Band-Aid is a brand ofadhesive bandage with gauze in the cen-ter, used for small wounds. Being a

trademark, it should not be written inlower case, the way it appears in a bookof English instruction for newcomers. Insample dialogue, a pharmacist asks acustomer, “Do you need any band-aids?” Capital B, capital A. Competitorscall their products adhesive bandages.

BASE and BASS. See Homophones.

BATHROOM. Calling a room withno facility for baths a “bathroom” is nota serious shortcoming. It is common inconversational speech, less so in thepress:

The mother of two young sons, sheusually finds herself having to takethem into the women’s public bath-room while shopping.

The east wing will be radically al-tered and will contain two movie the-aters, . . . bathrooms and a coat checkroom, among other conveniences.

But bathroom is more specifically ap-plied to the type of room that contains abathtub or shower or both, a sink, and atoilet.

The public place that everyone seeksat some time is often called a rest room(although few go there to rest) or a men’sor ladies’ room (less often a gentlemen’sor women’s room). The ladies’ room isalso a powder room.

Even though frankness, if not vulgar-ity, generally abounds these days in themedia of mass communication, Ameri-cans remain squeamish in referring tothat type of room. Our standard termsare all euphemistic.

In American culture, unlike the con-vention in some other cultures, it is notconsidered refined to call the publicroom a “toilet.” But it is proper to usetoilet in speaking of the plumbing deviceas such. Toilet itself used to be a eu-phemism. It once meant dressing table.

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Some use lavatory, literally a washingplace. Latrine is a communal toilet placein a military type of setting. Each wordtraces to the Latin lavare, to wash (la-trine via lavatrina, bath).

What soldiers call a latrine, sailors calla head. If the enclosure is a small, out-door shack with no plumbing, it is anouthouse or privy. The john and the canare slang.

In Britain you can ask for the w.c., theinitials of water closet. An informal syn-onym there is the loo.

BAZAAR and BIZARRE. See Ho-mophones.

BE, AM, IS, ARE, WAS, WERE.See Active voice and passive voice;“AIN’T”; “AREN’T I?”; Collectivenouns; DUE TO; Pronouns, 10D; Sub-junctive; Verbs, 1, 3; WAS and WERE;WHO, 3.

BECAUSE. 1. Ambiguity. 2. Incom-patible pairs. 3. Who is talking?

1. AmbiguityBecause needs to be handled with care

in a sentence containing more than oneidea. Take this sentence, from a newspa-per:

Only 20 percent of Californianswould vote to re-elect Senator AlanCranston because of his involvementin the Lincoln Savings and Loan scan-dal, a new California Poll shows.

It could be interpreted as saying thatonly 20 percent of Californians wouldvote for the senator “because of his in-volvement . . .” and that others woulddo so for other reasons. The context sug-gests that the sentence would be betterrecast in this way, separating two ideas:

A new California Poll shows thatonly 20 percent of Californians wouldvote to re-elect Senator Alan Cranston

and that his support is so small be-cause of his involvement in the Lin-coln Savings and Loan scandal.

The word causes particular confusion af-ter a negative clause.

The witness said that the case wasnot brought before the committee be-cause of the incident the night before.

Did the witness testify that as a result of“the incident” the case was not broughtbefore the committee? Or did he denythat “the incident” caused the case to bebrought before the committee? We donot know.

Another quotation illustrates the haz-ardous use of because after a negativeand, secondarily, the ungainly use of be-cause twice in one sentence. In a tradejournal for the newspaper industry, anarticle tells of a British newspaper thatincreased its circulation by cutting itsprice. The writer comments:

This cheers me up because it sug-gests that circulation is not decliningbecause readers are morons whodon’t care.

By itself, the sentence is ambiguous. Onecould rationally interpret it in either ofthese ways:

1. The information suggests that circula-tion is not declining, the reason beingthat readers are morons, who don’tcare how bad their newspaper is.Thus I am cheered.

2. The information suggests this: Thereason that circulation is declining isnot that readers are morons, who failto appreciate how good their newspa-per is. I am cheered to know that it isanother reason.

The context points to the second inter-pretation. (The message is that the indus-try has no control over the intellect of its

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readers, but it can control price, quality,and marketing.) Either way, the readersdo not come out very well.

2. Incompatible pairsBecause is teamed up at times with the

wrong partners. “The reason is because”is a redundant partnership. See REA-SON, 1. “Why . . . because” is another.

“Why the alarm sounded was becausea fire broke out on the ninth floor.” Omit“why” and “was” (“The alarm soundedbecause a fire . . .”) or change “because”to that (“Why the alarm sounded wasthat a fire . . .”). Otherwise it is like say-ing “The reason that . . . was for the rea-son that.” See also REASON, 2.

Because normally is a conjunction. Itshould not be used as though it were anoun, e.g., “Because he’s the boss giveshim the right to boss us around.” Theseare incompatible: “because . . . gives.”Change (1) “Because he’s” to Being, or(2) “gives him” to he has, following acomma, or (3) “Because” to That.

3. Who is talking?The lead paragraph of a newspaper

article will follow. Not avowedly an edi-torial, it is identified as “NEWS ANALY-SIS.”

ZAGREB, Crotia [sic]—In twicebombing Serbian positions around theMuslim enclave of Gorazde, theUnited States and its Western allieshave wagered that force will bring theSerbs back to the negotiating table be-cause force is the one thing Serbiansoldiers in Bosnia understand.

It is not necessary to delve into the sub-stance of the final clause, introduced by“because.” Some readers will recognizeit, recycled from past wars, hot and cold.The point is that the writer, whatever hisintention, is expressing that opinion. It isattributed to no one, although later in thearticle he refers vaguely to “One Ameri-can official” (the one who fed it to him?).

The conjunction because means forthe reason that, not “on the supposedgrounds that.” Unless it is qualified—e.g., “because, in the words of oneAmerican official, who refused to beidentified”—the writer or speaker is li-able to be stuck with what follows.

BED as verb. See CHAIR, 2.

BEFRIEND. From its looks, onemight assume that the verb befriendmeans to be friendly with somebody. Abook on advertising advises any readerwho is confused about scheduling radiospots: “Call the media rep you be-friended in Chapter Three.” That chap-ter discusses dealings with radiosalesmen.

To befriend is not merely to befriendly with someone or even to besomeone’s friend. It is to act as some-one’s friend in time of need. A familythat takes in a war refugee is befriendingthe person.

BEGET. It is a poetic verb (transitive),literally meaning to be the father of. Itcan be used figuratively, meaning tocause something to exist, e.g., “Hungerbegets crime.” But do not forget the lit-eral meaning, as a politician did whenshe wrote in an op-ed essay, “Teenagepregnancies beget teenage pregnancies.Welfare mothers beget welfare moth-ers.”

The normal past tense of beget is be-got. An archaic past tense, found in theBible, is begat. A headline over a letter tothe editor erroneously said, “Violencebegats more violence.” Begets—there isno “begats.”

See also SIRE.

BEGIN, BEGAN, and BEGUN.The past tense of the verb begin, to start,is began: “It began to rain.” The pastparticiple is begun: “Construction hasbegun.”

A reputable newspaper used one for

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the other: “The ‘night float’ began inmost New York State hospitals as a gru-eling rite of passage ended.” Begunwould be right. (Commas or dashesshould precede it and follow “passage”to set off the explanatory matter. By theway, “night float” was a thirty-six-hourshift for new doctors.)

BELLY. See STOMACH.

BEMUSE, BEMUSED. Some writ-ers confuse “bemuse” with amuse. Themeanings of the two words are not at allsimilar now, although they once were.The -muse part of each can be traced tothe Medieval Latin word for snout,musum.

Bemuse (verb, transitive) means (1) todaze or muddle someone, or (2) to causeone to muse or be deep in thought. Itmay take the form of bemused (pasttense and past participle) and bemusing(present participle). Examples: “Heblamed the alcohol for bemusing hishead.” / “Bemused by his equations, theprofessor paid no heed to the bell.”

Amuse (verb, transitive) now meansto entertain or appeal to one’s sense ofhumor. At one time it meant to beguileor bemuse.

An autobiography describes a gen-eral’s reaction to a barroom brawl.

Gunfighter must have noticed thatseveral of his officers sported shiners,bruises, and puffed lips. He said noth-ing. But I detected on his seamed facea bemused smile.

Could it have been “an amused smile”?Another book of recollections tells of

a motor trip in Africa. To get fuel tocross the Sahara, the author willingly de-toured for several days.

I thought, bemused, of the times inmy pre-Africa life I had fumed andranted over late planes and trafficjams.

Was he really so deep in thought or justamused by the thought?

In a similar book, another author re-calls a visit to an oil company’s camp inthe Sahara during a choking dust storm.

The Europeans working there askedwhether we would like showers andthen some lunch. Such questions werealmost bemusing after weeks in thedesert.

Later he describes the privation afterweeks of desert travel and adds:

Then there is a town; and the abun-dance of everything is almost bemus-ing.

“Bemusing” fits neither context. Amus-ing fits each.

In the excerpt below, from a financialnewspaper, the meaning is not clear.

“You can’t find anyone to bribehere,” says a bemused American de-veloper, Joseph T——, who is negoti-ating to build a hotel on the Red Seaand apartment blocks in Asmara.

The context gives no reason why the de-veloper should be stupefied or en-grossed. Was he amused, confused,surprised—or what?

BESIDE and BESIDES. See Confus-ing pairs.

BESIDES and AS WELL AS. SeeAS, 5.

BEST. See AS BEST; BETTER andBEST (etc.).

BETTER and BEST, WORSE andWORST. The rule is simple, thoughoften disregarded in conversations andby ring announcers who say “May thebest man win”: When the merits of twothings are compared, one thing is better

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and one is worse (unless they are equalin merit). Only when there are three ormore items for comparison can one bethe best and another the worst. Thusthese sentences, uttered by a politicalcandidate and by a senator (who used tobe a journalist) are wrong:

Which of the two candidates for yournomination is best qualified to bepresident of the United States?

The policies of the president are thebest of the two [sets of policies].

Correction: “is better qualified” / “arethe better of the two.”

See also AS BEST; Comparative andsuperlative degrees.

BETWEEN. 1. AMONG and BE-TWEEN. 2. “BETWEEN EACH” or“EVERY.” 3. “BETWEEN . . . OR” or“TO.” 4. “BETWEEN YOU AND I.”

1. AMONG and BETWEENIn school many of us were taught to

distinguish between the prepositions be-tween and among: The former appliesonly to two things, the latter to morethan two. That is so in a good manycases. “It was a conversation betweenTom and Dick.” / “The two talked onlybetween themselves.” But “It was a con-versation among Tom, Dick, andHarry.” Each converser addressed theother two. The Constitution authorizesCongress “To regulate commerce . . .among the several States. . . .”

The rule is too sweeping, however.There are exceptions, and our educatorsmay have considered them too subtle forus. Between applies to three or morethings when the relation is essentially be-tween pairs. For instance: “Conferencesare going on between Canada, Mexico,and the United States to consider futuremigration.” That means three separatetwo-party conferences are taking place.But when “A conference is going on

among Canada, Mexico, and the UnitedStates,” all three are meeting together.

Similarly, one may have many piecesof cheese to sandwich between manyslices of bread. The bread slices are con-sidered as pairs. The same sandwichprinciple permits “He paused betweensentences” and “Commercials arebroadcast between innings.” (But see 2,below.)

Between can refer to the combinedpossession of two people or other enti-ties. “John and I had fifty dollars be-tween us.” Use among when speaking ofthree or more. A TV newscaster wastalking about three baseball-playingbrothers: “Between them the Aloubrothers played forty-seven major-leagueseasons.” Change “between” to among.

2. “BETWEEN EACH” or “EVERY”Although it is fairly common in collo-

quial use to pair between with “each” or“every,” it is absurd from a logicalstandpoint. That such a combination ap-pears occasionally in serious literaturedoes not make it any more sensible. Ex-amples: “He paused between each sen-tence” and “Commercials are broadcastbetween every inning.”

Something cannot be “between” onething. Between generally applies to two,sometimes to more than two. Each andevery are singular words, meaning oneof a group considered individually. In theexamples, change each “between” to af-ter; or follow “each sentence” or “everyinning” with and the next; or use pluralforms (see 1, above).

3. “BETWEEN . . . OR” or “TO”When between is followed by two

specified things, only and can connectthem. Sometimes between is combinedwith “or,” pitting a dual word and a sin-gular word: “It’s a choice between rightor wrong.” Right and wrong, or else achoice of. The words choose, decide, anddecision also lead people astray.

From goes with to, just as between

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goes with and. Sometimes those idiomsare carelessly confused. “Between 10 to15 percent of the population is believedto be affected by the disease.” Eitherchange “Between” to From or change“to” to and. A variation of that error isto use “between” with an en dash: “Heruled between 664–600 B.C.” Make it“from 664 to 600 B.C.” Merely changingthe dash to and would correct the gram-mar but leave the meaning uncertain.(See also Punctuation, 4C.)

4. “BETWEEN YOU AND I”In speaking confidentially, no one is

likely to say “between I and you.” Thecommon version, with the pronounsswitched around, is essentially the samemistake, a form of overrefinement. Asthe object of a preposition, any personalpronoun following between must be inthe objective case: between you and me;between him and her; between us andthem. (You can be either subjective orobjective.) See also Prepositions, 1; Pro-nouns, 10.

BEVY. A bevy of quail is a hunter’sterm for a flock of those birds. This nounis also applied to larks, roe deer, andsome other groups. It may once havemeant a drinking group, after the OldFrench noun bevee, an act of drinking.

Writers habitually mate bevy with thephrase “of beauties” in picture captionsand television continuities pertaining todisplays of young females. In two install-ments of an entertainment news series,co-hosts (female and male) referred to“this year’s bevy of beauties” at the MissUniverse pageant and said “JamesBond’s back with a bevy of beauties.”

BI- and SEMI- prefixes. The prefixbi- indicates two, double, or twice, de-pending on the word it begins. It comesfrom the Latin bis, meaning twice, and isused in that very form as a musical in-struction.

Bi- is part of nouns, verbs, adjectives,

and adverbs. Some are general words:bicycle, a pedal vehicle with two wheels;bifurcate, to separate into two parts orbranches; bilingual, pertaining to twolanguages. Some are technical: bicuspid,having two points, and a tooth of thatsort; bifocal, having two different focallengths, and a lens ground that way; bi-valve, having two hinged shells, and amollusk of that sort.

The chief problems with bi- lie in des-ignations of frequency. Bimonthly (ad-jective and adverb) means appearing ortaking place every two months. A bi-monthly is a periodical published everytwo months. Biweekly means appearingor taking place every two weeks. A bi-weekly is a fortnightly, a periodical pub-lished every two weeks.

Semimonthly is twice a month; semi-weekly, twice a week. At times “bi-”words have been used instead.“Loosely,” said The Random HouseDictionary, first edition. “Nonstandard”was the label in The American HeritageDictionary, first edition. Later editions ofthose dictionaries and Webster’s Thirdcontain no such labels. By includingamong their definitions of bimonthly andbiweekly “twice a month” and “twice aweek” without qualification, they fosterconfusion. “The ambiguous usage is con-fusing,” The Oxford English Dictionarysays. It offers semi-monthly, semi-weekly,etc. (preferring hyphenated forms).

Biennial (adjective) means takingplace every two years or lasting twoyears. Biennially (adverb) is every twoyears. A biennium (noun) is a two-yearperiod. Twice a year is semiannual(ly) orsemiyearly. (The Oxford gives half-yearly.)

Two other bi- words related to yearcause confusion and could well be aban-doned: biannual, which is commonly de-fined as twice a year; and biyearly, whichis sometimes defined as every two yearsand sometimes as twice a year (depend-ing on the dictionary).

All this can be perplexing. To make

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sure of being understood, try doingwithout the bi- words that pertain to fre-quency, or at least explaining them.While it may seem verbally expensive tospeak of, say, “the meeting that is heldevery two years” instead of just “the bi-ennial [or “biyearly”] meeting,” itavoids misunderstanding. Similarly, a bi-weekly or bimonthly does well to ex-plain that it is published “every twoweeks” or “every two months.”

Semi-, as in “the semiannual meet-ing,” should not cause any problem inthe context of time. Latin for half, semi-can mean half (semicircle, semiquaver)as well as twice during a given period.More often it means partly (semiauto-matic, semiclassical).

BIBLE. See Clichés; COVET; Exple-tives; Infinitive, 4; -MAN-, MAN;NONE, 1; NOR, 1; Subjunctive, 2;SUCH, 2; WHO and WHOM, 2.

BIG TIME. Big time is a colloquialnoun for the highest status in any busi-ness, occupation, or competitive field:“My athletic friend has made the bigtime.” The phrase came out of vaude-ville, where it denoted performances inthe big cities, which offered relativelyhigh pay for few performances.

A related adjective, big-time, meanssuccessful or important or pertaining tothe big time: “That contractor is a big-time operator.”

In recent years it has become a faddishphrase, used in still another way: as anadverb. The lead paragraph of a newspa-per’s main story, about police powers,said:

As fear of crime continues to gripthe public mind, there’s new evidencethat a key tactic of the get-tough-on-crime campaign is paying off—bigtime.

What does “time” contribute to the sen-tence, except the superfluous messagethat the writer knows the latest slang?

Not a fragment of information wouldhave been lost if he had saved a word(and an unnecessary dash) and written:“. . . a key tactic . . . is paying off big.”Better yet: “. . . a key tactic . . . is payingoff.”

The same expression, hyphenated, ap-peared in a banner headline about thesuccess of a young Hollywood per-former: “Actor’s success now flowingbig-time.” The use of the word “flow-ing” is understandable in view of the ac-tor’s then latest film, A River RunsThrough It. One might expect thestream image to continue; for example,“Actor’s success now flowing intorrent.” To introduce instead that ex-pression from the vaudeville stage is al-most to mix metaphors.

BIKE, BIKER. Bike is primarily a col-loquial shortening of bicycle, meaning(noun) the pedal-operated, two-wheeledvehicle or (verb, intransitive) to ride a bi-cycle. Biker is the corresponding termfor bicyclist or bicycler, one who rides abicycle.

As a comparable term, motorcycleand motorbike riders have borrowedbike for either of their motor-driven two-wheelers and biker for one who rides it.A problem arises when someone usesbike (noun or verb) or biker withoutmaking it clear which vehicle is meant.

A news broadcast told of a gatheringof “100,000 bikers,” repeatedly usingthat word and never once explainingthat they were motorcyclists. Bicyclistsmay gather in groups too. See NOT TOMENTION for a similar example.

BILLIARDS and POOL. The scut-tling of a “plan to locate a pool hall” in amostly residential neighborhood wassummarized in the lead of a newspaperstory. The second paragraph said “thebilliard parlor would have replaced aneighborhood restaurant.” Loath to re-peat “pool hall,” the reporter chose “bil-liard parlor” as a synonym.

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Many owners of pool halls or pool-rooms, apparently aware of the seamyreputation of those places, prefer theterms “billiards” and “billiard parlor,”even though they may own no billiardtables, only pool tables. Both games usehard balls, rods called cues, and oblong,green-felt-covered tables with raised,cushioned edges. But pool usually hassix pockets and sixteen balls, whereasbilliards—or three-cushion billiards, thefavorite version—has no pockets andthree balls. What the industry callspocket billiards, players call just pool.

BILLION. Billion can be ambiguous,especially in the United Kingdom. ToAmericans, it is a thousand million, or1,000,000,000, or 109. It is the unit thatcongressmen often toss around whendiscussing the federal budget. But aBritish billion is traditionally a millionmillion, or 1,000,000,000,000, or 1012—what Americans call a trillion. What iscalled a billion in the United States is amilliard in the United Kingdom.

In a book, a cosmologist, physicist,and professor of mathematics presentsthe theory of inflation in the early uni-verse, “an increase by a factor of at leasta billion billion billion. . . .” Later in thebook he suggests the possibility of theuniverse’s “recollapsing in a hundred bil-lion years or so.” The book was pub-lished in the United States by anAmerican publisher for American read-ers, but the author is British and his dis-cussion of the future of the universe istaken from a lecture at the University ofCambridge, England. Unless the bookversion was edited for American readers,they may not be receiving exactly the in-tended message.

Under such confusing circumstances,it is well to specify which billion ismeant, for example “a hundred billion(U.K.) years . . .” or “1.7 billion (U.S.)sales.” Fortunately the particular exam-ple of ambiguity is not critical; a confu-sion between a hundred billion and a

hundred trillion years is not likely to af-fect life on earth to any measurable ex-tent.

The earliest use of billion quoted inThe Oxford English Dictionary was byJohn Locke, 1690. The dictionary saysthat billion, trillion, and quadrillionwere purposely formed in the previouscentury to denote the second, third, andfourth powers of a million respectively.French arithmeticians later redefined thewords so that billion represented a thou-sand million, trillion a thousand thou-sand million, and so on. In thenineteenth century, the United Statesadopted the French system, and in 1948France adopted the British system. Inlater decades there has been a trend to-ward use of the U.S. values in Britain, es-pecially in technical writing.

See also NANO- prefix.

BIT. See MUCH.

BIZARRE and BAZAAR. See Ho-mophones.

BLACKMAIL. See Crimes, 2.

BLAME. 1. Blame ON and blameFOR. 2. BLAME or CREDIT?

1. Blame ON and blame FORThe moving of industrial plants to

Mexico is “a factor Democrats blame onthe nation’s unemployment,” in thewords of a local television newscaster.He got it backward. Nobody says U.S.unemployment causes plants to move toMexico.

You blame something for an ill. Butyou blame an ill on something, or, as analternative, place the blame for the ill onsomething. (Something or someone, thatis.)

Thus, “The moving of plants to Mex-ico is a factor Democrats blame forthe nation’s unemployment.” Or they“blame the nation’s unemployment in part on the moving of plants”;

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or they “place some blame for the na-tion’s unemployment on the moving ofplants. . . . ” (Changing “the nation’s un-employment” to unemployment in theUnited States would clarify the identityof the nation.)

A few critics do not want the verbblame to be followed by on. They com-plain that a construction like “Heblames the disease on an insect” mis-places the blame. They would approveof “blames the insect for . . .” or “puts[or “places”] the blame for the diseaseon. . . .” Only 18 percent of the usagepanel of The American Heritage Dictio-nary objected to the blame . . . on con-struction. It is doubtful that anyonewould misunderstand a sentence like“Don’t blame it on me.”

2. BLAME or CREDIT?To blame is to place responsibility for

a fault or a mistake, not for somethinggood or laudable. This was said on amedical talk show:

Asian women have the lowest rate ofcancer in the world and we haveblamed it on their lower fat consump-tion.

Change “blamed it on” to credited it toor attributed it to.

See also CREDIT; THANK, THANKS.

BLITZKRIEG. Blitzkrieg is a Ger-man word adopted by English. It meanslightning war, from blitz, meaning light-ning, and krieg, meaning war. It wasused by Hitler to describe a sudden, mas-sive attack, designed to conquer a coun-try swiftly. It can also denote a sudden,swift, massive attack of a nonmilitarynature.

Seeking an exciting noun, a writerchose blitzkrieg for a story in ametropolitan newspaper. Was she right?

But in his 18 years of defending theindustry, Walker Merryman has never

seen anything like the current blitz-krieg against cigarettes and peoplewho smoke them.

She was grammatically correct but factu-ally incorrect. The story described sev-eral, separate antismoking actions thathad taken place within several weeks:enactment of laws by states and cities,bans by restaurant chains, and federalmeasures. The “blitzkrieg” later becamea mere “assault” and still later just a“movement” that “appears to havegathered momentum in recent weeks.”Furthermore, “it has been several yearsin the making and is the result of a com-plex set of pressures and events.” So itcould not veritably be described as alightning war, however metaphorically.

BLOC and BLOCK. A book dealingwith Britain’s acquisition of destroyersfrom the United States in 1940 quotesthe minutes of Churchill’s war cabinet inthis way:

It might well prove to be the first step in constituting an Anglo-Saxonblock or indeed a decisive point in history.

Did those minutes (which, presumably,indirectly quoted Prime MinisterChurchill) actually read “Anglo-Saxonblock”? Bloc was then and is now thenormal spelling of the word in the senseof a group of nations, parties, legislators,or individuals of different loyalties alliedin a common cause. In politics of conti-nental Europe, a bloc is a group of polit-ical parties that support the rulinggovernment.

The k and no-k versions of the wordare used interchangeably in the phrasebloc vote or block vote. It has two mean-ings: (1) the vote of a substantial numberof people voting as a group; (2) amethod of voting at a convention or con-ference in which a delegate’s vote isweighted according to the number of

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members he represents. In dozens ofother senses (as noun and verb), theword is spelled only block.

BLOND and BLONDE. Yellowish,golden, or flaxen hair is blond (adjective)when it is used in a general sense or per-tains to a male, blonde (adjective) whenit pertains to a female. A man or boywith blond hair is a blond (noun); awoman or girl with blonde hair is ablonde (noun).

Among four people advertising in the“Personals” one day for companions ofopposite sex, two men identified them-selves as

40, 6′1″, blonde hair, blue eyed, slen-der. . . .

. . . Tall, trim, attractive blonde, 32.

The other two were women who identi-fied themselves as

SWF, 26 / Slim, blue-eyed blond. . . .

Petite blond, big brown eyes, 40s. . . .

Each of the four used the wrong gender.Apropos to the genders of hair words:

brown hair is brunet (adjective) in a gen-eral sense or pertaining to a male,brunette (adjective) pertaining to a fe-male. A male with brunet hair is a brunet(noun); a female with brunette hair is abrunette (noun).

As adjectives, blond and brunet areoften used for females.

“BLOW YOUR MIND.” This ex-pression is a relic of the hippie era. Re-cent examples follow.

[A promotion for a TV drama:] Theirdreams will blow your mind.

[A student suffering a disease:] It stillkind of blows my mind.

[A doctor who saw someone drivingwhile reading:] Does that blow yourmind? It certainly blows my mind.

Minds are not blown. The expression isoverdue for retirement.

Substitute a verb like amaze(s), as-tound(s), or overwhelm(s) (you, me, etc.)or, in the example below, an adjectivelike amazing, astounding, or over-whelming.

[An astronomer, on the process of hu-mans’ acquiring extraterrestrialatoms:] I find the process completelymind-blowing.

BOIL, BOILED. In dealing witheggs, food writers customarily avoidhard-boiled or soft-boiled, believing thatwe boil just the water and “cook” theeggs. If the rest of us have any qualmsabout eggs, they are more likely to con-cern dietary usage than English usage.Hard-boiled egg is a common phrase,which gave rise to the colloquial adjec-tive hard-boiled, meaning tough and cal-lous, applied to a person.

A leading cookbook gives instructionsfor cooking “Soft-Cooked Eggs” and“Medium-Soft-Cooked Eggs” and“Hard-Cooked Eggs.” But it does notavoid boiled beef, boiled potatoes, andNew England boiled dinner. “Cooked”is less informative. The verb cook in-cludes all methods of preparing food foreating by the application of heat.

Water will boil (verb, intransitive) at212 degrees Fahrenheit or 100 degreescentigrade; that is, it will reach an agi-tated, bubbling state in which it vapor-izes. A person is said to boil whengreatly excited. And to boil (verb, transi-tive) a liquid is to heat it to the boilingpoint.

One can also boil a solid: subject it tothe heat of a boiling liquid. That hasbeen a definition of the word since the

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Middle Ages. In the fourteenth century,Chaucer wrote in the prologue to TheCanterbury Tales: “A Cook theyhadde . . . To boille the chiknes [chick-ens] with the marybones [marrowbones]. . . .”

Thinking of all those victuals, dare weconsider the unappetizing sense of boil(noun) as a skin infection?

BORE, BORNE, and BORN. Twoerroneous substitutes for borne ap-peared in two issues of a newspaper.

The 40-year-old Cambodianwoman . . . has bore a child and lived for 10 years here in a thatchedhut. . . .

“Has bore” is wrong. Make it “hasborne.” Borne is a past participle of theverb bear. The past tense is bore. To usebore in that sample sentence, relocate“has” in this way: “. . . bore a child andhas lived for 10 years here in a thatchedhut. . . .”

Asked whether the building hadever born any nameplate, Mr. For-manek replied, “No, the secret policehave always been very modest.”

In the second sample, “born” should beborne. Born also is a past participle ofthe verb bear but is used only in thesense of given birth and only passively;e.g., “She was born abroad.”

A little-used noun that sounds thesame is bourn, spelled also bourne. It is(1) a brook or small stream; (2) a bound-ary, destination, or realm, used in po-etry: “The undiscover’d country fromwhose bourn No traveller returns”—Shakespeare, Hamlet.

BORN with name. An almanac says“William J. Clinton was born WilliamJefferson Blythe III in Hope, Ark., onAugust 19, 1946.” Not exactly. He was

probably just baby Blythe before beingchristened William Jefferson. An infantat birth normally has only a surname.

See also NEE.

BOTH. 1. BOTH . . . AND. 2. BOTHwith words of togetherness. 3. Otherprinciples.

1. BOTH . . . ANDSentences that contain both with and

are not always constructed as carefully,neatly, and logically as they should be.For instance, the editor of a local weeklywrote:

We recently added Elizabeth P—— to our pool of critics—both becausewe like her writing and her perspec-tive.

That is illogical and ungrammatical. Following the “both” there is a clause:“because we like her writing.” Oneshould expect to find a comparableclause after the “and,” for example: “be-cause we agree with her perspective.” In-stead only the phrase “her perspective”appears.

The sentence could be corrected alsoby relocating the “both,” as follows:“because we like both her writing andher perspective.”

The main point is that when both iscombined with and (forming a pair ofcorrelative conjunctions), what followsone must match grammatically what fol-lows the other. If a clause follows theboth, a similar clause must follow theand. A phrase must be paralleled by asimilar phrase, a verb by a verb, a nounby a noun. This sentence, from a newsstory, falls short:

Mr. Wan is believed to be caught ina difficult position by the power strug-gle in China. For he is both a closefriend of Mr. Deng—sometimes serv-ing as Mr. Deng’s bridge partner—and

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is a leading exponent of China’schanges in recent years.

Omit either the third “is” or the “both.”

2. BOTH with words of togethernessBoth, adjective or pronoun, means the

one and the other. For instance (as adjec-tive), “Both buses go downtown,” or (aspronoun) “Both go downtown.”

Both indicates that an activity or statethat could apply to only one (thing orperson) applies to two. Therefore bothshould usually not go with any descrip-tive word or phrase or any verb that ap-plies only to two or more. Two suchwords are alike and same. One cannotbe alike, and one cannot be the same. In“Both dogs look alike,” change “Both”to The. In “The books are both thesame,” delete “both.”

Words of that sort include agree, be-tween, equal(ly), joint(ly), meet, and to-gether; phrases include along with, aswell as, combined with, each other, andto have in common. It takes two or moreto be equal, to be together, and so on.

“Both” does not belong in “Thebrothers have both been united.” In“Both agreed on the wording of the con-tract,” they should replace “Both.” In “I did both my work in addition to his,”change “in addition to” to and. Al-though “both” could be omitted too, itis useful for emphasis.

A federal cabinet officer spoke of pay-ments to “both HMOs as well as skillednursing facilities.” Either do without“both” or change “as well as” to and.

3. Other principles

A. BOTH with OFBoth often goes with of when a pro-

noun follows: “Give me both of them.”You would not say “Give me boththem.” But “The referee penalized boththem and us” is correct.

Otherwise, of is generally optional. Adictionary prefers either “both girls” or

“both the girls” to “both of the girls” informal usage. But “both the girls” mightbring to mind “and the boys,” whereas“both of the girls” is unambiguous.

B. Possessive constructionsWhether both can go with a posses-

sive pronoun gets a yes and a no. Oneauthority accepts “both our fathers” (re-ferring to two fathers). Another dislikes“both their mothers,” preferring “themothers of both”; but the former seemsto be an established construction: “aplague on both your houses.”

When what is possessed is singular,there is no such disagreement. Of both isoften necessary. Either of these will do:“It is the belief of both” or “It is bothmen’s belief.” These are wrong: “both’sbelief” / “both their belief” / “both oftheir belief.”

C. Replacing EACH; errors in numberIn “Both praised the other,” change

“Both” to Each. An alternative wordingis “They praised each other.”

“I see a bus stop on both sides of thestreet” erroneously places one stop ontwo sides. Either change “a bus stop” tobus stops or change “both sides” to eachside.

D. THE with BOTHSome authorities object to the before

both. It is at least unnecessary in “Shescorns the both of them” and strained in“The both men were disappointed.” Ineach instance, either omit “the” orchange “both” to two.

E. Two onlyBoth applies only to two things, ac-

tions, or qualities, not to three or more.In the sentence “He is both tall, dark,and handsome,” leave out “both.”

BOUGH and BOW. See Homo-phones.

Brackets. See Punctuation, 7.

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BRAKE and BREAK. See Homo-phones.

BRANDISH. To brandish an objectis, strictly, to wave or shake it menac-ingly or defiantly. Did these four as-sailants (described by four journalists)really do that?

A convicted murderer used a hid-den pistol to hijack an airliner . . .brandishing it when he left the plane’srest room. . . .

. . . They were surprised by aman . . . brandishing a .25-caliberhandgun.

. . . Mrs. B—— . . . brandished a10-inch knife in her right hand.

. . . Officers said he appeareddrunk and brandished a shotgun attwo patrolmen and his daughter.

On weighing the likelihood of such anabundance of weapon-wavers as thepublic press depicts, we can bet that re-porters often choose brandish when theymean hold, wield, or point.

BREADTH and BREATH. SeeHomophones.

BREAK and BRAKE. See Homo-phones.

BREAKFAST (verb). See DINE.

BREATH and BREATHE. SeeConfusing pairs.

BRING and TAKE. “Please take thismoney and claim check to Tom’s RepairShop and bring me my lamp.” In thesense of physical movement, illustratedby that sentence, the verb bring indicatesmovement toward the speaker or writer,or toward a place associated with him;the verb take indicates movement away

from the speaker or writer, or othermovement that is not toward him.

It was announced on the radio that apolice bomb squad had picked up a sus-picious device and “they’re getting readyto bring it out of the building.” Better:take it out. The movement was not nec-essarily toward the speaker; and anyway,in the sense of physical removal, take outis idiomatic.

BROADSIDE.

POPLAR BLUFF, Mo.—A UnionPacific train slammed broadside Sun-day into a station wagon driven intothe path of the 73-car train, cuttingthe automobile in half. . . .

The train probably did not slam “broad-side” into the station wagon. Unless itleaves its track, a train is not likely to hitanything “broadside.”

Broadside (when used as an adverb,as it is used above) means with a broadside facing a given object; that is, abroad side of whatever is performing theaction. If an automobile skids sidewayon an icy street and hits a parked truck(any part of the truck), we can say thatthe car hit the truck broadside.

A newspaper turned the word into ahyphenated verb of uncertain meaning:

. . . His wife, on her usual bikingroute, was broad-sided only a fewblocks from their Twin Peaks homeby a drowsy 20-year-old running astop sign.

Nothing was said about a motor vehicle.Maybe the 20-year-old was running.

BROKE and BROKEN. See Tense,5A.

BRUTALIZE. The primary meaningof brutalize is to make (a person or ani-mal) brutal or like a brute, an animal.That meaning of the verb (transitive),

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from about 1700, is particularly useful,for it is not duplicated by any other sin-gle word.

Another sense of brutalize (transitive),from the latter 1800s and lately popular,is to treat (one) like a brute or with bru-tality. That use tends to render the wordambiguous. An article said the prisonsystem “brutalizes inmates.” Does thesystem make inmates brutal or treatthem brutally?

Even when not ambiguous, the wordis apt to serve nowadays as a fuzzy sub-stitute for more informative verbs, suchas batter, beat, club, kick, mug, pommel,punch, rape, torture, or whip. Or it be-comes a fashionable replacement forvarious idioms: An article said “a groupof them brutalized [attacked?] thewoman jogging through the park.” Amovie reviewer commented on TV,“This monster feels himself like a brutal-ized [an abused?] child.”

A nearly obsolete sense of the verb(intransitive) is to live or become like abrute.

BUCK NAKED. See ON, 3.

BUCOLIC. Bucolic (adjective) meansrural, pastoral, pertaining to the coun-tryside. Therefore it was redundant forthe narrator of a documentary on rail-road travel to say, “As the train nearsPortland, the bucolic countryside givesway to signs of civilization.” Either omit“bucolic” or change “countryside” to aword like scenery.

See also IDYLLIC.

Bullet. See DUM-DUM BULLET; Se-ries errors, 5.

BURGEON, BURGEONING. Toburgeon is to put forth new buds, leaves,blossoms, etc.; or to begin to grow. Bur-geoning, used as an adjective (“the bur-geoning tree”) means budding orsprouting or putting forth new buds,leaves, blossoms, etc.

The verb or adjective may be used fig-uratively or poetically (“The child’sartistic talent burgeoned in kinder-garten”) as long as it refers to that whichis newly emerging. Too often burgeon orburgeoning is used loosely instead of in-crease or increasing, expand or expand-ing, or any of numerous synonyms.These two passages (from a syndicatedcolumn and an editorial respectively) il-lustrate the loose use:

The congressional flag servicesprouted in 1937. . . . By 1955 the de-mand was so heavy that there was athree-year waiting list. This promptedCongress to establish a more elabo-rate system to meet the burgeoningdemand.

The burgeoning demand for physi-cian services is reflected in a newstudy. . . .

Strictly speaking, if the flag service“sprouted” in 1937, that is when the de-mand for flags burgeoned; and the de-mand for physician services probablyburgeoned thousands of years ago.

The next two sentences (from newsstories) are ambiguous:

. . . The legislation would authorizespending more than $1.5 billion . . . toprovide birth control information inan effort to slow the demand for fossilfuels in burgeoning nations.

Hungary is growing adept at focus-ing world attention on its burgeoningrefugees.

“Burgeoning” could be interpreted ei-ther in the loose way to mean expandingor in a stricter way to mean newlyemerging. The latter sentence is doublytroublesome: People do not “burgeon,”except perhaps at birth.

BURGLARY. See Crimes, 3.

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BUT. 1. BUT or AND? 2. “BUTTHAT”; “BUT WHAT.” 3. Further dou-ble negatives. 4. Question of pronouns.5. With “HOWEVER” etc. 6. WithNOT.

1. BUT or AND?But (as a conjunction) introduces a

contrast. Something that was just saidwill be contradicted or an exception to itwill be given. The “but” is unwarrantedin this headline bank:

Labor got little from Clinton and De-mos, but things look worse now

Where is the contrast? Let us assumethat labor had got much, instead of “lit-tle.” A but would have been called for.As it stands, what follows the “but” isnot very different from what precedes it.Thus the conjunction needed is and. Al-ternatively, replace the comma and“but” with a semicolon: “Demos;things.”

Similarly, “but” should be and in thissentence from television news. The partafter the “but” offers no contrast, justmore of the same.

Hong Kong is already one of themost crowded places on the planet,but the population is expected to dou-ble. . . .

The opposite error, using “and” in-stead of but, comes from a television in-terview with a woman in public life. As ateacher, she taught girls “never to raisetheir hands and interrupt.”

It seems to mean that she taught themto be quiescent. “And” implies more ofwhat precedes, carrying the negativeforce of “never” to “interrupt.” How-ever, the context indicates that what shetaught them was really the reverse:“never to raise their hands but to inter-rupt.”

2. “BUT THAT”; “BUT WHAT”

When a phrase such as “no questionbut that” or “no doubt but that” is usedin place of no question that or no doubtthat, “but” is at best unnecessary. Atworst, “but” produces a double nega-tive, thereby reversing the meaning ofthe sentence. On a television talk show, apolitician said:

There is no question but that weare in serious economic trouble in thiscountry.

But can mean except, other than. So ifthere is no question “but” that we are inserious economic trouble, one can saywith logic that the only question iswhether we are in serious economic trou-ble. Omitting “but” corrects the samplesentence: “There is no question that weare in serious economic trouble. . . .”

“But what” does not improve on “butthat.” A member of the press said, in aforum on television:

I don’t think there’s any doubt butwhat Congress will permit the aid tocontinue.

The speaker had no doubt that Congresswould approve the aid. Such replace-ment of that with “but what” is unac-ceptable to most authorities (even tosome who condone “but that”).

See also THAT, 3.

3. Further double negativesBut (as an adverb) means only, no

more than. A negative should not pre-cede but, used in that sense.

In both of these sentences, the “wasn’t” or “won’t” plus the “but”amounts to a double negative: “Thechild wasn’t but five years old.” / “Wewon’t have but a day to spend in thecity.” If the intended meanings are thatthe child’s age was only five and we canspend only a day in the city, change thesentences to “The child was but . . .”and “We will have but. . . .”

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This sentence is fairly clear: “We canbut hope that peace will come soon.” Itsuggests that we can do no more thanhope. This one is ambiguous: “We can-not but hope that peace will comesoon.” Is it intended to mean the same asthe other sentence—in which case the “-not” is wrong—or does it mean thatjust hoping is inadequate?

See also Double negative.

4. Question of pronounsA tricky question of pronouns arises

when but is used to mean except. Do wesay that “everyone attended class butshe” or “but her”? Authorities differ.(Some consider but a preposition, to befollowed by a pronoun in the objectivecase. Others consider but a conjunctionthat precedes an elliptical clause—e.g.,“she did not”—and calls for a pronounin the subjective case.)

A working rule is to make the pro-noun I, we, she, he, or they (subjectivecase) before the verb; but make it me, us,her, him, or them (objective case) afterthe verb. Thus “Everyone but she at-tended,” however “Everyone attendedbut her.”

5. With “HOWEVER” etc.But can be the equivalent of however,

nevertheless, and yet. Normally none ofthose words should go with but. Some-times carelessness produces a sentence

like this: “But we must look ahead to thefuture, however.”

“But . . . however” is redundant. Se-lect one or the other.

6. With NOT“But” is mistakenly used in place of as

in an essay: “He was not so much acomic actor . . . but a real comedian.”What we see is not so much a contrast asa comparison.

“But” should be dropped from thissentence: “It is not an evergreen . . . ; butits leaves fall in the autumn. . . .” Thestatements are compatible, not contrast-ing. This is a proper but sentence: “It isnot an evergreen but a deciduous tree.”

Another defective form goes like this:“They did not get as far as the city but itssuburbs.” It is defective because the im-plied clause that follows but lacks theservice of a verb. The only verb in thesentence is “did not get,” which does notapply to “its suburbs.” The simplest cor-rection is to insert a verb after but: “butreached its suburbs.”

This similarly flawed sentence may becorrected in two ways: “We have notseen the document but the news.” Eitherplace “not” after “seen” or follow thebut with a verb: “but have seen thenews.” It can be argued that the originalsentences are clear enough. Nevertheless,adding balance and logic can strengthenthem. See AS, 4, for another illustration.

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CAME. See COME and CAME;COME and GO.

CAN and MAY. The traditional dif-ference between the two verbs is thatcan pertains to ability, may to permis-sion. Thus, “Can you lift this barbell?”asks whether one is physically able to doit. “May I speak?” asks permission; ob-viously anyone orally asking that ques-tion can speak. “You may kiss thebride” gives permission; plainly thebridegroom can do it.

In informal conversation, can is oftenused in place of may, particularly in neg-ative questions or statements. “Whycan’t I speak?” / “You can’t” or “Youcannot.” When a customer asks a store-keeper, “Can I see that watch?” the lat-ter would do well to say,“Certainly”—not “You can, if you haveeyesight.”

The writer of “Repair Information”in a telephone directory seemed bewil-dered by the two words, using eachtwice:

If you have a problem with your in-side wiring, you have several repairoptions:

a. You may do the work yourself.b. You can hire someone to do it.c. You can hire us to repair your

inside wiring. . . .d. You may subscribe to our “Per-

Month” Inside Wire Repair Plan.

It is a formal list, calling for consistencyand correctness. Change “can” to mayin b and c.

See also MAY and MIGHT.

CANNON and CANON. See Ho-mophones.

CANVAS and CANVASS. See Ho-mophones.

CAPITAL and CAPITOL. An arti-cle called Katmandu “the capitol ofNepal.” Make it capital, not “capitol.”

The Capitol is the building in whichthe Congress of the United States meets.A comparable building in which a statelegislature meets is a capitol.

A capital is a city or town that servesas the official seat of government of acountry, state, or province. A capital, orcapital letter, is a large letter like A, B, orC, used to start sentences and propernames. Capital (with no article) is anoun denoting assets, investmentmoney, wealth, or those possessingthem; and capital is also an adjectivepertaining to those things or meaning fa-tal, first-rate, or foremost.

Will this help? Only one building inthe United States is the Capitol and onlyone building in each state is a capitol—with o in the third syllable. The word for

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an administering city and assets and allthe rest is capital—with a in the third syl-lable.

Both words originated in caput, Latinfor head. The ancient temple of Jupiteron the Capitoline Hill in Rome was theoriginal Capitol.

Capitalization. When it does not ap-ply to investment and the financial kindof capital, the term capitalization con-cerns the use of capital letters in writingand printing.

Which words start with capitals (up-per-case letters) and which start withsmall letters (lower-case letters) has beendecided by custom in most instances, al-though differences on many points exist.Questions can often be resolved by a dic-tionary. (But some dictionaries are nothelpful. The otherwise authoritative Ox-ford English Dictionary capitalizes allentries. Webster’s Third capitalizes al-most none, running such entries as“kansas city” and “saint patrick’s day”while noting that they are “usu cap”;when are they not? The capitalizationscheme for entry titles in our book is de-scribed under General Topics, near thefront.)

Sometimes one’s personal preferencedecides, although in the interest of read-ers, it ought not to be followed to an ex-treme. At one extreme is the shunning ofall capitals, a quirk of two literary per-sonages of the past; at another is the ar-bitrary capitalization of words foremphasis, which was common centuriesback. A condensed excerpt from theDeclaration of Independence follows.The first letter of every noun deemed im-portant is a capital.

. . . All men are created equal . . . withcertain unalienable Rights, thatamong these are Life, Liberty and thepursuit of Happiness.—That to securethese rights, Governments are insti-tuted among Men, deriving their justpowers from the consent of the gov-

erned,—That whenever any Form ofGovernment becomes destructive ofthese ends, it is the Right of thePeople . . . to institute new Govern-ment . . . to effect their Safety andHappiness.

Some current principles of capitaliza-tion follow.

1. Beginning of a sentence. The firstletter of every sentence starts with a cap-ital. So does a sentence fragment thatstands alone. “Her answer was brief.‘Yes.’ ”

2. Colon. A sentence fragment follow-ing a colon is not usually capitalized:“I’m eating only three times a day:morning, noon, and night.” Whether tocapitalize a complete sentence after acolon is up to each writer or publication.

3. Days, times of the year. Days,months, and holidays are capitalized:Thursday, November, Thanksgiving.Seasons are usually not: winter, summer.

4. Derivatives of names. Most adjec-tives derived from people’s names orother proper nouns are capitalized: Eu-clidean geometry, Georgian architecture,Shakespearean plays, Machiavellianethics, Roman numerals. Many are not:pasteurized milk, roman type, italic type,french fries, venetian blinds.

5. Heavenly bodies. They are usuallycapital: Saturn, Milky Way, the star Sir-ius. The Earth and the Sun may be capi-tal in the context of astronomy, small ingeneral contexts: the greatest show onearth; soaking up the sun.

6. Historical events and eras. They areoften capitalized: The Industrial Revolu-tion. World War II. But there is disagree-ment; it is “the battle of Hastings” inone work, “The Battle of Hastings” inanother.

7. Initialisms and acronyms. Most ini-tialisms and acronyms, such as M.D.and AIDS, are all capitals. Doctor of phi-losophy becomes Ph.D. Abbreviations,like com. for committee and secry. forsecretary, do not need capitalizing.

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8. Names. Capitalize the name of aperson, city, state, country, business, or-ganization, religion, language, national-ity, specific institution, trademark, orgovernment body: John Brown, Atlanta,South Dakota, Bank of America, GirlScouts of the U.S.A., Bulgarian, PurdueUniversity, Pepsi-Cola, the SupremeCourt. Institutions or groups referred toin a general sense are not usually capital-ized: the medical profession, the middleclass.

9. Personification. In poetic usage,common words put in human terms arecapitalized: “the lute of Hope . . . thevoice of Love . . . the wand of Power.”

10. Press differences. Some newspa-pers will not capitalize the categoricalpart of names; they will write, for in-stance, “Elm street” and “Washingtonschool.” The press has been getting awayfrom that “down style.” Styles of head-lines vary. Some are like titles, the initialletter of each word capitalized (“CopsCatch Robbers”); others are like ordinarysentences (“Cops catch robbers”); a feware all capitals (“COPS CATCH ROB-BERS”). The Associated Press and manypapers following its style do not capital-ize president unless it precedes a name.The New York Times always refers to theU.S. chief executive as President.

11. Quotations. A quotation within asentence typically starts with a capitalwhen the quotation is set off by some introductory words: “Emerson said,‘Life is a series of surprises.’” When thequotation blends with the rest of the sen-tence, some authorities start the quota-tion with a small letter: “Emerson saidthat ‘life. . . .’” Others insist on a capitalif the original text began with a capital:“Emerson said that ‘Life. . . .’ ” All agreethat a fragment of the original after thebeginning needs no capital whenblended with the rest of the sentence:“Emerson called life ‘a series of sur-prises.’ ”

12. Sacred names. The name of Godin all its forms—Allah, Jehovah, the

Lord—is always capitalized. A deity in ageneral sense—the Roman god of war—is not. Sacred terms in any religion arecapitalized. Modern Bibles do not capi-talize he and his when referring to God.The adjective referring to the Bible maybe either Biblical or biblical.

13. Sentence within a sentence. A sen-tence enclosed in parentheses or dasheswithin another sentence is commonlyuncapitalized: “The accusations (remem-ber that he denied them all) were exten-sive and damaging.” Whether tocapitalize a question within a sentence isup to the writer: “I thought, Why am Ihere?” / “I thought, why am I here?”

14. Titles. In the titles of books, shows,works of art, and so on, generally allwords are capitalized except articles (a,an, the), some conjunctions such as andand short prepositions such as in and of.A small word is capitalized too when it isthe first word of the title: Riders of thePurple Sage but The Outline of Historyand A Little Night Music.

Official titles are capitalized before aname (Secretary of State Robert Smith)but not after a name (Robert Smith, sec-retary of state). See also 10.

15. Two words always capitalized.The words I and O (without an h, as in“O God”) are always capitalized.

16. Verse. Traditional verse capitalizesthe first word of every line: “We whirl,singing loud, round the gatheringsphere, / Till the trees, and the beasts,and the clouds appear / From its chaosmade calm by love, not fear.”

CARDINAL NUMBERS. See Num-bers, 11.

CAREEN and CAREER. Careenhas been misused so often, confusedwith career, that the misusage has largelytaken over. Mark a loss for the language.

To careen (verb, intransitive) is to tiltor lean to one side, or to toss from sideto side, or to turn a ship on its side in drydock. It can also mean (verb, transitive)

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to cause to tilt or tip, or to turn (a ship)on one side. It originates in the Latin ca-rina, a ship’s keel.

To career (verb, intransitive) is to rushor move at high speed, perhaps wildly. Ina description of a market scene in Niger,a book of true adventure contains an ex-ample of the strict use of career:

A man trying out a camel careered outof control, much to the amusement ofthe crowd.

The word is no longer used often. Weare more likely to hear something likethis on our television sets:

Cable Car Thirteen careened almostout of control down one of the steep-est hills in San Francisco.

Or this, broadcast by a competing sta-tion:

. . . Car Number Thirteen went ca-reening down the Hyde Street hill.

In newspapers, this is what we will readad infinitum:

. . . The car . . . hit another automo-bile and careened into Biscoe.

. . . He and his family were injured asthe car careened out of control in thesame village.

Apart from cars: an editorial warnedof “careening” comets; TV news de-scribed roller-coaster fans who “careenthe curves”; and in press items, bandits“careened” from a crime scene and asenator “careened around the world.”But The New York Times used the au-thentic word in a story about new legsfor war veterans:

Within seconds, the two men wereskipping, lurching, careering forward.. . .

Case of letters. See Capitalization; Iand i; Pronouns, 10A (end).

Case of pronoun. See Pronouns, 10;WHO and WHOM, 1.

CAUGHT and CAUGHT UP. Foraeons, insects have been getting caughtin webs. All of us have been caught inthe rain and caught in traffic.

Not long ago it became popular to en-cumber that simple verb with a superflu-ous adverb. A network anchorman andtwo local radio broadcasters provide theexamples: “What happens when the tele-phone company gets caught up in itsown web?” / “They got caught up in yes-terday’s strong earthquake.” / “In yourcase, you’ll be going early, so you won’tbe caught up in the 8:30 dinner crush.”

To catch up has long meant to comefrom behind through speed or effort:“The Braves were losing to the Twins bytwo runs but caught up in the ninth in-ning.”

Another meaning of caught up, usedonly in the passive, adds the implicationof gradualness or unwittingness tocaught: “Many who came to listen to thespeech were caught up in the mob hyste-ria.” / “She did not intend to abandonNew York but was caught up in theglamour of Hollywood.” That adapta-tion of the phrase is useful.

In the contexts of the broadcast sen-tences, however, “up” contributes noth-ing. All it tells us is that the speakers arecaught in the web of a fad.

See also UP.

CAUSATIVE, CAUSE. See FAC-TOR, 1.

CELEBRANT and CELEBRA-TOR. See Confusing pairs.

CELEBRATED. Both are well-known cases, famous cases, some maysay infamous or notorious cases, but iseither a “celebrated” case? A network

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anchor man reported during televisioncoverage of a hearing for O. J. Simpsonthat a limousine driver “found himself inthe most celebrated murder case of ourtime.” And a prominent daily newspaperreported:

Two years and three months after itbegan, the celebrated McMartinpreschool child molesting case is tee-tering on the brink of mistrial.

Celebrated suits a person or thing thathas been publicly honored or praised. Itcomes, of course, from celebrate, one ofwhose meanings is to honor or praisesomeone or something publicly. Whowould want to celebrate a murder caseor a “child molesting case”?

In describing a newly published set ofcards, a writer for a suburban weeklymischose the first word in this sentence:

Celebrated killers like cannibal JeffreyDahmer, Charles Manson, VietnamWar criminal Lt. William Calley (con-victed of killing 22 Vietnamese in theMai Lai [My Lai] massacre) and Bon-nie and Clyde all appear amid theblood-splattered graphics.

If the writer felt that he absolutely had to place an adjective before killers, hecould have used infamous or notorious.But could any adjective enhance the ef-fect of a plain enumeration of thosekillers?

CENSOR and CENSURE. The twoverbs are pronounced somewhat differ-ently, SEN-sir and SEN-shur respec-tively. They have considerably differentmeanings, though they both originate inthe same Latin root, censere, to judge,rate, or assess.

To censor a written or dramatic work is for someone in authority to ex-amine it and remove passages that heconsiders objectionable before it is pub-lished or presented. Military censors

have censored news stories at battlefronts, studying them and cutting out orblacking out whatever they do not wantto be made public. Such activity is cen-sorship. Banning a work as a whole orrefusing to sponsor something is nottruly “censoring” or “censorship,” al-though such designations are oftenbandied about.

To censure someone is to reprimandor express strong disapproval of him,particularly in an open or formal man-ner by a person or body in authority. Forexample, the U.S. Senate has censuredseveral members for misbehavior.

The words get mixed up. While ex-pressing distaste for a rap act that was being banned as obscene, a TV pan-elist asked, “Should it actually be cen-sured?” He probably meant censored,although that word would be question-able too.

On another TV panel show, the mod-erator reported that a baseball clubowner was “reprimanded and censoredin the strongest terms” for racial slurs.Doubtless he meant censured.

A supporter of a senator charged withsexual harassment said of his privateconduct, “If it’s inappropriate behavior,then let them censor him.” Censure wasthe word she needed.

Two nouns pronounced the same ascensor are sensor, a device that reacts toa particular stimulus of energy (light,motion, etc.), and censer, a vessel inwhich incense is burned.

CENSUS. See CONSENSUS.

CERTAIN. See SURE.

CERTIORARI. See GO OFF andGO ON.

CESSION and SESSION. See Ho-mophones.

CHAFE and CHAFF. See Confusingpairs.

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CHAIR. 1. CHAIR and CHAIR-MAN. 2. CHAIR as verb.

1. CHAIR and CHAIRMANA chair is furniture; a human being is

not furniture. The statement would betoo obvious to make if not for publishedsentences like these:

Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., the chair ofthe Judiciary Committee, has had amixed record on abortion. . . .

Eva has served as president and mem-bership chair. Currently she is theChair of the Board of Directors ofMagic Years Day Care. . . .

Correction: the chairman of the judiciarycommittee, membership chairman, andchairman of the board of directors.

Although widely used in some circles,chair as a substitute for chairman isproper only in the jargon of parliamen-tary procedure; e.g., “I appeal from theruling of the chair.” In general prose,chair may signify a chairmanship or anacademic office, but not an individualholding the office; for example, “Thechair is vacant,” but not “He was ap-pointed chair.”

Chair and chairman should be inlower case, except when the latter is af-fixed to a proper name (e.g., ChairmanMao). In the second sample, Eva is botha small “chair” and a big “Chair.”

A male chairman is formally ad-dressed as Mister Chairman, a femalechairman as Madame Chairman.

Avoid the ungainly barbarism seen ina headline: “Republicans select theirchairpersons.” A newspaper editor nor-mally seeks brevity in headlines, so it issurprising that one would choose aseven-letter suffix, “-persons,” instead ofa three-letter suffix with the same mean-ing, -men.

The New York Times style manualproperly instructs staff members to use

chairman and chairmen for both menand women. “Do not use chairlady,chairwoman or chairperson.” It explainsthat “chairman (like foreman,spokesman and some similar terms) suf-fices for both sexes.”

The Associated Press, while approv-ing of “chairwoman,” rejects “chairper-son,” unless it is an organization’sformal title. But a story dispatched underits name contained a similar barbarism:“Glamour was supplied by the dinner’schairpeople.”

2. CHAIR as verbAs a verb (transitive) meaning to place

in a chair or to install in a chair of office,chair is long established though littleused nowadays.

The modern press often uses chair as averb meaning to serve as a chairman. Afew authorities object to such use, atleast in formal writing. The Times stylemanual says to avoid it. The examplesare from two other newspapers.

. . . Assemblyman Richard Raineyfailed to win the chairmanship of thePublic Safety Committee . . . but . . .he’s happy to settle for chairing theLocal Government panel. . . . Assem-blyman Curt Pringle . . . will chair theAppropriations Committee.

[Testimony was heard by] a HouseGovernment Operations subcommit-tee chaired by Rep. Mike Synar. . . .

Utilizing an item of furniture as a verbis not out of the question. To table is toput (something) on a table; especially toput (a legislative measure) on the table,i.e., postpone indefinitely. To bed is tofurnish (someone) with a bed, or to put(someone) to bed, or to go to bed. Onthe other hand, no one is likely to say,“A new governor will desk the state ad-ministration” or “A vast empire wasthroned by the queen.”

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CHARACTER. This noun has manylegitimate meanings, among them in-tegrity; reputation; distinguishing quali-ties or features; a fictional person; and asymbol. Yet it is often used unnecessar-ily: “glue of a strong character,” insteadof strong glue; or “the charming charac-ter of the painting,” instead of the charmof the painting. In phrases like “an eventof this character,” kind or sort is morefitting.

A colloquial sense of character is an eccentric person. The reporter whoput it in the item below was not neces-sarily wrong but seemed to be short offacts.

Clarence ———, otherwise knownas Filmore Slim, a long-time San Fran-cisco character, pleaded guilty to onecount of ——— in a plea bargain withthe district attorney’s office yesterday.

CHARITY. See MERCY and PITY.

CHAUVINISM. Chauvinism (pro-nounced SHOW-vin-izm) is extreme pa-triotism, militant glorification of one’scountry; or, by extension, excessive de-votion to any cause or group. It camefrom Chauvin, the name of a French sol-dier who was a fanatical admirer ofNapoleon.

Male chauvinist has been a commonpair since the sixties. Some think thatchauvinism or chauvinist has to do withopposition to or disparaging of a group,particularly women, and they omit themodifier. A topic on a TV quiz show was“chauvinist terms for women”: broad,dame, doll. They are slang terms, per-haps demeaning terms—far removedfrom chauvinism.

CHECK OUT and CHECK-OUT.A software company advertises, in amagazine, “Checkout our Web Site. . . .”As a verb, check out consists of two

words. In the context of the ad (transi-tive), it means examine or investigate. Inanother context (intransitive) it canmean to be proven authentic. “His storychecks out.”

To check out (verb, transitive) is alsoto account for a departure (especially ofa guest from a hotel, a customer from astore, or a book from a library). Hotelguests check out (verb, intransitive); orthey check out of, say, the Grand Hotel.

Check-out (noun) is the process or actof departing from an establishment, or atime that a hotel sets for the end of a day.In addition it is a counter where cus-tomers pay in a self-service market, alsocalled check-out (adjective) counter.

The noun, as a single word, checkout,is instruction or training given to an airforce pilot to familiarize him with a par-ticular aircraft.

See also Punctuation, 4D, for an ex-ample of inconsistent use of check-outand check-in, the process or act of arriv-ing at an establishment.

CHIEF JUSTICE. Misnaming thenation’s highest judicial office is a com-mon error, albeit a minor one.

A front-page news summary said,“Died: Warren Burger, 87, retiredSupreme Court chief justice.”

This was reported on a television net-work: “Warren Burger served as chiefjustice of the Supreme Court for seven-teen years. . . .”

His successor, William H. Rehnquist,became “the sixteenth Chief Justice ofthe Supreme Court,” a book blurb said.The book itself, by Rehnquist, had itright.

Federal law says: “The SupremeCourt of the United States shall consistof a Chief Justice of the United Statesand eight associate justices. . . .” Each ofthe eight is a “Justice of the SupremeCourt of the United States.”

The erroneous appellations often canpass. But surely some occasions, like the

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ones referred to above, call for the offi-cial title to be dusted off.

See also HIGH COURT.

“CHILLING EFFECT.” This mod-ern cliché does not concern refrigerationmechanics or the meteorological conse-quences of arctic winds. It does concernan effect of an enforcement action, prose-cution, enactment, ruling, policy de-cision, crisis, or other occurrence,according to some critic or commentator.Seldom is heard a discouraging, imped-ing, inhibitory, or retardant word. Moreoften the word is “chilling.” A few exam-ples follow; many more could be offered.

[TV news of a crackdown on pornog-raphy in Alabama:] What worriescivil libertarians is the chilling effectthis might have on the people whomake movies, even good movies.

[An article on Christian Scientists: Amedical ethicist] said that the prosecu-tions already are having a chilling ef-fect.

[A TV “magazine”: Virginia’s re-moval of a physician’s medical license]had a chilling effect on doctorsthroughout the country.

[An article about federal policy onscholarships:] . . . Mr. Wilder said Mr.Williams’s ruling would have “a chill-ing effect on all minority-targetedprograms. . . .”

CHINESE (language). Under “Chi-nese” (noun), at least three dictionariesoffer “the language of China” as theirsecond definition. In a strict sense, thelanguage of China is a written languageonly and does not exist as a tongue. Onespeaks a Chinese language. An al-manac’s statement that “Chinese is themother tongue of more than 1 billion

people” is imprecise. So are a father’swords in a newspaper article about bilin-gual education: “I see people using lan-guage as a refuge, not mixing with otherpeople who don’t speak Chinese.”

China has various spoken languagesof the Sino-Tibetan group, includingMandarin, Cantonese, Wu, Min, Hakka,and others. Sometimes they are called“dialects,” but they differ among them-selves as much as the Romance lan-guages of Europe do and people fromone part of China often cannot compre-hend speech from another part. Man-darin is the official and most prevalentlanguage of China.

An uncommon error appeared in apicture caption related to the news storyquoted above: “A blackboard in ChorPang’s class at Key elementary shows in-structions in both English and Can-tonese characters.” Make it Chinesecharacters. One array of characters ex-ists for all of China, although there are afew variations in the way some charac-ters are assembled.

The written language has no alphabetand no rules for pronunciation. Charac-ters and their meanings must be memo-rized. One must learn about 4,000characters to read a Chinese newspaper.Scholars may know ten times as many.The characters are pronounced accord-ing to the words in one’s spoken lan-guage.

CHORD and CORD. See Homo-phones.

CHRISTEN. To christen (verb, tran-sitive) used to mean to make (someone)Christian. Now to christen an infant isto bring it into a Christian church bybaptism; also to give it a name at bap-tism. By extension, to christen alsomeans to name and dedicate (usually avessel or structure) in a ceremony; or,loosely, just to name (anything).

In a film on Siberian tigers, the narra-

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tor said, “They [zoologists] christen thecub Sasha.” If a wild beast had to be hu-manized, “they name” should have suf-ficed. (There was no ceremony, religiousor otherwise.)

CIRCUM- prefix. The prefix circum-comes from the Latin circum, around,and means around, surrounding, or onall sides. Sometimes different circum-words are confused.

A high school freshman rose in hiscivics class to contrast the days of Mag-ellan, when it took three years to goaround the world, with contemporarytimes, when “the world can be circum-cised in a few days.” Silent pause. Theteacher said, “You mean circumnavi-gated, don’t you?” / “Yes.” Actually Ihad meant circumscribed. That wouldnot have been the right word either.

To circumnavigate the world, or an is-land, means to pilot a ship or airplane allaround it. To circumscribe something isto encircle, restrict, or draw a linearound it. To circumcise someone is toexcise a certain genital part of him orher. The three verbs stem from circumplus the Latin verbs meaning to sail, towrite, and to cut, respectively.

A news agency said that manypromises made to a Brazilian who paci-fied Indian tribes were “circumnavigatedby the government. . . .” In that context,a better verb would have been circum-vented. To circumvent something, say alaw, is to go around it figuratively, tokeep it from happening, especially bycraft or tricky maneuvering. The wordoriginates in circum plus the Latin verbmeaning to come.

Three other well-known circum-words are the nouns circumference (aline or distance around a circle) and cir-cumstance (surrounding facts or condi-tions) and the adjective circumspect(prudent, cautious). They come from cir-cum plus the Latin verbs meaning tocarry, to stand, and to look, respectively.

The accent falls on the third syllablein circumnavigate, the second syllable incircumference, and the first syllable inthe other five circum- words.

CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.It is a pervasive myth that circumstantialevidence is flimsy evidence. Often“mere” or “only” precedes “circumstan-tial.” A biographer wrote, concerningthe evidence against two brotherscharged with a fatal bombing:

It would only be circumstantial evi-dence, and it was difficult to hangmen on circumstantial evidence.

On the contrary, circumstantial evidencecan be just as strong as, or stronger than,the other type of evidence: direct evi-dence. And men have been executed onthe basis of circumstantial evidence.

Circumstantial evidence is informa-tion used in court to prove a contentionindirectly. Rather than dealing with themain issue head on, it relies on reason-able inference from the surrounding cir-cumstances. Direct evidence deals withthe main issue directly.

A man is accused of burglarizing ahome. No witness saw the crime beingcommitted. The evidence against the de-fendant is solely circumstantial: The vic-tims’ valuables were found in hispossession and his fingerprints werefound at the crime scene. It is convincingevidence.

A witness in a murder trial testifiesthat he saw Mr. Cain shoot Mr. Abel.Such evidence is direct. The defense thenbrings Mr. Abel into court, alive andwell. That too is direct evidence.

CLASS. See FACULTY; KIND OF, 1,2; TYPE, 1.

CLASSIC. The traditional meaning ofa classic is a literary, dramatic, or artistic

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work that has survived the test of timeand been generally accepted among thehighest in quality. Now we seem to haveinstant “classics,” if advertisers can bebelieved. “The critics love Disney’snewest classic,” a TV announcer said.

A book blurb hailed a man who hadfounded a record company “to churnout hundreds of classic records. . . .”What he recorded were not works byMozart or Beethoven but rock ’n’ rollsongs. And a review of a movie musicalsaid, “The tunes . . . —including ‘LolaWants’ and ‘Shoeless Jo From HannibalMo’—are classics.” A popular song thatremains in the repertoire is a standard.Any writer who does not know the dif-ference between popular and classicalmusic may do well to choose some othertopic.

Clause. A clause is a group of wordswith a subject (the doer of an action) anda predicate (the verb, the action). Somedefiners stop there. They would considerthe simple sentence “Snow fell” a clause.Others would consider it a clause only ina sentence containing at least twoclauses: “Snow fell and streets becameslippery.”

In the latter example, each clause(connected by and) is an independentclause. Each could stand alone as a sepa-rate sentence.

A dependent clause (also called a sub-ordinate clause) cannot stand alone. In“I love this ring, which my mother gaveme,” the part up to the comma is an in-dependent clause and also the mainclause of the sentence; the part startingwith which is a dependent clause.

CLAUSTROPHOBIA. See HO-MOPHOBIA.

CLEAN and CLEANSE. See Con-fusing pairs.

CLEMENCY. See MERCY andPITY.

Cliché clash. By that term we mean ajarring mixture of clichés. Typically itturns up when an impromptu speakergets confused between two expressions.

For instance, when you do not wantto confront a problem, do you sweep itunder the rug or do you put it on theback burner? “After the campaign, it’llbe swept right back on the back burner,”said a senator on the drug problem.

Each of eight samples here contains orhints at two well-known expressions. Inthe first seven, delivered on the air, theexpressions are metaphors or combinedparts of metaphors.

A TV network reporter and panelistridiculed reporters who had said thatGeorge Bush lost the Republican nomi-nation: “Where are those reporters to-day? They’re eating humble crow.”(Note to gourmets: Combine humble piewith crow—and voilà!)

In a press conference, President Bushcommented on the government ofPanama. He could not seem to decidewhether to use a clock or a board gameas a metaphor, so he used them both:“You get the distinct feeling that theclock is not going to be set back tosquare one.”

A man on the street was chosen for asound bite in an election story on a TVnetwork. Explaining why he was votingagainst an incumbent, he did not say “Aleopard can’t change its spots” or “Youcan’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Hesaid, “You can’t change spots on an olddog.”

Do you prefer to play poker with wildcards or with a joker? Interviewed on theradio, a South African commentator saidabout white rightists in his government,“They are a wild joker in the package.”

Another question is whether to givethe economy a boost or a shot in thearm. A congressional leader theorizedthat a tax decrease was “giving the econ-omy a boost in the arm.”

A panelist said on a television pro-gram of news commentary:

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We really have no evidence that BillClinton is going to step up to the platein his first hundred days and reallytake the bull by the horns.

Maybe the new president would havebeen inspired by a rousing chorus of“Take Me Out to the Bullfight.”

The final example is different, becauseit appeared in print (in a book review)and because the clash is stylistic, ratherthan metaphoric.

Her husband, Roger, freaks out butthe party has momentum enough tokeep going and just about everyone, itseems, has enough carnal knowledgeof Ros to make her, posthumously, aneven better conversation piece thanshe was in life. [Emphasis is added.]

There is a place for hippie slang, just asthere is for King James’s English—butthey are not the same place.

Clichés. The character of Big Brotherwas an exciting, new idea in George Or-well’s novel 1984. Used repeatedly as ametaphor in discussions and articles (forinstance, as the subtitle of a columnabout new technology to snare violatorsof federal laws), the appellation losesmost of its thrill, although it makes apoint.

All clichés were original and fresh ex-pressions at one time but now, by defini-tion, are trite, commonplace, andfrequently imitated. That reality doesnot mean we should always avoid them.It depends on the cliché and the circum-stances. This volume contains many ex-amples of expressions consideredoverused, if not unworthy of use; al-though admittedly the merit of a particu-lar expression is subject to difference ofopinion.

A trite expression need not necessarilybe banished, as long as (1) it is needed toconvey the desired meaning, (2) it is cho-sen thoughtfully and makes sense, and

(3) it is used correctly and, if a quota-tion, is quoted accurately.

These are examples of oft misquotedsayings: “Power tends to corrupt and ab-solute power corrupts absolutely” (not“Power corrupts”)—Lord Acton. “Forthe love of money is the root of all evil”(not money itself)—Bible, 1 Timothy6:10. “Music hath charms to soothe asavage breast” (not “beast”)—Con-greve. “A foolish consistency is the hob-goblin of little minds” (not justconsistency)—Emerson. “To gild refinedgold, to paint the lily” (not “gild thelily”)—Shakespeare, King John.

The expressions as a matter of fact, bythe same token, in the final analysis, toall intents and purposes, and when all issaid and done have meanings but arerather windy and probably not essential.Some other expressions are irrational,inaccurate, or almost meaningless. (See“BLOW YOUR MIND”; “COULDCARE LESS”; “EXCEPTION PROVESTHE RULE”; “IDEA WHOSE TIMEHAS COME”; “OLDEST PROFES-SION”; “RINGING OFF THEHOOK”; “YES, VIRGINIA”).

On the other hand (that is a cliché), totell hikers “It’s five miles as the crow fliesbut double that on the road” swiftly im-parts useful information; and “the bur-den of proof is on the plaintiff” carrieslegal significance. All of the followingfifty clichés also convey ideas succinctly,even though all those ideas might be ex-pressed differently:

Break the ice, call the tune, clear theair, dark horse, fait accompli, give andtake, happy ending, heaven on earth, inthe same boat, labor of love, law and or-der, lethal weapon, lion’s share, makeends meet, make good, mean(s) well,miscarriage of justice, moral victory,more or less, mutual attraction, neck andneck, needle in a haystack, now andthen, odds and ends, on the fence, opensecret, patience of Job, pay the piper, per-sona non grata, place in the sun, pyrrhicvictory, rags to riches, rank and file, sav-

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ing grace, see eye to eye, smell a rat, stabin the back, stitch in time, supply and de-mand, sweetness and light, sword ofDamocles, take pot luck, tilt at wind-mills, tip of the iceberg, tit for tat, undera cloud, under the aegis of, vicious circle,wear and tear, wishful thinking.

English is indebted to French forcliché in the sense of a printing stereo-type (an electrotype plate in traditionalprinting). A figurative cliché can be con-sidered a figuratively stereotyped expres-sion; i.e., one that is fixed, conventional,and unoriginal.

The word is pronounced klee-SHAY.

CLIMACTIC and CLIMATIC.See Confusing pairs.

CLINCH. “Giants clinch,” a streamercried. And there on the front page was apicture of baseball players hugging oneanother.

To clinch something (transitive verb:it has an object) is to make it secure orsettle it conclusively. The San Franciscoteam had clinched the championship ofthe National League’s western division.But just to clinch (intransitive verb: noobject) means, in slang usage, to em-brace. In boxing, to clinch (intransitive)is to hold one’s opponent so as to avoidgetting punched. A clinch (noun) is theact of clinching.

Except for certain nautical and indus-trial senses, do not confuse clinch withclench, meaning (noun) a tight grasp or(verb, transitive) to grasp or bring to-gether tightly. Clinch and clench are usedinterchangeably when they denote(noun) a particular knot or a secure fas-tening device, especially a driven nailwith its point beaten down, or (verb,transitive) to grip with one of those de-vices.

COCA and COCOA. A press col-umn related a scheme to use caterpillarsto eat the plants that yield cocaine. The

heading said, in part, “The drug war-riors try ‘scientific’ fix: Bug cocoa fields.”Was an innocuous drink a target in thedrug war? Cocoa powder, like chocolate,is made from the seeds of the cacao tree.It appears that an editor had confusedcocoa with coca, the tree or shrub whoseleaves are the source of cocaine. (Thetext had it right.)

Another plant of similar spelling is thecoco, also known as coco palm or co-conut palm or coconut tree. The pluralof coco is cocos.

COHORT. This sample sentence,from The New Republic, is entirely cor-rect in its usage:

When Robert Bork’s SupremeCourt nomination went down inflames, his candidacy vanquished by awell-funded cohort of liberal pressuregroups, conservatives deplored thetactics used to defeat him.

In the next sample, from a newspaper,a word that was treated properly in themagazine is put to questionable use.

Looming above the throng at thehuge CBS window is the elder states-man of the media, Walter Cronkite,hand over heart as a Metropoli-tan Opera baritone belts out the na-tional anthem, while his younger cohort, Dan Rather, stands respect-fully back. . . .

In words like co-worker and coau-thor, the prefix co- indicates one whoworks jointly with another. So is it notreasonable to assume that a cohort is anassociate of a “hort”? The trouble is thatthere is no such thing as a “hort.” Co-hort comes from the Latin cohors: enclo-sure, military company, or multitude.(Court, courtesy, and curtain also stemfrom that Latin word.)

The most specific meaning of cohort is

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that of an ancient Roman military divi-sion, comprising 300 to 600 soldiers, atenth of a legion. Cohort has been ap-plied also to any body of warriors. It candenote also any group or band joined ina struggle or common cause. That is themeaning of cohort in the opening sam-ple. The other samples illustrate the loos-est use, in which the word is applied toindividuals. Often its tone is derogatory:

What other operations beyondthose already known were planned orexecuted by Mr. North and his co-horts in the enterprise?

The youth . . . is accused of coerc-ing four children . . . into becominghis cohorts in the burglary and torch-ing of an apartment. . . .

. . . Assistant U.S. Atty. John Gor-don . . . prosecuted Browning and 21alleged cohorts. . . .

The crime story represented by the lastexample shared an issue of a metropoli-tan newspaper with an obituary contain-ing this sentence:

. . . Monroe and his cohorts gavemovement to Bugs Bunny. . . .

Such lax use of “cohort(s)” is not gen-erally acceptable, though it is usuallycondoned in casual speech. If a word likeassociate, colleague, companion, co-worker, or fellow-worker is meant, itshould be used. For an implication ofwrongdoing, one can choose accomplice,confederate, gangster, partner in crime,or ring member. (Occasionally confeder-ate is used in an innocent sense too.)

COKE. See Trademarks.

Collective nouns. 1. Group: singularor plural? 2. NUMBER OF, AVERAGEOF. 3. Quantities, measures.

1. Group: singular or plural?This question deals with the type of

noun that is a collection of people, crea-tures, or things—a crowd, a team, acommittee, a jury, a company, a herd, aflock, an array, or other group. When itis the subject of a sentence or clause,should we treat it as singular or as plu-ral?

It may depend on whether we empha-size the group as a whole or its members.“The crowd was roaring,” but “Acrowd of fans were fighting one anotherin the grandstand.”

Any doubts are customarily settled infavor of the singular in the United States.Britons have leaned toward plural con-struction.

A frequent mistake is to construe asubject as both singular and pluralwithin a sentence or clause. The mis-taker is likely to choose a singular verbbut a plural pronoun. In the followingquotations, from metropolitan newspa-pers on two coasts, emphases are addedto point up inconsistencies.

Protests have been going on at theweapons station since June 10 when agroup of demonstrators was arrestedafter they successfully caused a trainto stop.

“Was . . . they” protesting? No, theywere protesting. “Was” is singular;“they” is plural. The two words do notmix.

Most users of English have no troublewith simple sentences such as “Thedemonstrator was arrested” and “Thedemonstrators were arrested.” Nounand verb match in number: singular withsingular, plural with plural. But compli-cate a sentence with an equivocal sub-ject, a clause or two, and a pronoun—then trouble arises.

Is “a group of demonstrators” singu-lar or plural? Presumably the writerfixed on “group” and thought that it had

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to be singular: “was arrested.” So whydid she not stick with her decision andwrite “after it . . . caused a train tostop”? Aware that the demonstratorswere arrested as individuals, she musthave felt a sense of plurality to switchtracks and write “they . . . caused.” But then the sentence called for “werearrested.” (It never needed “success-fully.”)

When a group is a formal body, theAmerican custom is to construe it as sin-gular: “Congress has agreed. . . .” InBritain it is often construed as plural:“Parliament have agreed. . . .” This pas-sage, from an American newspaper, hasit both ways:

The first way around the wallproved to be in Hungary last August,when the reformist-minded Budapestgovernment decided to take down itsown barbed-wire fence with Austriaand later dropped their objections toEast Germans crossing from Austriainto Hungary.

“Its . . . fence” and “their objections” areinconsistent. “Their” ought to have beenits. (A factual correction: the Germanswere crossing from Hungary into Aus-tria.)

When a group is informal, the writeror speaker often has a choice. Here,again, a press sentence is inconsistent:

A team of California psychologistshas developed a sense-of-humor testthat they believe may eventually shedlight on the fundamental nature of hu-man personality.

If the team of psychologists is singularand “has” developed something, then itbelieves. But if “they believe,” the teamof psychologists, being plural, have de-veloped something. Other options arerepeating part of the subject (“a sense-of-humor test that the team be-lieves . . .”) and rephrasing the subject

and a verb (“Five California psycholo-gists have developed . . .”).

The final example in this section illus-trates two defects:

A gang of robbers has been chargedwith holding up 31 banks . . . usingthe subway for their getaway. . . .

If the gang is singular and “has beencharged,” the pronoun representing“gang” also must be singular: Change“their” to its. However, if the gang, asplural, made “their getaway,” keep theplural pronoun but change “has” tohave. Better yet, change “A gang of rob-bers has” to “Five men have.” They arenot “robbers” until they are convicted.

See also COUPLE; FACULTY;Nouns, 3; PAIR; STAFF.

2. NUMBER OF, AVERAGE OFThe word number often throws writ-

ers and speakers off course when it ispart of the subject of a sentence.

A growing number of researchers istrying to teach former crack addicts tostay away from . . . cues that willmake them crave the drug. . . .

“A growing number of researchers aretrying. . . .” The number is not perform-ing the action; the researchers are. Theyare separate individuals. “A growingnumber of” merely qualifies “re-searchers.” If the number of researcherswere ten, the writer would not havewritten “Ten researchers is trying. . . .” Itshould not make any difference thattheir number is growing. If the subjectwere, let us say, a group of researchers, acase might be made for “researchers is,”as grating as the phrase is.

What is the reader or listener supposedto focus on? In the quoted sentence, the“researchers” obviously take the spot-light. Another sentence could start simi-larly but place its emphasis elsewhere:“The growing number of researchers in

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America is attributed to an improvementin science education.” Here the emphasisis on the growing number.

As a rule of thumb, a subject startingwith “a number of” takes a plural verb;a subject starting with “the number of”takes a singular verb.

Other phrases that can be misleadingas part of a subject are an average of, amajority of, and a total of. Using them ismore complicated than using a numberof.

It is grammatically correct to say “Anaverage of 186 million eggs were pro-duced daily in the country last year.”The focus there is on eggs, a plural. It isequally correct to say “The average of186 million was lower than . . .” or “Theaverage . . . takes into account. . . .” Gen-erally “the average” focuses on the aver-age as such. “An average of $5.50 ispaid” and “An average of two pounds ofsugar is needed” are correct too; theitems would be singular without anymention of an average.

See also MAJORITY, 2; TOTAL, 2.

3. Quantities, measuresMeasures of distance, money, weight,

volume, and so on are commonly treatedas singular, even though plural in form.They take singular verbs: “Twenty-twomiles is a long walk.” / “About $3.7 mil-lion is owed.” / “Six feet, four inches wasAbe’s height.” / “A hundred poundsmore makes a ton.” / “Twelve gallons ofgasoline fills my tank.”

See also AMOUNT and NUMBER;FEWER and LESS; MANY and MUCH;Numbers; Verbs, 3.

Colon. See Punctuation, 2.

COME and CAME. The basic formof the verb come is the same as its pastparticiple: “Come inside.” / “She hascome a long way.” The past tense iscame: “The rains came.”

In a situation comedy, the star deliv-ered this line: “I don’t understand why I

just couldn’t have came here and got mystuff on my own.” In a television inter-view, a military cadet said, “At any timethey could have came to me.” And acaller to a radio talk show said, “Hecould’ve came to his co-workers andsaid, ‘How do you feel about this?’ ” Ineach instance, the past tense was mistak-enly used instead of the past participle;“have come” would have been correct.

The three would have had an excusefor the error if they had looked up comein a certain general dictionary. It erro-neously indicates that “came” is the pastparticiple as well as the past tense.

See also COME and GO.

COME and GO. Considered sepa-rately, the two sentences in the quotedpassage (from a front page of arenowned newspaper) are correct. Butthey are inconsistent—in more than theirdifferent lengths, which is a desirable in-consistency.

Organizers of the second Take OurDaughters to Work Day estimatedthat about 3 million American girls,most of them between the ages of 9and 15, took off a day from schoolyesterday to go to work with theirparents or other adults and get acloser look at opportunities awaitingthem in the real world of work.

And some boys came along thisyear.

Why did girls “go” to work while boys“came” to work?

Although the distinction betweencome and go blurs at times and eachword has many meanings, you shouldknow whether you’re coming or going.(That principle did not apply to Grou-cho Marx, who liked to sing, “Hello, Imust be going.”)

In a sentence like “Come to papa” or“Come to me, my melancholy baby,” theverb to come means to advance towardthe one speaking. To come is also to ap-

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proach a particular place: “. . . Behold,wise men from the East came toJerusalem. . . .” Another meaning is toappear, to move into view: “The fogcomes on little cat feet.” Still anothermeaning is to follow: “Come with me.”It can mean also to be a native or resi-dent of a place (“She comes fromSpain”), to happen or take place (“Thetime will come”), to reach a total (“Thatcomes to exactly ten dollars”), and to ar-rive at a certain result or condition (“Wecame to an agreement and the meetingcame to a halt”).

The verb to go often means to depart,to move away from this place: “She hasgone already.” / “Go and sin no more.”To go can mean also to travel to a place:“I must go down to the seas again.” /“We’re going home.” It can mean also tobe in operation or to move: “The motoris going.” / “The car started to go.”Among other meanings are to disappear(“The dictatorship must go!”), to be inparticular circumstances (“The peopleoften go hungry”), to have a certain ten-dency (“This state usually goes Republi-can”), to be known (“He goes byBubba”), to result (“How did the gamego?”), to start (“Wait till I say ‘go’ ”),and to be compatible or sociable (“Theygo together”).

Each of the two verbs figures in nu-merous expressions. A come idiom and ago idiom may have a word in commonbut differ completely in meaning. For in-stance, to come along can mean to ad-vance or proceed toward success: “Shehas really come along in her studies”; togo along can mean to cooperate: “Whenthey offered him a lot of money, he wentalong with their plans.” Some otherwords similarly in common are about,by, down, into, off, on, and out.

One sentence (and certainly a pair ofsentences) can encompass both comingand going; this one does. Other exam-ples: “The cat comes and goes” (arrivesand departs). “The sun comes and goes”

(appears and disappears). But note thateach subject has two contrary activities.In the passage about the girls whomissed school to go to work with theirparents and the boys who went along,two subjects did essentially the samething.

See also COME and CAME.

COMFIT and COMFORT. SeeDISCOMFIT and DISCOMFORT.

Comma. See Punctuation, 3.

COMMISERATION. See MERCYand PITY.

COMMIT, COMMITTED. 1.Missing objects. 2. Recommit.

1. Missing objectsSomething is missing from both of

these sentences, extracted from a televi-sion newscast and a book about businessmistakes:

There isn’t the same pressure on Presi-dent Bush as there was on PresidentKennedy when he first committed toputting a man on the moon.

If the U.S. firm had committed to amore direct form of involvement suchas equity participation, it could haveearned greater profits.

President Kennedy “committed” whator whom? The country? The govern-ment? Himself? And what should “theU.S. firm” have “committed”? Itself? Itsplanning and resources? A quarter of itsassets?

In all its meanings—obligate, entrust,consign, refer, perpetrate, and so on—the verb commit is transitive. That is, itmust transmit the action to an object.Each sample sentence lacks an object.

Headlines need to be terse, yet theyare not absolved from the requirements

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of grammar. This one appeared on afront page of a metropolitan daily:“Syria Commits to Talks, Baker Says.”Use of the past participle, committed,would have avoided the misuse with-out being wordy: “Syria [is] Committedto. . . .”

At one time, commit was used in anintransitive way (with no object) in thesense of perpetrating an offense. Suchuse is obsolete. No longer may one say,for instance, “This man has committed.”One may say, “Many people who shouldknow better commit grammatical of-fenses.”

2. RecommitTo recommit is to commit again. This

verb too is transitive only. It comes upmainly in the context of legislative ac-tion, in which it means to send a pro-posed measure back to a committee:“The Senate decided to recommit thebill.”

The main article in an issue of a na-tional daily bore a headline that used theverb as though it were intransitive:“PLO Recommits to Peace, but Reins inArafat.” The headline could be chal-lenged on both grammatical and factualgrounds. (The story said the PalestineLiberation Organization, critical of itsleader’s failure to gain wider Palestinianself-rule, “set specific conditions for thecontinuation of talks with Israel.”) A re-placement: “PLO Sets Terms for PeaceTalks, Reins in Arafat.”

Common nouns. See Nouns, 1.

COMMON SENSE. Common sensemay be defined either as ordinary soundjudgment or as the assumptions peopleare liable to make without specialknowledge. “For millennia a flat earthwas common sense.” Originally com-mon sense was supposed to be a mastersense that gathered and interpreted thefive senses. In practice, the term fre-

quently stands for whatever point ofview the user expresses.

When Congress favored declaringCommunist China a most favored na-tion, a spokesman for capitalist groupssaid, “We see it as a vote for commonsense.”

A talk show host said, “You [women]can’t have it all. It’s just common sense.”A (male) colleague of his said later, fa-voring higher prices for women’s hair-cuts than for men’s, “Let’s try to usesome common sense on this”; and favor-ing compulsory auto insurance, “It’s justcommon sense.” A competitor prefaceda discussion of Cuba by saying, “I’m go-ing to give you the kind of common-sense logic that you don’t get in most ofthe media these days.”

In a headline, a weekly presented apoint of view as “Commonsense DrugPolicy. . . .” Used as an adjective in thatway, the term should be hyphenated:common-sense.

COMMUNIST, COMMUNISM.See SOCIALIST, SOCIALISM.

COMMUTE. To commute (as an in-transitive verb) means to travel betweenhome in one community and work in an-other. Another common meaning of theverb (transitive) is to change a penalty ordebt to a lesser one. For instance, when agovernor changes a convict’s sentencefrom life imprisonment to ten years, hecommutes it. It is the penalty that iscommuted, not the person on whom itwas imposed. This is wrong:

Mao’s widow was sentenced to death,later commuted to life imprisonment,for heading the so-called Gang ofFour, blamed for the worst excesses ofthe 1966–1976 Cultural Revolution.

Not the woman but her sentence wascommuted.

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Comparative and superlative de-grees. Many an adjective or adverb hasthree forms, or degrees (that is, degreesof comparison): the positive, compara-tive, and superlative.

1. A word in the positive degree de-scribes something—say, as soft, high,fast, sweet, or good—without com-paring it with something else.

2. The comparative degree indicates thatsomething exceeds something else. Itis softer, higher, faster, sweeter, or bet-ter.

3. The superlative degree is the most ex-treme: softest, highest, fastest, sweet-est, or best. Something is in the toporder or surpasses all others in somerespect.

Use the superlative only when whatyou describe is among three or more ofits kind. If it is one of only two, use thecomparative. “This melon is the largestof the three” but “This melon is thelarger of the two.”

It is a common mistake to use the su-perlative instead of the comparative; forinstance, to say that someone is the“tallest” of two. See BETTER and BEST(etc.). A talk show host made the oppo-site mistake: “The three networks werefighting to see who would get the biggerpiece of the pie.” One network wouldget the biggest piece. (And “who”should be which. See WHO, THAT, andWHICH, 1.)

A book about business mistakesmakes a verbal mistake:

The firm encountered legal problemsin West Germany, however, becauseGerman law dictates that superlativesare not permitted. One product can-not be called better (or stronger) thananother.

Better or stronger are not “superlatives.”They are comparatives.

See also COMPARED TO and COM-

PARED WITH; Comparison; MOREand MOST; MORE with comparative;MOST with superlative; Numbers, 10B,D.

COMPARED TO and COM-PARED WITH. 1. Similarities andcontrasts. 2. Two other problems.

1. Similarities and contrastsEach of these four sentences contains

one wrong word:

. . . Detective Tom Lange . . . askedhim to bring the glove found outsideSimpson’s mansion into the middle ofthe crime scene so it could be com-pared to the glove found near the bod-ies.

Typically, community college part-timers earn about half the hourly payof full-time teachers—$28.38 com-pared to $53.36. . . .

There were not many words in thefirst ROGET’S THESAURUS, com-pared to the number in a volume likethis. . . .

There are no published studies thatcompared the drug to placebo or fakepills.

Each “to” should be with.When we compare something to

something else, we are likening the twothings or pointing out similarities. (“Thestreaks on Mars used to be compared toour canals.” / “People have comparedCastro to Stalin.”)

When we compare something withsomething else, we are either contrastingthe two (“$28.38 compared with$53.36”) or examining them to look fordifferences or similarities (“studies thatcompared the drug with placebo or fakepills”).

Is all that just unnecessary fussiness?The use of “to” instead of with by a

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news agency gives a twist to the firstsample. The “to” seems to imply that thedetective wanted to make the two gloveslook like a pair—probably not what ei-ther he or the writer had in mind. Withwould have suggested that the detectivewanted an objective comparison of thetwo gloves.

2. Two other problemsThe sentence below (from an edito-

rial) illustrates two other points.

Four in 10 black men over the age of20 smoke, compared to only 32 per-cent of white men.

The grammarian Wilson Follett wouldhave challenged compared, as well as to,in the last sentence, had he lived to readit: The black men would smoke even ifnot compared with the white men; thetwo facts are independent and belong inseparate independent clauses or sen-tences. He railed at length against “gra-tuitous comparison,” the statement ofindependent facts as if they were depen-dent.

Note also that one of those two statis-tics was presented on a scale of one toten and the other on a percentage scale.While some readers may have had notrouble converting “four in 10” to fortypercent, or “32 percent” to about threein 10, the writer’s zeal for synonymizingmay have obscured the message forother readers.

Comparison. 1. “More” or “less”than what? 2. What are we comparing?

1. “More” or “less” than what?In the mythical realm of advertising,

the advertiser’s product customarily is“better,” gives you “more,” and costsyou “less.” What it is better, bigger, andcheaper than is left to the imagination.The veracity or mendacity of such vagueclaims cannot easily be checked. A copy-writer is interested in sales, not facts.

Informative writing has to make moresense. When something is said to be big-ger, smaller, quicker, more beautiful, lesscrowded, or the like, one needs to knowwhat the thing is bigger than, smallerthan, and so on. The word than does notalways have to be in the sentence. (“Johnweighs 300 pounds. His wife is evenheavier.”) And the comparison is impliedin certain expressions, such as higher ed-ucation and the upper classes. In general,though, when more or less or an -erword in the comparative degree is used,it must be made completely clear what isbeing compared to what. This sentencefails to make it clear:

While residents in the San Franciscometropolitan area—including SanMateo and Marin counties—spentless on food last year, they still rankninth in total restaurant sales and topsin per capita spending.

They “spent less on food” than what?Than on clothing? Than anyone else?Even if the reporter had written, for in-stance, “spent less on food last year thanthey spent in the previous year,” the sen-tence still would have raised questionsand contained inconsistencies. (Howcould the spending of “residents” be dis-tinguished from that of visitors? If thespending was for “food,” why are onlyrestaurants mentioned, not food stores?Was “per capita spending” just in restau-rants too? On what scale were the resi-dents measured? They were “ninth” or“tops” out of how many units, of whatnature, in what geographical category?)

See Comparative and superlative de-grees and its references for some gram-matical problems.

2. What are we comparing?To be compared, things must be com-

parable. They have to fit the same gen-eral category. You do not compareapples with orangutans. Apples and or-anges at least are both fruits.

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The discussion here deals with logicand style, not the verity of the premiseexpressed in the newspaper sentence be-low.

. . . Japanese investors still need tolearn that the tenant is king in Amer-ica, compared to the landlord’s mar-ket in Japan. . . .

It seems to be comparing a royal rankand a type of market. Either the first orthe second part has to change. Exam-ples: (1) “to learn that a tenant’s marketprevails in America, compared . . .”; (2)“to learn that the tenant is king in Amer-ica, compared with his subordinate posi-tion in Japan. . . .” (“To” needs to bewith. See COMPARED TO and COM-PARED WITH.)

Instead of compared with, the differ-ence could be highlighted by unlike or incontrast to. A reporter was on the trackbut got derailed:

In contrast to 40 years ago the Gover-nors today—Mr. Mabus, 39 yearsold, Mr. Clinton, 40, and Mr. Roemer,45—are not set in the segregationistways of the past.

He seems to be comparing a time in thepast with three governors. What heprobably meant to say and should havesaid was of this order: “In contrast to thegovernors of their states 40 years ago,the Governors today . . .” or “Unliketheir counterparts 40 years ago, theGovernors today. . . .”

A columnist, writing about quartetsinging, got into double trouble:

Barbershop was big in the ’50s, asbig at any time since its Golden Era inthe early years of the century.

To insert a second as—“as big as”—would help but not completely rescuethe sentence. It seems to be comparing

size with time. A complete correction:“. . . as big as it was at any time . . .”

Although the examples above are notworded logically, at least we know theessential points of similarity or contrastthat the writers have tried to express. Inthe example below, the essential messageis not clear:

Contrary to popular belief, childrenaccount for 15% of the homeless pop-ulation.

What is the “popular belief”? Contraryto popular belief usually implies that theadjoining statement is the opposite of thebelief. The statement here, a statistic, hasno clear opposite.

See also AS, 3; AS and LIKE, 2; LIKE,2; UNLIKE, 2; Numbers, 7, 10B.

COMPASSION. See MERCY andPITY.

COMPENDIUM, COMPENDI-OUS. A book is subtitled “A Com-pendium of Source Material to MakeYour Speech Sparkle.” An article refersto “ ‘Outrageous Animation,’ a feature-length compendium of cartoons. . . .” Inboth cases “compendium” is used asthough it meant collection.

A compendium is a summary, abridg-ment, or outline of a work. That is onemeaning of the word in Latin, its source.Perhaps the comp-, as in compilation orcomprehensive, fools people.

Compendium (noun) is related tocompendious (adjective), meaning sum-marized, containing all the essentialssuccinctly. Noah Webster’s first generaldictionary, 1806, was titled A Compen-dious Dictionary of the English Lan-guage. He meant that it was concise.

When a lexicographer sought “to pro-duce a work that would be as compen-dious as Webster’s Third,” did he want itto be as concise? Other comments of his(references, in an essay, to “The sheer

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quantity and range of the material” and“the inclusiveness of this huge new dic-tionary”) indicate that he meant as inclu-sive or as comprehensive.

COMPLAINANT. The chairman ofa Senate committee asked a witness at aprominent hearing three times whetherthe “conduct of a complaintant” couldbe relevant to a rape case.

A person who complains, particularlyin the sense of filing a formal complaintin a legal case, is a complainant, spelledwith just one t. One who complains, butnot in a formal sense, can also be called acomplainer, with no t. There is no “com-plaintant.”

Complement. As a term of grammar,complement is used in varying ways. Inthe broadest sense, it is a word or groupof words that completes a grammaticalconstruction. Usually the word or groupof words goes with a verb in the predi-cate of a sentence (see Verbs, 1D) andmakes the meaning of the verb or its ob-ject complete.

A complement may be a direct object(“Jack built the house” / “I met him”) oran indirect object (“Give the boy hismoney” / “I will send her a letter”). SeeVerbs, 1E. More often complementrefers to a subjective complement or anobjective complement.

A subjective complement (or subjectcomplement) accompanies a linking verband identifies or qualifies the subject. Ifthe complement is a noun, it is called apredicate noun (or predicate nomina-tive). (“That bird is a gooney.”) If it is an adjective, it is called a predicate adjec-tive. (“They seem happy.”) See Verbs,1F.

An objective complement (or objectcomplement) completes the meaning of adirect object. (“His friends call himRed.” / “Mining made them rich.” /“John got the clock to run.”) See alsoFACT- words, 2 (factitive).

COMPLEMENT and COMPLI-MENT. An advertisement for anapartment complex included this sen-tence: “Beautiful shade trees complimentthese garden apartments and beautifullylandscaped grounds.” If trees could talk,they might “compliment” the apart-ments and grounds on their appearance.As it is, the writer should have used theother word, complement.

To compliment (verb, transitive)someone is to pay the person a compli-ment (noun): an expression of admira-tion, congratulation, or praise. (Think ofbeautiful i’s.)

To complement (verb, transitive)something is to add, or serve as, a com-plement (noun) to it. A complement isthat which makes something whole orbrings it to perfection or completion.(Complete this word with e’s.)

A savings bank displayed a sign say-ing, “ASK ABOUT OUR COMPLE-MENTARY MORTGAGE ANALYSIS.”If the intended meaning was that themortgage analysis would be providedfree of charge as a courtesy or compli-ment, complimentary should have beenthe adjective chosen. Complementarymeans acting as a complement, complet-ing what is lacking.

COMPOSE. See COMPRISE, 1.

COMPOUNDS (chemicals). SeeSILICON and SILICONE.

Compounds (words). See Pluralsand singulars, 2B; Punctuation, 4D.

COMPRISE. 1. “COMPRISED OF.”2. “INCLUDE, CONTAIN.” 3. Thewhole and the parts.

1. “COMPRISED OF”To comprise (verb, transitive) is to

consist of, to be composed of—of is partof the meaning.

In four press samples, the word’s past

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participle, comprised, is misused asthough it meant “composed.” (In thefirst two, it opens an appositive phrase.In the latter two, it serves as a mainverb.)

The special panel, comprised of sevensenators on the Judiciary Committeeand two from Foreign Relations, alsomeets privately.

The author will develop the plot inconsultation with the committee,comprised of Mr. Clarke and twoother lawyers.

“Comprised of” is wrong. Changing itto comprising would correct both sen-tences: “comprising seven senators . . .”/ “comprising Mr. Clarke and. . . .” An-other way is to change “comprised” toconsisting, composed, or made up, keep-ing of.

The court is comprised of eight ac-tive judges.

. . . Our research team was com-prised of women.

To fix those two sentences, change “iscomprised of” to comprises (“The courtcomprises eight active judges”) and re-duce “was comprised of” to comprised(“Our research team comprisedwomen”). There are other ways: “Thecourt consists of” and “Our researchteam consisted of” / “The court is com-posed of” or “made up of” and “Our re-search team was composed of” or“made up of.” (We assume that the com-position of each group was given in itsentirety.)

2. “INCLUDE, CONTAIN”At least three dictionaries mislead-

ingly give as one of their definitions ofcomprise “To include, contain.” Themeanings are not the same.

Using comprise implies that all theitems making up the court or team orother body are being enumerated. (“Awater molecule comprises two atoms ofhydrogen and one atom of oxygen.”)But using include implies that not all theitems are being enumerated. (“A watermolecule includes one atom of oxygen.”)

Contain can have either meaning, de-pending on the context. (“This can con-tains only tomatoes. That one containssalt and spices.”)

3. The whole and the partsThe whole comprises its parts, not the

other way around. Congress comprisestwo houses. Two houses do not “com-prise” Congress.

This passage appears in a medical dic-tionary, under “fat”:

Three fatty acids, oleic acid . . . stearicacid . . . and palmitic acid . . . com-prise the bulk of fatty acids present inneutral fats found in body tissues.

A correction that keeps the word com-prise is as follows: “The bulk of fattyacids present in neutral fats found inbody tissues comprise three fatty acids:oleic acid” etc. An alternative correctionis to change “comprise” to make up:“Three fatty acids . . . make up thebulk,” etc.

Concrete noun. See Nouns, 1.

CONDITION. 1. Accidental drol-lery. 2. Contradictory meanings.

1. Accidental drolleryDo you want to get into condition?

People do it in a variety of ways. Wehear on television that a man is “in goodcondition after falling twenty feet from agondola at Disneyland,” and we read ina newspaper that an ex-president is “inexcellent condition after . . . he wasthrown from a horse. . . .”

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Warning: Those methods are not rec-ommended for everyone. You are betteroff with good food and normal exercise.

If anyone really concludes from suchreports that accidents bring about physi-cal fitness, blame a combination of twojournalistic locutions: (1) reversal of thechronological order of events, often withafter, in an effort to update the news;and (2) use of condition in a specialsense, that of a medical prognosis, a prediction of a patient’s chance of recov-ery. A patient who is sore, bruised, andhurting may not feel in “good”—letalone “excellent”—condition, but that iswhat the reporter got from his medicalsource.

Sometimes the word condition or asynonym is omitted from a headlinedealing with someone’s health, and read-ers may be told that the person “is criti-cal” or “serious” or “good.” The resultmay be an ambiguity or, at least, a temp-tation to wags.

See also AFTER; CRITICAL.

2. Contradictory meaningsCondition (noun and verb) has dozens

of meanings. Two of its popular mean-ings are contradictory: To be in or getinto condition refers to physical fitnessor good health, but to have or suffer acondition refers to an ailment or disease.Neither application is suitable in writ-ings on scientific or medical topics. In“He suffers from a heart condition,” thelast word would bother many editors,even in the popular press. Its use is yourchoice.

Conditional sentences. See Subjunc-tive; WAS and WERE.

CONDOLENCE. See MERCY andPITY.

CONFESS. The primary meaning ofconfess is to acknowledge or admit one’scrime, misdeed, or fault. The implication

is that what is confessed is bad or faulty,or so perceived.

The only perceptible fault in the fol-lowing sentence, the lead of an article, isits final word:

“Four times they asked me to playKate, and four times I refused,” Car-ole Shelley confessed.

What is so bad about turning down apart in a play that an actress has to “con-fess” it?

In colloquial speech, confess and ad-mit often are used interchangeably.When a formal, written confession of acrime is made, confess is more precise.

In the sense of acknowledging wrong-doing, confess is both a transitive verb(“He confessed the burglary”) and an in-transitive verb (“He confessed”). In thatsense, admit is transitive only. With thesanction of several dictionaries, one mayeither confess a crime or confess to acrime. Some grammarians consider“confess to” clumsy and not idiomatic.

In religion, confess can mean to de-clare one’s faith or belief, or to makeone’s sins known to a priest; the priest issaid to confess someone.

See also ADMIT.

CONFIDENT. See SURE.

Confusing pairs. A list of sixty wordpairs that can be troublesome followsbelow. The words (or combining forms)in boldface in each paragraph have dif-ferent meanings, spellings, and pronun-ciations but are subject to confusionbecause they look or sound similar. Theyare presented in alphabetical order andbriefly defined, with illustrations of usein most instances.

Other groups of the same kind, enu-merated at the end of this list, are dealtwith as separate entries. See also Homo-phones, listing pairs of words that arespelled differently but pronounced the

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same. Punctuation, 1 B, deals with con-fusion related to apostrophes.

Adverse, unfavorable; “an adverse re-sult.” Averse, opposed; “averse to gam-bling.”

Allude, to refer (to something orsomeone) indirectly or by suggestion,with no specific mention; “alluding tohis opponent but never mentioning himby name.” Elude, to avoid or slip awayfrom, especially by crafty means; “elud-ing the police for years.”

Alternate (noun), a substitute, “an al-ternate at the convention”; (adjective) ev-ery other, or first one and then the other,“alternate years” / “alternate boxes.” Al-ternative (noun), a choice, “the alterna-tive to ice cream”; (adjective) providing achoice, “an alternative dessert.”

Ambiguous, able to be interpreted intwo or more ways; “an ambiguous sen-tence.” Ambivalent, having conflictingfeelings, e.g., love and hate; “his ambiva-lent attitude toward her.”

Arrant, out-and-out; “arrant non-sense.” Errant, wandering, deviating; “aknight-errant” / “an errant golf ball.”

Avenge, to inflict punishment for, em-phasizing justice; “avenge the crime.”Revenge, to inflict punishment for or onbehalf of, emphasizing retaliation; “re-venge my abused daughter.”

Averse, see Adverse in this list.Avoid, to keep away from; “avoid the

crowd.” Evade, to escape by deviousmeans; “evade taxes.”

Beside, alongside; “a nightstand be-side the bed.” Besides, in addition (to);“other performers besides the star.”

Breath (noun), respiration or an in-halation of air; “a deep breath.” Breathe(verb), to inhale and exhale air; “breathedeeply.”

Calvary, the place of, or a representa-tion of, Christ’s crucifixion. Cavalry,combat troops, formerly on horseback,now in armored vehicles.

Celebrant, strictly speaking, a partici-pant in a religious ceremony, particularly

the priest celebrating the Eucharist. Cele-brator, one who celebrates; “New Year’scelebrators.”

Chafe, to rub or irritate, “shoes thatchafed her feet.” Chaff (noun), grainhusks separated from seeds, “separatethe wheat from the chaff”; (verb) totease in a friendly way, “chaffed by hiswife for watching too much sports.”

Clean (verb), to literally remove dirt,debris, stains, or impurities; “to cleanthe bathroom.” Cleanse, in a figurativesense, to clean, purge, or purify—appli-cable to religion and ceremony; “tocleanse ourselves of sin.”

Climactic, pertaining to a climax;“the climactic scene.” Climatic, pertain-ing to climate; “climatic data.”

Corps (pronounced like core), a mili-tary or other group. Corpse, a cadaver.

Credible, believable; “a credible ac-tress.” Creditable, deserving credit; “acreditable achievement.”

Dairy, a place that produces or sellsmilk products. Diary, a private recordbook. (The a and i are sometimes inad-vertently transposed.)

Delusion, a false belief; “a delusion ofgrandeur.” Illusion, a misleading imageor false perception; “an optical illusion.”

Deprecate, to express disapproval of,or to plead against; “to deprecate theproposed merger.” Depreciate, to lessenthe value of, or to decline in value; “thepeso is depreciating.”

Dialectal, of a dialect; “a dialectalword.” Dialectic, a method of logic; “thephilosopher Hegel’s dialectic.”

Disassemble, to take apart; “The re-pairman has to disassemble the ma-chine.” Dissemble, to disguise the realnature of something by means of a falseappearance; to act hypocritically; “Hedissembled his hostility by feigningfriendship.”

Efficacy, effectiveness; “efficacy of thedrug.” Efficiency, competency, speed,and economy in a job; “the workers’ effi-ciency.”

Elemental, of or pertaining to an ele-

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ment or force of nature; “elemental par-ticles.” Elementary, fundamental, intro-ductory, presenting the rudiments;“elementary school.”

Energize, to give energy to, or torouse; “energize the circuit” / “energizethe audience.” Enervate, to deprive ofenergy, to weaken; “enervated by thetropical climate.”

Entomology, the study of insects. Ety-mology, the study of word history or anaccount of a word’s origin and develop-ment.

Errant, see Arrant in this list.Evade, see Avoid in this list.Fiscal, financial or pertaining to rev-

enue; “fiscal year.” Physical, pertainingto the body or to material things; “phys-ical exercise.”

Forceful, full of force, effective; “aforceful speaker.” Forcible, carried outby force; “forcible entry.”

Glance (noun), a quick look, “aglance at her face”; (verb) to take aquick look, “to glance back.” Glimpse(noun), a very brief, incomplete view orsight, “a glimpse of the Pope”; (verb) tocatch a glimpse of, “to glimpse at a me-teor.”

Hyper-, excessive or too high, as inhypertension, high blood pressure, andhyperthermia, high temperature. Hypo-,inadequate or too low, as in hypoten-sion, low blood pressure, and hypother-mia, low temperature.

Illusion, see Delusion in this list.Inter-, among or between, as in inter-

state, among states. Intra-, within, as inintrastate, within one state.

Judicial, pertaining to or befittingjudges or courts; “the judicial system.”Judicious, prudent or showing soundjudgment; “a judicious decision.”

Laudable, praiseworthy; “a laudableachievement.” Laudatory, expressingpraise; “presented with a laudatoryplaque.”

Lightening, reducing a weight or aload. Lightning, an electric discharge inthe atmosphere.

Luxuriant, abundant, profuse; “luxu-riant vegetation.” Luxurious, of, provid-ing, or characterized by luxury; rich,pleasurable; “a luxurious hotel.”

Marital, pertaining to marriage. Mar-tial, pertaining to war. (The i and t aresometimes inadvertently transposed.)

Material, the substance(s) that a thingis made of; “raw material” / “fine mate-rial.” Materiel (or matériel), munitionsin war or things needed in any undertak-ing; “men and matériel.” (In pronuncia-tion the -el is stressed.)

Moral (noun), the lesson of a tale,“the moral of this fable”; (adjective)concerning right and wrong, “a moralobligation.” Morale, mental spirits; “thesoldiers’ morale.”

Ordinance, a law or regulation, oftenminor; “city ordinance.” Ordnance,weaponry, particularly artillery; “armyordnance.”

Oscillate, to swing back and forth reg-ularly; “an electric fan that oscillates.”Osculate, to kiss each other; “lovers os-culating.”

Parameter, primarily a mathematicalterm: a symbol (such as a or t) represent-ing a quantity that is constant in a par-ticular case but whose value varies indifferent cases, e.g., a radius, varyingwith different circles. Perimeter, the bor-der of a two-dimensional figure; “theperimeter of the room.”

Persecute, to oppress (people), typi-cally because of religion, race, or poli-tics; “China’s effort to persecute theTibetans.” Prosecute, to institute or con-duct court proceedings, particularlycriminal, against (someone); “the deci-sion to prosecute him on perjurycharges.”

Perspective, a technique of represent-ing three dimensions in two-dimensionalart, or one’s viewpoint; “the perspectiveof the painting” / “from my perspec-tive.” Prospective, in the future, likely;“prospective customers.”

Physical, see Fiscal in this list.Practicable, workable, able to be car-

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ried out; “testing the device to see if it’spracticable.” Practical, effective, utilitar-ian, put to a useful purpose; “the firstpractical electric light.”

Precede, to go before; “to precede thediscussion with a brief introduction.”Proceed, to continue on; “to proceedcautiously up the mountain.”

Presumptive, presumed; providingground for belief or acceptance; “pre-sumptive evidence” / “heir presump-tive.” Presumptuous, quick to presume,venture, or take liberties; too forward;impudent; “a presumptuous studentwho contradicted his teachers.”

Proceed, see Precede in this list.Prospective, see Perspective in this list.Prostate, a male gland. Prostrate

(verb), to have (oneself) bow down; or(adjective) lying down full length.

Revenge, see Avenge in this list.Sanction, (noun) authoritative per-

mission, or (verb) to allow or approve;“sanctioning my activities.” Sanctions,action taken against a country to forcecompliance with certain standards; “thesanctions against South Africa.”

Saving, a reduction in expense (or la-bor, time, etc.) or its result; “a saving of20 percent” / “daylight-saving time.”Savings (plural), sums of money thathave been saved and laid away; “to havesavings in the bank.”

Scrip, a certificate or other paper to beheld temporarily and exchanged forstock, money, services, etc., or such is-suance in general. Script, handwriting;or the written form of a dramatic workor oral program.

Seasonable, suitable to the time ofyear; “a seasonable cold spell.” Sea-sonal, affected by the season, or comingat regular times of the year; “seasonalwork” / “seasonal planting.”

Sentiment, opinion, emotion, tenderemotion, or thought influenced by emo-tion; “my sentiment is” / “logic, not sen-timent.” Sentimentality, an excess ofsentiment or emotion; “a melodramaticplay, marred by sentimentality.”

Serve (verb), to perform service, tohelp; “to serve our customers” / “toserve my country.” Service (verb), to re-pair or render (something) fit for service,or (for a male animal) to mate with (a fe-male animal); “to service cars” / “to ser-vice cows.”

Sewage, waste water and solids car-ried off in sewers and drains; “excesssewage from the heavy rains.” Sewerage,a system of sewers, or the removal ofwaste through such a system; “improv-ing the city’s sewerage” / “efficient sew-erage.”

Simple, not complicated, easy to un-derstand or deal with; “simple direc-tions.” Simplistic, oversimplified; “asimplistic answer to a complex prob-lem.”

Specie, money in the form of coin, asdistinguished from paper money; “is-sued in specie.” Species (singular andplural noun), a biological class, rankingafter a genus, consisting of animals orplants able to interbreed; “an endan-gered species.”

Systematic, based on, forming, orcharacterized by a system, plan, ormethod; methodical; orderly; “a system-atic study” / “systematic work habits.”Systemic, affecting the body as a whole,not just one organ or location; “a sys-temic disease” / “a systemic drug.”

Trustee, pronounced trust-EE; a mem-ber of an institution’s governing board,or one who holds title to property for thebenefit of another. Trusty, pronouncedTRUST-ee; a prisoner considered trust-worthy and granted special privileges.

Turbid, opaque, dense, or muddled;“turbid water” / “turbid smoke” / “tur-bid mental state.” Turgid, swollen, in-flated, or pompous; “turgid foot” /“turgid style of writing.”

Venal, subject to corruption, “venalofficials.” Venial, easily forgiven, excus-able; “a venial sin.”

Vicious, wicked; “a vicious crime.”Viscous, slow-flowing; “a viscous liq-uid.”

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See also the following entries:

ADAPT and ADOPTADVICE and ADVISEANECDOTE and ANTIDOTEAPPRAISE and APPRISECAREEN and CAREERCENSOR and CENSURECOCA and COCOADESERT and DESSERTDISCOMFIT and DISCOMFORTDISINGENUOUS and INGENUOUSDISINTERESTED and UNINTER-

ESTEDDISQUALIFIED and UNQUALIFIEDEMIGRATE and IMMIGRATEEMINENT and IMMINENTEXERCISE and EXORCISEFARTHER and FURTHERFLAUNT and FLOUTFLOUNDER and FOUNDERFOREWORD and FORWARDFORTUITOUS [and FORTUNATE

or FELICITOUS]FULSOME [and FULL]FUROR and FURYGANTLET and GAUNTLETHARDY and HEARTYHINDI and HINDUHISTORIC and HISTORICALIMPLY and INFERINCIDENCE and INCIDENTLIGATION and LITIGATIONLOOSE and LOSEMASTERFUL and MASTERLYNAUSEATED and NAUSEOUSNAVAL and NAVELOPTOMETRIST and OPTICIANPALPATE and PALPITATEPENCHANT and PENSIONPERQUISITE and PREREQUISITEPRESCRIBE and PROSCRIBEPROPHECY and PROPHESYREBUT and REFUTEREMUNERATION and RENU-

MERATIONRESPECTABLE and RESPECTFULREVOLT and REVOLUTIONRUIN and RUINSSCALD and SCOLD

SET and SITSHIMMER and SHIMMYSILICON and SILICONESPAT and SPATETEMBLOR and TREMBLERTESTAMENT and TESTIMONYTHAN [and THEN]TORTUOUS and TORTUROUSWENCH and WINCHWHEREFORE and WHEREOFWITHER and WRITHEWREAK and WRECKWREST and WRESTLE

CONGRESSMAN, CONGRESS-MEN. See PEOPLE as a suffix; PER-SON, 1.

Conjunctions. See AND; AS; AS andLIKE; BECAUSE; BOTH, 1; BUT; EI-THER; NEITHER; NOR; NOT ONLY;OR; Series errors; THAN and THEN;THAT; WHETHER; WITH (misused).

CONNIVE. This verb stems from theLatin connivere: to close the eyes. Thestrict meaning of connive is to pretendnot to see a wrong or evil, thereby tacitlyconsenting to it. It goes with at. For in-stance, “The president connived at thecrimes of his men.”

The word (in the form of a gerund)was not used strictly when a broadcastersaid the movie Wall Street conveyed themessage that “lying, cheating, and con-niving are bad things.” Nor was its use(as a verbal adjective) strict in an articleabout a lottery winner, whose “conniv-ing relatives . . . tore his work clothes toshreds to keep him at home. . . .”

“Connive” is often used loosely inplace of contrive or conspire, “conniv-ing” in place of contriving, conspiring,or cunning. Popular confusion probablyarose from the words’ superficial similar-ity. Their roots (Old English for cunning,Latin for the others) differ completely.

CONSECRATE, CONSECRA-TION. See DESECRATE, DESECRA-TION.

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CONSENSUS. A question for twocritics and a reporter follows these ex-cerpts:

Here is a man [Scorsese] who, by gen-eral consensus is the best American di-rector of the last twenty years.

When the Chicago group played NewYork last fall, the general consen-sus . . . was that the dancers did aswell job.

But there has always been a generalconsensus of some kind of Mafia in-volvement in the crime. . . .

What other kind of consensus is there? Itis general by definition: general agree-ment. Sometimes consensus is defined asunanimity, although it can describe alsoa collective view or majority agreement.

The phrase “consensus of opinion” iscommon. Various authorities frown onit, considering “of opinion” redundant.Some others justify a consensus of opin-ion, particularly when it needs to be dis-tinguished from a consensus ofauthority, of evidence, of faith, of taste,of testimony, and so on.

In any case, “consensus of” does notgo with “some kind of Mafia involve-ment” (in the third example). You cantest the sentence by substituting agree-ment for “consensus.” Among possiblecorrections: change the first “of” to thatthere was or change “consensus of” tobelief in.

Consensus sometimes is misspelled“concensus” and occasionally is confusedwith “census.” Consensus, like consent,originates in the Latin consentire, toagree. It has nothing to do with census,an official counting of inhabitants, whichcomes unchanged from Latin.

CONSENT. See CONSENSUS.

CONSUL, COUNCIL, andCOUNSEL. See Homophones.

CONTAIN. See COMPRISE, 2.

CONTINUAL(LY) and CONTIN-UOUS(LY). Continuous (adjective) orcontinuously (adverb) means without in-terruption; going on steadily, either intime or in space. “The dam provides uswith energy continuously.” / “I use acontinuous roll of paper in my printer.”

For centuries continuous was themeaning of continual, and dictionariesstill include the former as one of the defi-nitions of the latter. In modern times,though, a useful distinction between thetwo arose. Continual (adjective) or con-tinually (adverb) now means frequentlyrepeated, taking place again and again.“Old Faithful’s continual spraying ofwater and steam into the air fascinatesvisitors to Yellowstone.” / “Our neigh-bors are continually playing musicloudly.” To substitute “continuous” or“continuously” would change eachmeaning.

Sometimes the words are mistakenlyor carelessly interchanged, as in this pairof examples: In the Arctic in December“it is dark continually.” / “A continuoususe of ‘miracle’ to describe any coinci-dence or amazing happening is vulgar.”Make it continuously in the first sentence(the darkness persists without interrup-tion), continual in the second sentence(the use is repeated, not steady).

“Our goal at any given time is tostrive continually to be ‘the best,’ ” thedirector of an institute wrote. She proba-bly meant continuously strive, ratherthan strive only at intervals. (See alsoQuotation problems, 3.)

Contractions. 1. Errors in number. 2.Informality. 3. Quotation. 4. Perplexity.

1. Errors in numberA contraction is a shortened version

of a word or phrase, such as can’t inplace of cannot or it’s in place of it is.

Its use does not relax any grammaticalrequirement. Subject and verb must still

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agree in number, just as if no contractionwere used. Both samples below containerrors in number.

There’s even gossip, advice columnsand TV listings [in a Polish weekly].

“There’s” is meant to contract there andis. But is does not go with the enumer-ated features. Change “there’s” to Thereare.

Scientists say it’s “usually impossi-ble” to predict when an earthquakeoccurs but there’s been “tremendousadvances” in predicting where one oc-curs, said Gore.

This time “there’s” purports to contractthere and has. But has (singular) dis-agrees with “advances” (plural). Change“there’s” to there have.

See also DON’T and DOESN’T.

2. InformalityUsually contractions are acceptable in

spoken English. They may also fit writingthat is informal or that aims at simulatingspeech. They are standard in some ex-pressions, “It’s a boy.” / “It can’t happenhere.” / “Aren’t we all?” / “Isn’t it time?”

An -n’t in a question is especially com-mon and often desirable, e.g., “Won’tyou come home?” (rather than “Willyou not come home?”). But eloquencemay call for the complete not: “If youprick us, do we not bleed?” (rather than“don’t we bleed?”).

Except where speakers are quoted us-ing them, contractions can stand outconspicuously in formal writing or ac-counts of grave events, weakening thewriting and giving it an inappropriate in-formality. Two examples from the pressfollow.

He’s accused of trying to blow up hisdisabled parents and grandmother byrigging a natural-gas leak in the base-ment of their Russell Street home.

Witnesses reported tank movementsMonday, but the reports couldn’t beofficially confirmed.

Why “He’s” and “couldn’t” instead ofhe is and could not? Did the reportersthink a chatty style fit those stories? Thelatter sentence would be particularly un-suitable for oral delivery, in which “-n’t”is not always articulated.

3. QuotationContractions may or may not be war-

ranted in quotations. If a speaker did notutter any contraction, its use can borderon misquotation. The excerpt below isfrom a published account of a rally inMoscow.

“The agenda’s already been de-cided,” said Boris N. Yeltsin, the pop-ular maverick deputy-elect. “It’s beenprepared by the apparat. . . . If we al-low ourselves to be dictated to by theapparat, we will sink into a morassthat we’ve only now begun to climbfrom,” he said. [Emphases are added.]

Yeltsin spoke in Russian, a languagewith few contractions. It has nothing like“agenda’s” / “It’s” / “we’ve.” What dothey contribute to the report that agendahas, It has, and we have would not?

Far from putting fanciful contractionsin their quotations, some writers go tothe opposite pole and eliminate contrac-tions that were uttered. President Nixonwas widely quoted as saying, “I am not acrook.” His precise words were, “Well,I’m not a crook [emphasizing “not”].I’ve earned everything I’ve got.” Notethe three contractions.

4. PerplexityContractions can be confused with

possessive forms. Even professional writ-ers sometimes mix them up. See ITS andIT’S; Punctuation, 1; WHOSE, 2 (confu-sion with who’s).

During the national Democratic con-

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vention in San Francisco, a newspaperthere ran a banner with this phrase:“Mondale’s halfway home.” Was the paper running an exposé of a term spentby the vice-president in a house for reha-bilitation? The headline raised that ques-tion in my mind. But no; the storyunderneath said he had acquired half the delegates needed to win the presiden-tial nomination. The apostrophe-smeant is.

If contractions can confound those ofus who are native to English, pity thenewcomers and foreign visitors trying todecipher them. The contractions in thesethree passages are emphasized:

What’s puzzling is that Mrs. Cheney, who’s performed ably in herjob, applauds the Public Library’s“considerable success in recent yearsin achieving increased support. . . .”

But if the people who make upAmerica’s work force are more di-verse than ever before, it’s men whoare still in charge—and who’ll staythat way if they heed Felice S——. . . .

. . . W—— is one of about 20 young-sters with cancer—or who’ve had can-cer—camped at Monte Toyon. . . .

Readers of English must know thepossessive -’s. They may also know that-’s can stand for is when attached to a

noun or, sometimes, a pronoun. Thosewho are unfamiliar with American con-versational speech may not realize that -’s can also stand for has or us (“Let’seat”). And they may not know what tomake of some creations—like “who’ll”and “who’ve,” in which half of will andhalf of have are expunged for no obviousreason.

CONTRARY TO POPULAR BE-LIEF. See Comparison, 2; NOT, 1C.

Contrast. See BUT, 1; COMPAREDTO and COMPARED WITH, 1; Com-parison, 2; Irony; NOT, 1C; UNLIKE.

CONUNDRUMS. See FESTOON,FESTOONED.

CONVINCE and PERSUADE.Convince deals with concepts. It is tocause (someone) to believe something.Persuade deals with performance. It is tocause (someone) to do something.

If “We convinced the governor ofSmith’s innocence” or “We convincedhim that Smith was innocent,” only thegovernor’s belief changed; the man wasnot yet freed. If, however, “We per-suaded him to pardon Smith” or “Hewas persuaded to pardon Smith,” ah,then there was action.

Note that convince (verb, transitive)may be followed by of or that, never by“to.” Persuade (verb, transitive) is com-monly followed by to. Literature of thepast shows also persuade into or untoplus noun.

In practice, the two words are ofteninterchanged. In a typical mixup, an an-chor man said on network television:

He has convinced the Food and DrugAdministration to change the food-additive laws.

He, a doctor, has persuaded the FDA tochange the rules. One could also say thedoctor has convinced the FDA that itshould change the rules. However, thepersuaded phrasing is terser and makesit clear that rules—not just minds—havebeen changed.

COOK. See BOIL.

COOL. This word’s popularity amongjuveniles as an all-purpose adjective ofapproval has spilled over to their elders.Not even a book on computer technol-ogy is immune to such jargon:

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Some of the multimedia softwareavailable on CDs is soooo cool. . . .How totally cool I thought text-basedadventure games were. . . . Developersare turning out improved drives, and(coolest of all) some of the funkiestsoftware. . . . [A movie] was cute—very cool, even. . . . The very coolsound programs . . . [Etc.].

Cool is perfectly proper in describingthat which is moderately cold; or makesone feel that way, as a cool suit or coolcolors; or is calm, as a cool head or acool bandit; or lacks cordiality, as a coolreception. But if everything that pleasesyou, from mild diversion to sublime ec-stasy, is “cool,” then you are talking kid-die talk.

See also NEAT.

COPE. The issue is not whether onecan cope with something but whetherone can just cope—with nothing in par-ticular. An example is excerpted from ajournal of business and finance:

Faced by the pent-up demand createdby neglect during Ethiopian rule,barefoot doctors from the front linescouldn’t cope.

“Cope” with what? With anything?With everything? With all the medicalproblems of the civilian population ofEritrea?

Cope (verb, intransitive) came to En-glish from the Old French couper, tostrike, which came from coup, a blow.Usually cope is followed by with, in aphrase meaning to struggle with or con-tend with, (something) either with somesuccess or on fairly even terms.

Cope without with, meaning to dealwith or manage some situation or other,is a relative innovation, described as“colloq.” by the Oxford English Dictio-nary. It did well in the title of a musicalshow, Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope,

but its use in more formal contexts meetswith objections from various writers,speakers, and editors. Three-fourths ofthe American Heritage Dictionary’s us-age panel found it unacceptable.

Omitting the with phrasing shrinksthe word’s informative value. Unless thecontext makes it clear, such use of copegenerates questions.

Copula or copulative verb (linkingverb). See BAD and BADLY; FEEL;GOOD and WELL; Pronouns, 10D;Verbs, 1F.

COPY-EDITING, COPYREAD-ING. See PROOFREAD, PROOF-READING.

CORPORATION. See FIRM.

CORPS and CORPSE. See Confus-ing pairs.

Correlative conjunctions. See BOTH,1; EITHER, 1; NEITHER, 1; NOTONLY; Prepositions, 5.

“COULD CARE LESS.” An expres-sion that once made sense, howeveroverused, has become a cliché in muti-lated form. Educated users are utteringthe very reverse of what they think theyare saying. These include a school princi-pal in a newspaper interview and acolumnist in a television forum:

“I could care less if people neversmoked again, but smokers have theirviewpoint,” said Bill R——, principal.. . .

Let’s assume that Ms. Brown is assane as a senator. I could care less.

If the speaker could care less than hedoes now, he still cares. The expressionoriginally was I couldn’t care less. By thesixties, people began dropping -n’ts.

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Among broadcast variations: “Ameri-cans could care less” (instead of couldnot or couldn’t) and “Some can careless” (cannot or can’t).

COULD HAVE, COULD’VE, and“COULD OF.” See HAVE, HAS,HAD, 2.

COUNSEL. See ATTORNEY andLAWYER; Confusing pairs (counciletc.).

COUNT and COUNT ON. SeeON, 2.

COUP D’ÉTAT. See REVOLT andREVOLUTION.

COUPLE. 1. Inconsistency in number.2. Plural construction. 3. Use as modi-fier.

1. Inconsistency in numberThe journalists who wrote the four

sentences below seem unable to make uptheir minds.

The couple . . . was the crown princeand princess of Sweden . . . on theirhoneymoon.

. . . The couple has agreed to annultheir stormy marriage. . . .

. . . The couple wants to demolish aunique contemporary home on theirproperty.

Couple enjoys reclusive life on theirmountain.

What the writers cannot decide iswhether to regard husband and wife asone or two. In each sentence, couple isregarded as both singular and plural.The verb, such as “was” or “wants,” issingular while the pronoun, “their,” isplural. Any logic behind such inconsis-tency fails to emerge.

An old editors’ tale holds that couplemust be singular. If you wish to followthat path, at least do so all the waythrough a sentence. Accordingly, “their”becomes its in each of the four samples.When you construe couple as singular,be prepared to say, “The couple was onits honeymoon.” Does the phrasing lookor sound odd? Then try a plural con-struction.

2. Plural constructionIn general, the noun couple denotes

two of the same kind, whether closely re-lated or not. It may be treated as singularor plural, depending on the kind. Whenit refers to a man and woman who areunited in some way, couple is more likelyto be plural. Most of the time you can-not go wrong with sentences like the fol-lowing; they are corrections of the foursamples:

The couple . . . were . . . on theirhoneymoon.

. . . The couple have agreed to an-nul their stormy marriage. . . .

. . . The couple want to demolisha . . . home on their property.

Couple enjoy reclusive life on theirmountain.

If the man and woman are named, of-ten they can replace “the couple.”

3. Use as a modifierAs a modifier, couple is usually pre-

ceded by a and followed by of: “a coupleof kids.” An article said “there are a cou-ple ways” to reduce the state’s liabilities.Make it “a couple of ways.”

When a couple precedes certain adjec-tives, including more and less, no of fol-lows: “a couple more oranges.”

A couple means two of something.Using it in place of a few—“Go a couple

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of miles and turn right”—should be leftto loose speech.

COVET. To covet is to crave or longfor something. It may imply cravingsomething that belongs to another. TheTen Commandments say that one shallnot covet a neighbor’s wife and goods.Covet is a verb (transitive and intransi-tive), pronounced KUV-it.

The news media frequently use cov-eted, the past participle, along withaward or prize in the manner of these ex-cerpts: “Solectron . . . won the covetedMalcolm Baldridge National QualityAward in 1991.” / “Now we hear thatDilbert and his hapless colleagues are upfor a coveted Reuben Award. . . .”

The award is often one that mostpeople have never heard of. Who is do-ing all that coveting?

Creatures, plural. See Plurals and sin-gulars, 2C.

CREDIBLE and CREDITABLE.See Confusing pairs.

CREDIT. A three-column headlineover a letter to the editor of a large dailysaid, “Credit Reagan for Destroying So-cial Programs.” From the standpoint ofgrammar and not politics, the verbshould be blame, not “credit.” If the let-ter writer had opposed social programs(which was not so), credit might havebeen appropriate. (Then it would havebeen more idiomatic to “Credit ReaganWith the Destruction of Social Pro-grams.”)

In both financial and nonfinancialsenses, credit (noun) is positive, not neg-ative. To credit a financial account is toadd to one’s credit: the amount in one’sfavor. To credit a person with somethingis to give him credit, in the nonfinancialsense: worthy approval, commendation,honor, or praise.

Another large daily made a wildly in-appropriate use of credit as a noun in a

main headline: “Bomb Rips Apart IsraeliBus, Kills 22; ——— Takes Credit.” Onetakes credit for, say, founding an institu-tion or creating an invention, not forcommitting a massacre. Accepts Respon-sibility would have been right. (Theheadline named the group, therebygranting it the notoriety it craved. Just“Group” would have been preferable.)

See also BLAME, 2.

CREDITOR and DEBTOR. A na-tional television show devoted to the try-ing of monetary claims should be able todistinguish a creditor from a debtor. Yetits announcer said about a woman whowas sued for money, “She is accused ofdodging a debtor.” If she owed the debt,she was the debtor. The one seeking pay-ment was the creditor.

A weekly paper said that somedayIraq’s “bank accounts will be unfrozenand it will have to pay its debtors.”Creditors.

CRESCENDO. No one with aknowledge of music is likely to havewritten any of these passages:

Clark’s mounting annoyance withthe witness reached a crescendo inredirect questioning.

But with cocaine, dopamine is not ab-sorbed and continues to excite nervecells. The result is that the nerve stim-ulation rises to a crescendo with norelief, causing the feeling of euphoria.

When troubled at home, seek so-lace—and photo opportunities—abroad. President Nixon offered aprototypical example with his jaunt toEgypt in 1974, as Watergate reached acrescendo.

Crescendo does not mean a highpoint. It is a musical term that means (asan adjective or adverb) gradually gettinglouder or (as a noun) a gradual swelling

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of volume or a passage that graduallygets louder. Crescendo tells us nothingabout the sound level, only about theprocess of increasing it. In musicalscores, crescendo usually is expressed bya symbol (<) or an abbreviation (cresc.,cres., or cr.).

To say that a piece of music“reached” or “rises to” a crescendowould be meaningless. A crescendo may,however, reach a forte, a loud passage; afortissimo, a very loud passage; or even apiano, a soft passage, if the music is verysoft at the start. The opposite ofcrescendo is diminuendo or decrescendo,meaning gradually getting quieter.Crescendo in Italian means increasing.All of the italicized words were adopted,full blown, from Italian.

Crescendo may be used figuratively, ina nonmusical sense, to mean an increas-ing or intensifying, not a peak of inten-sity: “the market’s crescendo of activityas the morning progressed.”

Two television networks made thesame kind of mistake on the sameevening in reporting the same speech.Describing the increasing support for BillClinton for president, one newscastersaid:

It reached a kind of crescendo withMario Cuomo’s speech.

The anchor man on the other networksaid about that speech:

Particularly did Cuomo do a good jobof building to a crescendo.

The sentence below does have a dy-namic crescendo, but one word needs tobe omitted.

The Reagan administration, amid arising crescendo of questioning aboutthe U.S. role in policing the sea lanesof the war-torn gulf, strove to adopt abusiness-as-usual posture. . . .

“Rising” is redundant. Rising is whatmakes a crescendo.

CRIME, MISDEMEANOR, andFELONY. The title of the WoodyAllen movie Crimes and Misdemeanorsreflected the popular notion that a “mis-demeanor” is not a “crime.” The misde-meanor is one of the two main categoriesof crime, the less serious category. Themore serious one is the felony—the kindwe worry about.

A misdemeanor is usually punishableby a fine or a term of less than a year in acounty jail or both. The punishment fora felony is usually a term of a year ormore in a penitentiary, but in some juris-dictions the maximum can be death.

Larceny or theft, which is stealing(without personal contact or forcible en-try), can be either a misdemeanor or afelony, depending on the value of theloot. Statutes, varying in the fifty states,determine which category a crime fits.(In some places, traffic or other minormisdeeds are variously categorized as in-fractions, offenses, or violations. Theybring only fines and often are not consid-ered crimes.)

In popular usage—and even in someformal contexts—“crime” means felony.Any talk about “the crime issue” or“crime on the streets” or “a life ofcrime” is not likely to concern the com-mission of misdemeanors. Just be awarethat crime and misdemeanor are not op-posites.

The U.S. Constitution uses the termhigh crimes for what are usually calledfelonies. It requires the removal from of-fice of any federal officer impeached forand convicted of “treason, bribery, orother high crimes and misdemeanors.”So misdemeanors are in infamous com-pany.

See also Crimes (various felonies).

Crimes (various felonies). 1. AS-SAULT and RAPE. 2. BLACKMAIL

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and EXTORTION. 3. BURGLARY,ROBBERY, and THEFT. 4. MAYHEM,MURDER, and MANSLAUGHTER. 5.TREASON and ESPIONAGE.

1. ASSAULT and RAPEIf Joe tries to strike Mary but misses

or if he merely threatens to hurt herphysically and Mary has a reasonablefear that he will carry out the threat, hehas committed assault. If he actuallystrikes her, he has committed assault andbattery.

Unlawful sexual intercourse imposedby a male on a female against her will orwithout her consent is rape. It is rapealso if the female, willing or not, is underan age specified by law. (In some states,forcible sodomy on either sex also isconsidered rape.) The press long avoidedthat word, substituting various impreciseterms, like “assaulting” and “molest-ing.” Readers in modern times usually,but not always, get more precision. Thisis from the lead paragraph of a newsstory:

At an emotional hearing Friday, a36-year-old Los Angeles man dubbedthe “Flat-Tire Rapist” was sentencedto 113 years and seven life terms forassaults on 11 women. . . .

To say that a man who forcibly copu-lated with eleven women committed “as-saults” is at best a gross understatement.Nobody would be sentenced to a lifetimein prison for simply assaulting people.

The next paragraph recounts the man’sconviction on “36 counts of kidnaping,robbing and attacking women. . . .” Kid-napping (also spelled kidnaping) androbbery are criminal charges. “Attack-ing” is not a criminal charge. Althoughits use as a euphemism improves upon“assaulting,” which carries a legal mean-ing, consistency and precision wouldhave been best. The writer braced up ini-tially to mention the culprit’s sobriquet

but otherwise seemed to be too squeam-ish to display any form of rape in the ar-ticle’s seventeen paragraphs, so he let“attack” and “assault” fill in five times.

2. BLACKMAIL and EXTORTION“When to Stop Oil Blackmail: Now.”

A headline over an editorial in a promi-nent daily so declared.

“There isn’t any question that therewas blackmail,” the governor ofWyoming said about his state’s raisingthe drinking age from 19 to 21 to avoidlosing federal highway funds.

“The only reason we’ve got any speedlimit at all is Federal blackmail, pure andsimple,” a Montana state senator said.

“It is blackmail, pure and simple,” thehost of a news commentary programsaid of the so-called Unibomber’s de-mand for publicity.

In each case, no “blackmail” had beencommitted. Strictly speaking, blackmailis not just any kind of pressure or coer-cion. It is not limiting oil production toraise prices. It is not using federal fundsto induce states to enact certain laws. Itis not threatening violence to exact apayment or an action.

Blackmail is an attempt to obtainmoney by threatening to disclose infor-mation about someone. Jane commitsblackmail when she demands $5,000from John for not telling his wife abouthis double life. The payment too can becalled blackmail. A popular synonym ishush money.

People often loosely use “blackmail”when they are talking about extortion.The exact meaning of extortion variesfrom state to state. It may be limited toan official’s misuse of his position orpower to obtain money or property, or itmay encompass any person’s obtainingof payment through coercion, intimida-tion, or threat. Some states use the termblackmail only when the threat of disclo-sure is in writing; when it is oral, thecrime is considered a form of extortion.

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Related verbs (transitive) are to black-mail (someone) and to extort (moneyfrom someone).

3. BURGLARY, ROBBERY, and THEFTAll of these excerpts from news stories

show the same confusion:

. . . Two of those patrons were policeofficers in search of a burglary sus-pect. . . . [They] later found out therobbery call was a phony.

LIMA, Peru—Slum dwellers tied aman accused of burglary to a 40-footwooden cross. . . . A—— had beencaught robbing a home . . . the reportsaid.

. . . While she and her husband wereaway from home . . . burglars enteredtheir house. . . . In the previous monththere had been 32 similar robberies injust that one suburban neighborhood.

The search for a “burglary suspect”would not be prompted by a “robberycall.” The Peruvian “accused of bur-glary,” even if guilty, had not engaged in“robbing.” And if the “burglars” hadcommitted similar crimes, the crimeswere not “robberies.” It is a commonmistake to call a burglary a “robbery” orto say “I’ve been robbed” when one’shome has been burglarized and no rob-bery has been committed.

If someone breaks into your house orapartment with intent to commit acrime, he is committing a burglary,which is a felony. Depending on thestate, breaking into a commercial estab-lishment also may constitute burglary.The standard verb (transitive) is to bur-glarize. To burgle (verb, transitive andintransitive), a relative newcomer, hasbeen used mostly in humorous contexts,such as the title of a novel by P. G. Wode-house, Do Butlers Burgle Banks?

Robbery, another felony, is theft froma person, or in one’s presence, by vio-

lence or the threat of violence. If a crimi-nal steals someone’s money or propertyby striking the victim or threatening toharm him, with or without a weapon, hehas committed a robbery. A perpetrationthat begins as a burglary can become arobbery as well if the culprit confrontsan occupant of the building he has en-tered and threatens or harms him.

A person or place is robbed; thatwhich is taken is stolen. If robbers preyon a bank, for example, they rob thebank and steal a sum of money. Thebank is robbed of the money. If the cul-prits are armed, they can be said to holdup an establishment or a person. It or heis held up; there has been a holdup orhold-up. Slangy synonyms are stick up(verb) and stickup or stick-up (noun).What go up are victims’ hands.

Another example shows the twocrimes confused in another way. On Hal-loween a sign at a convenience store re-quested that customers not wear maskswhen entering. A television newscastertried to explain: “They want to makesure that burglars don’t take advantageof the holiday.” Robbers, not “burglars.”

“What you’re about to see is robberyin broad daylight,” a television reportersaid. What he showed was not a “rob-bery” but a pocket-picking. As long asforce is negligible, it is a form of larceny,which is common stealing or theft. If thepickpocket jostles his victim or usesother substantial force, the crime be-comes a robbery. In some states, the termlarceny or theft includes more elaborateschemes for stealing, such as embezzle-ment, obtaining property by false pre-tenses, and swindling. Larceny or theft isusually divided into two grades, depend-ing on the value of the property stolen:grand, a felony, and petty (or petit), amisdemeanor.

A mugging is an unexpected, violentattack on a person with the intent ofcommitting robbery. To mug someone isto assault and batter the person with in-tent to rob. It is not a synonym for rob,

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as it was misused in a news story: “Thestudents and parents . . . told tales of be-ing . . . mugged of the chocolate theywere selling as a school fund-raiser. . . .”They could be robbed of the chocolate.However, one is not “mugged of” any-thing; and the story did not say if a sur-prise attack preceded the robbery,making for a mugging.

4. MAYHEM, MURDER, and MAN-SLAUGHTER

In a preview of a local news telecast,an announcer spoke of criminals’ “angerat society exploding in murderous may-hem.” Then a newspaper columnist de-scribed violence on New Year’s Eve andcommented that “this kind of mayhem”could not be blamed on freedom. Next,readers of an editorial were told, “Sense-less mayhem is no monopoly of theJapanese cult” (as though there could besensible mayhem). Last, a reporter onnational television, outdoing others inalliteration, said the Colombia drug car-tel dealt in “money, murder, and may-hem.” The newscasts, the column, andthe editorial told of no case of mayhem;no one seemed to know what it meant.

Although some use it vaguely insteadof words like havoc, violence, or destruc-tion, mayhem is a particular felony. It isthe act of intentionally depriving a per-son of a bodily member or function, orotherwise crippling, disfiguring, maim-ing, or mutilating him. For instance, onewho willfully blinds another is guilty ofmayhem. The crime may become murderif the victim dies as a result of the attack.

Murder is the malicious and unlawfulkilling of a human being with intent tokill, or without intent to kill but doneduring the commission of anotherfelony, such as robbery. It makes no dif-ference if the one killed was not the in-tended victim.

An unlawful killing, even if it is inten-tional, is not murder but manslaughterif the perpetrator had reasonable provo-cation and felt no malice toward the

victim. An unintentional killing is man-slaughter if it is committed in the courseof a misdemeanor, say the disregardingof a traffic signal.

Homicide is the killing of one humanbeing by another, whether unlawful orlawful. The term takes in murder,manslaughter, and legally justifiablekillings. Statutes condone homicidewhen it is committed in self-defense, orby an insane person, or as a necessaryduty by a law-enforcement officer. (Ofcourse, all those definitions pertain toAmerican law. Military acts have to dowith jungle law.)

5. TREASON and ESPIONAGEA columnist quoted a senator, who

was challenging a nominee for secretaryof defense:

“He knew the confidential negotiatingpositions . . . right after he gotthrough [participating in arms controlnegotiations], he immediately went towork for defense contractors.”

I put that latest charge to JohnTower after Sunday’s televised broad-sides: Did he sell that confidential in-formation about fallback positions toclients, as Senator Nunn clearly im-plied?

“That would be treason,” said Mr.Tower sharply.

For an American to sell confidential U.S.military information to American mili-tary contractors would not be “trea-son.” Treason is an act of armed revoltor wartime betrayal. If an American soldsuch information to a foreign representa-tive, either in wartime or in peacetime,he could be charged with espionage, aform of spying.

In another incident, the Central Intel-ligence Agency discovered that one of itsspies was also a spy for the Russians. Atelevision interview with a newspaper re-porter specializing in intelligence mattersproduced this dialogue:

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[Host:] Why don’t they executehim?

[Guest:] We don’t have a deathpenalty for treason.

“Treason” had nothing to do with it. Es-pionage was the crime. The statement isalso wrong on a second score: The maxi-mum penalty for treason is death, undera federal statute. Another such statuteprovides a maximum penalty of deathfor espionage too, but only when the in-formation obtained has been deliveredto a foreign government.

Two network news women, withinthree months in 1997, made the erro-neous statement that Julius and EthelRosenberg were “executed for treason”in 1953. Actually the couple were con-victed of espionage, not “treason.” Thealleged deed was the passing of atomicsecrets to the U.S.S.R., when it was anally of the U.S. (One speaker was prefac-ing an interview with a one-time mem-ber of the Soviet spying agency, who saidthat no atomic secrets were passed andthat Ethel was not a spy.)

Espionage is the obtaining—and oftenthe delivery to a foreign government aswell—of secret American military or de-fense information with intent to injurethe United States.

In many a country, “treason” or itslinguistic equivalent is whatever the rulersays it is. In the United States, treason iswhat the Constitution says it is: only“levying war against them” (the UnitedStates) or “adhering to their enemies,giving them aid and comfort.” Convic-tion, under the Constitution, requires“the testimony of two witnesses to thesame overt act” or “confession in opencourt.”

Despite the constitutional prescrip-tion, those seeking to stain adversariessometimes apply the “treason” brushwith broad strokes. Senator Joseph R.McCarthy once accused the DemocraticParty of “twenty years of treason.” Aformer federal administrator called

American lawyers for foreign drugcartelists “traitors.” A letter in a news-paper termed the campaign of the reli-gious right “treason.” Protesters againstPresident Clinton carried signs accusinghim of “treason” for actions concerningChina.

Treason has to do with war. In miscel-laneous decisions, courts have ruled thatall these circumstances are essential forconviction: (1) a person either takes uparms against the United States or sup-ports the enemy after a war formally be-gins; (2) in the latter event, he both takesthe side of the enemy and gives the enemy aid and comfort; (3) the aid and comfort is in an overt act; (4) he in-tends to betray this country; (5) he is a U.S. citizen; and (6) the war formallybegins with a declaration of war byCongress.

CRISIS. See CRITICAL.

CRITERIA and CRITERION.The noun criteria is a plural form of cri-terion, a standard or rule on which onebases a judgment or decision. An alter-native plural is criterions. It is incorrectto speak of “a criteria” or say “the crite-ria is.”

Thus it was a mistake to report on aradio network that “the Chinese have avery strict criteria for what they want” intrade. Depending on the meaning in-tended, the reporter should have eitheromitted the “a” (“the Chinese have verystrict criteria”) or used criterion (“theChinese have a very strict criterion”).

When a TV panelist said, about a banon discrimination by some New Yorkclubs, “I think the criteria is 400 mem-bers,” unquestionably “criteria” shouldhave been criterion.

Criterion comes from Greek and re-tains the Greek plural ending. See alsoPlurals and singulars, 2E.

CRITICAL. 1. Concerning crises. 2.Concerning criticism etc.

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1. Concerning crisesA mayor was shot in Japan, and a

story in a New York newspaper includedthis sentence:

The Mayor, Hitoshi Motoshima,was reported in critical condition butout of danger tonight after two hoursof surgery.

If he was in “critical” condition, howcould he be “out of danger” at the sametime? Critical in such a context normallymeans dangerous; it pertains to a crisis, acrucial point when the course of a dis-ease—or anything else—can turn in ei-ther a favorable or an unfavorabledirection. Could the report have lostsomething in translation?

2. Concerning criticism etc.Critical (adjective) has an assortment

of other meanings, among them crucial,decisive, perilous, and referring to im-portant products or materials that are inshort supply.

In the sense of judging, critical is notnecessarily negative. It can mean charac-terized by careful and objective judg-ment or it can pertain to formalcriticism. Popularly it is more often con-strued as judging unfavorably or in-clined to judge unfavorably.

A Nevada newspaper ran the headline“Man is critical after car goes intocanal.” The text beneath it indicated thatthe only person in the car was a woman.Maybe that critical man was the owner.

See also CONDITION.

CRY. See -Y ending.

CULMINATE. To culminate meansto reach the highest point or the climaxof something. How not to use this verb isillustrated by a press excerpt.

The razing of the International Hotel . . . culminated a crisis that

eventually touched virtually everyagency. . . .

Change “culminate” to ended. The ex-ample is wrong on two scores: To culmi-nate does not mean to end or to be theoutcome. Moreover, it is an intransitiveverb, not transitive; one does not “cul-minate” something.

Although culminate(d) does belong inthe sentence below, the preposition thatfollows it is not idiomatic.

. . . A growing body of scientific evidence on the dangers of so-calledsecondhand smoke has culminatedwith an influential EnvironmentalProtection Agency report declaring environmental smoke a “Class A Car-cinogen.” . . .

Make it “culminated in.” The verb isnormally followed by in, not “with.”

CUM. Cum, Latin for with, appears inhyphenated combinations in this man-ner: “En route, don’t miss St. FrancisFountain, a Mission landmark lunch-counter-cum-candy shop, founded in1918.” It becomes a high-flown substi-tute for together with or simply and,mystifying many readers who would un-derstand “lunch counter and candyshop.” (The piling up of two modifiersas well as the compound further compli-cates the sample. See Modifiers, 4.)

The u in cum may be pronounced theshort way—inviting confusion withcome—or like the oo in book.

CUSTOM. As an adjective, custommeans specially made for an individualcustomer (a custom suit) or doing workto order (a custom tailor).

A label and a leaflet accompanying amass-produced blanket say the productwas “CUSTOM LOOMED” by a cer-tain manufacturer. As used in commerce,the word is usually empty puffery.

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Danglers. See Modifers, 1.

DARING. A radio network broadcastthis phrase: “A daring escape from amedium-security facility outside ofPueblo.” It lacks Colorado and a verb.(See Sentence fragment). The main trou-ble, though, is that daring is a word ofpraise; it commends one’s adventurous-ness, initiative, boldness, and fearless-ness in a risky endeavor. Take the“daring young man on the flyingtrapeze,” the subject of song since 1868.

Although no adjective was reallyneeded, a better one would have beenbrazen or imitative. (The method of es-cape, by helicopter, had been used beforeand, still earlier, portrayed in a movie.)

In a comparable nonsentence, “A dar-ing daylight robbery on a busy San Fran-cisco street” was reported on localtelevision. The same crime was “a dar-ing holdup” on local radio. And whencriminals stealthily murdered a guardand wounded two people before rob-bing a bank, a newspaper described “adaring holdup.” If those crimes requiredan adjective, ruthless would have beenpreferable, but why did the facts have tobe embellished at all?

Dash. See Punctuation, 4.

DATA. A historian is quoted, by abook critic, on newly revealed records ofthe erstwhile Soviet Union:

“On the other hand, the data in thearchives doesn’t reveal the sense thatthere’s a broad plan afoot to take overEastern Europe.”

Is the sentence right or wrong? As aLatin plural, data traditionally wasstrictly a plural in English. Thus “Thedata in the archives don’t reveal . . .”Data are pieces of information, particu-larly raw facts or figures used as the ba-sis for conclusions or judgments.

Many educated people, particularlyin the United States, now use the wordas a collective singular (as the historianuses it); many do not. You cannot gowrong construing data as plural, partic-ularly in any formal use.

The traditional singular of data is da-tum, which is used much less often thancircumlocutions like an item in the data.“A data” will offend many pairs of eyesor ears. And “this data” can be ambigu-ous: Does it mean one item or all theitems? Fact or figure usually will do for asingular.

If you do choose to use data as a col-lective singular, at least be consistent.These two sentences appear in two con-secutive paragraphs in a scientific jour-nal:

The demographic data obtainedfrom the present updated sample isvery consistant with that found in theinitial reports. . . .

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These data represent a two-edgedsword.

After using “data” as a singular in thatwrite-up, the scientist changes his mindand uses it as a plural. (He is consistentin his misspelling of consistent: A littlelater he writes of “a consistant finding.”)

Dative. See Pronouns, 10B.

DEBTOR. See CREDITOR andDEBTOR.

DECIMATE.

She [Princess Pauahi] saw native Ha-waiians literally decimated—reducedin number from 400,000 to 40,000.

If Hawaiians had been “literally deci-mated,” as a speaker said on television,they would have been reduced in num-ber from 400,000 to 360,000.

The literal meaning of decimate is todestroy a tenth part of something; specif-ically, in Roman times, to kill one in ev-ery ten of an army or a group, eachvictim having been selected by lot. Theword comes from Latin, in which dec-imus means tenth. Decimal has the samesource.

If the word “literally” and the num-bers had been left out, decimated couldhave been used in a looser sense: to de-stroy a substantial part of somethingmeasurable by number.

This appeared in a letter to the editor:

The shortsighted exploitation of arain forest like that of Sarawak—a160-million-year-old ecosystem thathas been decimated by 50 percent inonly a few decades and will be goneforever in another 10 years—is notthe right of any country.

In the light of its origin, decimate shouldnot go with a number—unless used liter-

ally to mean eliminate 10 percent. Nu-merous other verbs are available in placeof “been decimated” in the second sam-ple: diminished, dwindled, been cut,been reduced, been halved (omitting “by50 percent”), and so on.

A senator wrote a colleague that thelatter’s “wish to decimate the bill by anadditional 20 percent cut in acreage isunacceptable.” Perhaps weaken or en-feeble was meant.

Decimate should not be used in lieu ofannihilate or demolish or modified bycompletely, totally, or the like; norshould it be applied to something ab-stract or incalculable. To “decimate hisargument” or “decimate their enthusi-asm” is meaningless.

Declarative sentence. See Backwardwriting; (-) EVER, 1.

DECRESCENDO. See CRES-CENDO.

DEER, plural. See Plurals and singu-lars, 2C.

DEFAMATION. See LIBEL andSLANDER.

DEFEND. See Verbs, 1C.

Defining clause. See THAT andWHICH.

Dehumanization. A writer does notconsciously aim to dehumanize someonein writing but can do so through fuzzythinking that equates a human beingwith an abstraction or a statistic. The ex-ample is from a newspaper column:

Smith, by the way, was the first en-dorsement under the new POA policyof polling all of the station houses be-fore making a decision.

A person is not an “endorsement.” Thesentence can be improved: “Smith, by

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the way, was the first person endorsedunder . . .” or “Smith’s endorsement, bythe way, was the first under . . .”

This is from a front-page news storyin another paper:

He was the 14th homicide of the yearin the crack-ridden 34th precinct.

“He was the 14th homicide victim of theyear . . .” or “His killing was the 14thhomicide of the year. . . .” A victim is nota homicide. Homicide is the killing of onehuman being by another. (General dictio-naries contain a secondary definition ofhomicide as a person who kills another, ameaning that is nearly obsolete.)

In an autobiography, a general drawson military jargon to describe plans for abombing attack on Baghdad:

The hour was also selected to mini-mize collateral damage, since mostIraqis would be at home. . . .

By “collateral damage” he means thekilling of civilian people.

See also DETERIORATE; FATAL-ITY; FEWER and LESS, 2.

DELUGED. See INUNDATE, IN-UNDATED.

DELUSION and ILLUSION. SeeConfusing pairs.

DEMOCRACY, FREEDOM, andINDEPENDENCE. The three wordsare not synonymous, contrary to the im-plication of this sentence, from an edito-rial:

Students in communist Chinasought a bit of independence anddemocracy and paid with their bloodto learn that freedom is not in a dicta-tor’s dictionary.

The part of the sentence about “free-dom” does not follow reasonably from

the part about “independence anddemocracy.” Three concepts have beenconfused.

Democracy, in theory, is a politicalsystem in which the people rule. Theterm also denotes a system of govern-ment by elected representatives of thepeople.

Freedom means the state of being freefrom restraints or being free from officialoppression or being able to do what onewants.

Independence means complete auton-omy, nationhood, not being under for-eign rule.

The world has many independent dic-tatorships. Citizens of some autocracieshave a degree of freedom, perhaps eco-nomic or religious, without democracy.Citizens of some politically free coun-tries may lack certain democratic rights,such as the control of foreign relations.And sometimes people democraticallydecide to curb some freedoms, say, forcertain businesses or offenders.

DEMOCRAT and DEMOCRA-TIC. It is ungrammatical to use thenoun in place of the adjective, yet it isfrequently done intentionally. A rhetori-cal question posed by a Republicanleader in the House of Representatives istypical: “When did we start signing onto any Democrat agenda?” Democratic.

The adjective ends in ic, whether weuse democratic (with lower case d), per-taining to democracy, or Democratic(with capital D), pertaining to theDemocratic Party. The word democrat isa noun only, meaning one who believesin democracy; the name Democrat is anoun only, meaning one who adheres tothe Democratic Party.

In the fifties, certain Republicanpoliticos began mangling the name ofthe opposition party by referring to the“Democrat Party” or the “Democratcandidate,” on grounds that no oneshould think of it as the only democraticparty. So far the Democrats have not re-

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ciprocated the suffix-scrapping by speak-ing of the “Republic Party.”

The silliness has persisted and spreadbeyond Republican politics. A headlinein a national newspaper read, “Demo-crat Sluggers Are Benched.” There wasenough space to add two letters, so thenewspaper had no excuse for truncatingthe proper adjective. The normally non-partisan moderator of a news forum ontelevision wrongly referred to a “Demo-crat plan” instead of a “Democraticplan” or a “plan by Democrats.”

Actually, Americans give scantthought to any meaning behind thenames Republican and Democratic,which offer no clue as to current ideo-logical differences. Both parties favor ademocratic republic. The party that isnow Democratic was called DemocraticRepublican in our republic’s youth,when such terms had more meaning.

DEMOLISH. When you demolish anobject, you tear it to pieces, burn it up,or knock it into a shapeless mass. Aqualification like “entirely,” in the fol-lowing sentence, or “completely” or “to-tally” is superfluous; it is implied indemolish(ed). “The front end of his caris reported to be entirely demolished.”

Demolish (verb, transitive) implies vi-olent destruction; destroy, completenessof ruin or wreckage and the ending ofsomething’s usefulness, if not existence;raze, leveling to the ground; and ruin,spoiling and badly damaging but not an-nihilating.

Demolition (noun) is a demolishing, adestruction. A synonym, less common, isdemolishment.

See also DEVASTATE, DEVASTAT-ING; RUIN and RUINS.

DEPRECATE and DEPRECIATE.See Confusing pairs.

DESECRATE, DESECRATION.The Latin sacrare, to make sacred, orholy, is the root of this word. Prefixed by

de, removal or reversal, desecrate (verb,transitive) literally means to divest of sa-cred character or to use in a profane waythat which is sacred. A church has beendesecrated if it is turned into a privatehouse. A religious emblem has been des-ecrated if it becomes a T-shirt design. Totreat with sacrilege, or lack of reverence,also is to desecrate. A man who wears ahat in a church (or no hat in a syna-gogue) could be accused of desecratingit. So could one who burns it.

The opposite of desecrate is conse-crate, to establish as sacred. The relatednouns are desecration and consecration,respectively.

When Congress discussed a proposedconstitutional amendment that wouldauthorize legislation “to prohibit thephysical desecration of the flag of theUnited States,” it was essentially consid-ering the physical consecration of thatflag, its establishment as a sacred object.One can desecrate only that which is sa-cred. Probably what the sponsors hadmeant was the malicious destruction ordamaging of an American flag.

DESERT and DESSERT. Desert isthe sandy wasteland, pronounced DEZ-urt. When we insert an s, we get dessert,the sweet end of a meal. It is pronounceddih-ZURT, the same as the verb desert,meaning to abandon.

The words are mixed up sometimes.In a manual of English for newcomers,this was printed: “Waitress: What wouldyou like for desert?” (The answer couldhave been “sand tarts” but was not.)

Later, a celebrated anchor man an-nounced that Gerald Ford, newly retiredas president, was visiting Southern Cali-fornia’s warm “dessert country.” (It wasnot announced whether Ford was givenan executive sweet.)

See also SAHARA.

DESTINY. It is impossible to do whatthese writings talk of doing. A politicalad: “Let the people of New York choose

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their own destiny.” A history book: theworld was “bereft of confidence in itsability to control its own destinies.” Anarticle: an Iranian official affirmed “theright of every nation to decide its owndestiny.” (Making the final word futurewould have corrected each example.)

Literally, one cannot choose, control,or decide one’s destiny. Nor can destiniesbe withheld or changed. A book quoteda professor as saying, “We have been de-nied our Polish destiny” (heritage?). Abig headline proclaimed “HONGKONG’S NEW DESTINY.” (There wasnew rule, predetermined by two na-tions.)

By definition, destiny is one’s in-evitable lot; or, in a broader sense, a pre-determined course of events or a powerthat predetermines events. (Explainingthe meaning of destiny does not implythat there really is such a thing.)

Synonyms for destiny are fate and for-tune. However, they have additionalmeanings that bypass the question of pre-determination. Fate, like destiny, often isused loosely to signify merely an out-come or final result or future; sometimesit specifically means an unfavorable out-come. Fortune often denotes good or badluck, particularly the good; it can alsomean financial success or wealth.

The verb destine (transitive), usuallyused in the passive, destined, can implypredetermination, or it can suggest nomore than intend(ed) for a particularend or head(ed) for a particular destina-tion. Destination occasionally means apredetermined end or a destining. Moreoften it is merely a place toward which atraveler or a moving object is headed.

See also INEVITABLE.

DESTROY. See DEMOLISH.

DETERIORATE. The verb deterio-rate, meaning to make (something)worse or to become worse, has five sylla-bles (pronounced dih-TIER-ee-uh-rate).

The adjective deteriorating, becomingworse, has six syllables (dih-TIER-ee-uh-rate-ing).

Omitting the o syllable and the rsound is a fault of some speakers: OnTV, a visitor to a zoo said “it started todeteriate” years ago and a senator saidabout the North Koreans, “They are adeteriating economy.” (They are not aneconomy. Better: “They have a deterio-rating economy.”)

Deterioration, noun (dih-tier-ee-uh-RAY-shn), is the process of deterioratingor the condition of having deteriorated.

DEVASTATE, DEVASTATING.“A devastating earthquake on Guam,” anewscaster announced on television (in anonsentence of the type so beloved bynewscasters). “Nobody was killed andnobody was left homeless,” she added.

To devastate (verb, transitive) is to laywaste. Devastating (adjective) means ut-terly destructive. The two words implywidespread ruin and desolation. If anearthquake took no lives or houses, howcould it be “devastating”?

It was announced on another televi-sion program: “An American city hasbeen totally devastated.” A qualificationsuch as “totally” or “entirely” is super-fluous; it is implied in devastated.

See also DEMOLISH; RUIN and RU-INS.

DEVOTE. See Gerund, 3A.

DIALECTAL and DIALECTIC.See Confusing pairs.

DID. See DO, DID, DONE.

DIFFERENT. 1. The preposition thatfollows. 2. Unnecessary use.

1. The preposition that followsWhen a preposition follows different,

normally it is from. This usage is notstandard:

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New York City is different than othercities. . . .

. . . Tragedies . . . have led many SouthAfricans to suspect that the new SouthAfrica is no different than the old.

Change “than” to from in both state-ments (uttered by network television re-porters). Than generally follows onlycomparative words—bigger than, fasterthan—and different is not one of them.It is a positive adjective, except in rarecases.

Grammatically, you cannot go wrongwith different from. Yet some writersand grammatical authorities have founddifferent than acceptable under certaincircumstances, perhaps even preferablefrom the standpoint of style. They allowthan when a clause or implied clause fol-lows and when using from properlywould result in a more complicated sen-tence. For example: “The practice ofmedicine takes a different form in Japanthan [it takes] in the United States.” In-stead of than, you could substitute“from that which it takes,” or somethingof that sort, remaining technically cor-rect but complicating the sentence.

The choice is not just between fromand than. The message can always be ex-pressed differently. “Japanese physiciansdo not practice medicine in the sameway that American physicians do.”

Few disagree that when we differenti-ate individual nouns, noun phrases, orpronouns—“Meteors are different frommeteorites” or “Big cats are much differ-ent from little cats”—the only preposi-tion to use is from, except in Britain,where “different to” sometimes is used.

The adverb differently is likewise fol-lowed by from: “Canadians do notspeak much differently from Ameri-cans.”

In listing differences between BritishEnglish and American English, two En-glish lexicographers present “different

from or to” as the British way and “dif-ferent than” as the American way. It isnot the standard American way.

2. Unnecessary useSometimes “different” contributes

nothing. Omitting it from an advertise-ment for a newspaper, posted on the sideof transit vehicles, might have strength-ened the message:

It takes over a million different peopleover a million different places everyday.

Different emphasizes unlikeness: “TheFrench and the Germans are much dif-ferent people.” If multiplicity is to beemphasized, many, several, various, or anumber, like nine or a million, probablyis a better adjective to use: “Manyknights attempted to slay the dragon,”not “different knights. . . .”

Digits spelled out. See NO WAY, 1;Numbers, 11.

DILEMMA. A dilemma is a situationthat requires a choice between twoequally unpleasant alternatives. Theword was borrowed from Greek, di-meaning double and lemma meaningproposition. Where is the dilemma in thefollowing sentence?

The social dilemma of teenagepregnancy is growing in Wyomingwhile the state ranks third in the na-tion, according to a study initiated byWyoming’s Commission for Women.

Neither that sentence nor the rest of thearticle it is extracted from presents uswith a “dilemma.” Teenage pregnancymay be a question, predicament, plight,problem, or social ill, but the writer failsto explain why it is a “dilemma.” (Nordoes he explain in what way Wyomingranks third in the nation.)

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The paragraph below does present atrue dilemma, one faced by a politicalparty in Israel, although the paragraphhas other troubles.

Political analyst Shlomo Avineriforesaw a double-edged dilemma forLabor: Leaving the government opensthe party to an unpredictable electoraltest, he said, but staying in wouldmean submission to its direct ideolog-ical opposite, the right wing of Likud.

“Double-edged” is superfluous; it de-scribes all dilemmas. (Moreover the twoalternatives are inconsistent in theirmoods. Either change “opens” to wouldopen or change “would mean” tomeans.)

See also HOBSON’S CHOICE.

DIMINUENDO. See CRES-CENDO.

DINE. When you dine, you eat dinner.When you eat breakfast, lunch, or sup-per, you breakfast, lunch, or sup, as thecase may be. In a magazine article aboutBritish tea drinking, this sentence ap-peared:

Anna, the seventh Duchess of Bed-ford, typically dined on a huge break-fast, virtually no lunch, and thenagain at about eight o’clock.

One cannot “dine” on breakfast andlunch, let alone “virtually no lunch.”(The sentence also contains a faulty se-ries: “breakfast . . . lunch [both nouns],and then again [adverbial phrase]. . . .”And then again what? The misshapensentence breaks off, and we have toguess whether another oversized repastor another bird’s portion was in store forthe duchess. See Series errors.)

DISASSEMBLE and DISSEMBLE.See Confusing pairs.

DISASTER. A disaster is a great mis-fortune, such as a destructive earth-quake, famine, or flood. It is ahappening, typically sudden and unex-pected, that causes extraordinary loss oflife or property.

A news magazine’s treatment of an at-tempted coup in Moscow reduced theword to triviality. It said of a press con-ference by the conspirators, “Their per-formance was a disaster.” It was a failureor fiasco or an inept or bungling per-formance or, in colloquial terms, a flopor a dud. The article perfunctorilyadded, “Three demonstrators were leftdead. . . .”

A book comments on an airline com-pany’s change of name: “It was widelygreeted as a disaster.” If that was an air-line “disaster,” the word has lost itsmeaning. Its loose use to describe anyfailure may be harmless in informal con-versation but is inappropriately trans-ferred to serious writing or discussion.

Disaster (from the Old French desas-tre, from the Old Italian disastro), re-flects a faith in astrology. Latin providedthe negative dis- and astrum, from theGreek astron: a star.

See also TRAGEDY.

DISCHARGE. See LAY OFF andLAYOFF; LET GO.

DISCOMFIT and DISCOMFORT.Inasmuch as the two verbs look similarand sound similar, it is not surprisingthat people confuse discomfit and dis-comfort. But the words have differentmeanings and different Latin roots viathe old French desconfire, to defeat (pastparticiple: desconfit), and desconforter,to discomfort.

Originally discomfit (verb, transitive)meant to defeat (an enemy) completelyin battle. Its strictest use today is still todefeat completely, though not necessar-ily in battle.

It can also mean to frustrate (some-

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one), to foil one’s plans. Such an action islikely to leave a person disconcerted,perplexed, dejected, or humiliated.Opinions diverge on whether (1) the de-feat or frustration is essential to themeaning or (2) the mental state alone isenough.

At the loosest level we find “discom-fit” used as a mere variation of the verb“discomfort.” You be the judge ofwhether the latter d-word in this excerptfrom a book has any special reason forbeing:

While most buyers of literature don’tthink twice about ads that appear inmagazines, they find the same ads dis-comfiting in books.

Discomfort (verb, transitive) means tomake uncomfortable, either physicallyor mentally; to distress mildly. It is also anoun: an uncomfortable or mildly dis-tressing condition or feeling. The oppo-site is comfort (verb, transitive): to makecomfortable, to soothe; and (noun): acomfortable or soothing condition orfeeling, or that which produces it.

The noun related to the verb discomfitis discomfiture: a state of being discom-fited or, sometimes, the act of discomfit-ing. In Shakespeare’s day the noun alsowas discomfit. (This is from Henry VI,Part 2: “. . . Uncurable discomfit / Reinsin the hearts of all our present parts.”)

Comfit is not the opposite of discomfitbut a type of confection, a sugared fruitor vegetable.

DISCREET and DISCRETE. SeeHomophones.

DISHONOR. See HONORABLE,HONORARY, HONORED.

DISINGENUOUS and INGENU-OUS. Ingenuous (adjective) meanscandid, straightforward, unsophisticat-edly frank.

Two talk show hosts, intending to im-pugn statements made in a murder case,used that word instead of its antonym. ATV host called a remark “a little bit in-genuous,” and a radio host said of an-other remark, “That was ingenuous.”

Both needed disingenuous: not can-did, not straightforward, insincere.

Perhaps the in- (which can mean in aswell as not in Latin) is a source of confu-sion. Ingenuous comes from the Latiningenuus, meaning native, free-born, no-ble, or frank.

Ingenuous has been confused with in-genious, which means clever or cunningand originates in the Latin ingenium: in-nate ability.

DISINTERESTED and UNIN-TERESTED. What do a book on oldFlemish painting and a situation comedyhave in common?

He [Brueghel] rejected literal imita-tion of the Italians, ignored their sub-ject matter, was disinterested inidealized beauty, had no more tastefor nudes than for palatial architec-ture.

No matter how disinterested I am, thedriver won’t stop yapping away.

The answer is the wrong use of “disin-terested.” Change it to uninterested (or,in the first instance, to not interested):“He . . . was uninterested in idealizedbeauty . . .” (or “He . . . was not inter-ested . . .”). / “No matter how uninter-ested I am . . .”

The prefixes dis- and un- both meannot. Both adjectives, disinterested anduninterested, mean not interested. Buttwo different meanings of interested ap-ply:

1. The interested following dis-means possessing a financial interest or ashare or seeking personal gain or advan-tage (in or from something, either stated

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or implied). “All interested parties at-tended the hearing on the proposed re-zoning.”

2. The interested following un-means having a fascination or curiosityor being concerned or absorbed (for,about, or by something). “She is inter-ested in antique collecting.”

These are typical sentences using dis-interested and uninterested: “Membersof a governmental board must be disin-terested in its affairs.” / “She is interestedin antique collecting, but her husband isuninterested.”

A synonym for disinterested is impar-tial. A synonym for uninterested is indif-ferent. For 500 years indifferent meantimpartial. Now it commonly means apa-thetic, not caring—which disinterestedmeant in the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies. We change the quotationsagain: “He was indifferent to idealizedbeauty.” / “No matter how indifferent Iam. . . .” Indifferent can also meanmediocre: “Was the movie good, bad, orindifferent?”

The noun related to interested is inter-est. It has the meanings of both (1) finan-cial or personal involvement and (2)fascination or concern. The noun relatedto disinterested is disinterest, meaninglack of interest in the first sense. “Disin-terest is an essential quality in a judge.”A noun meaning lack of interest in thesecond sense is indifference. “Our con-gressman displays indifference to his lessaffluent constituents.”

DISMISS. See LAY OFF and LAYOFF;LET GO.

DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICEand WITHOUT PREJUDICE. SeeWITH PREJUDICE and WITHOUTPREJUDICE.

DISMISSIVE. See SUPPORTIVE.

DISQUALIFIED and UNQUALI-FIED. A TV panelist said an appointee

to a seat on the state supreme court had“received a ‘disqualified’ rating” fromthe state bar. Actually the bar’s ratingwas unqualified; the governor was notobligated to observe it and did not.

Disqualified means rendered unfit, de-clared ineligible, or deprived of legalright or power. (One is disqualified fromentering a contest by being related to thesponsor. A prejudiced juror may be dis-qualified from service.) Unqualified, asused above, means lacking proper ornecessary qualifications. In another con-text, it can mean not modified or with-out limitation (unqualified support) orcomplete or downright (unqualified suc-cess).

Disqualified is the past participle ofdisqualify (verb, transitive). Unqualified(adjective) has no corresponding verb.Its antonym is qualified (adjective).

DISSEMBLE and DISASSEMBLE.See Confusing pairs.

Division of words. The division of aword between lines slows down a readera bit. With few exceptions, it should beresorted to only in typesetting or callig-raphy and only when the division is nec-essary to justify the right-hand margin(that is, to make it straight) without biggaps in a line.

In manuscripts for publication it isbest not to divide words at all, lest it beunclear whether the hyphens belong inprint or not. To indicate that a hyphen atthe end of a line should be printed, aneditor underlines the hyphen.

Sometimes grotesque divisions areseen in print. A newspaper divided boot-straps into “boots-” and “traps.” Oneline should have contained boot- (thefirst syllable plus a hyphen) and the nextline straps. Nowadays words are usuallydivided automatically by computers. Aneditor can correct a bad division or dis-regard it. No one corrected that one.

Another newspaper divided probeinto “pro-” and “be.” A one-syllable

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word should never be divided. The divi-sion can throw readers off track, partic-ularly when the pieces have othermeanings, as pro- and be do.

Any word should be kept intact if di-viding it might mislead readers. Whenisolated, a part of a word like hasten andoften tends to form a word in itself witha different pronunciation (has-ten andof-ten).

A hyphenated compound, such ashang-up or send-off, should be dividedat the hyphen and nowhere else. Yet onewas published as “han-” and “gup” andthe other as “sen-” and “d-off” in twonewspapers. A solid compound, such asnearsighted or woodpecker, is dividedbetween the two words of which it iscomposed.

Two-syllable words should be dividedbetween the syllables. However, a singleletter is not split off from the rest of aword. A word like adroit should neverbe divided, inasmuch as its two syllablesare a and droit. One newspaper dividedthat word into “adr-” and “oit.”

The rules, and their exceptions, go onat length, dealing with prefixes, suffixes,consonants, vowels, and double letters.And the American and British systemsvary. Words divided according to pro-nunciation in the former (knowl-edge,democ-racy) are divided according toderivation in the latter (know-ledge,demo-cracy).

General dictionaries show possible di-vision points by means of centered dots.The dictionaries do not always agree onwhere those points are, sometimes because pronunciations differ. It ishi•er•o•glyph•ic in one dictionary,hi•ero•glyph•ic in another; tel•e•phonein the first dictionary, tele•phone in theother. One dictionary makes it gon•a•do•trop•ic, a second go•na•do•tro•pic, a third gonado•trop•ic, and afourth go•nad•o•trop•ic.

Any division of abbreviations, initials,or figures can be confusing and shouldbe avoided. See Numbers, 3.

DIVORCÉ, DIVORCÉE, and DI-VORCEE. See BACHELOR andSPINSTER.

DO, DID, DONE. The catch phrase“I dood it” belonged to the comedianRed Skelton. Much later, a big-city po-lice chief said, “I think I’ve did a goodjob,” and a restaurant reviewer said,about meat that one could cut with afork, “I know because I’ve did it.” Nei-ther man was being funny. Each proba-bly made a slip of the tongue and knewthe correct form, “I’ve done it,” meaningI’ve performed it or carried it out, and allthese forms of the verb do:

Present tense: I, you, we, they do; he,she, it does. Past tense: I, you, etc. did.Future tense: I, you, etc. will do. Perfecttenses: I, you, we, they have or had done;he, she, it has or had done.

A helping verb (such as has or is) usu-ally precedes the past participle done.This broadcast sentence, “What he donewas impossible to do”—instead of“What he did” (dig out of anavalanche)—is ungrammatical. It is alsocontradictory; what is impossible cannotbe done.

When it is not ambiguous, done is ac-ceptable as an adjective meaning com-pleted: “My work here is done.”However, in a sentence like “The workwill be done next month” it can be un-derstood to mean performed; so if com-pleted or finished is meant, it is better touse one of those words.

A facetious term for a mystery tale is awhodunit. This slang noun was coinedfrom the ungrammatical phrase “Whodone it?” Had the coiner been morescrupulous about his grammar, peoplemight be reading or watching whodidits.

See also DON’T and DOESN’T; USETO and USED TO (regarding did).

DOESN’T. See DON’T and DOESN’T.

DONE. See DO, DID, DONE.

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DON’T and DOESN’T. A syndi-cated radio psychologist said she wassad to return home from vacation, “butthat don’t mean I don’t want to gohome.” And a congressman disputed theidea of encouraging everyone to vote: “Idon’t want some damn fool idiot thatdon’t know the time of day marking aballot.” Let us not argue any issues orjudge who is an idiot but merely con-sider why “that don’t” was wrong eachtime though “I don’t” was right.

Don’t is the contraction of do not. Itagrees with all plural nouns and with thepronouns I, you, we, and they. “I don’twant” is correct in each quotation, for itis like saying “I do not want.” Similarlyyou, we, or they don’t want it, just as an-telopes, the Browns, or congressmendon’t want it.

The contraction of does not is doesn’t.It agrees with all singular nouns andwith the pronouns he, she, and itand other singular pronouns except Iand you. So “that [feeling] doesn’tmean.” And there is an “idiot thatdoesn’t know.” Similarly, he, she, or itdoesn’t know, just as an antelope, Mr.Brown, or a congressman doesn’t know.Of course, the full does not may be usedinstead of each doesn’t.

The psychologist said, in a laterbroadcast, “their child don’t look sogood.” Doesn’t or does not.

See also DO, DID, DONE.

“DON’T LET’S.” See LET, LETS, 2.

Double entendre. See Double mean-ing.

Double genitive. See Double posses-sive.

Double meaning. In choosing wordsand expressions, beware of the danger ofdouble meaning. A sentence can be inter-preted in a way that was not intended.Even when nobody actually misunder-

stands it, the result can sometimes be lu-dicrous, as in the illustrations below.They include boners by seven newspa-pers, three advertisers, two televisionnetworks, and others.

Among the words in double troubleare appeal, cut, crash, dog, liquidate,poach, spot, and spawn. The troublemay amount to an unperceived coinci-dence, the lurking of a literal meaningbehind a figurative use, an overambi-tious metaphor, the intrusion of a differ-ent meaning for the same word, anunfortunate juxtaposition, a metaphoriccontradiction, or the emerging of a truemeaning from a corrupted meaning.

Take the contemporary newspaperheadline that said: “U.S. Grant WillHelp Vets in State Get Jobs.” How muchhelp can he give? He has been out of of-fice since 1877.

A banner headline in another newspa-per told of “Governor’s Plan to Cut GasLines.” It appeared during a gasolineshortage, when motorists were lining upat service stations. But one could visual-ize the governor, a critic of the gas com-pany, wielding an ax and whackingaway at the company’s pipes.

Telling of a $20 million show in NewYork conducted by General Motors, theautomobile maker, a TV network re-porter said, “GM went on a crash pro-gram to put this one on fast.” It isdoubtful that the company appreciatedhis use of the word “crash.”

After John DeLorean’s car companyhad run up a $50 million debt, some 400creditors petitioned for liquidation. Onenewspaper’s coverage of the story in-cluded a picture of the gentleman and aheadline reading: “Judge asked to liqui-date DeLorean.” Shades of Stalinism!

The main headline in another newspa-per read: “PLO appeals to U.S.” Butprobably few in the U.S. found the Pales-tine Liberation Organization very ap-pealing.

In the Southwest, the efforts of a local

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emergency coordinator to warn of a tor-nado were the subject of a newspaper ar-ticle, which reported: “He said his officesounded the sirens because it was alertedby 911 emergency telephone operators.”That is a lot of operators.

An article on caring for Christmasplants closed by advising, “Keep the soilmoist at all times, but reduce a bit duringthe winter.” And just below, a health spaad urged women to “SHAPE UPNOW!”

“HAVING AN AFFAIR?” a restau-rant menu asks. “We cater all events . . .pick-up or full service.” Just the place totake her or him.

A newspaper’s television critic wrote:“I must confess that I find cookingshows addictive. There is somethingmagical in the ‘act’ of taking a wide vari-ety of ingredients and—voilà!—laterpulling from the oven a rabbit that bearsa remarkable resemblance to anexquisitely broiled fish or a thoroughlyforbidding dessert.” A broiled rabbitthat resembled a fish and could pass fora dessert would be remarkable indeed,even to a nonaddict.

What did the Japanese prime ministerreport and why did an American news-paper insult him? It ran a four-columnheadline: “ ‘Womanizing’ reports dogUno.”

A news service reported that a five-inch-long egg, laid by a condor at theLos Angeles Zoo, “was spotted earlyEaster Sunday morning”—with colorfulpolka dots for the day’s festivities?

In reporting on teenage pregnancy inWyoming, a newspaper told of activitiesof the state’s Commission for Women:“Conferences like the one in Rivertonhave spawned other action in Lovell,Cody, Riverton and Thermopolis.” Wasthe commission prepared for all thatspawning?

An article by an Alaskan senatorprotesting the catching of salmon offNorth America by fishermen from the

Far East was headed: “Save the SalmonFrom Poachers.” It raised an obviousquestion to gourmets: What’s wrongwith poached salmon?

Another headline said, “Official ripstextbooks under review.” One couldimagine her sitting at a desk and tearingpages from a pile of school books.

This was heard on a national TVnewscast: “In the forefront of women’sgolf, fame is the name of the game.” Ithought the name of the game was golf.

Within several days, three com-mercials for motor vehicles treated the television audience to an unusualdemonstration of truth in advertising.An announcer said 2,000 Dodge vanswere for sale, “but they won’t last long.”He did not state the precise life ex-pectancy of each vehicle. Another man,speaking for Acura, forecast an “old-fashioned, year-end blowout,” thoughpresumably the tires would hold formost of the year. And a third said,“Chrysler Corporation announces an in-credible lease opportunity on theChrysler Concord.” Some commercialclaims are indeed incredible.

See also Metaphoric contradiction.

Double negative. 1. ANY, NO,NOTHING. 2. Carelessness. 3. Un-sound effects.

1. ANY, NO, NOTHINGIn some languages double negatives

are considered proper. For instance, “Ihave no money” in Spanish is Yo notengo ningún dinero. The literal transla-tion is “I don’t have no money,” whichin English is considered ungrammatical;to make it grammatical, either scrap the“don’t” or change “no” to any.

The English-speaking tradition is thata double negative is vulgar and im-proper, unless the speaker wants onenegative to cancel the other and therebyproduce a positive. A sentence like thesample above can have only one nega-

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tive: either before the verb or before itsobject.

Thus a radio host, wanting listeners tostay tuned, erred by saying, “Don’t gonowhere,” instead of anywhere.

An investigative correspondent was inerror when he told a television audiencethat the cause of a plane crash did notappear to be mechanical; there was “nodistress call, no ‘mayday,’ no nothing.”Two decades earlier, Jimmy Carter hadmade a similar mistake during a debatewith President Ford:

If the Arab countries ever again de-clare an embargo . . . I would notship . . . [them] anything—noweapons, no spare parts . . . no oilpipe, no nothing.

In both instances, the last “no” shouldhave been scrapped. (Another mistake isin mood. Either make “declare” de-clared or change “would” to will. SeeSubjunctive; Tense, 4C.) Carter’s gram-mar did not noticeably hurt him; he wasnarrowly elected. Ford’s verbal blundershad been worse.

H. L. Mencken wrote: “Like mostother examples of ‘bad grammar’ en-countered in American, the compoundnegative is of great antiquity and wasonce quite respectable.” Chaucer used itfreely. It appears in some Shakespeareplays. (Romeo and Juliet: “I will notbudge for no man’s pleasure.”) Menckenhad kind words for it:

Obviously, “I won’t take nothing” isstronger than either “I will take noth-ing” or “I won’t take anything.” Andequally without doubt there is a pic-turesque charm, if not really any extravigor in the vulgar American . . . “She never goes hardly nowhere” [atriple negative] . . . and “Ain’t nobodythere. . . .”

Note that Mencken’s own negative isproperly singular. Despite his finding ofstrength and charm in the multiple nega-

tive, it is significant that he did not use itin his own writing.

See also BUT, 2, 3; NEITHER, 2.

2. CarelessnessThe double negative is sometimes a

result of carelessness or hastiness, henceunderstandably more common in speak-ing than in writing.

A television weatherman said, “Iwouldn’t be a bit surprised if we didn’tfind some anomalies there.” The literalmeaning of the sentence is that completenormality (in the weather) would notsurprise him at all. Probably he meantthe opposite: “I wouldn’t be a bit sur-prised if we found some anomaliesthere,” or “I would be surprised if wedidn’t find some anomalies there.”

This was heard in television coverageof rural fires: “No smoking bans were ineffect.” It was ambiguous. If the “no”applied to “smoking bans,” the sentencemeant that no bans on smoking were ineffect. If the “no” applied just to “smok-ing,” there was a “ ‘no-smoking’ ban,”which, logically, would be the oppositeof a smoking ban. The newscaster prob-ably meant to say, “Bans on smokingwere in effect,” which would haveavoided the double negative of “no” and“bans.”

A university’s journalism dean wascriticized for hiring a prominent personas a teacher. A newspaper trade magazinequoted the dean on his hiring practices:

We do not pay our outsiders nowherenear what they are worth and insomewhat different amounts.

“Not” and “nowhere” together make adouble negative. Furthermore, the “not”carries over to “in somewhat differentamounts,” negating the phrase. Omit-ting the “not” (or, better, “do not”) cor-rects both problems. Alternatively,change “nowhere” to anywhere; and af-ter “and,” insert we pay them.

See also NOT, 1G.

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3. Unsound effectsA newspaper story (about computer

interviews) carried the headline “I can’tget no interaction.” Perhaps the writerof the headline knew better and was try-ing to achieve some kind of effect, be-sides the effect of making the newspaperseem illiterate and causing hundreds ofEnglish teachers to grimace in pain.

A two-word sentence fragment withtwo negatives was put in a column and abook. (The column complained aboutthe poor quality of television “pool”coverage of the U.S. invasion of Panama.The book looked askance at the popularuse of a word.)

Amateur photographers subbingfor the big guys? Not hardly.

I’m sure you are (it is, they will,etc.). Is the sayer really sure? Nothardly.

Hardly would have been enough, for insuch contexts it means probably not. Pre-ceding it with “not” doubled the negative.

Not all sentences with multiple nega-tives are no good; the present one isgrammatical though graceless. “We arenot unmindful of your problem,but . . .” is not so much graceless asheartless. A brave, bleeding athlete re-marks, “It’s nothing,” and his coach re-sponds correctly, “It’s not ‘nothing.’ ”And an old song that went “No, no, athousand times no!” got the negativemessage across effectively.

Even when used correctly, perhaps as adevice for deliberate understatement, asentence with multiple negatives may notbe instantly comprehensible. “I wouldnot be unhappy if the people did not en-dorse his leadership” is more clearly ex-pressed in a positive way. “I would try toremain cheerful if the people rejected hisleadership,” or other words to that effect,would be easier to grasp.

See also NO WAY.

Double possessive. Joseph Priestleywas a scientist and the discoverer of oxy-gen. He was also a philosopher, politi-cian, and theologian, and in the 1760she wrote The Rudiments of EnglishGrammar. In clear prose that holds tothis day, he pointed out an acceptedanomaly of English usage:

In some cases we use both the genitive[possessive] and the preposition of, as,this book of my friend’s. Sometimes,indeed, this method is quite necessary,in order to distinguish the sense. . . .This picture of my friend, and this pic-ture of my friend’s, suggest very differ-ent ideas. . . . Where this doublegenitive, as it may be called, is notnecessary to distinguish the sense, andespecially in grave style, it is generallyomitted.

The double possessive, also known asthe double genitive, remains idiomatic.

Literally the ’s in a phrase like that catof his sister’s is redundant, inasmuch asthe of has already indicated possession,and a few writers on usage look askanceon the form. Roy H. Copperud advisesthose finding a friend of my uncle neaterand more logical than a friend of my un-cle’s to use the former even though thelatter is long-established idiom and notconsidered wrong.

Nobody minds when the possessive isa pronoun instead of a noun: friends ofmine and a dress of hers. Nobody islikely to say “friends of me” or “a dressof her.”

In writing, (1) an opinion of the doc-tor and (2) an opinion of the doctor’shave two different meanings. First, theopinion concerns the doctor; second, theopinion is held by the doctor. In speak-ing, the possessive form would be am-biguous, “the doctor’s” sounding like“the doctors.” Better: an opinion held bythe doctor.

In the view of Eric Partridge, scrupu-

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lous writers avoid that form when thepossessive is a noun, especially a pluralnoun; they remember “the very soundrule that a piece of writing should be asclear to a listener as to a reader”; at leasta writer or speaker must be sure that thecontext makes the reference clear.

Doubling of letters. See Spelling, 3B.

DOWN. See Numbers, 1.

“DOWNPLAY.” See PLAY DOWNand “DOWNPLAY.”

DRAFT. Draft or draught (Britishspelling) comes from the Old Englishdragan, meaning to draw, pull. When ap-plied to a beverage, draft is the drawingof liquid from its receptacle, as beer orale from a cask. The beverage is avail-able on draft.

“GENUINE DRAFT” as seen on beercans and in ads is meaningless. To see agenuine draft, go to your nearest tavern.By definition, draft beer is not bottled orcanned.

Draft has another connection withfluid: Among many other meanings (likean air current, a check for money, mili-tary conscription, a preliminary text,etc.), it is a swallowing or the portion ofliquid swallowed.

DRAGGED and “DRUG.” Thepast tense of drag is dragged. A televisioninterviewer said two competing presi-dential candidates went to Dallas, Texas,and “drug along a bunch of advisers.”His “drug” use was dialectal.

DRAMA, DRAMATIC, DRA-MATICALLY. 1. “Drama” every-where. 2. Alternatives.

1. “Drama” everywhereA drama is primarily a stage play, or a

literary composition that tells a storythrough dialogue and action. Drama or

the drama is (a) the art or professiondealing with plays, (b) the theater as aninstitution, or (c) plays collectively. Bymetaphoric extension, drama or a dramacan mean either the nature of a play or aset of events like a play in action, con-flict, excitement, or story progression.

Dramatic (adjective) means pertainingto drama (noun) or having its character-istics. Dramatically (adverb) means in adramatic way or from the standpoint ofdrama. For example, conflict betweencharacters is a dramatic device; a courttrial sometimes is more dramatic than astage play; the show last night wasthought-provoking but dramatically in-adequate; he orated and gesticulateddramatically, like an old-time Shake-spearean actor.

“Dramatic” verbiage has proliferatedof late. That it does not take a dramacritic to find things “dramatic” will beamply illustrated below. First comes a setof extracts from a book by a leadingjudge.

The country had changed dramati-cally indeed from the time during theCivil War. . . . The income of individ-ual farmers rose dramatically. . . . Thestock-market crash . . . dramaticallyslowed down industrial expansion. . . . In the short run the effect of thechange in membership on the Court’sdecisions was immediate, dramatic,and predictable. . . . When Imoved . . . I was delighted with thedramatic change in my view. . . . Fi-nally, both the commercial activityand the population of the UnitedStates continued to increase dramati-cally. [Emphasis is added.]

Within eight days, television reportedthat a woman’s illness had “dramaticallyworsened,” that local test scores had“dramatically increased from last year,”that “a dramatic shift in wind direction”could imperil aircraft, that prosecutors

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in a murder case had “unveiled somedramatic photos,” that Miami had “cutcrime against tourists dramatically,” andthat people could “dramatically reducetheir risk of heart attacks.” In an ensuingweek, there came television reports thattest scores in the nation’s schools had“improved dramatically,” that a reser-voir had “dropped dramatically,” that awoman with the AIDS virus who tookthe drug AZT could “dramatically re-duce the chances of her baby gettingAIDS,” and that chicken was found tobe “dramatically better than ham-burger” in leanness.

2. AlternativesIn most contemporary uses of “dra-

matic” or “dramatically,” one can eithereliminate the word without detriment orsubstitute a more accurate description.Two lists that follow offer fifty replace-ments. You may think of more.

Adjectives: big, considerable, danger-ous, drastic, encouraging, extreme,great, high, huge, large, marked, mighty,noteworthy, precipitous, public, radical,remarkable, serious, sharp, significant,stark, steep, striking, stunning, substan-tial, vast.

Adverbs: considerably, dangerously,drastically, encouragingly, extremely, far,greatly, highly, hugely, markedly, might-ily, much, precipitously, publicly, radi-cally, remarkably, seriously, sharply,significantly, starkly, steeply, stunningly,substantially, vastly.

Saying that something is dramatic ordone dramatically does not make it so. Ifit is so, such a label may be superfluous.Sometimes the right choice of verbmakes any allusion to “drama” unneces-sary. For instance, “the rate dramaticallyincreased” is a cumbersome way of say-ing the rate soared. A more precise wayis to use a number, if it is known: the ratedoubled or increased 69 percent.

These seven words made up a para-graph in a newspaper: “The child

language field has dramatically mush-roomed.” Would the field be any worseoff if it just mushroomed?

DROVE. Drove is the past tense ofdrive (verb, transitive and intransitive).A drove (noun, from the same source,the Old English drifan, to drive) is agroup of animals being driven as a herdor flock. Someone probably saw the re-semblance between the moving animalsand a moving crowd of people, for attimes drove is applied to the latter. Typi-cally the word applies to cattle or sheep.

“Mice appear to be flocking out of thearea in droves.” That was heard on anews-radio station. To flock is to gatheror travel in a flock or crowd, so flockingwould suffice to get across the idea ofmultiplicity without “in droves.”

“DRUG” and DRAGGED. SeeDRAGGED and “DRUG.”

DUAL and DUEL. See Homo-phones.

DUE TO. When to use the phrase dueto and when not to use it can be confus-ing, although the publisher who wrotethe sentence below should have knownbetter.

This price increase has become nec-essary due to the new state sales taxon newspapers and the increasingcosts associated with producting theIJ.

All grammarians approve of due towhen it means caused by or attributableto and is helped by a form of the verb tobe: “His back injury was due to a fallfrom a cliff.”

However, when due to means becauseof and follows a clause, it is consideredtaboo. “He suffered a back injury due toa fall from a cliff.” Among acceptablephrases in this type of sentence are as a

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result of, because of, on account of, andowing to.

The grammarians have never satisfac-torily explained this rule. (They say thatdue is an adjective and should modify anoun. In the taboo form of sentence, itintroduces an adverbial phrase, whichmodifies the verb. But owing also is anadjective and owing to gets their ap-proval in the same type of sentence.)Careful writers and speakers generallyaccept the rule, whatever its rationality.

As for the opening quotation: oneshould expect a publisher to be carefulenough to avoid a “due to” snare (anddelete an unneeded “t” from producing)before he publishes a statement explain-ing why a paper is worth more money.

DUM-DUM BULLET. A newspa-per quoted a public official who had re-turned from the Middle East:

“I saw older men and women whohad been beaten and had sufferedfrom dumb-dumb bullets.”

To avoid that dumb-dumb error, realizethat the dum-dum bullet, an outlawed,soft-nosed bullet that expands on im-pact, originated in Dum Dum, India, atown near Calcutta. Another spelling ofthe place is Dumdum and of the bullet isdumdum, never “dumb-dumb.”

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EACH AND EVERY. See Twins, 1.

EACH, EACH OF. Each can be ei-ther an adjective, meaning every (“Wefollow each clue”); or a pronoun, mean-ing every single one (“To each hisown”). Either way, singularness is theessence of each.

When the subject of a sentence is orstarts with each, the subject is consid-ered singular. “Each has a car” or “Eachperson has a car.” Note that the verb(has) is singular too and so is the object(car).

The same is true when the subject iseach of followed by a plural noun orpronoun. Both of the sentences beloware in error. The first was part of a televi-sion commentary; the second formed alarge newspaper headline.

Each of these ladies this evening aregoing to be doing such difficult rou-tines.

Each of us should know and love our cholesterol level

In the first, change “are” to is and “diffi-cult routines” to a difficult routine. Inthe second, just change “our” to his. Analternative is his or her, which may beimpractical for a headline.

There is another way: When the sub-ject of a sentence is plural and each fol-

lows the subject immediately, merelymodifying or explaining it, the verb andany following object are plural. “Theboys each own cars.” / “We each shouldknow our cholesterol levels.” (The arti-cle beneath the headline did not say to“love” them.)

See also BETWEEN, 2; Nouns, 3;Pronouns, 2.

EACH OTHER. Although eachalone is singular, the phrase each other(a reciprocal pronoun) is considered plu-ral. The following sentence, from a largead by a government, goes astray in thatrespect and has four other flaws.

Recently, the British Governmentwhich has a similar law [concerningdrugs], agreed with the Bahamiangovernment for the reciprocal en-forcement of forfeiture orders in eachothers’ country.

The last word should be plural: coun-tries. In addition, the apostrophe goesbefore the s in each other’s. (See Punctu-ation, 1.) “Reciprocal” is redundant; ei-ther it or the last four words should bedeleted. A comma belongs before“which.” (See THAT and WHICH.) Fi-nally, the two governments deserve thesame kind of G or g.

Whether each other can representmore than two persons or things divides

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grammarians. Some say to use eachother for two, one another for three or more: “Agnes and John love eachother.” / “The three friends visit one an-other’s homes.” H. W. Fowler saw nei-ther utility nor history on the side ofsuch differentiation. Anyhow the use ofeach other for more than two is not com-mon. Using one another for two is morecommon. One another’s is the possessiveform.

EAGER. See ANXIOUS.

EATEN and ATE. See Tense, 5A.

ECLECTIC. Variety is the essence ofthis adjective. A descendant of the Greekeklegein, to select, eclectic means choos-ing or chosen from a variety of sources,subjects, methods, points of view, or thelike. “He was an eclectic student, withbroad interests.” / “The museum’s col-lection is eclectic.” Eclectic says nothingabout merit or quality and does notmean discriminating, as some peopleseem to think.

In a newsletter, the director of an in-stitute wrote about a series of educa-tional programs that “have featured avariety of eclectic programs. . . .” Either“a variety of” or “eclectic” should havebeen discarded.

EFFECT. See AFFECT and EFFECT.

EFFETE. Effete (adjective, pro-nounced like a FEAT) is one of thoseuseful words that have been devalued bymisuse and rendered often ambiguous.Primarily it means no longer able to pro-duce offspring or fruit. It can also meandepleted of vitality, exhausted of vigor.

An article about Thomas Jeffersonsays, “Theodore Roosevelt thought hewas effete.” The adjoining sentences(telling of others’ views of Jefferson)shed no light on the writer’s meaning.Other sources suggest that incapable and

visionary (Roosevelt’s own words)would have been more informative than“effete”; so would ineffective or timid.

A review of a joint Russian and Amer-ican art exhibit says, “The Americanpainting, on the contrary, looks effete.It’s so well-made that its life is gone.”This time the passage offers a clue. By“effete,” the writer appears to mean life-less in creation, not depleted of life butstillborn.

At times decadent, effeminate, fop-pish, soft, weak, or even elite has beenloosely replaced by effete. Spiro Agnewused it to describe the press corps. It isseldom clear exactly what the user has inmind.

Effete came from the Latin effetus,that has produced young (from ex-, out,and fetus, giving birth—the source of theEnglish fetus).

EFFICACY and EFFICIENCY. SeeConfusing pairs.

E.G. (for example). See Punctuation,2A.

EITHER. 1. As a conjunction. 2.Other functions. 3. Pronunciation.

1. As a conjunctionEither fits four categories. In the sen-

tences below, from two restaurant re-views, it is meant as a conjunction, orconnecting word, but it is misused.

Dessert is either vanilla ice cream,spumoni or a respectable caramel cus-tard for $1.50 more.

. . . Other meals [include] . . . meat-sauced rice and country salads and ei-ther five-spice chicken, imperial rolls,or shish kebobs. . . .

As a conjunction, either means one orthe other of two possibilities. Each sam-ple sentence, however, tells of a choice

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between three. Omit “either” or elsechange it to a choice of.

The either . . . or form connects twogrammatically equal portions of a sen-tence. (Either and or are called correla-tive conjunctions. Other such pairs areneither . . . nor and both . . . and.) It iscorrect to say, “You may choose eithersoup or salad”—a noun follows the ei-ther and a noun follows the or.

Sometimes the either is misplaced, likethis: “You may either choose soup orsalad.” Although you will understandher when a waitress says it, the sentenceis not logical: a verb and its object followthe either while a noun follows the or.Either tends to grab the next word orphrase. “You may either choose”—hereit makes sense—“or have the choicemade for you.”

This excerpt, from a book on art his-tory, is ill-balanced:

Nowadays, Bosch is either consid-ered a surrealist, a painter of re-pressed desires and human solitude,or a fiery mystic with esoteric inclina-tions. . . .

It says that the artist “is either con-sidered [verb] . . . or a fiery mystic[noun]. . . .” The sentence can easily berepaired by interchanging “either” andthe verb, “considered”:

Nowadays, Bosch is considered ei-ther a surrealist [noun] . . . or a fierymystic [noun]. . . .

An alternative solution is to insert a verbafter or. Example:

Nowadays, Bosch is either consid-ered [verb] a surrealist . . . or consid-ered [or called, verb] a fiery mystic. . . .

The problem can be more subtle: “He is either fibbing or has forgotten.”He is is followed sensibly by fibbing

(present participle) but not so by has forgotten (auxiliary verb and past participle). These are three alternativerepairs: “He is either fibbing or forget-ting.” / “He either is fibbing or has for-gotten.” / “Either he is fibbing or he hasforgotten.”

When each noun is singular, any verbthat follows has to be singular too: “Ei-ther a hurricane or an eruption comesevery few years”—not “come.” Wheneach noun is plural, any verb that fol-lows must be plural: “Either hurricanesor eruptions come every few years”—not “comes.”

It becomes more complicated whenthe nouns differ in number. Make theverb plural if it is closer to the pluralnoun than to the singular noun: “EitherPresley or the Jacksons are on thatrecord.” If the verb is closer to the singu-lar noun, what then? Some grammarianswould permit “Either the Jacksons orPresley is . . . ,” but a better procedure isto put the plural noun second, as in theprevious example; or to revise the sen-tence, for example: “The Jacksons maybe on that record, or it may be Presley.”

See also NEITHER; OR.

2. Other functionsEither serves as three other parts of

speech: adjective (“Either entree is satis-factory”); pronoun (“Either is satisfac-tory”); and adverb, which follows anegative statement (“If you don’t wantto eat, I won’t either”). Either, as an ad-jective, sometimes means each, one andthe other (“She wears a bracelet on ei-ther arm”).

As an adjective or pronoun, eithergoes with a singular verb, singular noun,or singular possessive, as the case maybe: “Either of them is capable of playingthe role”—not “are capable.” / “Nomore copies were available at either thedowntown or the uptown store”—not“stores.” / “Either woman will do herbest”—not “their best.”

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3. PronunciationH. W. Fowler wrote that EYE,

“though not more correct,” was replac-ing EE as the pronunciation of the firstsyllable of either in England’s educatedspeech.

EYE-thur seems to be makingprogress in America too. Imitation of theBritish practice or a belief that it is morehigh-class than EE-thur may help to ac-count for this development.

EKE. In The Outline of History H. G.Wells describes the raising of livestockby Neolithic people and credits themwith the discovery of milking. Then hecorrectly writes, “They eked out thisfood supply by hunting.” To eke outsomething is to supplement it, to add toit what it lacks. That which is eked out isthe original thing (the food supply), notwhat is added and not what results. Thatis the primary meaning of the verb (tran-sitive).

A later but now common meaning,disapproved by some critics, is to earnwith difficulty. Land pressures are in-tense in El Salvador, a newspaper says,“because so many people are trying toeke a living out of so small a country.” Inthis sense, that which is eked out is whatresults (a living).

Which sense is intended may not al-ways be clear. In the following sentence,what is the person’s occupation? “Johneked out his living by selling clothing.”We do not know. If we construe the sen-tence according to the more traditionalsense, John’s selling merely supplementshis income. According to the later sense,sales are John’s livelihood.

Eke alone, now archaic, meant to in-crease or enlarge (something); anothermeaning was also. An Old English ver-sion was spelled ecan, ycan, etc. So tradi-tionally eke or eke out is associated withthe idea of adding. Contemporary userssometimes have in mind the oppositesense: subtracting, or squeezing out.

These are from a newspaper and a bookon law respectively:

Once a company reneges on its halfof the bargain, it will have trouble ek-ing out those sacrifices from its work-ers.

Every grant to the President . . . was ineffect a derogation from Congres-sional power, eked out slowly, reluc-tantly. . . .

Still another sense of eke out, found incontemporary dictionaries if not often inuse, is to make (a supply) last througheconomy.

ELECT, ELECTED, ELECTIVE,ELECTORAL. 1. ELECTED andELECTIVE. 2. ELECTORAL.

1. ELECTED and ELECTIVETo elect (verb, transitive or intransi-

tive) is to choose. Politically, it is tochoose an official by vote. A person sochosen is elected (past participle). Theoffice so filled is elective (adjective); thatis, filled by election. A telecast had an er-ror:

He told ABC that he is not a candi-date for any elected office.

“. . . Any elective office,” not “elected.”(See also Tense, 2.)

The words can be used in nonpoliticalcontexts. “He elects to throw a curveball.” / “I elected a science course.” /“It’s an elective course.” Elective heremeans optional, not required.

Elect (adjective), in combination withthe name of an office, e.g., president-elect, denotes one who has been electedbut whose term has not yet begun. It canmean given preference: an elect group. Intheology it means divinely picked for sal-vation. Those so picked are the elect(noun).

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2. ELECTORALElective can be a synonym for elec-

toral (adjective), pertaining to selectionby vote or having the authority to elect.The latter is pronounced i-LEK-tur-ul,not (as mispronounced by the host of aTV quiz show) “i-lek-TAUR-ul.” TheElectoral College is not an educationalinstitution but the body that formallyelects the U.S. president. Its members areelectors.

A State Department spokesman ex-pressed hope that the Nicaraguan leaderwas not “trying to derail the electorialprocess.” The word is electoral. There isno “electorial.”

ELEMENT. See SILICON and SILI-CONE.

ELEMENTAL and ELEMEN-TARY. See Confusing pairs.

ELLIPSE. See OVAL.

Ellipsis. There are two kinds of ellip-sis. In grammar it is the omission of aword or words that would make a sen-tence more complete but that can be un-derstood from the context. Inpunctuation it is the set of dots usedwhen part of a quotation is omitted.Only the first kind concerns us rightnow. (See also Punctuation, 5.)

One need not, and should not, repeatthe is in this sentence: “The boy is 5, thegirl 4.” The single verb suffices for bothnouns. “I’ll be ready when you are.”That sentence could end with anotherready, but it is not necessary.

Sometimes a writer or speaker leavesout too much, perhaps a necessary word.As a result, the sentence sounds awk-ward or even leaves us guessing. A newsstory in a prominent daily said:

The Senate’s current version calls forspending $2.6 billion for drug en-forcement that the House does not.

“Does not” what? Want? Match? Agreewith? “Does not” relates to nothing thatwas said or that is obvious. Whateverthe meaning is, the sentence would be farclearer if it were divided into two sen-tences. End the first with “. . . drug en-forcement.” Begin the second like this:“The House’s version provides . . .” or“does not provide. . . .”

A passage in a book on law and gov-ernment is even more puzzling:

Having survived the legal maze,where have we ended up regardingthe 1973 bombing of Cambodia? Stillin something of a mess, because everytime Congress authorized the bomb-ing a number of its members said thatthey weren’t.

“Weren’t” what? “Weren’t aware that ithad” would be an adequate ellipsis—ifthat was the intended meaning. Or per-haps the author meant hadn’t and wrote“weren’t” by mistake. (Neither contrac-tion suits the grave topic. See Contrac-tions, 2.)

In an ellipsis, it is enough work for thereader or listener to silently repeat aword or phrase without having tochange its form. Any word or phrase tobe supplied should be exactly the sameas one that has just been used. This isfrom the daily quoted above:

The companies include . . . the UnitedCoconut Planters Bank, whose dispo-sition could determine the shape ofthe coconut industry, one of the coun-tries largest.

“Largest” does not connect with anyother word in the sentence. If the co-conut industry is “one of the country’slargest industries,” why not say so? (Acareless transformation of country’s alsomars the sentence. See Punctuation, 1C.)

In this example from a book on lawand history, the reader is expected not

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only (1) to supply a word that differsfrom the word used, but also (2) to sup-ply it before the other is used.

In 1808 President Jefferson took avery serious view of an attack by onearmy and several navy officers uponSpanish territory.

The first item enumerated seems to be“one army.” The authors meant “onearmy officer” and should have said so.

Lines like these, from two networktelecasts, have been uttered in exposés bya number of broadcasters:

The offer sounded too good to betrue, and, as it turned out, it was.

If it sounds too good to be true, itprobably is.

What part are we expected to silently re-peat? No doubt, from each context, it is“too good to be true.” But someone tun-ing in late might repeat just the “true,”reversing the meaning.

Omitting hundred or thousand from anumber can be misleading. See Num-bers, 1.

See also AS, 1; Pronouns, 10E; Verbs,4.

ELUDE and ALLUDE. See Confus-ing pairs.

EMBRYO and FETUS. A newspa-per article said that courts had upheld aMinnesota law under which a man wascharged with “fetal homicide” as well asmurder. Allegedly he had shot a preg-nant woman, killing both her and herone-month-old “fetus.”

A woman who is one month pregnantcarries an embryo, not a “fetus.” An em-bryo is an incipient animal or human be-ing. It is in the early stages ofdevelopment, unlike a fetus, which is inthe middle or late stages. Interpretations

differ somewhat. For the human species,some draw the line at two months, oth-ers at three months.

Embryo comes from the Greek em-bryon, embryo, fetus, or that which isnewly born. Fetus traces to Latin, inwhich it means fetus, progeny, preg-nancy, or a giving birth.

EMERITUS. Emeritus (adjective)means being retired from service butkeeping the title one held. As part of a ti-tle, it commonly follows the original ti-tle: “Professor Emeritus John J. Doe.”Otherwise it can follow or precede theoriginal title: “He is an emeritus profes-sor of law.” It is mainly applied to thoseretired from colleges and universities, oc-casionally to others retired from white-collar positions.

In ancient Rome emeritus (past par-ticiple of emereri, to earn by service) re-ferred to a man who had served his termas a soldier. The term is never applied toa former or retired member of the U.S.armed forces.

To use emeritus indiscriminately indescribing a former job can be ludicrous.The lead sentence of a newspaper’s mainarticle applied it to a professional politi-cian who had not retired but had beenunseated from his last office by a termlimitation.

Assembly Speaker Emeritus WillieBrown continues to hold a slim leadover Mayor Frank Jordan among vot-ers as next month’s mayoral electionnears. . . .

An emeritus (noun) is one who isemeritus (adjective). The plural is emer-iti. Pronunciations: em-MER-it-us andem-MER-it-tie.

One who uses Latinisms strictly willspeak of a woman as emerita (adjective)or an emerita (noun). The plural is emer-itae. Pronunciations: em-MER-it-uh andem-MER-it-tea.

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EMIGRATE and IMMIGRATE.A book by a prominent judge describeschanges in U.S. population, such as anincrease of sixty million in fifty years.

Some of this was natural increase, buta good deal of it resulted from emigra-tion. In the forty years between 1860and 1900, 14 million people had emi-grated to the United States from for-eign countries. . . . At the same timethat emigrants and other settlers werepopulating the territories in the West,many other emigrants were settling inthe large cities of the East and Mid-west. [Emphasis is added.]

Change “emigration” to immigration,“emigrated” to immigrated, and “emi-grants” to immigrants.

Which family of words to call on de-pends on whether you emphasize mi-grating in, or migrating out. The authoremphasizes migrating in. Immigrateoriginates in the Latin in-, in, and mi-grare, to migrate; emigrate in the Latinex-, out, and migrare. A form of in- isim- while a form of ex- is e-. That ety-mology explains the double m in the im-migrate words, the single m in theemigrate words.

If you need a memory aid, think ofimport, to bring goods into a country;and export, to send goods out of a coun-try.

To immigrate (verb, intransitive) is toenter and settle in a country. Often it isfollowed by to and the name of the newcountry. “The Treskunoffs immigratedto the United States ten years ago.” Theact or practice of immigrating is immi-gration (noun). One who immigrates isan immigrant (noun).

To emigrate (verb, intransitive) is toleave one’s home country with the inten-tion of giving up residence there. Often itis followed by from and the name of theold country. “The Treskunoffs emigratedfrom Russia ten years ago.” The act or

practice of emigrating is emigration(noun). One who emigrates is an emi-grant (noun).

Occasionally immigrate and emigrateare used (as transitive verbs) to meanbring in as immigrants or to send out asemigrants. “The company immigratedChinese to work cheaply as laborers.”

EMINENT and IMMINENT. 1.The difference. 2. Related terms.

1. The differenceOnce, while working as a news re-

porter, I looked in on the mayor’s office,where efforts were being made to negoti-ate the end of a labor dispute. As I wastelephoning my editor from the ante-room, the mayor walked in and told me,“The settlement of the bus strike is emi-nent.” I said, misquoting him, “Themayor says the settlement of the busstrike is imminent.” (We had a scoop.)

The mayor knew his business, butwhat he did not know is that eminent(adjective) means prominent, outstand-ing, or noteworthy, whereas imminent(adjective) means impending or soon tooccur; sometimes, threatening: said of adanger or misfortune.

Some writers do not know that either.A weekly’s review of a Shakespeareanplay contained this sentence: “Best of all,the language, while still Bard-ese, is im-minently comprehensible.” In this case,“imminently” should be eminently (ad-verb), meaning to a remarkable degreeor in an outstanding way.

Note that eminent(ly) has one m whileimminent(ly) has two m’s. The wordsoriginate in Latin, in ex-, out, and in-, in,respectively (e- and im- are forms ofthem) plus minere, to project.

2. Related termsEminent domain is the right of a gov-

ernment to take private property forpublic use in return for compensation.

Eminence (noun) means superiority,

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celebrity, or a high place or thing. Pre-ceded by his or your, it is a title of honorfor a cardinal in the Roman CatholicChurch.

Imminence (noun) is the condition ofbeing imminent; or something that is im-minent, particularly impending dangeror evil.

A superficially similar word, not socommon, is immanent (adjective). Stem-ming from the Latin in, not, and manere,to remain, it means existing or remain-ing within, particularly within one’smind. In theology, it pertains to the doc-trine of immanence (noun), under whichGod dwells everywhere in the universe.

EMPLOY. See UTILIZE, UTILIZA-TION (end).

ENDED and ENDING.

The Times Poll . . . interviewed1,618 American adults by telephonefor three days ending Sunday night.

Such use is common. But some authori-ties prefer ended, rather than “ending,”when the period is over. (It is completelyended, not just in the process of ending.)Some others accept either word. (Presentparticiples sometimes apply to pastevents.)

All agree that ending is the word touse when the terminal date is in the fu-ture.

ENDEMIC. “The problem is the kindof violence that’s now becoming en-demic to Mexico,” a panelist on a televi-sion forum said. He spoke in the wake ofa revolt and a political assassination inMexico.

That which is endemic to a place is re-stricted to it or particularly prevalentthere. The kangaroo is endemic to Aus-tralia, the apteryx to New Zealand. Po-litical violence, alas, is a globalphenomenon. Thus the panelist’s state-

ment was not accurate, particularly if theviolence was just “now becoming” com-mon in Mexico.

The main article in a newspaper de-scribed economic shortcomings inShanghai, adding:

Meanwhile, tax evasion in theShanghai private sector became en-demic, increasing an income gap between state employees and free-market entrepreneurs that has aggra-vated social tensions.

If the writer wanted to say that tax eva-sion had become a phenomenon peculiarto Shanghai (a dubious proposition), en-demic would be appropriate. But if hesought to bring out the rapid and exten-sive spread of tax evasion there, theword to use would be epidemic.

ENDING. See ENDED and END-ING.

“END OF AN ERA.” See ERA, 2.

ENDS JUSTIFY THE MEANS.Having gone to Somalia, Africa, to feedthe people, U.S. and allied forces wereshooting some of them instead. A TVnews correspondent said the questionwas “whether these drastic means justifythe humanitarian end.”

He had it backward. The questionwas “whether the humanitarian end jus-tifies these drastic means.” Normally themeans do not justify the end; that is amatter of language. The end may or maynot justify the means; that is a matter ofopinion.

ENERGIZE and ENERVATE. SeeConfusing pairs.

ENORMITY. Residents of theHawaiian island of Kauai who had beenmade homeless by a hurricane seemed tobe in good spirits, a television newscaster

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observed. Either they are used to beingclose to nature, he said, or “the enormityof what’s happened to them hasn’t yetsunk in.”

Unless he was saying that the hurri-cane was outrageously immoral, he mis-understood the meaning of enormity. Hemay have confused it with enormous-ness, although magnitude or gravitymight have been a better choice ofnouns. Enormity denotes monstrous evilor a monstrously evil act. A nonhumanphenomenon like a hurricane is amoral,unless one ascribes it to the devil or anevil spirit.

Flying from England to Cameroun, anauthor observed the Sahara below.“Hours later, still above the desert, webegan to appreciate its enormity.” Al-though some travelers in the desert havefound it to be a hell, vastness or immen-sity would fit the context better.

On a TV show about famous athletes,a narrator said of a baseball player,“Now, two decades later, the enormityof his accomplishments can be appreci-ated.” Surely the TV man did not intendto associate Hank Aaron’s accomplish-ments with monstrous evil, yet that is lit-erally what he did by using “enormity”when he could have used greatness.

A book (of mine) said, “. . . The enor-mity of the cocktails took them out ofthe ‘social’ category.” Although somehave described alcohol as a wicked de-mon, in this instance the word shouldhave been immensity or hugeness.

Some dictionaries offer such wordsamong the definitions of enormity with-out mentioning that many critics scornits application to mere size. A source ofcriticism is American Heritage Dictio-nary; 93 percent of its usage panel re-jected “The enormity of Latin America isreadily apparent from these maps.”

At one time enormous meant mon-strously wicked. It and enormity bothtrace to the Latin enormis, meaning outof the ordinary, huge.

-EN, -REN plurals. See Plurals andsingulars, 1, 2D.

ENSURE and INSURE. See AS-SURE, ENSURE, and INSURE.

ENTHUSE, ENTHUSED. If thecolloquial “enthused” ever is acceptable,it is assuredly out of place in a grim arti-cle about “the fratricidal carnage” ofrevolutionary France:

Baron Armel de Wismes, who puts ona black tie of mourning on the an-niversary of Louis XVI’s execution, isnot enthused about the festivitiesmarking the 200th anniversary of theFrench Revolution.

The appropriate adjective is enthusiastic,meaning ardently interested in some-thing. At times “enthuse” is used as averb. Most dictionaries call “enthuse(d)”colloquial, informal, or popular, and fewwriters, speakers, or educators show en-thusiasm (noun) for it.

“The majority leader enthused overhis party’s gains,” instead of became orwaxed enthusiastic, was disapproved by76 percent of The American HeritageDictionary’s usage panel. “He was con-siderably less enthused by signs of fac-tionalism,” instead of enthusiastic over,was disapproved by 72 percent. Thepanel did not consider the verb in a tran-sitive sense, for which a case could bemade: “Professor Marshall enthused hisstudents,” instead of roused enthusiasmin or made . . . enthusiastic.

ENTOMOLOGY and ETYMOL-OGY. See Confusing pairs.

Enumerations. See Series errors.

EPIDEMIC. See ENDEMIC.

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ERA. 1. Definition; pronunciation. 2.When will it end?

1. Definition; pronunciationAn era is a division of time that is (a)

reckoned from a notable historical event,as the Christian era is; (b) distinctive inits character, events, conditions, or lead-ers, like the Roman “era of the adven-turer generals” (H. G. Wells) or thenineteenth-century American “era ofgood feeling”; or (c) fundamental in geo-logic history, like the Mesozoic era.

Its customary pronunciation has longbeen EAR-uh. Many now pronounce itlike error without the final r, possiblyrisking misunderstanding. Modern dic-tionaries give both pronunciations.

2. When will it end?The news media, with a notable sense

of history, inform us of all the variouseras that we pass through—but onlywhen the eras end; they are perpetuallyending.

These were press headlines: “Era inHouston Ends As Chronicle Is Sold” /“Christmas at B. Altman: the End of anEra . . .” / “An era ends: Johnny [Car-son] says goodbye.”

Broadcasters reported “the end of anera” when a navy yard was shut down, amilitary base was closed, a gorilla died ata zoo, a hotel was demolished, and an-other navy yard closed. A news serviceapplied the same phrase to a bookstore’sclosing.

When the baseball player Jose Can-seco was traded, an era did not end; itmerely relocated. A main story in a Cali-fornia daily began, “A’s general managerSandy Alderson sent an era to Texas.”

EROTIC. See EXOTIC.

ERR, ERROR. Opening a segmenton movie mistakes, a network televisionprogram displayed the title “TO ER-ROR IS HUMAN” on the screen. Thenetwork staff itself was in error, mis-

quoting the ancient, proverbial saying“To err is human.”

Error is a noun only. It means, ofcourse, mistake. It can also mean wrong-doing, an act or example of deviationfrom what is right, or any of various de-fensive misplays in baseball.

The related verb is to err, which canmean to make a mistake, to do some-thing wrong, or to go off course. (“Thecaptain chose to err on the side of cau-tion.” / “I’m afraid that I have erred inmy calculation.”) Err rhymes with herand sir.

“To err is human” goes back at leastto the Roman philosopher and dramatistSeneca (4? B.C.–A.D. 65). Many othersrepeated that thought in one form or an-other, in numerous languages. The ver-sion by Alexander Pope, the English poet(1688–1744), “To err is human, to for-give divine,” is particularly famous.

ERRANT and ARRANT. See Con-fusing pairs.

ERSTWHILE. Erstwhile (adjective)means former. It is a literary word, not aword to be used regularly in conversa-tion or frequently in writing. When itdoes surface in casual talk or informalwriting, its users often seem unsure ofwhat it means.

In a discussion on television, a pan-elist wondered whether the vice presi-dent’s involvement in a controversy overelection-campaign financing would af-fect his presidential ambition. She asked:

Does this hurt him? Does this makehis erstwhile opponents lick theirchops?

She was literally asking about his formeropponents. “Erstwhile” should havebeen would-be.

A columnist wrote:

The erstwhile George Shultz and hisshattered Department of State seemed

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to feel the same way [intolerant ofwrongdoing].

What the writer had in mind is anyone’sguess. To speak of, in effect, the formerGeorge Shultz made no sense; he re-mained George Shultz. Ultimately onemight describe him as the erstwhile sec-retary of state.

Erstwhile as an adverb, or erstwhiles,meaning formerly or some time ago, isarchaic.

ESCALATE. See Verbs, 2.

ESPIONAGE. See Crimes, 5.

ESTIMATE, ESTIMATED. 1. Anestimated what? 2. Estimated by whom?3. Pronunciation; other forms.

1. An estimated what?“An estimated” followed by a num-

ber and a plural noun is a well-worn pat-tern in the popular press, although fourspecimens in one news story is unusual.The story dealt with reactions to China’sTiananmen Square massacre.

On Sunday . . . an estimated 3,000students and sympathizers rallied atMiyashita Park in Tokyo’s Shibuyadistrict. . . .

An estimated 2,000 Chinese stu-dents held similar demonstrationsSunday and yesterday outside Chineseconsulates in Osaka, Fukuda andNagoya. . . .

Major travel agencies reported thatan estimated 500 Japanese are touringin China. . . .

There are an estimated 3,100 Japa-nese residents . . . in Beijing.

Nonjournalists are less likely to say “anestimated 5,000 were there” than“about [or around or approximately orroughly] 5,000 were there.”

No one would say or write, for in-stance, “an 8,000 marchers.” The “esti-

mated” is supposed to make it right. Ithas been said that “total of” is under-stood. The New York Times chose to in-sert the two words, properly, in anarticle about Yugoslavia in the 1940s.

An estimated total of 1,700,000 Yu-goslavs were killed, both in combatand in atrocities and reprisals by andagainst civilians.

The Far Eastern article could have said,for instance, “An estimated total of2,000 Chinese students. . . .” The samethought can be expressed in some otherway: A group estimated at 2,000; or acrowd estimated (or said or believed) tonumber 2,000; or simply about or ap-proximately or roughly 2,000. Around iscolloquial.

2. Estimated by whom?When “estimated” is used in a vague

sense, one is entitled to ask: “estimated”by whom? It does not tell us much unlesswe know who has done the estimating.If, for instance, the police make an esti-mate of the size of the crowd attending arally, it may differ wildly from an esti-mate made by the sponsors or by jour-nalists.

It is best to state clearly, “The policeestimated that 5,000 attended” or “Thesponsors estimated that 15,000 at-tended.”

If the word estimate or estimated isused, a true estimate—that is, an ap-proximate calculation—ought to havebeen made. Sometimes the figure is just aguess, but one never reads in the news-paper or hears on the air, “A guessed10,000 supporters attended.”

3. Pronunciation; other formsAs a noun, meaning an approximate

calculation, estimate is pronounced ES-tim-mit. As a verb, meaning to calculatesomething approximately, estimate ispronounced ES-tim-mate.

Estimated, the past tense and past

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participle of the verb estimate, is com-monly used as an adjective in the press.The adjective presented in dictionaries isestimative: pertaining to estimating orserving as an estimate. (“The 3,000 isonly estimative.”)

Estimation can be an act of estimat-ing; a judgment made as a result; a valu-ation of merit; or esteem, repute. A fewcritics object to the phrase “in my esti-mation.” Roy H. Copperud writes, “Es-timate is the judgment, estimation theprocess of forming it.” Raising no suchobjection, The American Heritage Dic-tionary illustrates estimation by quotingThoreau: “No man ever stood the lowerin my estimation for having a patch inhis clothes.”

ET AL. See ETC., ET CETERA, 2.

ETC., ET CETERA. 1. And the rest.2. ET AL.

1. And the restIn Latin et means and and cetera

means the rest. As adapted to English,the phrase et cetera is the equivalent ofand so on or and so forth. Often it is ab-breviated: etc. Its user avoids listing allthe items in a category. “They hunt smallanimals: rabbits, squirrels, etc.” The etc.indicates others in the same category(like gophers and chipmunks, in this in-stance).

Sometimes the two words are com-bined in the noun etcetera(s). “The sen-tence ends with a lazy etcetera.” / “Ipacked the main items and let theetceteras go.”

Inasmuch as and is what the et means,“and” or “&” should not precede etcetera or etc., although &c. is an op-tional abbreviation. A broadcaster spokeof “alcohol, tobacco, and et cetera” and,in another redundancy the next day,ended a series “et cetera, et cetera, etcetera.”

A variant spelling is et caetera. How-

ever it is spelled, it is pronounced eitheret-SET-uh-ruh or et-SET-ruh. Occasion-ally someone mispronounces the et “ex”or misspells etc.: A printed sign in a storewindow said, in advertising animalsmade from plant parts, “Everything isNatural . . . Eyes, Nose, Tail, Ect.”

Usage critics have taken aim at etc.One called it amateurish and slovenly inliterary prose. To another, etc. suits com-mercial or technical writing but its useelsewhere can make a writer seem lazyor ignorant.

While accepting those pronounce-ments as caveats, we can temper them:etc. can either stunt or tighten a sen-tence; it is a matter of judgment. If etc.seems too curt, alternatives are to spellout et cetera or follow the series withand so on or another indication that theexamples given are not exhaustive. Yet ifconciseness is desired, particularly whenthe listing is parenthetical or tabular, etc.may be preferable, as long as it is clearwhat etc. is meant to suggest.

When, in highly concise fashion, onlyone item precedes the etc., a commaneed not intervene: instead of “rabbits,etc.,” make it rabbits etc.

2. ET AL.A phrase of similar meaning, used of-

ten in legal writing, is et al. It is an abbre-viation of the Latin et alii, meaning andothers, or et alius, meaning and another.For instance, a case may be titled JohnSmith v. Harry Robinson et al., indicat-ing that there are other defendants be-sides Robinson.

ETERNITY. It is forever. It is timewithout end. (To state the definition ofthis noun is not to take any stand on theimplicit cosmological question.) Some-times eternity is used metaphorically todescribe an extremely long time.

A music critic wrote that a symphonyorchestra “proved expert at making amere 68 minutes of music run on for a

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small eternity.” It was an extravagantway to express his boredom. Howwould he describe, say, the life ex-pectancy of the Sun?

See also INTERMINABLE.

EVADE and AVOID. See Confusingpairs.

(-)EVER. 1. Apart or together?—theW-words. 2. EVER and EVERY. 3.FOREVER, FOR EVER. 4. HOW-EVER. 5. WHYEVER, WHY EVER. 6.With RARELY, SELDOM; definitions.

1. Apart or together?—the W-wordsTwo words or one word? That is the

question here, whether to write whatever, when ever, where ever, and whoever or whatever, whenever, wherever,and whoever.

The answer is brief: one word in astatement, two words in a question. Abook departs from that rule:

What ever method you use, however,should be checked out with the localpostal officials in your area.

“Whatever method you use” would beright. The excerpt is a declarative sen-tence, a statement.

All the four w-words should betreated the same. “We visit them when-ever we can.” / “He goes wherever theysend him.” / “Whoever did that musthave been mad.”

In sentences like these, however, thew-root and the ever part company:“What ever made him do such a thing?”/ “When ever will that check come?” /“Where ever did you hear that?” / “Whoever said such nonsense?”

In an interrogative sentence, that is, aquestion, ever intensifies the basic wordbut is not essential to it. The separateever is roughly equivalent to conceivably,possibly, on earth, the heck, and in theworld. For example, “What ever made

him . . . ?” and “Who ever said . . . ?”mean almost the same as “What con-ceivably made him . . . ?” and “Who onearth said . . . ?” The w-word and the ever need not be next to each other:“Where was it ever written that I have tosupport your brother?” is similar to“Where the heck was it written . . . ?”

The rule was essentially enunciated byH. W. Fowler, although he restricted theinterrogative ever to sentences reproduc-ing highly informal spoken speech.(Even then, who could not come next toever; he wanted “Who could ever . . . ?”instead of “Who ever could . . . ?” To hisreviser, Sir Ernest Gowers, the formerwas merely “better.”)

Wilson Follett sanctioned the sepa-rated, interrogative ever for any “com-mon use” but not for a “grave style.” Hewrote that the adverbs “whatever, who-ever, whenever, wherever, however, andwhyever are rhetorically equivalent andshould be treated alike.” Follett’s ap-proach is recommended. (He noted thatdictionaries separated some words, keptsome joined, and disagreed on whichwords to give each treatment. Their un-ruliness persists.)

Speakers need not worry about a dif-ference between the two forms, althoughthey do tend to give an interrogative evermore emphasis than a declarative -ever.

2. EVER and EVERYEver so is a colloquial phrase meaning

very, to an extreme degree or extent:“The sea is ever so calm today.” Ever sooften means very often or repeatedly:“It’s been raining ever so often lately.”

Ever so often should not be confusedwith every so often, which means nowand then or once in a while: “Every sooften someone hits the jackpot.” Some-times the “ever” phase is used mistak-enly when the every phrase is meant.

3. FOREVER, FOR EVERForever is infrequently written as two

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words, for ever, an older style. Eitherway, it means eternally or continually.See FOREVER.

4. HOWEVERHowever requires special caution, un-

like the two-word form, how ever,whose use in questions is clear: “However did you accomplish it?”

The one-word form, however, used indeclarative sentences, bears a dual mean-ing. It can mean (as an adverb) no matterhow or by whatever means: “Howeveryou travel, make sure to arrive on time.”It can also mean (as a conjunction) butor in spite of that: “I didn’t get the job,however they said they would keep mein mind.” However can be ambiguous,as in this sentence: “I want to sail how-ever the winds rage.” Is the speaker fear-less or fearful?

5. WHYEVER, WHY EVERWhyever is rather rare. Why ever is

more common. “He must be punishedwhyever he did it.” But “Why ever didhe do it?”

6. With RARELY, SELDOM; definitionsEver means, among other definitions,

at any time. “Does he ever do anywork?” Popularly used in this way: “Heseldom [or “rarely”] ever does anywork,” it is considered redundant byThe American Heritage Dictionary andits usage panel and by Roy C. Copperud,although the expression has been aroundsince the mid-eighteenth century. Onemay use seldom if ever or seldom ornever (substituting rarely as needed) orjust leave out the “ever.” Presumably thecritics are concerned that time is builtinto the words rarely and seldom. Not sohardly; it is perfectly all right to say, orsing, “He’s hardly ever sick at sea!”

Ever can also mean always (“We mustbe ever vigilant”), by any chance (“Ifthere ever was damage, you would beprotected”), or repeatedly (“The neigh-

bors are ever throwing parties”). Collo-quially it is also an intensive, comparableto very: “Was that dinner ever good!”

EVERY. See BETWEEN, 2; (-)EVER,2; EVERY DAY and EVERYDAY; EV-ERY ONE and EVERYONE; NOT, 1 A;Pronouns, 2; Verbs, 3.

EVERY and EVER. See (-)EVER, 2.

EVERYBODY, EVERYONE.1. -BODY and -ONE words. 2. “EV-ERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT.” 3.Exaggeration. 4. Number.

1. -BODY and -ONE wordsEverybody and everyone mean the

same thing: each person. Similarly, no-body and no one have the same mean-ing: no person. So do somebody andsomeone: some person. All are pro-nouns. (A somebody is a colloquial nounmeaning an important person.)

In each pair, one word is not necessar-ily better than the other, and the choice isa matter of personal preference.

Sometimes, when rhythm or concise-ness is important, the fact that one wordof the pair has an additional syllable andan additional letter can make a differ-ence. Everybody has four syllables andnine letters, everyone three and eight.The second e is silent.

Everyone should not be confused withevery one. See EVERY ONE and EV-ERYONE.

2. “EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT”The expression “everyone [or “every-

body”] is talking about” with a mentionof a new establishment, product, publi-cation, service, show, or other thing is apromotional device aimed at making usjump on the bandwagon. If everyonewere really talking about something, itwould be unnecessary to advertise it. Butthe expression is rarely true.

An informative television program

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opened with an announcement of theevening’s topics. Among them would be“the shocking, new book everyone’stalking about. . . .” I was not talkingabout it, never having heard of it before,and tuned the program out.

A magazine article, about a techniquefor exercising, was titled “The Super Ab-Flattener Everyone’s Talking About.”Were you talking about it?

3. ExaggerationEverybody and everyone are often

gross overstatements. The question inwhat group? ought to be answered, atleast implicitly, unless the pronoun rep-resents every person there is.

An article in the sports section of a na-tional newspaper opened this way:

One word sums up the NFL draft:need. Everybody talked about it, ev-erybody thought about it, everybodydrafted based on it.

There may have been a few people in theworld who did not talk, think, or doanything about the need for footballplayers. See also Run-on sentence, 2.

“Everybody does it,” or words to thesame effect, is a common rationalizationfor a questionable action. An entertainersaid, concerning a risqué photograph ofhim and a woman on a record cover:

“When girls see it they go, ‘Oh,that’s nasty.’ But everybody does thesame stuff behind closed doors.”

Speak for yourself, please.

4. NumberBoth everybody and everyone are sin-

gular. Any pertinent noun, possessive, orverb must be singular.

“Has everyone here received a pam-phlet?” / “Everybody pulled his weight.”/ “Everyone in these units is well pre-pared.”

See also PRONOUNS, 2.

EVERY DAY and EVERYDAY.Just because the words every and daycome close to each other is no cause tounite them.

These three quotations have the sameerror. [By a news agency:] “Everydayhe’s feeling better.” [By a columnist:]“Editorials like that aren’t written every-day.” [On the TV screen:] “Kids ride freeeveryday.”

Every day must be kept separate wheneach day can be substituted. Corrections:“Every day he’s feeling better.” / “Edito-rials like that aren’t written every day.” /“Kids ride free every day.” In such in-stances, when the pair serves as an ad-verb, there is no more reason to unite thetwo words than to unite every hour orevery week.

However, the unitary form, everyday,is correct as an adjective, e.g., “Her everyday activities are vigorous.” Two companies made the opposite slip.In a magazine ad, a chain of computerstores promised “EVERY DAY LOWPRICES!” Signs in the windows of athrift and loan company urged the pub-lic to “LOOK AT OUR EVERY DAYHIGH YIELDS!” In both sentences“EVERYDAY” would have been right.

In pronouncing every day, we empha-size both ev- and day. In pronouncing ev-eryday, we emphasize just ev-.

EVERY ONE and EVERYONE.Just as every day should not always beunified, neither should every one, al-though the rules are different. The firstexample is from a weekly publication.

“Everyone of our 1,500 personnelshould have a flashlight—with extrabatteries and extra lights.”

In quoting an oral statement, the writermistakenly united every one. (See alsoPERSONNEL.)

A form letter to clients from a securi-ties group contained the same type of er-ror.

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With the holiday season upon us,we . . . would like to extend ourwarmest greetings of friendship andthanks to each and everyone of ourclients. . . .

Only when everybody can be substi-tuted is everyone right. It means eachperson. It never applies to things or ani-mals, and it can never be followed by of.“Everyone needs a home.” / “Everyonemust eat” / “Everyone in our house hasvoted.” In speech, the first syllable is em-phasized: EV-re-won.

Every one places more importance onthe one. It means every single member ofa particular group, which can comprisepeople, things, or animals. Often of fol-lows, as in “every one of our 1,500” and“each and every one of our clients.” Theof and its object may be absent but im-plied: “Twenty mice were tested and ev-ery one proved to be disease-free.”When every one is spoken, both the ev-and the one are emphasized.

Both every one and everyone are sin-gular and any ensuing verb or pronounmust be singular: “Every one of the con-testants gives her all.” / “Everyone looksout for himself.”

See also EVERYBODY, EVERYONE;NOT, 1A; Pronouns, 2C.

“EVERYTHING FROM.” SeeRange, true and false, 4.

EVIDENCE and PROOF. Althoughloosely used as synonyms, they are notthe same. Evidence is not necessarilyproof, but it takes evidence to establishproof. In general, the first is tentative; thesecond is conclusive.

Evidence means data that help to es-tablish a factual conclusion or that aremeant to lead to a judgment. In a legalcase, testimony of witnesses, documents,and objects typically serve as evidencethat opposing sides present in efforts todemonstrate opposite contentions.

Proof means evidence that is sufficient

to prove something, i.e., to establish afact or to show the truth of a proposi-tion. In a legal case, proof means evi-dence that convinces those standing injudgment that a contention is true.

When a chimpanzee was found tohave the human immunodeficiencyvirus, a telecaster introduced the newsthis way: “There’s proof today thatAIDS came from chimps.” It was prema-ture to describe a preliminary piece ofevidence as “proof.” Better news reportssaid the disease “most likely came” or“may have come” from simians.

EVIDENT, EVIDENTLY. See AP-PARENT, APPARENTLY.

EVOKE and INVOKE. An artgallery says a certain artist’s paintings“invoke a sense of continuum. . . .” Theyevoke it. (Verbosity has further quota-tion.) To evoke is to elicit, bring forth, orproduce (typically a response, feeling, orimage).

According to a news story, a litigant“evoked” an obscure law. He invoked it.To invoke is to appeal to a deity orhigher power for help, to call upon asource of authority, or to conjure (aspirit) by incantation.

EXACERBATE and EXASPER-ATE. A hill was crumbling, threaten-ing a house on top. When a televisionreporter spoke of the events that had“exasperated the problem,” was she cor-rect or should she have used exacerbatedinstead?

At least five dictionaries vindicate her,approving of the interchangeable use ofexacerbate and exasperate (verbs, transi-tive). In common usage, though, thewords are restricted in this way:

Exacerbate: to make (an illness orother unsatisfactory condition) more in-tense.

Exasperate: to make (someone) angryor highly annoyed.

So if you use either word with the

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other meaning, you will be technically inthe clear, but you may not be under-stood.

EXCEPT and EXCEPTING. Ex-cepting in place of except is out of style.The -ing serves no function in this pressexcerpt:

A number of small parties haveemerged . . . but none of them, except-ing Civic Forum, appears to have thestrength or organizational muscle tochallenge the . . . Communist Party.

As normally used (as a preposition)excepting follows a negative: “All politi-cal groups in the city, not excepting [notexcluding] the Klan, have been invited.”In that context “not except” would beerroneous.

When except (used as a preposition) isfollowed by a personal pronoun, thepronoun takes the objective case: “Allthe members voted for it except [otherthan] him and me,” not “he and I.” SeePronouns, 10.

Except can have other nuances. (As aconjunction:) “I would stay except that[if not for the fact that] my time isshort.” / “He never goes out of town ex-cept [for any other purpose but] to gam-ble.” (As a verb:) “The costs of living arenot high if you except [exclude] real es-tate and rent.”

When spoken, the verb except(s) canbe confused with “accept,” and except-ing with “accepting.” See Homophones.

“EXCEPTION PROVES THERULE.” As it is commonly used, thiscliché contradicts scientific logic. Yetthose invoking it assume that it bolsterstheir points of view:

A book presents a rule that job pro-motion “is determined by pull” and asection headed “An Exception ThatProves the Rule.” A TV commentatorstated a rule that caucus winners loseelections and added, “Jimmy Carter, the

exception that proves the rule, won Iowain 1976.” A movie reviewer wrote,“Italy is simply not a warlike nation. . . .Mussolini was the exception that provedthe rule.” In another book, a conductorsays making concert suites out of moviescores never works and “Prokofiev’sNevsky or Walton’s Henry V . . . are theexceptions proving the rule.”

How can an exception “prove” arule? Shouldn’t the exception disproveit?

The answer lies in an archaic meaningof prove: to test, originating in the Latinprobare, same meaning. It survives insome special fields, including mathemat-ics, minerals, and weapons. A scientistmay test a rule (or theory, principle, etc.)by seeking an exception; finding one isreason to discard, or at least modify, therule. Users of the cliché, unaware of itstrue meaning, cite it as authority to keepthe rule despite the exception.

Some rules, in grammar and spellingfor instance, are not strict and have ex-ceptions. But those exceptions devaluatethe rules rather than validate them.

Exclamation point. See Punctuation,6.

EXECUTE. To execute someone is toimpose capital punishment on him, toput him to death in accordance with asentence legally imposed by a court oflaw. When criminals, terrorists, or otherlawbreakers kill, it is homicide, if notmurder, never “execution.” So it is whenpolitical leaders, government officials, orpolice kill outside of the judicial system,or when the military kills outside of abattle in war. See also Crimes, 4.

After Peruvian soldiers had stormedan embassy to rescue hostages, a newsstory reported

accusations that military commandoshad executed some of the guerrillaswho had tried to surrender. . . .[F]ormer hostages and military intelli-

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gence officers . . . said they had wit-nessed or overheard the soldiers exe-cute the rebels. . . . Speculation thatsome rebels were executed . . . havebeen increasing. [Emphasis is added.]

Execute(d) is at best a euphemism insuch a context, and it can suggest a de-gree of legal justification that may notexist. In the sample, it could well havebeen replaced by kill(ed) or slay or slain,with the qualification that the victimswere captured rebels.

Another meaning of execute, an ear-lier meaning, is to carry out or put intoeffect (a law, a plan, an order, etc.).

See also SLAY, SLAIN, SLEW.

EXERCISE and EXORCISE. Ex-orcise, also spelled exorcize, means todrive out (an evil spirit). It should not bemixed up with the three-e verb exercise,meaning to exert, perform, do exercises,and so on. Some dictionaries offer theoption of pronouncing the two wordsthe same; others would enunciate the orin exorcise, a practice that could help toprevent confusion.

When one “Jesus Christ Satan—a lo-cal street character” showed up in court,jingled bells, and began to speak inprotest against a ruling canceling a spe-cial election, the judge cut him off.Thereupon this headline appeared in anewspaper: “J. C. Satan exercised.” Al-though Mr. Satan may have been exer-cised, in the sense of worried or upset, orpossibly had worked out in a gymna-sium, a more likely explanation for theheadline is a copy editor’s trying to beclever but not succeeding.

EXOTIC. An exhibition of landscapeart elicited a review containing this sen-tence: “Another theme that turns up re-peatedly is the exotic foreign locale.” Tospeak of “the exotic foreign locale” is al-most like saying “the foreign foreign lo-cale.” Foreign is the original meaning ofexotic, which comes from the Greek

word for outside. The sense of intro-duced from abroad and then the sensesof strange and rare branched from thatoriginal meaning. Later, implications ofaesthetics, charm, excitement, or fasci-nation overworked exotic further.

That adjective is a frequent eu-phemism in the field of “adult” (i.e., sex-ual) entertainment. An “exotic dancer”may have spent her entire life in theUnited States and not learned any for-eign dance, as long as she is an alluringyoung woman who dances partly orwholly nude. What may explain thechoice of “exotic” is that it looks somuch like erotic.

EXPECTED. It is hard enough for areporter just to report the facts withouttrying to predict the future. Note thisfront-page headline: “C.I.A. NomineeExpected to Win Senate Backing.” Butsenators’ opposition to the nominationcaused it to be withdrawn. Similarly astory telling what President Reagan was“expected” to tell the nation was notborne out, nor was a story telling howvoters in Washington State were “ex-pected” to vote.

Expected in such a context (the pastparticiple of the transitive verb toexpect) means considered very likely orpractically certain. Of what value wasthat word? And by whom was eachevent “expected”?

Expletives. These amount to verbalappendixes. They are words or phrasesthat fill out sentences but have littlemeaning in themselves.

In its popular sense, an expletive is anoath or swear word, like hell or damn orthe obscene variety of four-letter word.

In a grammatical sense, an expletive isa word or phrase that, while not neces-sary or even very meaningful, may servea stylistic, rhythmic, or syntactical func-tion. It is and there is (are, was, were) arecommon expletives.

When the pronoun it does not repre-

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sent a particular noun and the adverbthere does not refer to a place, eachword may start a sentence or clausewithout being the subject. Examples: “Itis time now to talk business.” / “There’sa full moon out tonight.” The real sub-jects there are time and moon. It andthere in such sentences are called antici-patory subjects or dummy subjects. Id-iom generally accepts them, although theideas may be expressed in other ways;e.g., “Now is the time to talk business”or “A full moon is out tonight.”

Many teachers and editors have longobjected to expletives, considering theiruse weak, clumsy, or superfluous. Some-times it can be so: “There were six otherspecimens found” is better rewritten as“Six other specimens were found” or,still better, as “We found six other speci-mens.” Writers of impersonal letters areapt to write, e.g., “It is thought . . .” toavoid “I think. . . .”

Scientists like to write impersonally,so it is not surprising that three studieson the same topic (passive smoking) bydifferent researchers say in summaries,“There was a statistically significant dif-ference . . .” / “There was no evidence ofany trend . . .” / “There was no associa-tion. . . .”

Yet eminent literature contains manyquotable examples: “It is a far, far betterthing that I do, than I have everdone . . .” (Dickens). “Behold, therecome seven years of great plenty . . .”(Bible, Genesis). “To every thing there isa season . . .” (Bible, Ecclesiastes). It andthere fit the rhythm of many song lyricsand poems: “It was down in old Joe’sbarroom . . .” / “’Twas [it was] the nightbefore Christmas . . . When out on thelawn there arose such a clatter. . . .”

Note that there may be accompaniedby a singular or plural verb, dependingon the noun that follows. “There is a

lizard in my living room” but “There aretwo lizards in my kitchen.” To say“There were a cake and two pies on thetable” is strictly correct but it may soundstrange to some ears. Some writerswould accept “There was a cake andtwo pies . . . ,” however ungrammatical.The dilemma may be resolved by puttingthe plural item first: “There were twopies and a cake . . .”

It as an expletive is always followedby a singular verb: “It seems they losttheir way.” / “It’s [it is] good we’re to-gether again.” In a construction like “Itis the showers that bring [not “brings”]the flowers,” the verb following thatagrees with the real subject (“showers”),not with the dummy subject it. (See alsoWHO, 3.) The purpose of that construc-tion is to emphasize the subject. An arti-cle said, “It’s their specific traits andbiography—their background, their de-meanor—that is supposed to make ustune in.” That are.

EXTORTION. See Crimes, 2.

EYE (of a storm). The eye of a hurri-cane or other tropical cyclone is a fairlycalm place. It is an approximately circu-lar area of rather light winds and com-paratively fair weather in the center ofthe storm.

The narrator of a documentary filmsaid, “At the eye of the hurricane, thewind can exceed 200 miles an hour.” He,or the writer, was wrong. In the eye,“winds diminish to something less than15 knots” (about 17 statute miles perhour), a weather almanac says.

That meteorological term is some-times misused in a figurative way when aperson in the center of a controversy orfuror is said to be “in the eye of thestorm.”

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FABULOUS. Fabulous (adjective)primarily means pertaining to a fable orof the nature of a fable. That which ismythical, legendary, or imaginary maybe described as fabulous. “Baron Mun-chausen was a real man, but his taleswere fabulous.”

The word came to have an additionalmeaning, describing something that isreal but so marvelous that it would seemimaginary if you did not know it wasreal. “The fabulous notion of a trip tothe moon became reality in 1969.”

In later years it entered popularspeech as a slang synonym for verygood, well done, impressive, successful,or any of numerous other terms of ap-proval. “The dinner was fabulous.” /“He did a fabulous job.” Such mundaneuse has become so widespread that itthreatens to bury the specific meaningsof fabulous.

How is the word used in this sen-tence?

On almost every other page, we find aclassic California painting, such asWilliam Alexander Coulter’s horrify-ing yet fabulous view—from theBay—of San Francisco burning in“San Francisco Fire, 1906.”

Whether the writer meant that the scenewas imaginary or that it was wellpainted is not certain. Contemporary

speech has so watered down fabulousthat when someone does use the wordprecisely, we may not know it.

See also FANTASTIC; INCREDI-BLE.

FACT. 1. Definition. 2. “The FACTthat.” 3. Modifiers. 4. Synonyms.

1. DefinitionA fact is a statement that is known to

be true or that has been proven to betrue, whether by observation, research,or reliable testimony.

Fact, as distinguished from fancy, fal-sity, fiction, or supposition, denotes ac-tuality, reality, or truth.

2. “The FACT that”The phrase the fact that often is used

colloquially, and wrongly, for what isnot fact. The expression sometimes ap-pears in serious writing (occasionallywithout “that”), for instance: “The lat-est deployment may reflect the fact thatthe government is thinking of launchinga military attack.” It is speculation, notfact. Change “reflect the fact” to indi-cate.

A radio talk show produced this dia-logue:

[Hostess:] If your son made a girlpregnant, would you help her to getan abortion?

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F

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[Man calling:] I think I would. . . .[Hostess:] I’m surprised by the fact

that he would help a girl of anotherfamily get an abortion.

What surprised her was not a “fact” butan offhand response to a hypotheticalquestion. Leaving out “by the fact”would have sharpened the sentence andnot relinquished any meaning.

A week later another man calling theprogram was questioned:

[Hostess:] Your source for the factthat the Russian army is not being fedis what?

The very question indicated her doubtthat his statement was a fact.

3. ModifiersIn a book about the book business,

we read:

It turns out that the researcher pro-vided his coauthor with incorrectfacts.

No, he provided him with incorrectstatements or with misinformation. Instrict usage, there cannot be “incorrectfacts” or “false facts.” It is a contradic-tion.

Superfluous adjectives like “correct”or “true” should not team up with factseither.

[A prosecutor, as quoted in a newspa-per:] I only want to see the true factspresented.

[An ex-senator on TV:] Americans inpoll after poll, when informed of thetrue facts [about Medicare], say “Let’sfix it.”

“True facts” is redundant. A fact is trueby definition.

While I was in the CIA [an ex-agentsaid in a magazine piece] I also helpedprepare briefings for Congress for Mr.Colby. . . . Very few of the facts inthese briefings were true.

Then there were very few facts. Either re-place facts with another noun, like state-ments or details; or place an adjective,like supposed or purported, before facts.Such an adjective is almost implied in apopular expression: to get one’s facts(that is, one’s supposed facts) right orwrong or straight.

Fact(s) can be legitimately modified inmany ways. One may speak of a surpris-ing fact, a scientific fact, encouragingfacts, all the facts, and so on.

4. SynonymsFact in some contexts is interchange-

able with actuality, reality or truth. Thepreposition in may precede any of thosenouns, but the meanings are not neces-sarily the same. For instance, in fact of-ten serves merely to intensify thestatement that is coming, whereas in re-ality is more apt to contrast the truth ofwhat is to come with that of a previousstatement.

Information can be used as a syn-onym for facts, knowledge, or learning.It can be used in a neutral way also, todenote something that is told or a tellingof something, regardless of the truth orfalsity of what is told. If the informationis wrong, it can be called misinforma-tion.

A statement is an act of setting forthin words; also something stated or said,an account of something. Because it maynot be true, it is not the same as a fact.

Truth, the state or quality of beingtrue or in accordance with fact or reality,can pertain to a particular statement(“Can you verify the truth of that state-ment?”) or to a generality (“When war isdeclared, truth is the first casualty”).

See also DATA.

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FACTICITY, FACTION, FAC-TIOUS, FACTUAL, etc. See FACT-words.

FACTOR. 1. General meaning. 2.Special meanings.

1. General meaningA medical dictionary says about can-

cer:

There are probably many causativefactors, some of which are known: forexample, cigarette smoking is associ-ated with lung cancer, radiation withsome bone sarcomas and leukemia.

“Causative” is unnecessary. A factor iscausative; that is, functioning as a cause.“There are probably many factors. . . .”

When it is not used in a biological,commercial, or mathematical sense, afactor essentially is a cause. It is a cir-cumstance, condition, or element thatcontributes to an effect or a result. Themeanings of cause and factor overlap,but only cause will do if an effect isknown to have a single cause; factor im-plies one or more additional causes.

The general sense of factor is a figura-tive use of its mathematical sense definedin 2.

Factor is stuffed in innumerable sen-tences, either unnecessarily or impre-cisely. “Causative” and “causal” areamong unnecessary modifiers. Anotherappears in the phrase “contributing fac-tor.” Factors contribute. “We have tothink of the cost factor” probably can beshortened to “We have to think of thecost.”

Touching on the difficulty in unscram-bling bad English, an essayist asksrhetorically: “And what about the timefactor?” Could “factor” not be omitted,perhaps replaced by spent or wasted?

Often factor is used when a more ap-propriate word would be circumstance,component, consideration, element, fact,

feature, force, ingredient, or phase. In“Let’s review the factors leading up tothis crime,” circumstances would be anapt replacement for “factors.”

2. Special meaningsIn biology, factor indicates an antigen,

gene, or substance; the word is com-bined in terms such as Rh factor. This isan antigen discovered in red blood cellsof rhesus monkeys and most people.Blood containing it is incompatible withblood lacking it.

Factor has several commercial mean-ings. Often it is a person or companythat makes loans secured by accounts re-ceivable or, sometimes, that purchasesthe accounts. An older sense is that of acommission merchant, an agent for thesale of goods.

In mathematics, a factor is one of twoor more quantities that form a specifiedproduct when multiplied together: 5 and3 are factors of 15. A related verb (tran-sitive) is factor, meaning to separate (aproduct) into factors. A synonym is fac-torize.

An obsolete meaning of the noun fac-tor is one who does or makes something,its meaning in Latin.

FACT- words. 1. Concerning facts. 2.Not concerning facts.

1. Concerning factsWhen an academic said on television,

“The level of facticity has dropped onthe part of both of the candidates,” wasshe using a recognized word?

The noun facticity is defined in TheOxford English Dictionary as “Thequality or condition of being a fact; fac-tuality.” It dates at least from 1945.

So the speaker used a word recog-nized by the most reputable dictionary, ifnot by her entire TV audience. A simplerphrasing: “Both candidates are gettingaway from facts.”

The Oxford lists three related nouns.

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(The dates represent the dictionary’s ear-liest quotations.)

• Factuality: “The quality of beingfactual; factualness” (1887).

• Factualness: “The state of beingfactual; factuality” (1906).

• Factualism: In philosophy, “Apredominant concern with facts ornatural consequences, especially inmoral matters . . .” (1946).

The common adjective factual meanspertaining to, containing, or made up offacts; “a factual report.” In some con-texts it implies that something is real, notfabricated, at least in essence; “Themovie is factual.”

A less common adjective is factful:well acquainted with facts (said of a per-son) or full of facts (said of a literarywork).

Faction in the sense of fiction basedon fact is a fairly new noun, not to beconfused with its homonym below.

2. Not concerning factsSeveral words that begin with fact-

have nothing to do with facts. Let us listthem.

• Faction (noun): a clique or asubgroup of a country, government,party, organization, etc.; also conflictor dissension within such an entity.“The city council has conservativeand liberal factions. It is hamperedby faction.”

• Factional (adjective): pertaining to afaction or characterized by faction.

• Factious (adjective): producing orcausing faction; also, pertaining toor characterized by faction. “Thisfactious election campaign is almostover.” / “The Vietnam conflict wasespecially factious.”

• Factitious (adjective): unnatural,artificially produced by effort.“Sales, which had been slow,

boomed when Madison Avenue setoff a factitious demand for theproduct.” Factitious should not beconfused with fictitious, whichmeans written as fiction or createdby the imagination and can, butneed not necessarily, imply falsityand intent to deceive. (In the contextof advertising, the confusion wouldbe understandable.)

• Factitive (adjective): in grammar,pertaining to a type of transitiveverb. Its direct object takes acomplement, and typically a makingor rendering is described. In “Theymade him their leader,” made is afactitive verb.

A journalist described a political partyas “factionalized.” If he meant it wascharacterized by faction, either factionalor factious would have expressed thatmeaning more economically.

FACULTY. A faculty is a staff of aneducational institution. It is the entirebody of teachers in a college or univer-sity (“the faculty of Yale”) or in one ofits departments (“the mathematics fac-ulty”). Some dictionaries broaden thedefinition to take in any type of school,and some include administrators as wellas teachers.

The writer of a main article in a uni-versity newspaper could not decidewhether the word was plural or singular.In some sentences he made it plural:

Some faculty . . . fear and loathestudent evaluations of their teaching. . . . Many faculty thought the evalua-tion process was fine as is. . . . Facultywere not given enough research time. . . . Most faculty are expected to teachthe equivalent of four classes persemester.

In other sentences, intermingled withthose above, he construed the word dif-ferently:

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The survey asked 78 faculty membersquestions. . . . Those faculty memberseligible for tenure . . . must have theirteaching evaluated by students. . . .Many had feared those faculty mem-bers might move on to greener aca-demic pastures. . . .

The plural construction of the first set isnot customary. Faculty is usually re-garded as singular. “The faculty was notgiven. . . .” / “Many faculty membersthought. . . .” The second set is standard,although the inconsistency was worsethan the errancy.

Faculty is a collective noun compara-ble to class. No one says “Some classdrop out” and “The class are many” in-stead of “Some class members drop out”and “The class is large.”

See also Collective nouns; STAFF.

FANTASIA. See FANTASTIC.

FANTASTIC. When a state’s educa-tion chief called on school districts totoughen academic requirements, thepresident of a parent-teacher associationcommented that “talk about higher stan-dards is fantastic.” And a member of theU.S. House of Representatives saidabout its speaker, “He’s making fantasticefforts on behalf of the Americanpeople.”

Were they implying that talk of highstandards and the House speaker’s ef-forts were bizarre, capricious, fanciful,grotesque, illusory, imaginary, odd,strange, or unreal? Fantastic primarilymeans pertaining to or characterized byfantasy, and it has those associatedmeanings.

The contexts showed that each wasusing “fantastic” in a nonstandard senseto mean something like admirable, capi-tal, great, noteworthy, remarkable,splendid, superb, or any of dozens of re-lated words.

A reviewer talked on the radio about

the movie Titanic. “Only one word candescribe it,” he said. Is the word titanic?No. “It is fantastic.” That meant the filmwas characterized by fantasy, untrue tolife, if he was speaking strictly. He prob-ably was not.

In music, a fantasia is a free-formcomposition of nontraditional structure,emphasizing fancy over form. It may ei-ther stand alone or serve as the preludefor a fugue.

Before playing a piano rendition of aBach toccata and fugue on a radio pro-gram, a musician described some of itstechnicalities and called it a “fantastic”piece. In the context in which it wasused, the word could have meant charac-teristic of a fantasia. At the end, how-ever, when he remarked, “It’s a fantasticthing,” it became apparent that his useof the word was not authentic. (But thenneither was the music, which Bach hadcomposed for the organ.)

See also FABULOUS; INCREDIBLE.

FAR. Discussing car thefts, in a radiointerview, a police chief said of the Toy-ota, “It’s a very popular item as far asstripping the inside of the vehicle.” Strip-ping the as far as construction of is con-cerned (or another appropriate verb) isunfortunately becoming popular too.

When the meaning is to the extentthat or to the degree that, the noun thatfollows as far as or so far as must be fol-lowed by a verb: “As far as cats are con-cerned, the law is silent.” / “He is not agreat actor as far as comedies go.”

The same rule applies to the phrase in-sofar as, or in so far as (as it is sometimesspelled), also meaning to the extent thator to the degree that. The noun that fol-lows it must be followed by a verb: “In-sofar as business grows, dividends willrise.”

When as far as is followed by a nounrepresenting a place, it may need noverb: “They rode as far as the border.”Nor does a verb have to follow when as

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far as or so far as indicates a limit ofprogress: “He went to school as far asthe sixth grade.”

As far as or insofar as often can be replaced, partly or entirely, by one small word or another: “As for cats . . .”/ “. . . Actor in comedies” / “If businessgrows. . . .”

Two physicians and a congressmanmade these statements in three broad-casts:

As far as frozen embryos, it’s amazinghow good they are.

As far as short-term toxicity, they’vegiven human beings up to 6,000 mil-ligrams every night.

As far as the loan, it raises questions.

None of the three sentences accepts the“as far as” phrasing. In each, as formakes more sense.

FARTHER and FURTHER. Dowe go further or go farther? Each is acomparative form of far. Each is bothadjective and adverb.

Many careful writers and speakersobserve a useful rule: Limit farther to themeaning of more far in the sense of ac-tual, physical distance that can be mea-sured (“I live farther from my officenow”). Use further for other, more figu-rative meanings (“He went further intodebt”). Further thus means more distantor distantly in degree, quantity, or time.The distinction should be encouraged toprevent ambiguities like this one, froman art review:

The farther Cézanne got from theobject in front of him, the more trou-ble he had.

The sentence seems to say that the artisthad trouble seeing and could not standtoo far from the object he was painting.

But the next sentence suggests that thereviewer is not to be taken literally.(“His allegories . . . are not remarkablepaintings.”) Evidently he means that themore Cézanne departed from reality, theworse were his pictures. In that case, fur-ther should have been used, not “far-ther.”

In both examples just below, it isclearer that measurable distances werenot in the writers’ minds. Each “farther”should be further.

. . . Britain . . . had already gonefarther than its community partnersby withdrawing its entire diplomaticstaff from Teheran. . . .

But as the would-be rebels weresoon to be reminded, the farther Mr.Kohl is pushed, the more terrible is hisrecovery.

Here is an example of a “further” thatshould be farther. A measurable distanceis exactly what the writer had in mind.

Novosibirsk, the largest city in thevast expanse of eastern Russia knownas Siberia, is more than 1,500 milessoutheast of Moscow and even fur-ther west of Vladivostok. . . .

Change “further” to farther; or, better,change “even further” to more than2,000 miles.

The superlative forms of far bear thesame relationship as the comparativeforms. Farthest is most far in a literalsense: “Of the nine planets, Pluto is thefarthest from the Sun.” Furthest is mostfar in a figurative sense: “Of the paint-ings on display, those by Dalí are the fur-thest from reality.”

Those cool to the idea of distinguish-ing the words point to their interchange-able use at times by prominent writers. Itis also a fact that neither word originallypertained to far. Further once was a

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comparative of fore and meant more for-ward. Farther came later as a variationof further, having nothing to do with far.More far was farrer, which became ob-solete and was replaced by farther.

Of the two words, only further is averb (transitive), meaning to advance orassist: “They want to further our cause.”Another distinctive sense of further, asan adjective, is that of additional: “Weneed further help.”

FATALITY. A fatality is (1) an occur-rence that results in death, or (2) a deathresulting from an unexpected occur-rence. The word is misused in the ex-cerpts below, from news items and (thethird) an editorial.

Authorities said Patrick P——, ofKalamazoo, became the first huntingfatality of the season on Thursdaywhen he accidentally shot himself in acornfield while trying to unclog snowfrom his rifle.

The unfortunate man fell victim to ahunting fatality, or a hunting fatalityended his life, or he became the first fatalvictim of the hunting season. But theman himself could not become a “fatal-ity.”

A 58-year-old New York womanwho died of the disorder in Septemberis the first confirmed fatality in theoutbreak, and several other deaths arestill under investigation. . . .

The driver of the Mercury becamethe 26th fatality on Highway 37 in thepast five years.

In each case, the death was the fatality,not the person who died. Changing “fa-tality” to victim or fatal victim would bepreferable to the present wording, whichtends to convert human beings intostatistics.

See also Dehumanization.

FATE. See DESTINY.

FAUN and FAWN. Arthur Fiedleronce conducted a symphony concert ti-tled “Pops Family Night at the Zoo.”The program included Carnival of theAnimals, Tiger Rag, Under the DoubleEagle, and Prelude to the Afternoon of aFaun. That last selection seemed out ofharmony with the zoo theme. Debussy’sfaun—not to be confused with fawn, ababy deer—was an ancient Roman deity,part man and part goat. To the best ofmy knowledge, no zoo has ever had one.

FAZE and PHASE. A woman waslearning to fly a little airplane and enjoy-ing the experience, except for one thing.She wrote in a book:

The only thing that phased me waswhen David [the instructor] demon-strated that Pegasus [the plane’sname] had pendular stability andcould right herself from any twist; heswung the bar and she dived andsoared.

Correction: it fazed—not “phased”—her. Faze and phase (verbs, transitive) arepronounced the same but have differentmeanings and origins. (See also WHEN,WHERE in definitions.)

To faze is to daunt, disconcert, or dis-turb one. It is used more often in the neg-ative than the positive. “Winter neverfazes the Eskimos.” The word has pro-gressed from American dialect to collo-quial use, to standard use. It began as avariation of feeze (or feaze), which camefrom the Old English fesian, to driveaway (someone or something).

To phase is to plan, schedule, or carryout something in phases or stages or asneeded. It came from the Greek nounphasis, appearance or phase of themoon, which itself came from the verbphanein, to show.

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To phase in or phase out something isto introduce it or eliminate it in phasesor stages. A phase phrase can be useful,but it carries the flavor of bureaucraticor corporate jargon. If the idea is togradually introduce or gradually elimi-nate something, it may be better to sayso.

Phase as a noun is a state of develop-ment or a temporary form of behavior oran event in a cycle of events. It can alsobe the way the moon, or another celes-tial body, or other body whose appear-ance changes periodically, appears at acertain time.

FEATURE. To feature (verb, transi-tive) is to present as a prominent attrac-tion, display conspicuously, or publicize(a person, thing, topic, etc.).

A music reviewer wrote, “The con-cert . . . featured an interminable inter-mission. . . .” The concert featured anoted pianist. It had or included an intermission or, the critic could say, was unduly stretched out by it; but theintermission was never presented as aprominent attraction. (See also INTER-MINABLE.)

“The current issue features spacetravel” is a straightforward use of theverb. Occasionally someone reverses thesubject and object, so that “Space travelfeatures the current issue.” If one is de-termined to lead off with the highlightedtopic, a way to do it sensibly is to replace“features” with a passive form, is fea-tured in.

FEEL. A businessman admitted that hehad made a $300,000 political contribu-tion in return for a meeting with thepresident. Thereupon a television com-mentator asked, “How are voters sup-posed to feel except incredibly cynicallyabout the process?” Cynical (adjective),not “cynically” (adverb), would havebeen correct.

When feel means to experience an

emotion or perceive one’s own condi-tion, an adjective follows: “She feelshappy,” not “happily”; and “I am recu-perated and feel strong now,” not“strongly.” (Feel then serves as a linkingverb. It links the subject, she or I, to theadjective, happy or strong.)

Feel itself is only occasionally modi-fied, for example: “We feel strongly thathe is the best man for the country.”There the adverb strongly is right;“strong” would be incorrect.

Some editors and critics have objectedto feel in the sense of hold an opinion ortake a stand. That common use need notbe wholly abandoned, although feel canbe wishy-washy when the import is “Wedeclare” or “My position is” or “TheCourt finds.” Feel suits an attitude, con-viction, or opinion tinged with emotionand vagueness, as opposed to reason andclarity.

See also BAD and BADLY; GOODand WELL.

FELICITOUS. See FORTUITOUS.

FELONY. See CRIME, MISDE-MEANOR, and FELONY; Crimes (vari-ous felonies).

-F ending. See Plurals and singulars,2F.

FESTOON, FESTOONED. To fes-toon (verb, transitive) is to decoratewith, or make into, or join, by means ofa festoon. A festoon (noun) is a garlandor string of flowers, leaves, ribbons, etc.hanging in a curve or loop between twopoints. A representation of such a hang-ing garland, say carved in furniture, mayalso be called a festoon. Does either ofthe samples (from a magazine and anewspaper) describe either kind of fes-toon?

The walls all around Slonimsky’swork table are festooned with a

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gallery of ghoulish nonsense—bizarretabloid headlines, M. C. Escher co-nundrums, a reproduction of an 1853painting. . . .

The walls may be adorned, decked, dec-orated, embellished, or merely coveredwith those things but are probably nottruly festooned. (The sentence containstwo other questionable uses: “ghoulish,”meaning fiendish, horrible, or loath-some, to describe the headlines and pic-tures; and “conundrums,” riddles whoseanswers are puns, applied to Escher’spictures.)

Mr. Krasilnikov said the city willstill be festooned on holidays with cel-ebratory slogans and multistory por-traits of Lenin.

Conceivably a slogan could be formedby letters joined on a festoon (although aslogan sign pictured with the excerptednews story was not festooned), but it isdifficult to imagine the festooning ofmultistory portraits.

FETUS. See EMBRYO and FETUS.

FEWER and LESS. 1. The differ-ence. 2. Exceptions.

1. The difference“We now have 200,000 less students

in the state university system.” A candi-date for governor said that in a question-and-answer segment of a television newsshow, erroneously using “less” insteadof fewer.

A legal commentator and a networkspokesman made essentially the same er-ror in broadcasts. The first said, concern-ing a criminal trial, “You’re going to seeless and less objections.” The secondsaid, about a reorganization of his com-pany, “It’s fair to say that there will beless jobs.”

An article similarly erred: Employerslike a hospital’s day care for ill children

“because it means less days out of workfor their employees.”

As a rule of thumb: less goes with asingular; fewer goes with a plural. (Ex-ceptions are coming.)

Less means not so much. It is asmaller quantity of a substance (“less he-lium”) or type of object (“less fruit”) ora smaller amount or degree of an ab-stract thing (“less excitement”) or de-scriptive quality (“less brilliant”).

Fewer means not so many. It is asmaller number of objects (“fewer co-conuts” or “fewer heavenly bodies”) orother things that can be counted andthat are considered individually (“fewerpleasures” or “fewer challenges”).

See also MANY and MUCH.

2. ExceptionsEven if a word is in plural form, less

applies if the thing represented is consid-ered as a unit. We commonly regard anamount of money, a period of time, or ameasure of weight or distance as a unit.

In the sentence “The book costs lessthan $20,” we think of a single sum, notof individual dollars. In the sentences“She is less than six months old” / “Themachine weighs less than nine pounds” /“The station is less than two miles fromhere,” we think of a single period oftime, a total weight, and a total distance,not of months, pounds, and miles con-sidered individually.

The distinction is not always clear-cut. Grammatical authorities have notagreed on where to draw the lines. H. W.Fowler favored “less troops or clothes,”finding such plurals “really equivalent tosingulars of indefinite amount.” After“less,” his reviser, Sir Ernest Gowers, in-serted “(or fewer).”

A book on word usage quotes thisanonymous sentence and says that“less” should be fewer:

“The nation’s traffic death toll . . .was 377—thirteen less than the . . .pre-holiday estimate.”

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But the anonymous writer had regardedthe toll as a unit: it “was 377.” Had hethought of the human victims repre-sented by that figure and written that“377 people died in traffic accidents,”fewer would clearly need to follow “thir-teen.” Perhaps his shortcoming was lessgrammatical than philosophical.

See also Dehumanization.

FICTITIOUS. See FACT- words, 2.

FIGURATIVELY. See LITERALLY.

Figures. See Numbers.

FINALIZE. See -IZE ending.

FINE. 1. FINE, FINELY, and FINE-TUNE. 2. Other issues and uses.

1. FINE, FINELY, and FINE-TUNEYou may finely chop onions but not

“fine” chop them. A news agency madesuch an error:

On May 6, the treaty’s 75 ratifiersare expected to meet at The Hague tofine tune its management and enforce-ment provisions.

The simplest correction is to insert thehyphen that belongs in the verb fine-tune. As an alternative, change “finetune” to refine or change “fine” to finely.

Finely is an adverb, meaning in a finemanner. Fine as an adverb (“She singsfine”) is acceptable in conversation orcasual writing but never before the verb.

Fine is mainly an adjective. Its mean-ings include tiny (fine particles); thin(fine thread); sharp (fine edge); subtle(fine distinctions); pure or up to a stan-dard (fine gold); and, colloquially, ingood health (“I’m fine—how are you?”).

2. Other issues and usesFine in the sense of admirable or ex-

cellent (“a fine poem”) used to drawsome objections, but it is widely ac-

cepted now. If anything, it is weakenedfrom overuse. People toss off “fine” inconversation when other words—some-times merely all right or O.K.—wouldbe more fitting.

Among its uses, fine (noun) is a mone-tary punishment or (verb) to impose it.In music scores, fine does not describethe music: it is Italian for the end (andpronounced FEE-nay). Fine once meantthat in English.

Fire. See FLAMMABLE (etc.).

FIRE (verb). See LAY OFF and LAY-OFF; LET GO.

FIRM. Each of these paragraphs, fromnewspapers, contains a contradiction:

Apple Computer Inc. is expected tounveil its much-heralded “Lisa” per-sonal computer model today. . . . TheCupertino-based firm also said Tues-day that net sales grew 60% for thequarter ended Dec. 31.

In Los Angeles, Northrop Corp.spokesman Ed Smith said yesterdaythat the firm will cut its B-2 bombertask force drastically. . . .

. . . Maxwell put up $30 million foran 18 percent share of Teva Pharma-ceutical Industries Ltd., one of Israel’slargest and most profitable firms.

The contradiction is that each companyis incorporated—as indicated by “Inc.”or “Corp.” or “Ltd.”—but called a“firm.” Being a corporation, it is not a“firm.”

A firm is a partnership. It is “a busi-ness or professional association of twoor more persons as distinguished froman incorporated company” (Encyclope-dia of Banking & Finance). Partners of afirm may be sued as individuals if dam-ages are claimed from the business. Thatis not so for officers of a corporation.

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The law treats a corporation as if it werea separate person.

News editors, concerned with fittingheadlines into cramped spaces, may notwelcome that information, inasmuch asfirm is seven letters shorter than corpora-tion and appreciably shorter than busi-ness, company, concern, enterprise, orhouse. There is less justification for call-ing a corporation a firm in the body of aserious article or talk, particularly onepurporting to explain matters of busi-ness and finance.

Ltd. (as in the third sample) is the ab-breviation for limited, used in names ofcorporations outside the United Statesand in Hawaii. It indicates that the liabil-ity of a shareholder is limited to his in-vestment in the company.

(In the second sample, “will” shouldbe would. See Tense, 4.)

FISCAL and PHYSICAL. See Con-fusing pairs.

FISSION and FUSION. See NU-CLEAR.

FLAIR and FLARE. See Homo-phones.

FLAMMABLE, INFLAMMABLE,and NONFLAMMABLE. Some-thing that is flammable can be burned. Asynonym is inflammable, which used tobe a more common word. Those con-cerned with fire safety have promotedthe use of the adjective flammable, be-cause some people think that the otherword means nonflammable or noncom-bustible. The in- in inflammable does notmean “not”; the word originates in theLatin inflammare, to kindle, the origin ofthe English verb inflame.

A manufacturer of woolen productsstated in a leaflet, “Wool is . . . light, soft,non-flamable and durable.” The state-ment contains errors in spelling and fact: Nonflammable, has a double m.

(The hyphen is optional.) And, whilewool is considered flame-resistant, it canburn.

FLAUNT and FLOUT. Addressingtelevision cameras, a senator said theU.S. administration in its foreign policy“has spent seven years flaunting thelaw”; a prosecutor said, “No one is freeto flaunt the tax laws”; and a journalistsaid “She [a hotel owner] thought shecould flaunt the law. . . .” All werewrong.

To flaunt is to show off. (“He becamerich and flaunted his wealth.” / “Sheprofits from flaunting her body in pub-lic.”) Flout, meaning to show contemptfor or to scoff at, or flouting (the presentparticiple), is what should have beenused by each speaker. The two verbs(transitive) are poles apart. None of theflouters would flaunt their flouting.

FLOCK, FLOCKING. See DROVE.

FLOODED. See INUNDATE, IN-UNDATED.

FLOUNDER and FOUNDER.The main headline in a daily newspapersaid, “S.F. kids flounder in math on statetest.” Could the copy editor have beenfloundering and grasping the wrong f-word? The story reported that manypublic school youngsters in San Fran-cisco had done poorly in the mathemati-cal portion of a statewide academic test.In other words, they had foundered inthat part of the test.

To flounder (verb, intransitive) is tomove clumsily, to plunge about awk-wardly, or to speak or act in a confusedway. Lexicographers are uncertain of itsorigin. Some assume that it came fromfounder. They do not trace it to the fish,although a snared flounder certainlyflounders; so does a cod, trout, etc. whencaught, but if the fish helps one to re-member the word, good for it.

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To founder (verb, intransitive) is tofail, to collapse, or to break down. It canalso mean (for ships) to sink, (for horses)to fall or become lame, or (for buildingsor land) to cave in. Founder (verb, tran-sitive) can mean to cause (something) tofounder. The verb comes from the OldFrench word fondrer, to sink, whichstemmed from the Latin word fundrus,bottom.

There is a noun flounder, besides thefish, meaning the act of floundering. Thenoun founder can mean the act offoundering; or soreness in a horse’s foot.It has two additional meanings unrelatedto the verb founder: one who founds inthe sense of establishing (e.g., a college)and one who founds in the sense of cast-ing metal.

FLOUT. See FLAUNT and FLOUT.

FLY. See -Y ending.

FOLLOWING. See AFTER.

FOR. See FREE, 1; Guilt and inno-cence, 5; Prepositions, 2, 3, 4, 7; WAITFOR and WAIT ON; WISH.

FORBID, PROHIBIT, and BAN.1. FORBID, FORBADE. 2. PRO-HIBIT; BAN. 3. PROHIBITION; BAN.

1. FORBID, FORBADEA narrator on a national TV “maga-

zine” said, “FDA regulations at thattime forbid using that blood.” He usedthe present tense; he needed the past.The past tense of forbid is either forbade(pronounced for-BAD or for-BAYED) orforbad (pronounced for-BAD).

When a problem with forbid arises,more often it is not in the verb itself(transitive) or its forms but in what fol-lows it. For example:

Luzhkov demonstrated his muscle in1994 when he forbade the federal

government from privatizing large in-dustries located in Moscow.

Nobody is forbidden “from” doing any-thing. The preposition that commonlyfollows any form of forbid is to. Thus“They forbid us to enter.” / “You’re for-bidden to smoke there” or “Smoking isforbidden there.” / “. . . He forbade thefederal government to privatize large in-dustries. . . .”

2. PROHIBIT; BANThe verb prohibit (transitive) is often

followed by from: “They prohibited thecompany from selling the product” (not“prohibited . . . to sell”).

Forbid and prohibit have substan-tially the same meaning: to order a per-son or persons not to take certain action;or to make a rule against some action.Prohibit, however, has a ring of legalityto it. A parent tells a child, “I forbid youto leave the house tonight” or “I forbidyour leaving the house tonight.” An or-dinance “prohibits motorists from park-ing” or “prohibits parking” itself or saysthat “parking is prohibited” at a certainlocation.

The verb ban (transitive) is similar toprohibit and means to proscribe someaction or some thing, especially by lawor religious authority. Ban implies astrong condemnation of that which isproscribed. “They banned the book.” /“He was banned from entering the coun-try.”

3. PROHIBITION; BANBan is also a noun, meaning an offi-

cial disapproval, decree, or sentence,aimed at preventing or outlawing some-thing. It can be also a condemnation orexcommunication by church authorities,and it can be a curse.

A noun related to prohibit is prohibi-tion. One speaks of “the prohibition ofalcohol” but “the ban on alcohol.

Nouns related to forbid are forbid-

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ding and, a rare one, forbiddance. A re-lated adjective is forbidden, as in “for-bidden fruit.” It is also the past participleof the verb: “They have forbidden himto enter the country.”

Forbidding has a much differentmeaning as an adjective: repellent owingto an appearance of danger or unpleas-antness. A music critic wrote of a com-poser’s “distinguished and forbiddingreputation,” thereby praising and dis-praising him in the same phrase.

FORCEFUL and FORCIBLE. SeeConfusing pairs.

FOREVER. The quotation is from anauthor’s account of a flight over Mali. Isanything wrong? “I could ride east fromthere for miles, the sands went on forever.”

One problem lies in the adverb “forever.” It is not the division of for andever, an older style that is just as valid asthe union of the two components in for-ever if used consistently. It is that forever,or for ever, pertains to time, not space. Itmeans (1) for eternity, for all time (“Theuniverse will last forever”), or (2) inces-santly, continually (“That dog is foreverbarking”). The title and title song of themusical play On a Clear Day You CanSee Forever, an anomaly that alluded toa character’s ability to foresee the future,may have helped to spread the wrongidea.

The meaning of the quotation can beexpressed in many ways: “The sandswent on and on” / “seemed endless” /“stretched to the horizon” / “lay as faras the eye could see,” et cetera.

(Another mistake in the sample is theimproper fusion of two sentences. Eitherchange the comma to a colon or semi-colon, or change it to a period and letThe start a new sentence. See Run-onsentence, 2.)

FOREWORD and FORWARD.The foreword of a small book is headed,

in large letters, “FORWARD.” No oneliterate in English should mix up the twowords; their confounding is a blunder in-deed for an author to make and an edi-tor to overlook. (Perhaps it is poeticlicense. The book is a rhyming dictio-nary.)

Another book (this time a cookbook)combines part of each word in “FORE-WARD.”

Foreword (noun), a front note in abook, is made up of two fairly obviousfour-letter words. As commonly used, itrepresents a nineteenth-century Angli-cization of the German word for preface,vorwort, which combines vor, fore, andwort, word.

It should not be confused with for-ward (adjective and adverb), whose suf-fix is -ward, meaning in a certaindirection. The prefix has the same mean-ing in both words, fore or front, thoughforward lacks an e. This word descendedfrom the Old English foreweard.

“FOR FREE.” See FREE, 1.

FORMER. Former (pronoun) is theopposite of latter. The former refers tothe first of two things—only two—thathave been mentioned. “Their ham andeggs are good, particularly the former.”Often it is clearer to repeat a word orphrase: “particularly the ham.”

When three or more items are enu-merated—“We saw zebras, giraffes, andlions”—former cannot be used. It is bestto repeat the first item: “The zebras wereespecially plentiful.” If it is too long, thefirst or the first-named or the first ofthose are possibilities.

Former (adjective) can mean previous,past, taking place earlier, or coming be-fore in order.

The meaning is not always immedi-ately clear. Confusion can enter whenformer refers to something that is men-tioned first but came later in time. Abook on international law tells of thefounding of the Permanent Court of Ar-

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bitration in 1899 and a proposal in 1907to supplement it with a Court of ArbitralJustice:

The CAJ was . . . designed to . . . coex-ist with the PCA. . . . The implicationwas clear that states would quicklygrow to prefer adjudication over arbi-tration since the former institutionsupposedly more nearly coincidedwith their vital national security inter-ests. . . .

Inasmuch as the 1907 event came later,the Court of Arbitral Justice should havebeen repeated by name, or initials, in-stead of described as “the former institu-tion.”

Another temporal problem is illus-trated by a sentence from a news item.The statement cannot be true:

Haynsworth was nominated forthe U.S. Supreme Court by formerPresident Nixon on Aug. 18, 1969,but the Senate later rejected the nomi-nation on a 55-to-45 vote.

No one can be nominated to theSupreme Court by a “former” president.It would be enough to say, “Hayns-worth was nominated . . . by PresidentNixon. . . .” Anyone who read the story(years after the famous resignation)would almost certainly have known thatNixon was no longer president. If indoubt, the writer could have made it per-fectly clear by writing, “Haynsworthwas nominated . . . by then PresidentNixon. . . .”

See also Anachronism, 3; ERST-WHILE; LATTER.

FORMIDABLE. Formidable (adjec-tive) originates in the Latin formido,meaning fear. Dictionaries in the pastgenerally stuck to the ideas of (1) arous-ing fear or dread of any encounter; (2)being alarming or forbidding in appear-ance, difficulty, strength, etc. They essen-

tially agreed also on the pronunciation:FOR-mid-a-bull.

In recent decades some users havestretched the word nearly to meaning-lessness, without a trace of its original el-ement of apprehension. It has been usedin place of big and impressive. One dic-tionary even gives “admirable” as ameaning.

While a television documentary pic-tured Jidda, Saudi Arabia, a narratorcommented, “It’s the formidable face ofa booming economy.” Impressive?Handsome? Whatever he meant, asidefrom empty alliteration, omitting“formidable” would not have hurt. Hepronounced it for-MID-a-bull, a non-standard pronunciation heard at othertimes from a U.S. senator and threebroadcasters.

FORSAKE. The Los Angeles PoliceDepartment “forsaked its officers,” alawyer said on television, using a non-word. Forsook is the proper past tense ofthe verb (transitive) forsake.

In the context above, forsake meansto abandon or desert (someone or some-thing). It can mean also to renounce orgive up (something). Its other forms:“She has forsaken me” (past participle),“They are forsaking us” (present partici-ple), and “He forsakes you” (presenttense, third person, singular).

“FOR THE SIMPLE REASONTHAT.” See REASON, 3.

FORTUITOUS. Fortuitous (adjec-tive) means coming about by accident orby chance or without plan.

A newspaper article told about a hos-pital’s new, state-supported program toprovide schooling for juvenile patients.The head of the pediatrics departmentwas quoted.

“This program was fortuitous be-cause just in the last 30 days we gotnew hospital accreditation guidelines

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that state that, if we provide treat-ment for infants and children, wemust provide for their education ifthey are hospitalized for long periodsof time,” E—— said.

The administrator was mixed up and thereporter probably was too. They mayhave confused “fortuitous” with a com-bination of felicitous, meaning apt or ap-propriate, and fortunate, meaning lucky.Either word would have been a betterchoice than “fortuitous.”

That which is fortuitous may be inter-preted as appropriate or inappropriate,lucky or unlucky. Natural disasters arefortuitous. Like felicitous, it is a four-syllable word beginning with f and end-ing with -itous. It shares the first fiveletters of fortunate. Otherwise fortuitoushas little in common with the other twoadjectives. The Latin equivalents and an-cestors of fortuitous and fortunate arefortuitus and fortunatus, which in thedistant past evidently had a commonroot in fors, chance, luck.

A book by two scientific writers ap-pears to suggest that accident and uncer-tainty pervade the universe. Thecomponents of such a universe couldtruly be called fortuitous. In the follow-ing example, no problem appears up tothe second comma.

For some people, the exceedinglyfortuitous arrangement of the physi-cal world, which permits the very spe-cial conditions necessary to humanobservers’ existence, confirms theirbelief in a creative Designer.

In this example, felicitous would itself bemore felicitous than “fortuitous.” Fortu-nate also would pass muster.

A similar problem appears in anotherbook, by a traveler telling about cartrouble in Africa.

Within a few moments, the enginefired. The mechanic danced a few

steps and doffed his hat just as the boyon the bicycle returned holding up atube triumphantly. Never had somany fortuitous omens graced us atonce.

This time “fortuitous” would well be re-placed by favorable.

An adverb related to fortuitous is for-tuitously. A related noun is fortuitous-ness.

FORTUNATE. See FORTUITOUS.

FORTUNE. See DESTINY.

FORWARD and BACK (time).When daylight-saving time arrives in the spring, we are advised to move ourclocks “forward” one hour; that is,move them in the direction in whichclocks automatically move. Turning theclock “back,” say from 2 a.m. to 1 a.m.,is what we are advised to do in the fallwhen standard time returns. The mne-monic “Spring forward, fall back” doesnot help some people, who misunder-stand those adverbs and arrive at placestwo hours late or two hours early.

An announcing of a shift in time re-quires caution. The new hour or dateneeds to be stated precisely.

The manager of a television stationdecided to start its network programs at7 p.m. instead of 8 p.m. A newspaper re-ported that she was “moving prime timeforward one hour.”

Sometimes forward (as an adjective)can indeed mean early: “A forward con-tingent is on its way.” But forward (as anadverb) can refer also to the future:“From this day forward” / “I look for-ward to the party.” Similarly, back cansuggest an earlier time to some (“Thinkback to your school days”), a later timeto others (who may recall the movieBack to the Future).

If a meeting originally scheduled forMay 3 is postponed, or put off, to May10, is it moved “ahead” one week? The

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future lies ahead, but three comes aheadof ten. Stating the new date avoids con-fusion.

FORWARD and FOREWORD.See FOREWORD and FORWARD.

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS.See WHO and WHOM, 1.

FOUNDATION, FUNDAMEN-TAL, and FUNDAMENT. Allthree words stem from the Latin fundus,bottom, yet their meanings are not allsimilar. The writer of this sentence didnot know that fundament bears only su-perficial resemblance to fundamental:“That event was the fundament of Polishnationalism.”

Foundation, meaning base, basis, orfounding, would have been a betterchoice of nouns. Fundamental is a basicprinciple or (as an adjective) basic or es-sential. Take away -al and we have fun-dament, meaning anus or buttocks.

FOUNDER. See FLOUNDER andFOUNDER.

FRACTION. When the anchor manfor a television network placed PresidentGorbachev’s salary at $30,000 a yearand remarked, “It’s a mere fraction ofthe $250,000 that President Bushmakes,” was he saying anything wrong?

Strictly speaking, any number belowone is a fraction. Nine-tenths or even99/100 is a fraction and it is not smalland not subject to the modifier “mere”or “only.” (In mathematics, any numberwith a numerator and denominator canbe called a fraction, even if it exceedsone; for example, 3/2.) On the otherhand, one-twentieth could be describedas a small fraction of something, one-thousandth a tiny fraction.

Therefore it is not reasonable to re-strict fraction to a small part, a littlepiece, or a minute fragment. Neverthe-less such use is entrenched in popular

speech. That fact may acquit the tele-caster of verbal malfeasance but not ofverbosity. Obviously $30,000 is a frac-tion of $250,000. Had he made a calcu-lation and reported, “It’s a mere 12percent of the $250,000,” at least hewould be imparting information.

A press example also deals with Rus-sia:

. . . The total of about 7,000 work-ing churches is only a fraction of the54,000 that existed before the 1917Bolshevik Revolution.

A replacement for “is only a fraction of”might have been “is only 13 percent of”or (if the writer could not handle thearithmetic problem) “contrasts with.”

Another example is in Gerund, 3A.

Fractions. See FRACTION; HALF;Numbers, 4, 5, 8, 10, 11; Verbs, 3 (end).

FRANKENSTEIN. This error is ahoary one and very widespread. Even abrilliant scientist-author has made it. Hewrites that the public distrusts science,adding:

This distrust is evident in the cartoonfigure of the mad scientist working inhis laboratory to produce a Franken-stein.

Nobody produces a Frankenstein (ex-cept, perhaps, Mr. and Mrs. Franken-stein). Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s1818 novel of that name was not themonster but its creator, Victor Franken-stein. The monster, which ultimatelykilled him, had no name.

The term Frankenstein’s monster orFrankenstein monster may be applied toany creation that escapes from the cre-ator’s control and threatens to, or actu-ally does, crush him. “Nuclear energy isFrankenstein’s monster,” or “In develop-ing nuclear energy, man created aFrankenstein monster.”

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“FREAK ACCIDENT.” No newsstory of a distinctive accident is completeunless the reporter drags in this phrase.It is never a freakish or freaky accident,to use a bona fide adjective, but a“freak” one.

Sometimes the happening is not evenvery freakish, freaky, or “freak.” For in-stance, a network anchor man described“a freak accident” in which a tree wasblown down upon a van. And a newspa-per reported “a freak accident” in whichdebris on a highway stopped a truck,causing it to be hit from behind by an-other truck.

FREE. 1. FREE and “FOR FREE.” 2.FREE and FREELY.

1. FREE and “FOR FREE”Two news magazines, which normally

prize conciseness, ran the following twosentences, each containing a uselessword.

Perry planned to lease the planes toJordan for free. . . .

Soldiers, trying to build good will, cuthair for free [in China].

“For” serves no purpose in those sen-tences or in these two, found in newspa-pers:

Since Oct. 1, Capital MetropolitanAuthority patrons have been ridingcity buses for free. . . .

The company has grown from 300outlets in 1980 in part on its boast itwould deliver the pizza for free if itsdrivers were late.

People are being offered the planes, thehaircuts, the bus rides, and the pizza freeor free of charge or for nothing, but not“for free.” Free serves as an adverb,whereas nothing is a noun. The preposi-

tion “for” makes no more sense withfree than with the adverb expensively.

Whether the illegitimate phrase origi-nated in a mistaken analogy with fornothing or in a conscious attempt atcuteness is not known.

(The last quoted sentence, while con-taining a surplus word, omits a desirableword after “boast”: the conjunctionthat.)

See also Prepositions, 7.

2. FREE and FREELYFreely is an alternative to free as an

adverb meaning in an unrestrained orunlimited manner. The horses run freelyor free. To say “The publication is dis-tributed freely” when free of charge ismeant can be ambiguous.

Free is also a common adjective: a freecountry.

FREEDOM. See DEMOCRACY, FREE-DOM, and INDEPENDENCE.

FROM . . . TO. See BETWEEN, 3;RANGE, true and false; Punctuation,4C.

“FROM WHENCE.” See WHENCEand “FROM WHENCE.”

-FUL ending. See Plurals and singu-lars, 2B.

FULL STOP. See Punctuation, 8.

FULSOME. Fulsome fools somepeople. It means not just full, but dis-tastefully so; offensive to the senses, es-pecially by being excessive or insincere:“Belshazzar’s fulsome feast” / “Castro’sfulsome promises.”

Although in Middle English fulsommeant simply full or abundant, it tookon a negative connotation. Perhaps fulsuggested foul. Anyway, in modern En-glish it combines the idea of abundancewith the idea of excess or insincerity.

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One of those fooled was a TV net-work’s chief anchor man. He said, in de-scribing Robert Dole’s last day inCongress:

And so the senator leaves the Senatewith the most fulsome praise ringingin his ears.

The broadcaster probably did not intendto describe the praise as excessive or in-sincere, but that is essentially what hesaid. Although some opposing partisansmay have secretly agreed with such anassessment, another expression wouldhave been preferable, say a lavish chorusof praise. (That corrects the misuse andties in with the ear-ringing theme.)

FUN. The first time I heard someonesay anything like “It’s so fun,” I was inEurope and appreciated that the womantalking to me could speak my languageat all. But for an American television re-porter to speak of “the career that hadlooked so fun and so glorious” could notbe easily condoned. A substitute for “sofun” would have been like such fun or sofull of fun or so enjoyable.

Fun is properly a noun, usually mean-ing enjoyment or merriment, or a sourceof it. “We had fun.” / “This game isfun.” (As a noun, it is modified only byan adjective—e.g., “great fun” or “somefun”—not by an adverb. In a sentencesuch as “It seems so enjoyable” or “sofunny,” so is an adverb, modifying apredicate adjective.)

Fun is partially accepted as an adjec-tive before the noun (attributive adjec-tive). Informally people may speak of “afun trip” or “a fun city.” In a superlativemisuse, a departing talk show host said,“It was probably the funnest two years Iever spent.”

FUND. In the sense of money avail-able for use, funds is a plural noun. Acompany reported to stockholders:

For the three months ended June30 . . . funds from operations was$45,521,000. . . . Revenues . . . were$62,173,000. . . . Funds from opera-tions for the six months ended June30 . . . was $85,990,000. . . . Rev-enues . . . were $12,500,000. . . .

“Funds . . . were,” just as “revenueswere.” A singular phrasing would be“income from operations was$45,521,000.”

A fund, singular noun, is a supply ofmoney set aside for a specific purpose(the emergency fund); or a supply ofsomething else (a fund of knowledge).

FUNDAMENTAL and FUNDA-MENT. See FOUNDATION, FUN-DAMENTAL, and FUNDAMENT.

FURIOUS, FURIOUSLY. SeeFUROR and FURY.

FUROR and FURY. Fury (noun) isviolent action or violent rage: “the furyof the battle” / “the storm’s fury.”

A tabloid headline screamed, “FURYOVER CLAIM IKE KILLED 1M GER-MAN POWs.” The article did not bearout the headline. A book about Eisen-hower was not met with “fury” (as TheSatanic Verses was, for instance). How-ever, on the basis of the article, the bookcould be said to have created a mildfuror.

Furor can range in intensity fromharmless to violent. It can be a fad, apublic commotion or uproar, a state ofhigh excitement, a frenzy, or violentanger or fury. (Furore is a variation inthe sense of a fad. It is mainly British, animport from Italy.)

Both words have the same Latin root,furere, to rage.

Furious (adjective) and furiously (ad-verb) can mean full of or with fury, im-plying violence; or it can mean fierce(ly)

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or vehement(ly) without the implicationof violence.

FURTHER. See FARTHER andFURTHER.

FURY. See FUROR and FURY.

Fused participle. See Gerund, 4.

FUSION and FISSION. See NU-CLEAR.

Future tense. See Tense, 1 and 4.

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GAL. See GUY.

GAMBIT. A chess maneuver in whicha player sacrifices a pawn or piece to tryto gain an advantage is a gambit. Usu-ally it occurs at the beginning of a gameand involves a pawn. Gambit or open-ing gambit may be used figuratively, outside of chess, to denote an early con-cession, as in diplomacy or business ne-gotiation.

Looser uses of that noun in place ofopening move, opening remark, maneu-ver, move, strategy, have become wide-spread, dulling the word. Magazineshave described a remark to initiate aconversation as a “conversational gam-bit” and a move in Congress as a “leg-islative gambit.” Those uses omit themain element of a gambit: the sacrifice.

GAMBLING and GAMING. Tobet or risk money on the outcome of acontest or of a game of chance is gam-bling (noun). A euphemism for it is gam-ing, used by those who advocate or playa role in legal gambling.

The word gambling was scarcely usedin an initiative measure to make it easyto put gambling devices and games ofchance on Indian reservations in Califor-nia, but “gaming” appeared hundreds oftimes. The Nevada Gaming ControlBoard regulates gambling casinos in thatstate.

The word gambling has had disrep-utable associations; gaming, like games,sounds clean and recreational. Generaldictionaries consider them synonyms.

GAMUT. See GANTLET and GAUNT-LET, 2.

GANTLET and GAUNTLET. 1.The difference. 2. GAMUT. 3. Moremeanings.

1. The differenceConfusion between these two words

is rampant. The main use of either is in acommon expression. The historianFrancis Parkman wrote:

They descended the Mississippi, run-ning the gantlet between hostiletribes.

A radio newscaster said, referring to gunbattles between drug dealers:

Residents have to run a gauntlet justto get to their front door.

And this was in a news agency’s dis-patch:

[Kenneth Starr] must run a daily gant-let of reporters and cameras just toleave his driveway.

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Is it “gantlet” or “gauntlet”? Ameri-can tradition leans toward the former.The latter, a British import, has becomemore common in colloquial use. Bothare corruptions. Originally one ran thegantlope.

A gantlope, from the Swedish gatlopp,was used in a punishment of thieves andthen of soldiers. It consisted of two rowsof men facing one another and holdingsuch objects as sticks and knotted cords.The offender was stripped to the waistand forced to run the gantlope as theothers struck him.

It was not long before people beganconfusing gantlope with a then familiarword, gauntlet, a type of glove, of whichgantlet was a variant. The first quotationof gantlope in The Oxford English Dic-tionary is from 1646; fifteen years later“run the gantlet” appears; afterward wesee both gauntlets and gantlets as well asgantlopes.

The phrase was used almost from thestart in both a literal and a figurativesense. Today it is nearly always used fig-uratively, meaning to suffer attacks, par-ticularly from two sides; to risk perils; oreven to endure any series of troubles.

Literally “run the gauntlet” is likesaying “run the old glove.” A gauntletwas an armored glove of medieval times.A man who cast his gauntlet to theground was issuing a challenge to fight.If another picked it up, he was acceptingthe challenge. The custom gave rise tothe expressions throw down the gauntletand take up the gauntlet, meaning to is-sue or accept a challenge.

To run the gantlet is favored by fourworks on English usage and the manualsof the Associated Press and The NewYork Times. It was the preferred term inAmerican dictionaries through 1960.Later dictionaries have offered bothspellings for each sense. The books havenever agreed on pronunciation. The sug-gestion here is to pronounce the wordsas they are spelled, GANT-let and

GAUNT-let, and to use the former forrunning and the latter for throwingdown. All sources agree that only thegauntlet is thrown down.

2. GAMUTGamut (noun), which appears in the

expression run the gamut, usually meansthe complete range or extent of things;for instance, “The chefs ran the gamut offlavors.”

It is sometimes confused with theother g-words. This was from a news re-port: “Prisoners were forced to run agamut.” Gantlet would be right, not“gamut.” The host of a talk show said,“Once someone has served as president,he has run the full gauntlet of accom-plishment.” Gamut, not “gauntlet.”

“A complete gamut of colors,” a dic-tionary’s example, unnecessarily modi-fies gamut. A gamut is complete.

Gamut (from gamma and ut, me-dieval musical notes) denoted the musi-cal scale in medieval times. It has sincebeen applied to the whole series of rec-ognized musical notes or, sometimes, tojust the major scale.

3. More meaningsGantlet is also a railroad term. It is a

section where two tracks overlap, en-abling a train from either line to pass in anarrow place.

Gauntlet for glove is not wholly obso-lete. Certain types of work and dressgloves and glovelike athletic devices areknown as gauntlets.

GAS. 1. Confusion. 2. Definitions.

1. ConfusionAn automobile company was selling a

low-pollution van, “powered by naturalgas instead of gas,” a news agency re-ported.

On its face, the quoted phrase seemsto part with logic. Natural gas is a gas.No doubt the writer meant gasoline, for

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which “gas” is a common, colloquialAmerican term. Displayed in seriouswriting, it does not fare well. When it isbeing contrasted with the real gas, “gas”is particularly ill-chosen. It can perplexthose who are unaccustomed to informalAmericanisms and do not recognize it asthe British petrol.

A newspaper article used the phrase“gas tax” eleven times (counting theheadline), never once spelling out thetopic: the federal gasoline tax.

Even Americans are not always surewhat is meant by, say, “I smell gas.”

2. DefinitionsGas is a substance that is neither solid

nor liquid and is characterized by verylow density and readiness to expand andfill its container. The Flemish chemist J.B. van Helmont (1577–1644), who dis-covered carbon dioxide and distin-guished gases from liquids and solids,coined the word, basing it on the Greekkhaos, chaos.

In colloquial use, gas means gasoline;in slang use, empty or boastful talk.

Gasoline is a flammable, liquid mix-ture of hydrocarbons, obtained in thedistillation of petroleum and used as afuel in internal-combustion engines.

Natural gas is a mixture of gaseoushydrocarbons, mainly methane, found inthe earth in oil deposits and used as afuel.

Petrol, the British term for gasoline, ispronounced PET-trull.

GAUNTLET. See GANTLET andGAUNTLET.

GAVE and GIVEN. See Tense, 5A.

GAY. 1. History. 2. The press. 3. Twomeanings.

1. HistoryGay is an adjective that, for seven cen-

turies, has primarily meant joyful, light-

hearted, merry, or mirthful. Chaucer, forinstance, wrote that a pilgrim “iolif[jolly] was and gay.” It can also meanbright or showy. Tennyson: “when all isgay with lamps.” Probably of Teutonicorigin, the word came to Middle Englishfrom the French gai.

The use of gay in the above sensesdates back at least to 1310, antedatingChaucer, The Oxford English Dictio-nary indicates. Records of its occasionaleuphemistic use to mean a man “of looseand immoral life” begin in 1637; awoman, 1825. Its use as a euphemismfor the adjective homosexual did not be-come popular until close to 1970, al-though rare uses dating from the 1880sare documented.

Used in the sense of homosexual, theadjective gay used to be considered slangbut now is accepted as standard by alldictionaries. Gay as a noun, meaning ahomosexual person, has been so ac-cepted by American dictionaries but isconsidered slang by the Oxford.

2. The PressThe publicly sold style manual of The

New York Times disapproves of gay forhomosexual, although in 1987 the staffwas told that the adjective was accept-able. (Gay could describe both sexes, butlesbian was preferred in specific refer-ences to women.) However:

The noun will continue to be homo-sexual(s). Thus we’ll write gay author,but not “a gay”; gay men (or homo-sexuals) but NOT “gays.”

The distinction made grammatical sense.If someone can be “a gay,” can someoneelse not be “a sad” or “a tall”?

Most of the press had been quicker toadopt gay in the sexual sense, particu-larly in headlines, where news essencesmust be squeezed into small spaces. Be-ing able to replace a ten-letter word witha three-letter word pleases a typical edi-

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tor. So to see a headline in 1990 in a SanFrancisco newspaper saying “Homosex-ual rights law challenged” was surpris-ing, particularly when the text of thearticle said:

Federal courts have found that gaysare not protected against bias by theU.S. Constitution. Gov. Deukmejianvetoed a bill in 1984 to give gaysequal rights under state law. [A mis-placed prepositional phrase produces“bias by the U.S. Constitution.” SeeModifiers, 3.]

The same paper ran the headline “AGAY BASHER ASKS: WHY?” Was he abasher who was gay? No, but that senseresults from the adjectival use of a nounadopted from an adjective.

Homosexuals themselves have em-braced gay, as adjective and noun, al-though many originally resisted it. Someof them annually celebrate “Gay PrideDay.” No one has explained why a eu-phemism is needed for that which onetakes pride in.

3. Two meaningsHarper Dictionary (1985) reported

that only 36 percent of a usage panel of166 members accepted the modern senseof gay. Some expressed anger. Isaac Asi-mov: “This use of ‘gay’ has killed a won-derful word. . . .” Erich Segal: “It robsour language of a lovely adjective. . . .”

While gay in the traditional sense, thatof merry or bright, can at times be mis-understood—“It was a gay party” per-mits two interpretations—reports of itsdemise have been exaggerated. Anyonewho wants to use the word in that wayhas a perfect right to do so but shouldsee that the context makes the meaningclear. It was clear in a 1990 article in theThe New York Times:

But today the only people walkingin Red Square were tourists who had

come to ogle the gay domes of St.Basil’s Cathedral.

See also HOMOPHOBIA.

GENDARME. Americans who usethe word gendarme think it is French forpoliceman. They are partly right, as rightas a European would be in using “con-stable” or “sheriff” for an American po-liceman.

A movie guide book describes the plotof the 1963 film Irma la Douce: “A gen-darme pulls a one-man raid on a backstreet Parisian joint and falls in love withone of the hookers he arrests.” The lead-ing actress recalled in a TV documen-tary: “I played a prostitute and Jackplayed a young gendarme who tried torescue me from the street.”

Jack (Lemmon) did not play a “gen-darme.” One French-English dictionarydefines gendarme as a policeman “incountryside and small towns.” Anotherdefines it as a “member of the state po-lice force,” approximately equal to a“police constable.”

It is possible to speak of a Parisian po-liceman without dragging in “gen-darme.”

GENDER and SEX. Gender is aterm of grammar. It is the classificationof certain words as masculine, feminine,or neuter. In English those words arenouns and pronouns, the great majorityof them neuter, like table, song, it, its.Among masculine words are man, boy,he, his. Among feminine words: woman,girl, she, her.

In English, gender for the most part isnatural. That is, most words of mascu-line or feminine gender represent sexual,or at least human, qualities. But theword gender is not synonymous withsex. In various languages it often hasnothing to do with sex—or with any-thing else.

In the Romance languages, grammar

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arbitrarily decrees nouns to be masculineor feminine, regardless of any sexualqualities. Thus, in Spanish el día, theday, is masculine, while la noche, thenight, is feminine. In French la plume,the pen, is feminine, while le crayon, thepencil, is masculine.

Even in English, the feminine pro-nouns she and her are often applied tosuch neuter things as ships and coun-tries. His in a phrase like to each hisown, while masculine in gender, is usedin a neuter sense.

In recent decades an increasingly pop-ular use of gender has been as a eu-phemism for sex, meaning theclassification of human beings and ani-mals as male or female. It is not obviouswhy sex, in such an innocent sense,needs a euphemism.

Thus, a magazine chart lists libraryvisits by demographic categories, includ-ing “AGE . . . INCOME . . . EDUCA-TION” and “GENDER.” On anotherpage, an essayist criticizes “double stan-dards that have the effect of . . . pittingrace against race, gender against gen-der.” Sex, rather than “gender,” wouldbe quite fitting in both instances and inthe newspaper sentences below.

Prosecutors and defense lawyersmay not bar a potential juror fromserving in a criminal trial solely be-cause of the person’s gender. . . .

[Under a proposed bill] a man couldsue a woman for a violent attack, ar-guing it was based on his gender.

Not even an editor’s normal penchantfor short words in headlines overcomesthe squeamishness toward sex. The firstnews story was headed “Potential JurorsCan’t Be Barred Because of Gender,Court Rules.”

While gender has increasinglyusurped the role of sex in genteel use, thecasual use of sex as a noun denoting

coitus or any sexual activity has becomemore common. For instance, the mes-sage that “We had sexual intercourse” ismore likely to take the form of the “slepttogether” euphemism or “We had sex.”

Strictly speaking, all of us have sex allthe time. It is either male or female.

Genitive (possessive). See Doublepossessive; Gerund, 4; Possessive prob-lems; Pronouns, 1, 2, 9, 10A; Punctua-tion, 1.

Germanisms. See Adjectives and ad-verbs, 2; Backward writing, 3; Infinitive,4; Joining of words; ONGOING; OUT-PUT; PLAY DOWN and “DOWN-PLAY”; UPCOMING.

Gerund. 1. Definition. 2. Errors ofomission. 3. Gerund or infinitive? 4. Pos-sessive with gerund.

1. DefinitionWhen the -ing form of a verb is used

as a noun, it is called a gerund.It serves every function of a noun. It

may be a subject (“Laughing makes mehappy”), a direct object of a verb (“Janeloves kissing”), the object of a preposi-tion (“By oversleeping, John missed theplane”), or a subjective complement(“His goal was finding the missinglink”).

Many -ing words are not gerunds.“Reinforcements are coming.” / “Thesenator delivered a stinging rebuke.” /“Laughing hysterically, he could barelyresume the broadcast.” In those exam-ples coming, stinging, or laughing is apresent participle. It is a verb form thatexpresses present action (in relation tothe tense of the finite verb) and can serveas an adjective.

Do not confuse a gerund with a pre-sent participle. It appears that an editordid so in program notes for a recording:A music critic “reproached Beethovenfor the absence of a great vocal fugue

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considered traditional in every musical,setting of a religious drama. . . .” Acomma does not belong in musical set-ting but fits this sentence, in which set-ting does act as a present participle: “Hestrode inside, setting the statuette on thefloor.” (A comma should follow“fugue.” See Punctuation, 3C.)

2. Errors of omissionOne who uses a gerund carelessly and

fails to indicate the subject of an actioncan create a dangler. The result may bean awkwardly ungrammatical sentenceand worse: the gerund may link with awrong part of its sentence and producean unintended meaning.

This sentence is typical: “The whalescan be protected only by being ever vigi-lant.” It seems to be calling on thewhales to take action. The trouble is that“being” is a dangling participle. Preced-ing it with our would make it a gerundand indicate the intended meaning.

Although a similar grammatical errordid not obscure the meaning of an edito-rial, it is not what the newspaper tradi-tionally considers fit to print:

It costs only $500 to provide an ex-pectant mother with adequate prena-tal care. Yet treating a low-weightinfant can cost $180,000 even beforeleaving the hospital.

“Treating,” a gerund and the subject of“can cost,” seems to take over—sense-lessly—as the subject of “leaving” toobecause the writer failed to indicate anyother subject. “Leaving” is a danglingparticiple. To precede it with a pronoun,“its leaving,” thereby making it agerund, would be a correction; it leaveswould be better still.

The final example in this section,quoted by Punch of England, originatesin a column of personal items. Gram-matically the only subject is the “Muske-

teers.” The result is hardly what thewriter intended.

Grateful thanks to the three Muske-teers who carried Mrs. Pride home af-ter breaking her leg on Wednesday.

The magazine commented, “Least theycould do.”

See also Modifiers, 1.

3. Gerund or infinitive?

A. ExamplesSome people who use our language

lack a command of idiom. They do notalways know whether a particular con-struction calls for an infinitive, that is,the basic form of a verb; or a gerund,that is, the -ing form used as a noun.

The resulting errors are excusablewhen committed by foreigners who areunfamiliar with English. A Japanese-owned jewelry store displayed a signthat said, “PLEASE GET AN AP-POINTMENT BEFORE GO IN.”When advised that the sign could standimprovement, especially by inflection ofthe verb “GO,” the management re-placed it. The new sign said, “PLEASEMAKE AN APPOINTMENT BEFOREGOING THANK YOU.”

Such errors are less tolerable whencommitted by an English-speaking per-son, particularly one whose regular jobis to communicate information to thepublic. An example is provided by anews service:

There were 299 rapes, assaults andmurders last year on campuses of theUC system, which devotes a fractionof its $6 billion yearly budget to pro-tect students. [See FRACTION.]

The verb devote does not go with an in-finitive, such as “protect.” Protectingwould be right. The two made-up exam-ples below will help to explain.

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• “The university devotes most of itsbudget to salaries, buildings, andprotecting students.” That is, itappropriates funds for certainpurposes; each purpose is a noun(“salaries, buildings”) or a gerund(“protecting students”). Here tointroduces the ultimate recipients ofthe action.

• “The university’s police try toprotect students.” The verb try,unlike devote, can go with aninfinitive: the police try to dosomething (“protect students”). Thistime to indicates the infinitive.

Erroneous analogies may account forsome misuses. A book says “thedecision . . . contributed notably to re-dress the constitutional balance. . . .”The unidiomatic “contributed . . . to redress” parallels served to redress,which would be correct. “Contributed”can stand if the infinitive is changed tothe gerund: “contributed . . . to redress-ing. . . .” Here the to does not indicate aninfinitive; rather it points to that whichbenefited from the action.

There is no general rule, except that awriter or speaker needs to be secure inhis knowledge of any verb’s propertiesbefore using the verb. In case of doubt, adictionary that offers examples of theverb’s use may help.

See also Infinitive, 2; POSSIBLE (etc.),2; TO, 2.

B. ListsIt would be impractical to try to list

all the many other words that could posesimilar problems of idiom. Here aresixty such words: nouns, verbs, and ad-jectives. Each is followed by the preposi-tion that usually goes with it, and each iscategorized according to part of speechand whether a gerund or infinitive canfollow idiomatically. (Other forms thatmay follow instead are not listed.)

Noun followed by gerund(laughing, winning, etc.)enthusiasm for, fear of,habit of, hope of, idea of,indulgence in, insistence on,love for, possibility of,resistance to

Noun followed by infinitive(to sing, to build, etc.)ability to, determination to,duty to, effort to, failure to,hesitation to, inclination to,obligation to, opportunity to, tendency to

Verb followed by gerundboast of, commit (someone orsomething) to, despair of,dream of, keep (someone orsomething) from, look forwardto, object to, prevent(someone or something) from,prohibit (someone) from,succeed in

Verb followed by infinitiveagree to, dare to, encourage(someone) to, forbid (someone)to, force (someone) to, hopeto, neglect to, permit(someone or something) to,persuade (someone) to, pledgeto, prepare to, presume to,refuse to, try to, want to

Adjective followed by gerundcapable of, grateful for,hopeful of, wary of,thankful for, tired of,worthy of

Adjective followed by infinitiveadequate to, competent to,eager to, glad to, inclinedto, likely to, pleased to,ready to

Some words may go with eithergerund or infinitive, depending on con-

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text. Examples are the nouns chance (ofor to) and intention (of or to), verbs fail(at or to) and think (of or to), and adjec-tives sorry (about or to) and sure (of orto).

4. Possessive with gerundJust as nearly every noun may be pos-

sessed (“He took his suitcase” / “Theypledged their love”), so may a gerund:“She was shocked at his winning themoney.” His modifies the gerund win-ning. It would not be strictly correct tosay “. . . at him winning the money.”Not “him” but his winning shocked her.

A similar example: “Children’s drink-ing vexes the councilman.” Note theapostrophe-s. Children’s modifies thegerund drinking. “Children drinkingvexes . . .” is wrong, the grammarian H.W. Fowler would say: What would bethe subject of the sentence, “Children”?But vexes is singular. Making it “vex”would be of no help. The children do nottrouble the councilman; only their drink-ing does. Could the subject be “drink-ing”? That would leave “Children”hanging there without any grammaticalpurpose.

Omitting the possessive produces aform that Fowler condemned for“rapidly corrupting English style”: afused participle, “a compound notion”resulting from the fusion of a noun or apronoun in the objective case and a par-ticiple. He did not invent the concept ofpossessive with gerund, which wentback several centuries, but did introducethe name for the questionable form(with his brother in The King’s English,1906) and publicize it (in his famousDictionary of Modern English Usage,1926).

The four examples below come froma book of true adventure, an editorial,an article from a Hong Kong newspaper,and an ad for an aquarium respectively.Corrections are inserted in brackets.

. . . A search and rescue situa-tion . . . could end up in me [my] beingcharged half a million pounds.

He blamed Democrats last year forSusan Smith [Smith’s] drowning hertwo young children in South Car-olina.

This [Chinese protest to a U.S. visit byTaiwan’s leader] is despite Mr Lee[Lee’s] indicating he would not betravelling abroad for some time tocome.

See sharks without it [its] costing anarm and a leg.

Sometimes the possessive form doesnot work. We look at three examplesthat are technically flawed according tothe principles stated above. (Each fusedparticiple is emphasized:)

A.“He wouldn’t hear of that being pos-sible . . .” (Dickens). You would notsay “that’s being possible.” The sen-tence is best let alone.

B. “I hate the thought of any son of minemarrying badly” (Hardy). You wouldnot say “son’s” or “mine’s.” Besides,as a colloquial sentence, in a novel, itis tolerable.

C.“This state’s metropolis undergoingchaos is an unhappy sight.” If saidaloud, “metropolis’s” would soundlike a plural. Anyway, how desirableare a double possessive and all thoseesses? The sentence needs rewriting.

In two instances, Fowler’s own cureseems worse than the disease: He would“deny the possibility of anything’s hap-pening” and would not mind “many’shaving to go into lodgings.”

Writers on grammar have generallyaccepted a possessive pronoun with agerund (my being charged) or a propernoun with a gerund (Lee’s indicating) in

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a simple sentence. But they have foundnumerous exceptions, particularly incomplicated sentences. Some grammari-ans (not quoted here) have justified thefused participle as a valid alternative inany sentence.

Not even Sir Ernest Gowers, the sym-pathetic reviser of Fowler’s dictionary,could accept the pure precept. He agreedthat “upon your giving” was undoubt-edly more idiomatic than “upon you giv-ing.” But he found that a morecomplicated sentence could make a pos-sessive impossible, for example: “Wehave to account for the collision of twogreat fleets . . . ending in the total de-struction of one of them.” He wouldwaive the possessive also when it waspossible but “ungainly.” (“Anything’shappening”?)

In literature, the grammarian GeorgeO. Curme found, the possessive has been(1) most common when the gerund’ssubject is a pronoun; (2) rendered uselessby modifying phrases or clauses (“Haveyou heard of Smith, who used to bepitcher, being injured?”); and (3)avoided for an emphatic subject (“Shewas proud of him doing it”) or contrast-ing subjects (“We seem to think nothingof a boy smoking but resent a girl smok-ing”).

The final example is drawn from a rel-atively recent book about words. Ironi-cally, the author is praising Fowler, whorailed against just such usage:

Too often a name is legendarywithout many people knowing aboutthe person.

Fowler would have insisted on people’s.You may decide for yourself whether itwould be an improvement. (See alsoLEGEND, LEGENDARY.)

GHOULISH. See FESTOON, FES-TOONED.

GIRL. See GUY.

GIVE AWAY and GIVEAWAY. Aprinted election poster attacked a localballot proposition as “The $100 Mil-lion-a-Year Give Away!” From a techni-cal standpoint, it was in error. For onething, “Give” and “Away” should havebeen united.

Give away, in two words, is a verbphrase meaning (1) to present (some-thing) as a gift; (2) to disclose (informa-tion): “Don’t give away our secret”; or(3) to ceremonially transfer a bride fromher family to her husband: “Mr. Greengave his daughter away.”

Uniting the words yields the informalnoun giveaway, which means (1) some-thing given away or the act of givingaway: “Vote against the giveaway”; or(2) that which discloses: “His finger-prints were a giveaway.” A giveawayshow is a quiz program, usually on tele-vision, in which prizes are given away.As an alternative, give and away may behyphenated: give-away.

The poster also needed to follow“$100” with a hyphen (-) to connect itto “Million-a-Year.”

(The ballot proposition, to eliminatepublic voting on rule changes for cityemployees, lost by three to one despiteits opponents’ mistakes in English.)

GIVEN and GAVE. See Tense, 5A.

GLANCE and GLIMPSE. See Con-fusing pairs.

GO. See COME and GO; GONE andWENT.

GOING ON. See ONGOING.

GONE and WENT. “The drug ac-tivity has went down in this area dra-matically.” A police official in an Illinoistown said that on nationwide television.

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“. . . Has gone” would have been cor-rect.

“The child had opened the car door,climbed in, and went to sleep,” a news-caster said on nationwide radio. “. . .And gone” would have been correct.

Has, have, or had does not mix with“went.” Went is the past tense of theverb go. The past participle of go is gone.Therefore a correction of the first exam-ple is either “The drug activity wentdown . . .” (in the past tense) or “Thedrug activity has gone down . . .” (in thepresent perfect tense).

In the second example, deleting “had”would permit “went to sleep.” Keeping“had” requires “gone to sleep.” Some-one seemed to have forgotten that “had”applied to three participles: “opened. . . climbed . . . and gone.”

See also COME and GO; Tense, 1, 5.

GOOD and WELL. A Polish leaderwas toasting the American president inWarsaw. A metropolitan newspaper inthe United States quoted him, in part,this way:

What is more, we were able to meet ina friendly atmosphere. And I believewe have felt well together.

The defect can easily be forgiven if thePole was speaking in English. It is moreserious if he was speaking in Polish andthis was an English translation.

A correction: “we have felt good to-gether,” that is, happy, content, or opti-mistic. In the context of feeling, wellusually pertains only to health. On rareoccasions it pertains to touch or the abil-ity to feel things.

“I feel well” means I suffer no sign ofillness. (Feel is not modified by well. Feelacts there as an intransitive verb, also asa linking verb: It links the subject, I, tothe verb’s complement, the adjectivewell. Or, in the sentence “We felt good,”it links we to the adjective good. SeeFEEL.)

In the sense of health, “I feel good” isquite informal; “she’s not good” is di-alectal. One is well or feels well.

A baseball umpire said, in an inter-view on a radio sports program, “Wecover the games pretty good.” Change“good” to well. Here it means properlyor skillfully. (In this context cover ismodified by well. This time well is usedas an adverb. Cover is a transitive verb.“Good,” not being an adverb, cannotmodify a verb. Usually good is an adjec-tive, which modifies a noun: good boy;the food is good.)

Interviewed on a television “maga-zine,” a designer of military aircraft saidabout one of his planes, “It worked as good or better than we expected.” A partial correction: “It worked as well. . . .” (Well, an adverb, modifiesworked, an intransitive verb.) A furthercorrection: “as well as or better than weexpected” or “as well as we expected orbetter.” See AS, 3.

An essayist on that program said later,referring to a supposed winner of twomonetary prizes, “Mary’s doing prettygood.” She is doing well (adverb), not“good.” If she were performing charita-ble deeds, one could say “She is doinggood.” (Good would be used as a noun.There would be no place for “pretty.”)

Still later, a reporter on the same pro-gram correctly used both words in thesame sentence: “Before he did well [be-came successful], he did good [per-formed altruistic acts].”

GO OFF and GO ON. Occasionallythe phrase go off is ambiguous. It canmean the same as go on—even thoughoff and on are opposites, as anyone whohas flipped an electric switch knows.

Go off can have these contradictorymeanings: (1) to take place (“The showwent off as planned”) and (2) to discon-tinue or go away (“The show went offthe air”).

The execution of a prisoner was hoursaway when the news came that the

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Supreme Court had agreed to review hiscase. A television newscaster announced,“Prison officials are proceeding asthough the execution will go off.”

Did he mean “as though the execu-tion will go on” (or “take place”) or “asthough the execution is off” (or “willnot take place)? Probably he meant theformer, although the “prison officials”did not explain what good a SupremeCourt review would do if the prisonerwere dead.

By the way, the newscaster said thatthe Supreme Court had issued a “writ ofcertiori.” He left out a syllable. It is cer-tiorari (sir-she-a-RARE-ee), an orderfrom a higher court to a lower, request-ing the records of a case for review.

GRAFFITI and GRAFFITO. Graf-fiti is a plural word. It denotes crude in-scriptions, drawings, or scrawlings,often on walls, meant to be seen by thepublic. One such marking is a graffito.

The two quotations are from a newsagency’s dispatch and an editorial re-spectively:

Stylized graffiti was even scrawled ona sign—the “z” on the HollywoodFreezway ice cream parlor—for a hintof hometown believability.

The city of Dublin is discussing afive-day graffiti-removal program onthe theory that the longer graffiti re-mains, the more publicity it gives thegang that did it.

Both sample sentences are ungrammati-cal in their mixing of plural and singular.The first sentence refers to only onemarking, so change “Stylized graffitiwas” to “A stylized graffito was.” Ifthere had been two or more markings,graffiti were would be correct. A correc-tion of the second sentence is “Thelonger graffiti remain, the more publicitythey give the gangs that make them.”

Originating in the Greek graphein, to

write, graffito and graffiti come to usfrom Italian. They used to have archeo-logical and, later, political connotations.Now the words, more commonly graf-fiti, popularly connote the defacing ofstructures and vehicles by callow van-dals.

GRAZE. A restaurant reviewer tellsreaders: “Graze on skewers of grilledfood—the list spans 27—in this noisy yetconvivial yakitori bar.”

Animals such as cows and horsesgraze. To graze (verb, intransitive) is tofeed on growing grasses and similarplants. The verb came from the Old En-glish grasian, from graes, meaning grass.

Sometimes graze is humorously ap-plied to the eating of raw, leafy vegeta-bles. Applying it to the eating ofbarbecued meat, however, is far-fetched.

Farmers and ranchers use graze (verb,transitive) in a variety of ways: to feedon (a type of herbage or the herbage of aparticular pasture), to put (animals) outto feed, to tend (feeding animals), and soon.

Graze (verb, transitive and intransi-tive) means also to scrape, rub, or touchlightly in passing. “The bullet grazed hisskin”). The way bees or butterflies skimalong the grass of a field could conceiv-ably have suggested this sense.

GREAT. This adjective, of Old En-glish lineage, primarily expresses magni-tude: being large in size, area, amount,number, importance, or other attributes.The Great Lakes and the Great Plainsare aptly named.

That traditional sense of great canconflict with a newer, informal sense.Talking about cars, a syndicated radiohost asked, “Why are prices sogreat?”—leading some of his audience toassume that prices were high. His ownanswer was that foreign competition hadcaused prices to be low. They were“great”—that is, very good—for theconsumer.

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GRIEVOUS, GRIEVOUSLY. Amistake that some speakers make in uttering grievous and grievously is in-serting an extra syllable. The words are pronounced GREE-vuss(-lee), not“GREE-vee-uss(-lee).” Sometimes theyare misspelled “grievious(ly),” with anextra “i.”

A newscaster on a radio network saida bill to ban certain abortions made anexception “to save the life of the motherand to prevent grievious harm to her.”He got grievous wrong.

A congressman said on television,concerning the issuance of rubber checksby colleagues, “There are some peoplehere who may have been grieviouslywounded.” Grievously.

Grievous (adjective) means (1) seriousor grave; or (2) causing or expressinggrief. It has two syllables, not three.

Grievously (adverb) means (1) seri-ously or gravely; or (2) in a way thatcauses or expresses grief. It has three syl-lables, not four.

GRISLY, GRIZZLY, and GRIZ-ZLED. 1. GRISLY and GRIZZLY. 2.GRIZZLED.

1. GRISLY and GRIZZLYWhile pronounced the same (GRIZ-

lee), these two adjectives have differentmeanings and histories. A newspaper admixed the words up. Warning againstselling a house without an agent, it said,“The stories are grizzly.” A frighteningstory is grisly. (It could possibly be a“grizzly” story if it dealt with bears.)

Grisly (from the Old English grislic,terrifying) means gruesome, horrifying,or terrifying.

Grizzly (from the Old French gris,gray) means gray or grayish. The grizzlybear was named for its grayish coloring,not for its fearfulness.

The misspelling or misuse of grislymay be less frequent than its unnecessaryuse. Technically it was not used wrong in

the lead sentence of a news story, quotedhere:

A family member was being heldFriday for suspicion of murder in thewake of a grisly stabbing that left fourother family members dead. . . .

What fatal stabbing is not “grisly”?

2. GRIZZLEDWriting in a magazine about the frus-

trations of his job, a news reporter com-plained that he had become “a cynic”and “a curmudgeon.” One paragraphsaid:

Another sign I’m become moregrizzled, I suppose, is I used to call mywife excitedly to tell her I’m on abreaking story. Now I call and say,“Damn it, I can’t get away.”

If he thought that grizzled meant any-thing like cynical or ill-tempered, he wasmistaken. Grizzled (adjective) meansgray or streaked with gray, or gray-headed. A picture of the reporter showeda rather young man with an abundanceof dark hair. (The sentence is otherwisedefective. “Another sign . . . is” heralds anoun or nounal phrase, such as “my re-action to a breaking story.” Instead, weget the clause “I used to call my wife ex-citedly. . . .”)

Grizzled is related to the verb grizzle,meaning (transitive) to make gray or (in-transitive) to become gray. In British En-glish, grizzle can mean to worry or fret.

GROUP OF. See Collective nouns.

GROW. The farmers grow artichokes.Hilda grows kumquats. Wilbur grew abeard. As a transitive verb, grow meanscultivate or raise (a plant or crop) orcause (something natural) to arise. Itsobject should not be an artificial objector abstraction.

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Although figuratively a house, a town,a business, or an economy can itselfgrow (intransitive verb), that is, becomelarger, people do not “grow” it.

The promise by a gubernatorial candi-date “to try and grow this economy”—instead of broaden, expand, orstrengthen it—was an anomaly. So wasthe headline “Netanyahu promises togrow West Bank settlements.” A betterverb was in the story, which said hewould build there. Other usable verbs:enlarge, expand.

A financial company boasts of “help-ing to grow the future of America.” Per-haps people could brighten or insure orsecure its future, but the future does not“grow.”

Guilt and innocence. 1. Civil vs.criminal. 2. Guilty vs. not guilty. 3. In-nocence presumed. 4. Pleas and charges.5. Some words to watch.

1. Civil vs. criminalThe difference between civil and crim-

inal cases escapes some people who aresupposed to inform others about suchmatters.

Prop. 51, the only initiative on theballot, would change court rulingsthat now require someone who is par-tially responsible for an accident topay all the victim’s damages if theother guilty parties have no money.

That statement confuses civil and crimi-nal law. The proposition (on the Califor-nia ballot) that the news story cites dealswholly with civil actions. Nobody isfound “guilty” in civil trials, whichmainly settle lawsuits in private disputes.Guilt is a concept in criminal prosecu-tions, which are meant to enforce publiclaws by bringing their violators to jus-tice. The newspaper writer properly usedresponsible but quickly traded it for anincorrect adjective.

An announcer invited television view-

ers to “Join Judge Wapner in his struggleto separate the guilty from the inno-cent.” The program being promoted was“The People’s Court,” an unofficial imi-tation of a small claims court and strictlycivil. A small claims judge does not “sep-arate the guilty from the innocent” butsettles disputes about modest amountsof money and property.

A network newscaster announced: “Ajury has found Carroll O’Connor notguilty of slander. . . .” He was not re-sponsible for it. The trial was civil. Ver-dicts of “guilty” and “not guilty” werenot options.

2. Guilty vs. not guiltyUnder the American system of justice,

nobody needs to prove himself innocent.Unless convicted, a person accused of acrime is presumed to be innocent. Theprosecution has the burden of provinghim guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Ifhe is not found guilty, the verdict mustbe not guilty. The latter is no synonymfor “innocent” but means that the prose-cution has failed to prove the defendantguilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Thereis no other verdict.

President Clinton showed misunder-standing of that legal principle when hesaid, “Some of these [aliens] are foundguilty and some innocent of the crimeswith which they are charged.” He mayhave got the idea from news items likethe following.

In an ironic turn of court proce-dure, a young man pleaded guiltyTuesday to a drug-trafficking chargein the same courtroom where jurors in1988 found him innocent of murder-ing his mother.

Three former candidates for Sweetwa-ter County public offices were foundguilty and one was found innocent offailing to file campaign financial re-ports in time.

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Members of the jury had said theyfound the former automaker innocentbecause they felt government agentshad lured him into illegal activity.

Nobody is found “innocent” in Ameri-can courts. Nor is there such a plea—ex-cept in the news media:

Marine in Spying CaseEnters Plea of Innocent

Suspect pleads innocentin deadly shooting spree

Every “innocent” should be not guilty.Now let us explain the reason for thedistortion.

A hoary newspaper superstition has itthat if anyone ever is reported to be “notguilty,” terrible things will happen:Maybe the “not” will disappear or the tin “not” will change to a w, the personon trial will sue, and the paper will goout of business.

The odds against such a procession ofevents must be huge. The news mediashould consider whether the perpetua-tion of that superstition is worth the dis-torted picture of our judicial system thatit fosters.

(As for the incident reported in thefirst sample: was it “an ironic turn ofcourt procedure” or “an ironic turn ofevents” or not very ironic at all? SeeIRONY, IRONIC, IRONICALLY.)

What is worse than using an impreciseterm is changing the term in mid sen-tence.

B—— was found innocent of invol-untary manslaughter in the deaths of two other patients and not guilty offive counts of dereliction of duty.

Some readers may have wondered aboutthe difference between being found “in-nocent” and being found “not guilty.”

3. Innocence presumedThe presumption of innocence is a

principle that some journalists have yetto learn. A criminal charge is far from aconviction. A suspicion is further re-moved yet.

In the last 18 months, serious damagehas been done to national security byconvicted or suspected spies in theCIA, the NSA, the Navy’s antisubma-rine warfare program and Navy com-munications and Middle Eastintelligence operations.

Lumping together as “spies” both thosewho have been convicted in court of spy-ing and those who have merely been sus-pected of spying, the writers (the storyhas two by-lines) in effect find them allguilty and declare that all have done “se-rious damage . . . to national security.”

(Style fares no better than substancein that passage. The listed items are jum-bled. There appear to be five, but it ishard to tell. Inadequate punctuation andperhaps an unnecessary “and” befog theseries. See Series errors, 7.)

4. Pleas and chargesTwo additional points are illustrated

by each of these two samples (each thelead paragraph of a fourteen-paragraphnews story):

A former soldier from Pearl wassentenced to 30 years in prison Mon-day after pleading guilty to kidnap-ping a Jackson teenager and shootingat a police officer who tried to arresthim.

Michael D—— . . . pleaded guiltyyesterday to having engaged in bogusstock transactions with a British bro-ker to evade Federal laws requiringbrokers to maintain minimumamounts of capital.

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First, one does not plead to a crime. Onepleads to a charge of a crime or a countof an indictment.

Second, in any criminal proceeding,someone is accused of violating the law.Which law? Neither article tells us ex-actly. The first alludes to two charges (instating the penalty for “kidnapping” and“assault”). The second refers to “Federallaws” without specifying them. A sum-mary of the charge might be somethinglike “violation of the Securities and Ex-change Act by failing to maintain ade-quate net capital and by falsifyingrecords.”

Another news story says, “He hasbeen charged with setting a dynamitebomb that caused extensive structuraldamage” to an abortion clinic (identifiedby name and address). That is typical;the story details what the arrested man issupposed to have done but not what lawhe is charged with having broken.

A news service report tells about a po-lice chief who “was arrested for allegedlytaking cocaine from the police depart-ment evidence room to support his 5-year-old addiction.” The sixteenth andlast paragraph says, “If convicted” thechief “could face more than 20 years inprison.” If convicted of what crime? Thereport fails to say. A possible chargemight be “unlawful possession of co-caine,” but a reader must guess.

5. Some words to watchA possessive pronoun can be incrimi-

nating, as in the sentence “Doaks has de-nied his guilt.” The pronoun “his”juxtaposed with “guilt” seems to implythat the man is guilty. (Of course, “her”or “their” would have the same effect.)Conversely, “Doaks proclaims his inno-cence” displays an apparent bias in hisfavor. An impartial version is Doaks hasdenied the charge or Doaks insists thathe is innocent.

A network television reporter identi-fied a man who had not been arrested

but who was being investigated in con-nection with a bombing in a park. Thereporter said, “J—— continues to denyhis guilt.” It would have been far betterto say, “He denies any involvement” or“He says he had nothing to do with thebombing” and to leave out the name aslong as the man was not charged with acrime. In the end, he was exonerated andcompensated by news companies forslander and libel.

The preposition for can appear preju-dicial in a context like this: “Doaks wasarrested for robbing the First NationalBank on May 1.” The “for” juxtaposedwith “robbing” links him to the crime.This is impartial: Doaks was arrested ona charge of bank robbery. The police al-lege . . . (or an indictment alleges . . .).Some news media justifiably forbid anycombination of for and a legal charge orcomplaint.

“Police said” and “police reported”are two of the most common phrases incrime reporting. A multitude of misstate-ments have followed. Such attributionsdo not shield news media against claimsof defamation, particularly if no formalcharges have been filed.

See also ACCUSED, ALLEGED, RE-PORTED, SUSPECTED; Pronouns, 5.

GUNNY SACK. See HINDI andHINDU.

GUY. The colloquial word for a mancame from Guy Fawkes, conspirator inthe Gunpowder Plot of 1605. To com-memorate its thwarting, the English es-tablished the holiday Guy Fawkes Dayand each November 5 would display andburn grotesque effigies of him. Peoplecalled them Guys. Guy became a nounfor an odd-looking or strangely dressedman, also a verb meaning to jeer at orridicule. In the United States it began tobe used in the nineteenth century as aslang synonym for chap, fellow, or man.

For generations, popular speech dis-

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tinguished between guys and gals (oreven Guys and Dolls, as in the musicalplay). TV reflected changes: In 1988 themoderator of a forum informed hispanel, four women, that time was up bysaying “Gotta go, guys.” In the 1990s afemale doctor asked five female patients,“Do you guys believe the [estrogen] re-search that is out there?”; and in sit-coms, men said to women, “Hi, guys”and “Come on, guys,” and women saidto women, “Ready, you guys?” and“Look, you guys.”

Why women would want to take overthe word got this answer in an op-ed arti-cle, “Women Aren’t Guys,” by a womanpresident of an advertising agency:

Why is it not embarrassing for awoman to be called “guy”? We know

why. It’s the same logic that sayswomen look sexy and cute in a man’sshirt, but did you ever try your silkblouse on your husband and send himto the deli? It’s the same mentality thatholds that anything male is worthy(and to be aspired toward) and any-thing female is trivial.

Maybe. Or perhaps some women turnedto the male term because it was moreterse and colloquial than ladies orwomen and they perceived girl(s) and itscolloquial variation, gal(s), as taboo byfeminist rules. Anyway, it remains unan-swered why men would surrender aword that had been associated withmales for so long.

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HAD, HAS, HAVE. See HAVE,HAS, HAD.

“HAIRBRAINED.” See HARE-BRAINED.

HALF. 1. With A. 2. With ONE.

1. With AA half is right at times, half a at other

times; sometimes either phrase is right.But “a half a” is never right.

A restaurant review said a shrimpplate contained a garnish of shreddedcabbage and carrots “and a half a slicedstrawberry.” The “a” before “half” wassuperfluous. Better: “and half a slicedstrawberry.”

Half is part of some terms, like a halfbrother or a half-life. You do not nor-mally speak of “half a brother” or “halfa life.” Nor do you put half immediatelybefore an adjective (as in “a half-slicedstrawberry”) unless half applies to theadjective (“sliced”).

Either half a dollar or a half-dollar iscorrect; either half an hour or a half-hour; either half a portion or a half-portion.

When half adjoins a noun, the use ornonuse of a hyphen is often a matter ofpersonal preference. Some terms areusually hyphenated, some usually unhy-phenated; dictionaries differ on others.

2. With ONEOne and one-half miles (feet, days,

etc.) is seen also as 11⁄2 miles and a mileand a half. A mixture of word and fig-ure, “one and 1/2,” is not standard.

Either half of the land or one-half ofthe land (population, weight, etc.) is cor-rect, although the latter may add a shadeof emphasis or precision.

Half can mean 50 percent of some-thing or close to it (half note, half-moon); or partial(ly) or incomplete(ly)(half crazy, half asleep). It can serve asadjective, adverb, or noun.

See also Verbs, 3.

HANGAR and HANGER. SeeHomophones.

HAPPEN, OCCUR, and TAKEPLACE. Announced in a network ra-dio broadcast: “The Senate vote is ex-pected to happen Thursday.” If the voteis expected, it will not “happen.” It willtake place. The latter is preferred whenthe action is prearranged or foreseen. Analternative correction is to leave out “tohappen”: “The Senate vote is expectedThursday.”

Happen usually implies that the ac-tion has come about by accident orchance (“Something has happened tothe plane”) or that it is unforeseen(“How could it happen to such a strongman?”).

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In the words of an institute’s execu-tive, educational monthly programs“have been happening for about a year. . . .” They have been taking placeor have been presented.

Occur often means the same as hap-pen; that is, come about by accident orchance. From a broadcast: “The sameroad work that occurred yesterday after-noon is occurring today.” The work wasplanned, so “occurred” and “occurring”are unsuitable. Took place and takingplace are possible, but more often workis done or performed. “The same roadwork that was done yesterday afternoonis being done today.”

Occur usually goes with more infor-mation than happen. “Find out whathappened.” / “The accident occurred atabout 2 a.m. today at Hollywood andVine.” Occur can apply to a foreseenevent: “The eclipse will occur at 9:17this evening.”

Other senses of occur are to come tomind (“It never occurred to them thatthey were in danger”) and to appear orexist (“This flower occurs throughoutthe southern states”).

HARD-BOILED. See BOIL.

HARDLY. See Double negative, 3;(-) EVER, 6; THAN, 2E.

HARDY and HEARTY. Hardymeans able to resist hardship, robust(“Astronauts must be hardy souls”), or,said of garden plants, able to get throughthe winter without special care. It is usedin error here:

Cooler weather and football seasonmake a perfect time for hardy food.

Hearty is closer to the mark. In the con-text of food, it means ample, nourishing,and satisfying (“a hearty dinner”) or re-quiring plenty of food (“a hearty ap-petite”). Food aside, it can mean cordial,genial (“a hearty greeting”).

The two words have different ances-tries. Hardy is traced to the Old HighGerman hartjan, to make hard. Hearty iscomposed of heart, from the Old Englishheorte, plus the common suffix -y.

The sample sentence led an article oncondiments in the food section of a largenewspaper. Nothing more was saidabout football, and just how it was perti-nent is not obvious.

HAREBRAINED. To be harebrained(adjective) is to have or reflect the brainsof a hare (e.g., “a harebrained idea”).Some people mistakenly spell it “hair-brained.” Webster’s Third Dictionary le-gitimates the misspelling, making it anentry.

One who displays no more intelli-gence than that long-eared animal can becalled a harebrain (noun).

Hare-brained and hare-brain are op-tional spellings.

HAVE, HAS, HAD. 1. Ambiguity. 2.Corruption. 3. Passive sense. 4. WithTO.

1. AmbiguityThe verb have has dozens of mean-

ings. Its particular meaning in a sentenceneeds to be made plain. How do we in-terpret have in the following sentence ofa radio broadcast?

Half the mothers who have abusedchildren were abused themselves aschildren.

That “have” can be a synonym for areparents of (if “abused,” a past participle,is construed as an adjective modifying“children”). However, “have abused”can be construed as a verb phrase, as inthe sentence “You have abused yourpower.” (There have functions as anauxiliary verb, abused as a main verb, inthe present perfect tense.) The speakershould have phrased the sentence better,perhaps in one of these ways, depending

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on her meaning: “. . . mothers who haveabused their children . . .” / “. . . moth-ers with children who have beenabused . . .” / “. . . mothers who are re-sponsible for the abuse of children. . . .”

Some hasty readers may have beenfooled by the second “had” in the ex-tract below.

“But I cannot understand how each ofthese missiles could possibly have costanywhere close to what they did, hadthis been an efficient operation,”added Percy, who said he had “falsi-fied time cards to support his argu-ment.”

The skimmers, interpreting “had falsi-fied” as a verb phrase, may have con-cluded that a senator had admittedfalsifying documents. Changing the sec-ond “had” to held or possessed or couldproduce would have eliminated the am-biguity. (Splitting that unwieldy sentenceinto two sentences also would haveaided comprehension. The second sen-tence: “He said he held falsified timecards to support his argument.”)

The sense of the sample below is eas-ier to conjecture than the two previoussamples, yet the sentence has faults. Itdeals with the detention of a Dutch visi-tor with AIDS.

Mr. Verhoef, who is 31 years old,was detained Sunday after Customsofficials learned he has acquired im-mune deficiency syndrome when hestopped over at the Minneapolis-St.Paul International Airport.

Because “has” and “acquired” adjoin,they tend to form a verb phrase, as in thesentence She has acquired money. Onewho knew that AIDS stood for acquiredimmune deficiency syndrome couldbacktrack and reinterpret “has” as de-noting possession. (Those misinterpret-ing the sentence might be fooled furtherby the placement of the phrase “when he

stopped over at the Minneapolis-St. PaulInternational Airport,” which couldmake it appear that the visitor acquiredthe disease when he stopped over at theairport. See Modifiers, 3. The tensewould be wrong, but the tense is ques-tionable however the sentence is inter-preted: “learned [past] he has[present] . . .”? See Tense, 1, 2.) Here isone way to rephrase the sentence (omit-ting one phrase):

Mr. Verhoef was detained Sundaywhen he stopped over at the Min-neapolis-St. Paul International Air-port and Customs officials learnedthat he suffered from acquired im-mune deficiency syndrome.

(The phrase “who is 31 years old” wasirrelevant to the essential message of thesentence. One could wonder what theage had to do with the detention. A bet-ter location for that phrase, or for justthe number 31, was four paragraphs ear-lier in the story, when the man was iden-tified.)

See also TENSE, 5, concerning theperfect tenses, which use have, has, orhad as an auxiliary verb.

2. CorruptionFollowing the auxiliary verb could,

may, might, must, should, or would,sometimes the have is wrongly replacedby “of”; for instance, “I could of gonefishing” and “They would of beaten us”(in place of have gone and have beaten).The misuser may be confusing “of” withthe contracted have, as in could’ve andwould’ve, which is acceptable in collo-quial speech.

In another corruption, the have turnsinto an “a” attached to a helping verb:“Sheila shoulda come” and “Montymusta seen it” (instead of should havecome and must have seen).

3. Passive senseNobody objects to the causative have,

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or had. “She had her hair done.” / “Thecompany is having the store remodeled.”The subjects cause things to happen.

What a few critics object to is this:“They had their house damaged in thestorm.” / “I’m tired of having my prop-erty defaced.” The form is the same; it isactive, yet the meaning is passive. Thesubjects do not cause the action; it isthrust upon them.

The passive use of the verb have is notnew; it is found in the writings of Shake-speare and Dickens. An old Webster’sDictionary gave as one definition of have(verb, transitive) “to suffer or experiencefrom an exterior source.” Its examplewas “he had his leg broken.” Sentenceslike that and “He broke his leg” havedrawn ridicule from pedagogues, news-paper editors, and some grammarians.

A critic deplored such use of have as a“counterfeit” of the causative have,more feeble than the true passive.Among “depraved” examples: “TheNewark team . . . had six . . . gamesrained out last spring.” The suggestedcorrection: “Six . . . were rained out”—scant improvement. The passive havehas some reputable defenders. Onefound the meanings clear and the objec-tions erroneous and pedantic. Anothercalled the critics “lint pickers” but fa-vored the rewriting of any ludicrous sen-tences.

A sentence like this does demandrewriting: “While she had her hair done,she had her car smashed by a truck.”The second had is absurd; although it issupposed to have a different meaning, itparallels the first had.

4. With TOTwo sentences, from a folder issued

by a hospital and from an essay by a po-litical scientist, each misuse to. (In addi-tion, both err in their pronouns.)

Every patient receiving general anes-thesia or medication must have a re-

sponsible adult to accompany themhome.

He [President Jefferson] wished, hesaid, to have Congress, who “exclu-sively” had the power, to considerwhether it would not be well to au-thorize measures of offense.

In the first sentence, omit “to.” In thesecond sentence, omit the second “to.”When have is causative—when you havesomeone do something—“to” does notfollow idiomatically. “I’ll have [or “Ihad”] the plumber fix the sink”—not“to fix.” / “Have an adult accompanyhim home.” / “Have Congress authorizemeasures of offense.”

(The other errors: [1] referring to asingular subject, “Every patient,” with aplural pronoun, “them”; and [2] repre-senting a thing, “Congress,” by “who.”See Pronouns, 2; WHO, THAT, andWHICH, 1.)

Have may go with to in other con-texts. “I have a key to get inside” is cor-rect. There have indicates possession andto indicates purpose. And have to is aproper phrase indicating obligation ornecessity: “I have to [or “She has to”] gohome.”

See also TO.

HAVOC. See WREAK and WRECK.

Hawaii. Hawaii seems to be a foreigncountry to the copy editor who wrote aheadline reading “Amfac [a conglomer-ate] says ‘aloha’ to U.S. divisions to fo-cus on Hawaii” and a caption reading“Amfac will shed domestic units to stayin Hawaii.”

Some people remain unaware thatHawaii has been the fiftieth U.S. statesince 1959, the Aloha State. (Aloha isHawaiian for goodbye, hello, or love.) Aformer kingdom, it was annexed by theUnited States in 1898 and became a U.S.territory in 1900.

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It is composed of the Hawaiian Is-lands, once called the Sandwich Islands,a chain some 2,000 miles southwest ofSan Francisco. Hawaii is the mostsoutherly state of the United States. It isnot the most westerly; Alaska is.

Hawaii is properly pronounced Ha-WHY-ee—never Ha-WHY-uh, whichsome dictionaries condone; and neverHa-VIE-ee, which some people mistak-enly believe is authentic. Its main islandsare Hawaii; Kauai (cow-EYE); Maui(MAO-wee); and Oahu (owe-AH-who),on which the capital city, Honolulu (ha-no-LOO-loo), is situated.

A person lives in Hawaii, if you are re-ferring to the State of Hawaii. One couldlive on Hawaii, i.e., on what is locallyknown as “the Big Island,” the largest ofthe Hawaiian Islands in area, but it isbetter to specify “the Island of Hawaii”to avoid confusion.

Hawaii residents never call themselves“Hawaiians” unless they are descen-dants of the original Hawaiians, mem-bers of the Polynesian race. (“Race” isnot a common word there; the peopleprefer “nationality.”) Few pure Hawai-ians survive, but many islanders are con-sidered “part Hawaiian.” To call anyoneelse a “Hawaiian” is to betray one’s un-familiarity with the islands.

The mainland’s mass media seem in-capable of dealing with Hawaii withoutsticking in the “paradise” cliché. Articlesin two newspapers and a magazine weretypically headed “Hawaii: Pint-size par-adise” / “Debate in Paradise—Who’sHawaiian” / “Hawaii: Telecommutingfrom Paradise.”

The use of that word to describe theHawaiian Islands goes back at least to1888, when a magazine called Paradiseof the Pacific was founded in Honolulu.(It would last seventy-eight years.) Par-adise means the kingdom of heaven, theabode of eternal bliss; and understand-ably that scenic, flowery, subtropicalkingdom suggested it to some.

Notwithstanding the one-sided pic-ture presented in travel promotions,Hawaii residents complain of many ofthe same problems that beset otherAmericans: problems concerning the en-vironment, health, the law, living costs,population pressures, and so on. Thenthere are some distinctive troubles.

A volcanic eruption on one of the is-lands was the subject of TV news on themainland. An anchor woman said,“There is more trouble in paradisetonight. Another home went up inflames on the Island of Hawaii.” Isn’t itodd that a land where lava consumeshouses should remind her of heaven andnot of the other place?

HEAD ON and HEAD-ON. SeeJoining of words; Punctuation, 4D.

HEADQUARTERS. Headquarters,meaning a center of operations, usuallyis treated as a plural noun. Below it isconstrued as singular.

But already now, even while theCivic Forum searched for a headquar-ters and Mr. Adamec looked for newministers, the faint outlines of the fu-ture were taking shape. . . .

The article “a” is not necessary. Yet fewwould flatly declare a singular construc-tion of headquarters to be incorrect.

What is more disputable is using theword, sans s, as a verb. Nine-tenths ofThe American Heritage Dictionary us-age panel rejected “The European corre-spondent will headquarter in Paris” and“The magazine has headquartered himin a building that houses many foreignjournalists.” The use of the past partici-ple has become a fairly common collo-quialism, especially in the passive (“isheadquartered”).

HE and HIM. See Pronouns, 10.

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HEARTY. See HARDY andHEARTY.

HEBREW. See JEW, JEWISH, 2;YIDDISH.

Helping verbs (auxiliary verbs).See Verbs, 1, 4.

HER and SHE. See Pronouns, 10.

HER, HIS. See Possessive problems, 4;Pronouns, 2.

HEROIN and HEROINE. The twowords are pronounced identically. Ex-cept for the e at the end of one, they havethe same spelling. They are similarlyrooted in Greek. But their meanings arevastly different.

A heroine is a female hero or the mainfemale character in a work of fiction. Itoriginated in the Greek heroine, femi-nine of heros, hero (via the Latin hero-ina).

Remove the e and we have heroin, ahighly addictive narcotic, a derivative ofmorphine. Once used as an analgesicand sedative, it is now prohibited by theU.S. government. Heroin began as aGerman trade name in the late nine-teenth century. It was adapted from theGreek stem hero-. Perhaps the coinerhad the original sense in mind, but themodern perception is that one who takesup that drug is less a hero than a fool.

A weekly paper said a state law “per-mits the use of heroine, LSD andmethamphetamines” when prescribed.Heroin. Webster’s Third Dictionary in-explicably accepts the wrong spellingalong with the right.

HERSELF. See Pronouns, 3, 4, 5.

HETEROPHOBIA. See HOMO-PHOBIA.

“HIGH COURT.” The highest court

in the United States is the SupremeCourt. What are we to make of the fol-lowing?

The state of Missouri appealed thecase to the High Court.

. . . The High Court . . . ruledthat . . . the Federal Tort ClaimsAct . . . did not protect officials whomay have been negligent. . . .

Contrary to such writings, there is noAmerican court called the “HighCourt.” It is a term concocted by jour-nalists in their perpetual search for syn-onyms.

Inasmuch as high court is not a realname, it makes no sense to capitalize it.(A better case can be made for using acapital S in “State of Missouri.”)

HIM and HE. See Pronouns, 10.

HIMSELF. See Pronouns, 3, 4, 5.

HINDI and HINDU. A dictionarysays, “Gunny comes from the Hinduword ‘goni’. . . .” Correction: it is aHindi word (meaning gunny sack).Hindu pertains to Hinduism, the religionthat is predominant in India. The lan-guage is Hindi. It is the official languageof India, a literary language based on agroup of northern Indian vernaculartongues, to which the term Hindi some-times is applied also.

A Hindu is a believer in the Hindu re-ligion. Westerners used to erroneouslyapply that name, or “Hindoo,” to anyIndian. A Hindi, a less common term, isa northern Indian whose native languageis in the Hindi lingual group.

HIS, HER. See Possessive problems, 4;Pronouns, 2.

HISPANIC. See LATIN(-)AMERI-CAN.

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“HISSELF.” See Pronouns, 5.

HISTORIC and HISTORICAL. 1.The difference. 2. HISTORIC news?

1. The differenceThe two adjectives are not synonyms.

The -al makes a difference.An event that is famous or important

in history—such as Columbus’s discov-ery in 1492 or the first trip to the moon,in 1969—may be called historic. Some-times the word is used more loosely todescribe a contemporary event that onethinks or hopes will prove historic.

That which pertains to the topic ofhistory or contributes to the record ofhistory—a society, a document, etc.—ishistorical. So is a book, a show, etc.based on historic events. Dickens’s storyof the French Revolution, A Tale of TwoCities, is a historical novel. However, inreferring to the academic subject, historyusually serves as an adjective: a historyteacher, course, or textbook.

When an indefinite article precedes ei-ther word, it is usually a, as in “a historicvoyage” or “a historical movie.” Seealso A and AN.

2. HISTORIC news?The word historic is used freely in the

press. There it often pertains, not to anevent of long ago, but to a current event,usually one that has been anticipated.

A main headline proclaimed a “His-toric Global Trade Pact.” Another, in asecond newspaper, announced: “His-toric anti-crime bill passed by the Sen-ate.” Did the editors possess a deepknowledge or sense of history? Or was itjust their way of letting readers knowthat the issues those events resolved—af-ter prolonged and prominent debate—were important?

The historical importance of a “his-toric” current event is open to argument.This was broadcast: “NASA todaycalled off an historic space mission.” To

apply “historic” to something that doesnot even happen may be going too far.

HOBSON’S CHOICE. A Hobson’schoice is a take-it-or-leave-it offer. It isthe choice of taking either that which isoffered or nothing at all. All three quota-tions misuse the term.

[A news magazine:] King Fahd . . .faced a Hobson’s choice: he could goit alone, leaving his small and scat-tered army to answer Iraq’s battle-hardened troops, or he could call inthe U.S. and lay bare his ties.

[A talk-show host on the choice be-tween a child and a career:] A lot ofwomen have to make that decisionand it’s like a Hobson’s choice, isn’t it?

[A poll taker, as quoted in a newspa-per:] “Both candidates appear to behighly flawed. . . . For Democrats, it’sa real Hobson’s choice.”

Each statement describes a dilemma, nota “Hobson’s choice.”

The expression is said to have origi-nated in the practice of Thomas Hobson,of Cambridge, England, who died in1631. He let horses and required eachcustomer to take the horse nearest thestable door or none.

See also DILEMMA.

HOLD.

Hey, voters, getahold of yourselves

Get what? What is that strange amal-gam, displayed prominently in a head-line on the op-ed page? Could it be atypographical error? No; there it goesagain, in the text of the article:

It’s time for the American elector-ate to get, as they say, ahold of itself.

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Regardless of what “they say” to thewriter and his editor, the proper idiom isto get (or catch or lay or take) hold ofsomething. It means to seize or grasp it.

A hold is (among other things) a gripor an act of holding. Under no circum-stances should a and hold be stuck to-gether.

To get (or lay or take) hold of some-thing can also mean to acquire it.

HOLD UP, HOLDUP, HOLD-UP.See Crimes, 3.

HOME and HOUSE. The first para-graph of an article deals with “homes”;the second, with “houses.” Then“homes” are mentioned several timesmore.

Low mortgage interest rates and asmaller supply of homes for sale in thelast six months helped break whathad been a free fall in AlamedaCounty home prices.

Houses in a few neighborhoodseven increased in values since the lastsurvey. . . .

Livermore has a stock of relativelysmaller and older three-bedroomhomes [and so on].

What is the difference? Not much to thewriter, who has largely accepted theword pushed by real estate people (al-though the second paragraph may indi-cate a twinge of journalistic conscience).They prefer to call a residential house forsale a “home,” bare and unoccupiedthough it may be, thereby helping toconvey the notion that they sell security,comfort, happiness, and the like.

To Edgar A. Guest, there was a gooddeal of difference between the twowords. He wrote in his poem Home: “Ittakes a heap o’ livin’ in a house t’ make ithome.”

People have made their homes inother than houses—in caves, cliff

dwellings, hogans, huts, igloos, lakedwellings, lean-tos, pueblos, tepees,wickiups, wigwams, yurts, and of courseapartments. On the other hand, a housein which nobody lives is nobody’s home.

On national television one saw flamesconsuming houses in Glendale, Califor-nia. Firemen in helicopters droppedchemicals on what a voice called “the homes.” They were now hardly“homes.”

Homographs and homonyms. SeeHomophones.

HOMOPHOBIA. The Greek pho-bos, a fear, is the origin of the noun pho-bia, a morbid, or unhealthy, fear; anintense, persistent, irrational dread of athing, being, or situation. The suffix -phobia is part of many words that indi-cate types of morbid fear, such as acro-phobia, fear of heights; agoraphobia,fear of being in a public place; and claus-trophobia, fear of being in a confinedplace.

A dictionary of psychology defineshomophobia as (1) “A morbid fear ofhomosexuality” and (2) “A morbid fearof mankind.” (The combining formhomo- is from the Greek word homos,meaning same; while Homo, the genusincluding mankind, is from the Latinhomo, meaning man.) An encyclopediaof phobias defines homophobia as “Fearof homosexuality or becoming a homo-sexual.” An approximate antonym is heterophobia, “Fear of the oppositesex. . . .”

The common element in all the defini-tions is fear, yet that element is oftenlacking in the current use of the word, asin an editorial:

Who cares who Ellen is sleepingwith? . . . Those rock-ribbed Ameri-cans who’d sooner puke than applaudEllen’s lesbianhood. . . . This show . . .will just harden their homophobia totensile strength.

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When the meaning is a dislike of homo-sexuals or opposition to homosexualpractices and there is no fear, let alonephobia, it is better to explain what ismeant than to miss the mark with homo-phobia. If a lone noun is needed, a possi-bility is antihomosexuality (adjectiveantihomosexual); another, which wouldfit the editorial, is simply hatred.

Homophones. The English languagecontains an abundance of words (or lin-guistic units) that are pronounced orspelled like other words but have differ-ent meanings. Let us define three suchcategories:

• Homographs, words that are spelledalike but pronounced differently(e.g., wind, moving air; and wind, tocoil or turn).

• Homonyms, words that are spelledand pronounced alike (e.g., bear, ananimal; and bear, to carry orwithstand).

• Homophones, words that are spelleddifferently but pronounced alike. Inthe following examples, writers haveabsent-mindedly replaced correctwords with their homophones.

According to a news item, an editor“said he hoped the former aide toRichard Nixon would right an after-word” for a book by Nixon. Plainlywrite (to compose sentences) was con-fused with “right” (which also can be averb, e.g., to right a wrong).

A famed lexicographer wrote in a let-ter that he had sunk “waste deep” insnow in the Alps. He meant waist (thenarrow part of the torso), not “waste”(refuse or an act of wasting).

Under a proposal by the president,“overall Federal spending would be heldconstant accept for inflation.” Someoneat a newspaper confused except (apreposition meaning other than) with“accept” (a verb meaning to take some-

thing offered). The pronunciations differslightly.

An op-ed piece about telephone solici-tors said “their ought to be a law.”Make it there (the adverb), not “their”(the possessive pronoun). Sometimesthey’re, the contraction of they are, isconfused with one or the other.

A movie review said “he crawls into aconstruction sight. . . .” Site (a place)would be right, not “sight” (a view). Athird word that sounds the same is cite,to quote, refer to, or officially summonor mention.

Forty other groups of homophonesare listed below in boldface, a pair ortriplet in each paragraph. They are ar-ranged alphabetically and briefly de-fined, many with illustrations of use.Additional homophones are dealt within other entries, listed after this list. Seealso Confusing pairs.

Ad, a short form of advertisement; “aclassified ad.” Add, to combine num-bers; “to add or subtract.” Ad, Latin forto, found in terms like ad hoc (literally tothis), meaning for this specific purpose;and ad infinitum (literally to infinity),meaning endlessly.

Altar, an elevated place for religiousrites; “the couple standing at the altar.”Alter, to change or modify; “to alter thepants.”

Ante- (prefix), before; antedate, ante-room. Anti- (prefix), against, antifreeze,antitrust. Auntie or Aunty, aunt, an af-fectionate or familiar form.

Away, in another direction, from aplace, from one’s possession; “turnedaway” / “went away” / “gave it away.”Aweigh, clear of the water’s bottom, saidof an anchor; “anchors aweigh.”

Bail, a security payment to insure adefendant’s appearance in court; “re-leased on $5,000 bail.” Bale, a largebundle, compressed and tied; “a bale ofhay.”

Base, a foundation, fundamental in-

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gredient, headquarters, or starting point;“paint with an oil base” / “our base ofoperations.” Bass, a low-pitched voiceor musical instrument; “The singer is abass” / “He plays the double bass.”

Bazaar, a market place or benefit sale;“a Middle Eastern bazaar” / “a churchbazaar.” Bizarre, strange, grotesque; “abizarre sight.”

Bough, a large branch of a tree. Bow,a respectful lowering of the head orbody; also the front of a ship.

Brake (noun), a device for stopping avehicle; (verb) to stop a vehicle. Break(noun), a fracture or pause; (verb) tofracture or pause.

Breadth, width, extent; “traveling thelength and breadth of the land.” Breath,air inhaled; “a deep breath.”

Callous (adjective), hardened, insensi-tive; “a callous attitude.” Callus (noun),a hardened part of the skin; “calluses ontheir hands.”

Cannon, a big gun. Canon, a rule orprinciple; a body of church law.

Canvas, heavy cloth; “painted in oilon canvas.” Canvass (noun), an inspec-tion or solicitation, “the candidate’s can-vass of the district”; (verb) to inspect orsolicit, “to canvass the district.”

Cession, a formal yielding; “cession ofterritory under the treaty.” Session, ameeting or sitting; “Court is now in ses-sion.”

Chord, a combination of musicalnotes; “a G-major chord.” Cord, a stringor thin rope; “tied with a cord.”

Council, a group of people serving asan assembly for advice, legislation, dis-cussion, etc.; “the city council.” Coun-sel, advice, “wise counsel”; attorney(s),“defense counsel.” Consul, one who rep-resents a foreign government in a partic-ular city; “the Danish consul in Seattle.”(Its first vowel rhymes with Don; that ofthe other two words rhymes with down.)

Discreet, prudent, acting properly re-served; “a discreet witness.” Discrete,separate, having distinct parts; “four dis-crete sections of the work.”

Dual, double, related to two; “dualengines.” Duel, a fight, often under tra-ditional rules; “shot in a duel.”

Flair, a natural ability; “a flair forsports.” Flare (noun), a blaze of fire, or asignal of fire or light, “Rescuers saw theflares”; (verb) to blaze or burst out,“Tempers flared.”

Gamble, to risk money on a game ofchance; “gamble on the lottery.” Gam-bol, to frolic, to skip about; “childrengamboling in the garden.”

Hangar, a structure for housing air-planes. Hanger, a frame for hangingclothes.

Idle, not active, not kept busy; “idlehands.” Idol, an image of a deity; “aPolynesian idol.”

Lama, a Buddhist priest or monk ofTibet or Mongolia. Llama, a woolly, do-mesticated animal of South America.

Lesser, smaller, less important or seri-ous; “the lesser evil.” Lessor, an ownerof property who lets it under a lease to alessee.

Manner, a way of doing; “I am nativehere and to the manner born.” Manor,a landed estate; “an English manor-house.”

Medal, a small piece of metal cast orawarded in someone’s honor; “a goldmedal.” Meddle, to interfere in a matterthat is not one’s business; “Don’t meddlein our private affairs.”

Metal, a class of hard, elemental sub-stances or alloys such as iron, silver, andbronze. Mettle, quality of character,spirit, or courage; “Both fighters showedtheir mettle.”

Miner, one who works at extractingminerals from the earth. Minor (noun),one who is not yet a legal adult; (adjec-tive) lesser, the opposite of major, or (inmusic) related to a minor scale.

Passed, the past tense of pass; “Ipassed the exam.” Past (noun or adjec-tive) time before the present; “remem-bering the past” / “in the past month.”

Peace, absence of hostility; calmness.Piece, a fragment or part.

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Pedal (noun), a foot-operated lever;(verb) to operate such a device, “to pedala bicycle.” Peddle, to work at sellinggoods carried from place to place; “topeddle brushes.”

Plain (noun), a level, treeless region,“the midwestern plains”; (adjective) ob-vious, simple, unadorned, “plain talk.”Plane (noun), airplane, carpentry tool,flat surface, or level, “a higher plane”;(adjective) flat, “a plane figure.”

Pore (noun), a small opening, as in theskin; (verb) to gaze at or study carefully;“He pored over the volume.” Pour, to letflow; “pour the tea.”

Rain, water condensed from atmo-spheric vapor that falls to earth in drops,or its falling; figuratively a shower ofanything, “a rain of sparks” / “a rain of blows.” Reign, rule, sovereignty, ordominance; “the reign of George III” /“a reign of terror.” Rein, a strap for con-trolling a horse, attached to a bit in itsmouth and held by the rider; figurativerestraint or guidance, or the meansthereof, “a tight rein on governmentspending.”

Role, a part in a performance, or afunction; “to play a role.” Roll (noun),something rolled up, a list of names, asmall bread loaf, a swaying motion, or aloud sound; “a roll of tape” / “honorroll” / “sweet roll” / “rock and roll” /“roll of thunder”; (verb) to revolve,move by repeatedly turning over, ormove on wheels, or to cause such move-ment; “to let the ball roll” / “to roll theball.”

Session: see Cession in this list.Sole (noun), a shoe bottom or a fish;

(adjective) lone, only, “the sole heir.”Soul, human spirit, “bless her soul.”

Stationary, not moving, not changing;“stationary equipment” / “stationaryphilosophy.” Stationery, writing paperand related supplies; “sold in a sta-tionery store.”

Trooper, a mounted policeman or sol-dier, or a state policeman. Trouper, amember of a troupe of performers, a per-

former of long experience, or (infor-mally) a loyal worker.

Vice, a wicked practice. Vise, a clamp-ing device.

Weather, the condition of the atmo-sphere. Whether, in either event; either;if.

See also the following entries:

AFFECT and EFFECTALL TOGETHER and ALTO-

GETHER (etc.)BLOC and BLOCKBORE, BORNE, and BORNCAPITAL and CAPITOLCOMPLEMENT and COMPLI-

MENTEXERCISE and EXORCISEFAUN and FAWNFAZE and PHASEGRISLY, GRIZZLY, and GRIZZLEDHEROIN and HEROINEINCIDENCE and INCIDENTITS and IT’SLEAD (verb) and LEDLOATH and LOATHEMARSHALNAVAL and NAVELPRINCIPAL and PRINCIPLEPronouns, 8.Punctuation, 1B.RACK and WRACKSHEAR, 1.TO, TOO, and TWOTROOP, TROOPS, and TROUPEVerbs, 2 (medal)WHOSE, 2YOUR and YOU’RE

HONORABLE, HONORARY,HONORED. 1. HONORABLE. 2. HONORARY; HONORARIUM. 3. HONORED IN THE BREACH. 4. TIME-HONORED.

1. HONORABLEHonorable, usually in its abbreviated

form, Hon., often precedes the names ofhigh public officials, despite the dishon-orable records of some. It is used in let-

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ters and formal documents in this way:Hon. (or the Hon.) John Doe, secretaryof state.

It goes with the full name, not withthe surname alone as in “Hon. Doe.” Itis a term of respect, not a true title. Hon.Senator and Mrs. Richard Roe is right.“Hon. and Mrs. Richard Roe,” as usedsometimes, deprives him of his title.

Honorable is an adjective only, liter-ally meaning characterized by, possess-ing, or worthy of honor. “Brutus is anhonorable man.” (See also REV-EREND.) The related adverb is honor-ably. “You performed honorably.”

2. HONORARY; HONORARIUMUsually honorary (adjective) describes

either (1) a title or position granted as anhonor with no payment, duties, or privi-leges, as honorary chairman, or (2)something else given solely as an honorwithout any actual utility, such as anhonorary degree conferred by an educa-tional institution (sometimes to honorthe institution more than the officialhonoree).

Honorary originally meant of honoror conferring honor, the word’s meaningin Latin; e.g., “The simple crown ofolive, an honorary reward” (in ancientGreece).

A word that sounds similar but has amuch different meaning is honorarium(noun), a voluntary payment to a profes-sional person for special services whenno fee is set or legally required.

3. HONORED IN THE BREACHA custom or rule that is more honored

in the breach than in the observance isone for which a person deserves morehonor for breaking than for observing.

A book on English usage says a cer-tain grammatical rule “is honored nowmore in the breach than in the obser-vance.” The intended meaning is that therule is broken more often than it is kept.

This illustrates a common misapplica-tion of the saying.

The source is Shakespeare’s Hamlet,in which Hamlet, the Prince of Den-mark, says, “it is a custom / Morehonor’d in the breach than the obser-vance.” The reference is to the custom ofwassail, revelry with spirituous toasts tohealth. (See also Prepositions, 4, end.)

4. TIME-HONORED“Negative campaigning is a time-

honored tradition in this country,” a net-work broadcaster said. A story thatfollowed described political mud-slinging since the days of Jefferson, tend-ing to disparage it.

Perhaps he meant “time-honored” asirony. The practice of defaming one’s po-litical opponents is commonly dishon-ored, not honored. To honor (verb,transitive) something or someone is totreat it or him with honor (noun): es-teem, regard, respect, or reverence. Todishonor something is to insult it or treatit with disrespect, as the broadcaster didto mud-slinging.

Anyway, “time-honored tradition”was redundant. One dictionary’s defini-tion of tradition is “A time-honoredpractice. . . .” Time-honored means hon-ored, observed, or carried on because ofantiquity or long continuation.

HOPEFULLY. Nobody denies thatthe adverb hopefully can mean in ahopeful manner, showing hope, feelinghope, or with hope. “Striding hopefullyto the betting window, I slapped downmy twenty-dollar bill.”

However, a controversy goes on be-tween those who would restrict the wordto its primary meaning and those whowould allow it to serve as a synonym for“I hope” / “let us hope” / “it is hoped” /or “we can hope.” Such use has becomeincreasingly popular since the sixties.

A radio newscaster tells of a standstill

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at the airport and adds, “The fog is lift-ing and hopefully things will be return-ing to normal.” The “things” are notdoing any hoping. Then who is? Thenewscaster is, but she is not in the sen-tence. Her “hopefully” modifies noth-ing. It just dangles there.

Hopefully may eventually be admittedto the elite society of absolute construc-tions, words and phrases that are per-mitted to dangle; but its time has not yetarrived. See Modifiers, 1D.

HOUSE. See HOME and HOUSE.

HOW. How (adverb) means in whatmanner or way (“How did the accidenthappen?”), by what means (“I wonderhow he does that trick”), in what condi-tion (“Tell me how she is”), or to whatamount, degree, extent, etc. (“How ex-pensive and how good a car do youwant?”). It can be used as an intensive oras part of an exclamation (“Howsweet!”) and colloquially it can amountto why? (“How so?”)

One thing it is not, at least in standardusage, is a substitute for that. Such use of“how,” or sometimes the phrase “ashow,” is highly informal or regional. Sois the phrase “being as how” or “seeingas how” in place of because or inasmuchas.

An urban daily newspaper devoted afront-page article to a family’s display ofwooden sheep on a hillside.

It has something to do with how K—— once kept live sheep there andhow he and his wife, J——, are ex-pecting their second child.

The article says nothing about the man-ner in which he kept live sheep (e.g.,loose on a hillside, watched by a shep-herd) and nothing about the manner inwhich the couple are expecting theirchild (e.g., cheerfully with monthly cele-brations). The newspaper people seem to

have used “how” as a substitute for thefact that (or, the second time, for that).How can they do it? In a substandardmanner with little thought.

HOWEVER. See BUT, 5; (-)EVER, 4.

HUSH MONEY. See Crimes, 2.

HYPER- and HYPO- prefixes. SeeConfusing pairs.

Hyphen. See Punctuation, 4.

HYPOTHESIS and THEORY.Some people use the two words inter-changeably, encouraged by some dictio-naries. That is how a certain book onEnglish usage uses the words (emphasesadded):

Among the various other theoriesconcerning the alphabet are the hy-potheses that the alphabet wasbrought by the Philistines from Creteto Palestine, that the various ancientscripts of the Mediterranean countriesdeveloped from prehistoric geometricsymbols [etc.]. . . . Another hypothe-sis, the Ugaritic theory, evolved afteran epoch-making discovery. . . .

Among “theories” are several “hypothe-ses”? Another “hypothesis” is a “the-ory”? The writers seem more intent onavoiding repetition of a word thanavoiding confusion among readers.

Those who want to be precise or sci-entific distinguish between the twowords in this way:

A hypothesis is much more tentative.It has much less evidence to support it orno evidence at all. It is an unprovenproposition, supposition, or plain guessthat is accepted tentatively to explainsome facts or to serve as the basis forstudy, investigation, or experimentation.

A theory is bolstered by a good deal ofevidence and usually is more elaborate.

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It is a system of principles to explain cer-tain phenomena that have been ob-served; the principles have been at leastpartially verified.

The nebula hypothesis and the plan-etesimal hypothesis, for example, are al-ternative, unproven explanations for theorigin of the solar system. On the otherhand, Einstein’s special and general theo-

ries of relativity—dealing with space,time, mass, energy, and gravitation—have been repeatedly tested in experi-ments and are generally acepted by thescientific community.

In view of the abundance of alterna-tive explanations for the creation of thealphabet, hypothesis would seem to bean apt label for each.

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I and i. The letter i should be dotted inlower case and only in lower case. Acapital I should never get a dot. Al-though dotted capital I’s are seen on in-numerable homemade signs, they offendthe eyes of professional sign painters,calligraphers, typographers, and otherssensitive to the letters of our alphabet.

In the opening episode of a televisioncomedy series, a learned professorchalks the word “HUMANITIES” incapital letters on a blackboard. A coedtells him impudently: “When you writethe letter I, the dot is supposed to goover the I. They teach you that in thefirst grade.” Actually his letters are per-fectly correct (though nobody puttingon the show seems to know it). Theepisode ends as the professor dots thecapital I in “RENAISSANCE”—erro-neously.

I and ME. See Pronouns, 10.

“I COULD CARE LESS.” See“COULD CARE LESS.”

-ICS ending. See Plurals and singu-lars, 2G.

“IDEA WHOSE TIME HASCOME.” This phrase dates from1943 at the latest, and its time shouldhave expired by now. Instead it is goingstrong as a cliché. Example:

[From a lecture:] Mind-body medi-cine is an idea whose time has come.

Or, put in the past:

[From a book:] But book clubs werean idea whose time had come.

It amounts to a fancy way of saying thatthe idea is or was popular. (For thosetaking the cliché literally, questionsarise: Does every idea, even a trivial one,have a “time”? What determines it?What about conflicting ideas, wrongideas, bad ideas?)

In 1943 a circular from The Nationattributed this sentence to Victor Hugo’sdiary: “There is one thing stronger thanall the armies in the world; and that is anidea whose time has come.” Its originwas probably Histoire d’un crime byHugo: “An invasion of armies can be re-sisted; an invasion of ideas cannot.”(Source: The Home Book of Quota-tions.)

Some still combine Hugo’s thoughtabout the invincibility of ideas with thetimeliness notion. In an article about theRomanian revolution of 1989, a profes-sor of political science wrote:

The luminous courage of [the Rev.Laszlo] Tokes and his supportersproved, yet again, that no force canresist an idea whose time has come.

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The particular idea discussed was that ofpolitical freedom. In the same year, asimilar idea came to Communist China,but lethal force resisted it.

IDENTICAL. 1. Modifiers. 2. Prepo-sitions. 3. Related words.

1. ModifiersAn author describes a visit to a remote

village in Niger, Africa.

Looking at the young men, all of pureblood, I noticed their faces were in-deed somewhat identical.

“. . . Their faces were indeed similar”would make more sense. “Somewhatidentical” is impossible.

Somewhat (adverb) means rather, orto a limited extent or degree. Identicalcan mean the very same or exactly alike.Either way, identical cannot be dimin-ished by modifiers like “a bit” / “rather”/ “slightly,” and “somewhat,” any ofwhich contradicts it. Some modifiers,such as almost or completely, whichleave the second sense at least mostly in-tact (“The two paintings are almostidentical”), are acceptable. Identical inthe first sense (“He is the identical manwho robbed us”) may not be modified atall.

2. PrepositionsIs this picture identical with that pic-

ture? Or is it identical to it? Grammari-ans have disagreed.

Theodore Bernstein would accept ei-ther preposition. Wilson Follett wouldnot use to: “a thing [has] identity with,not to, another.” That is so, and that isthe British tradition, but American idiomaccepts either, and you may choose.

3. Related wordsWords related to the adjective identi-

cal include the adverb identically, thenouns identicalness and identity, and the

verb identify. All are traced to the lateLatin identitas, identity.

In mathematics, an equation that issatisfied for all values of its symbol(s) iscalled an identical equation.

In logic, a proposition whose subjectand predicate amount to the same thing(“Nonexistence is not existence”) is anidentical proposition.

In poetry, an identical rhyme useswords or syllables that have the samesound, such as beat and beet.

Identical twins are siblings who devel-oped from the same ovum and look thesame.

Identic is an archaic version of identi-cal as well as a diplomatic term. It maybe defined as the same in form and sub-stance though not the same in wording;for example, identic communiqués is-sued by the United States and Russia.

IDLE and IDOL. See Homophones.

IDYLLIC. Idyllic means rural, natu-rally charming or picturesque, or suit-able for an idyl (also spelled idyll), apastoral poem. What is idyllic here?

. . . His friends believed that theyoungest of the Elliotts spent an idyl-lic childhood: growing up with his fa-ther, his mother, Lee, one brother andthree sisters in Manhattan. . . .

If the boy had grown up in, say, theCatskills, his childhood could have beendescribed as idyllic. The adjective hardlyseems appropriate when associated withmodern Manhattan.

An author writes about his experi-ences:

The days had been idyllic and madefor strolling, for sitting at sidewalkcafes, for sipping wine under acanopy.

The author was in Paris, a metropolis ofsome two million people and, however

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pleasant, no more idyllic than New YorkCity.

In response to a suggestion thatyoungsters be taught to ride motorcyclesproperly, the host of a talk show said ontelevision:

That’s a great idea in an idyllic world,but that’s not the way we live.

Did he really think that motorcycleswould improve a pastoral setting?

People often use “idyllic” mistakenlyin place of ideal, a word that would fitall three quotations.

The two sentences that follow do havepastoral elements, but they are overwrit-ten.

Still, if The Avalanche [a Texasnewspaper] mostly reflects an idyllicrural life style, it’s also a revealing in-dicator of change.

It [an anti-American poster in Mos-cow] has been replaced by a newposter with drawings of a youngAmerican boy and a young Soviet girlin an idyllic, pastoral scene.

“Idyllic rural” and “idyllic, pastoral” areboth redundant. (“Revealing indicator”is no model of terseness either.)

See also BUCOLIC.

I.E. (that is). See Punctuation, 2A.

IF AND WHEN. See UNLESS ANDUNTIL.

IF clauses. See Subjunctive; WAS andWERE.

ILK. A grammar says, “The indefinitepronouns are one, someone, anyone . . .and others of this same hazy ilk.”

If you must use ilk in that way, at leastnever do so in Scotland, and leave out“same.” Same was the original meaning

of ilk, in the Middle Ages, and remainsits meaning in Scotland, at least in a nar-row way. As an adjective, ilk used to ap-pear in a phrase like this: the ilk night,meaning the same night.

In modern times, ilk serves mainly toidentify someone. It is used in a phraselike Macduff of that ilk, meaning of thatsame (name is understood). It signifiesthat the person has the same name as theplace he owns or comes from. It is likesaying Macduff of Macduff.

In the United States and England too,ilk is used loosely—The Oxford EnglishDictionary says “erroneously”—as anoun meaning class, kind, or family. It isusually meant to be facetious or deroga-tory.

A comedian said in an interview, “It’san unwritten rule among people of thesame ilk.” The same ethnic group? (The“rule” presumably is that they may de-ride their group while outsiders maynot.)

ILLUSION and DELUSION. SeeConfusing pairs.

IMMANENT, IMMANENCE.See EMINENT and IMMINENT.

IMMEMORIAL. A candidate hadaccused an opposition party of dirtytricks. The leveling of such a charge is “amethod that has been tried since timeimmemoriam,” a commentator said ontelevision.

The nonword that came forth seemedto be a mixture of immemorial (the wordthat he probably was aiming at) and inmemoriam. The former means back intime beyond recorded history or humanmemory. The latter is a Latin phraseused in epitaphs and obituary notices,meaning in memory.

IMMIGRATE and EMIGRATE.See EMIGRATE and IMMIGRATE.

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IMMINENT, IMMINENCE. SeeEMINENT and IMMINENT.

IMPACT. 1. A forceful noun. 2. IM-PACT as a verb. 3. IMPACTED, an ad-jective.

1. A forceful noun.A forceful word is being enfeebled.

Blame the increasingly sloppy and pre-tentious ways in which people whoought to know better are tossing itaround these days.

An impact is a violent contact or astriking of an object against another, orthe force or shock of that contact orstriking together.

Too often it serves as a fancy synonymfor effect, importance, influence, result,or the like.

Interviewed on television, an econo-mist was asked about the effect of Mid-western floods on prices. He answeredthat it would have “a very small impact,almost unnoticed by the consumer.”

Strictly speaking, “a very small im-pact” is a contradiction. If an effect is sosmall that one can hardly notice it, “im-pact” is not the word to choose.

Use impact to suggest violence orpower in the way things come together.When a giant meteor struck the earth,there was an impact. When two speedingcars collide head on, there is an impact.When a leaf falls gently to the ground, orwhen we talk about an economic effect,there is no impact.

A television reporter made the follow-ing statement. (Emphasis is added to itand the ensuing examples.)

Zebra mussels have already had agreat impact on ways of doing busi-ness. Until scientists control theirnumbers, that impact will continue togrow.

Those passive, immobile mollusks liter-ally have no “impact” on anything (with

the possible exception of minute organ-isms that enter their systems). Even if acreative commentator could devise away in which zebra mussels entered intoa figurative “impact,” that “impact”would not “continue to grow.” An im-pact does not grow.

The popular press is as accountable asanyone for the enfeeblement of theword. These are excerpts from three suc-cessive paragraphs of a news story:

Other press analysts argued that re-porters’ party registration had no im-pact on the fairness of coverage. . . .Even inside journalism’s most influen-tial institutions there are sharp divi-sions on the impact personal viewsmay have on coverage. . . . He [an edi-tor] said he feared political affiliations“could have an impact on coverage.”

A learned professor of political sci-ence used the noun “impact” 100 timesin an otherwise illuminating, 289-pagebook. He used “impact” 41⁄2 times as of-ten as the combination of effect and in-fluence, two words that he could wellhave substituted throughout.

Collectively, they [elements of the en-vironment] have a substantial impacton the Court’s decisions, an impactthat merits examination. . . . It islikely that Congress has exerted a sub-tle impact on the Court’s policychoices. . . . Of course this kind ofsubtle impact is difficult to ascertain. . . .

An impact is not “subtle.” It is force-ful. More examples from the same book:

We can gain a fuller sense of theCourt’s impact on society and theforces that shape that impact by look-ing at a few areas of the Court’s activ-ity. These examples provide remindersthat the Court’s impact is complex.

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. . . Until the late 1980s it generallygave them [civil rights laws] expansiveinterpretations that enhanced theirpotential impact. There is evidencethat the federal laws against employ-ment discrimination have had a signif-icant impact on the economic statusof black citizens; this impact can be ascribed primarily to the otherbranches.

And so on and on.

2. IMPACT as a verbNow that impact has been weakened,

the next step in its ruination is the misuseof it as a verb. Two newspaper examplesfollow.

So the question on many people’smind is how will the downtown/wa-terfront ballpark impact our alreadycongested streets and roadways?

She expressed concern about howproviding the initial medical treat-ment service . . . might impact otherservices at the hospital.

Change each “impact” to affect. (In theformer sample, also change “mind” tominds and the virgule, or slash, to acomma and space.) The writers not onlyused “impact” in the wishy-washy sensebut further misused it as a verb. Thenoun and the verb express considerablydifferent ideas and are pronounced dif-ferently.

Impact (noun), a violent contact, wasdiscussed in the first section. It is pro-nounced IM-pact.

To impact (verb, transitive) is tosquash something or to press things to-gether tightly, the way a garbage truckimpacts garbage. It is pronounced im-PACT.

The writers must have gone to school.What accounts for such slovenly En-glish? An article quoted a Massachusetts

superintendent of schools turning theword in question into an intransitiveverb. As a teacher, she had tried to tamean unruly little pupil, and “the time Ihad spent with him impacted on theother children.” She may have meant itaffected them. It probably did notsquash them.

This example is from a form letter tobank customers:

From a customer’s perspective, thisgeneral decline in interest rates has fa-vorably impacted mortgage interestrates, which are at their lowest level inmany years.

Does the letter contain metaphor—a vi-sion of interest rates being squeezeddown—or merely a piece of roundaboutprose?

3. IMPACTED, an adjectiveImpacted (adjective), pronounced im-

PACT-ed, means jammed together,packed tightly in, or firmly wedged. It isused correctly in this sentence from abook, concerning an airplane flight innorthern Africa:

The firmest sand for our runway wasthe impacted Land-Rover track.

Impacted has technical meanings indentistry and medicine, denoting teeth orfractured bone ends that are abnormallywedged, or trapped dejecta. A dentistmay say, “You have an impacted tooth,”perhaps speaking of a wisdom tooth thatis firmly wedged in its socket and cannotemerge through the gum. An impactedcondition is an impaction (noun).

This is from a book on marketing:

Any purchase is basically made on im-pulse, and response levels can be seri-ously impacted if the potentialrespondent does not act within a shorttime span.

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The author presumably means that salesmay be few if ad readers do not act soon.Would he advertise a bug killer by say-ing, “Pest levels will be seriously im-pacted”?

On a radio talk show, a lawyer pre-sented the type of final argument that hethought the prosecution should make ina current murder trial. The hostess re-sponded with an adjectival creation, “It’san impactful statement to have beenmade,” as though the misuse of the i-word as a noun and a verb were notenough.

IMPARTIAL. See DISINTERESTEDand UNINTERESTED.

IMPEACH, IMPEACHMENT. Anews announcement on a radio networkand a headline in a newspaper reflected apopular misconception that “impeach-ment” meant removal from office:

The Senate impeached him [a federaljudge] on charges stemming from aperjury conviction—kicked him offthe bench.

Hatch predicts Senate won’t vote to impeach

“Impeached” and “impeach” shouldhave been convicted and convict. TheSenate does not “impeach” anyone. TheConstitution says:

The House of Representatives . . .shall have the sole power of impeach-ment. . . . The Senate shall have thesole power to try all impeachments.

To impeach a public official is to pre-sent him with official charges of wrong-doing in office. Following impeachment,he goes on trial. If he is a federal officialof the United States, the Senate tries him.If the Senate convicts him, in a two-thirds vote, the penalty cannot exceed re-

moval from office and disqualification tohold a federal public office, although theconvicted person remains liable to prose-cution elsewhere.

The House of Representatives im-peached two presidents: Andrew John-son in 1868 and William J. Clinton in1998. The Senate tried both but con-victed neither. In 1974 President RichardM. Nixon avoided impeachment, forwhich the House Judiciary Committeehad voted, by resigning as president.

To impeach (verb, transitive) in a gen-eral sense is to discredit or impugn (aperson or his motives, testimony, etc.).

Imperative. See Mood; Subjunctive, 1.

IMPLICATION. See IMPLY and IN-FER.

IMPLY and INFER. The differencebetween these two words is like the dif-ference between saying and thinking. Aspeaker or writer implies. A listener orreader infers.

To imply (verb, transitive) is to say in-directly, to hint or suggest. “The writerimplies that the mayor is crooked.”

To infer (verb, transitive or intransi-tive) is to conclude from evidence, to rea-son on the basis of something known orassumed. “From the facts in the article, areader infers that the mayor is crooked.”

At times “infer” is used by mistakewhen imply is meant. Misunderstandingcan result. “He inferred that Charlie wasthe culprit” indicates that he drew such aconclusion from evidence. “He impliedthat . . .” indicates that he made a sug-gestion that may not have been backedby evidence.

The second edition of Webster’s Dic-tionary gave as the (fifth) meaning of in-fer: “Loosely and erroneously, to imply.”Webster’s Third substitutes “to give rea-son to draw an inference concerning:HINT.” That is a meaning of imply. Twomisuses are quoted, including this from a

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British weekly: “did not take part in thedebate except to ask a question inferringthat the constitution must be changed.”Implying.

Something implied or the act of im-plying is an implication (noun). Some-thing inferred or the act of inferring is aninference (noun).

A political commentator evaluatedthe performance of Jack Kemp in a so-called vice-presidential debate: “In noway did he buckle Al Gore’s knees or, byinference, Bill Clinton’s.” Kemp wouldhave involved President Clinton by im-plication. It would have been up to lis-teners to draw an inference. The speakerwould be hinting, suggesting, implying.The listeners would be reasoning, con-cluding, inferring.

IN. See DISINGENUOUS and IN-GENUOUS; EMIGRATE and IMMI-GRATE; EMINENT and IMMINENT;INTO, 1; LIVE, 2; ON, 3; Prepositions,1, 2, 6; TO, 2.

IN ATTENDANCE. This phrase en-ters accounts of meetings and othergatherings; for example:

Responses to a four-page questionnairegiven to those in attendance . . . willbe taken into consideration in de-veloping the education reform pack-age. . . .

“In attendance” is not wrong but some-what stilted and drawn out. Present oreven attending would be crisper in thatexample.

One writer seems fond enough of thephrase to use it three times in one article:

Those in attendance last night . . .might have been years removed fromthe segregated world that Robinsonchallenged. . . . [See also MAY andMIGHT.] Branch Rickey III . . . wasin attendance. . . . Also in attendance

were Sandy Koufax, Lou Brock andReggie Jackson.

Chaucer had no need for “in atten-dance” when he wrote “A Shipman wasther” / “A good Wyf was ther,” and soon. “About 100 were in attendance atthe meeting” can be simplified to“About 100 were there” or “100 at-tended” or “100 were at the meeting.”

IN A WORD. This sentence appearsin a book by a law professor:

In a word (though requiring manyqualifications), the laws and policiesof the federal government are madeby the Congress (even if largely, now,on Executive initiative), are carriedout and enforced by the President,and applied by the courts in particularcases.

A word? Forty words follow “in aword.”

The phrase can make sense when usedby a person of few words: “How was theshow?” / “In a word, lousy.” One who isverbose can render it ludicrous, as in thesample sentence. (That sentence has an-other failing: an inconsistent series. Ei-ther leave out the second “are” or inserta third are just before “applied.” Seealso Series errors, 9.)

INCIDENCE and INCIDENT.The nouns incidence and incidentssound alike. They confused a congress-man, who said, in a widely broadcastspeech to the Senate, “she related theseincidences”—instead of incidents.

An incident is a particular occurrenceor happening, sometimes relatively triv-ial (“There was an amusing incident atwork today”), sometimes troublesome(“A border incident could set off awar”). It can also be an episode in a liter-ary work. (“The final incident in the playcomes as a surprise.”) Those who use in-

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cident without qualification as a eu-phemism for a criminal, violent, or otherunpleasant event (“Opponents booedthe marchers, but there was no inci-dent”) may be overstretching the word.

Incidence can mean occurrence ingeneral or in the sense of extent, range,or manner of occurring. (“The incidenceof the disease is widespread in this area.”/ “I’m surprised at the incidence of thisspecies so far north.”) It can also mean afalling on or striking, or the way inwhich something falls on or strikessomething else. (“The angle of incidencewas 45 degrees.”) The word is not usu-ally made plural.

Two adjectives are incident, meaninglikely to occur in connection with (“thedangers incident to a fireman’s life”),and incidental, occurring or likely to oc-cur by chance or as a minor result ofsomething (“incidental expenses”). A re-lated adverb is incidentally, meaning inan incidental way, apart from the mainmatter, or by the way. The spelling inci-dently is obsolete and now usually con-sidered wrong.

INCLUDE. See COMPRISE, 2.

Incomplete sentence. See Sentencefragment.

INCREDIBLE. If an announcershouts about an “incredible offer,” takehim at his word and don’t believe it. In-credible (adjective) primarily means notbelievable. It is from the Latin incredi-bilis, based on in-, not, and credibilis,credible, from credere, to believe.

Many people came to use the word ina second way, to express not skepticismbut amazement. Thus one might call astrange story or sight incredible, findingit hard to believe but still believing it.

Still looser lips have diluted the wordto an insipid slang sense, far removedfrom that of unbelievable. When abroadcaster said, “These are some of the

authors that are incredible,” his inten-tion was to recommend their works. “In-credible” to him probably meant verygood, great, superb, or any of dozens ofsynonyms. Yet he was literally condemn-ing their veracity.

See also Double meaning (end); FAB-ULOUS; FANTASTIC; INCREDU-LOUS.

INCREDULOUS. Incredulous (ad-jective) means skeptical, disbelieving, orunable to believe. That meaning appliesonly to people. “Despite his aggressivesales talk, she remained incredulous.”Incredulous can also refer to somethingone does to express disbelief: “With anincredulous wave of the hand, she leftthe show room.”

Incredulous should not be confusedwith incredible, meaning not believable,which applies either to things or topeople. The use of incredulous to meanincredible is obsolete and now generallyconsidered erroneous.

The defendant in a prominent lawsuithad just testified. Emerging from thecourtroom, a man commented on televi-sion, “It was totally incredulous, every-thing he said.” Correction: “It wastotally incredible [or “unbelievable”] . . .”or “I was totally incredulous about ev-erything he said.”

The word is barely changed from theLatin incredulus, from in-, not, andcredulus, credulous.

See also INCREDIBLE.

INCREMENT. Sharing the first fiveletters of increase and its basic idea aswell, increment derives from the Latinincrementum, meaning growth or in-crease. The quotations, from newspa-pers, show some skewed uses of ourword.

If a horse pays $2.40 for $2 toshow at the track, the OTB bettor getsonly $2.20 for $2—supposedly a 5

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percent surcharge but effectively asmuch as 50 percent because payoffsare rounded to the nearest 20-cent in-crement.

According to a billing statement inad-vertently submitted by Root to theFCC in a Sonrise case, the money pro-vided for Root would be kept by Son-rise and parcelled out to him in$1,500 increments as he billed thefirm.

The first sentence seems to use “incre-ment” to mean point; the second, tomean installment. Increment (noun)does not mean either. It is an increasing,or something that is added, or theamount of gain, or the amount by whichsomething is growing. The idea of in-crease goes with increment.

Increment as a verb (transitive and in-transitive) is not used often. A technicalmanual says:

The line feed counter will be incre-mented one count for each line ad-vance.

The word is used there correctly, al-though “be incremented” is a round-about way to say add.

INDEPENDENCE. See DEMOC-RACY, FREEDOM, and INDEPEN-DENCE.

INDESCRIBABLE, UNDESCRIB-ABLE. In the wake of a hurricane onthe Hawaiian island of Kauai, a televi-sion reporter was on the scene. “It reallyis undescribable,” he said. Somehow hemanaged to describe it anyway, havingbeen sent there to do so.

On another program, a historical doc-umentary, the narrator said “the stormswept down with a grandeur and powerthat are indescribable.” She was therebydescribing it.

Undescribable is not wrong, althoughit is much less common than indescrib-able. They are paradoxical. It is hard tothink of anything that is impossible todescribe—perhaps some of the ultimatesecrets of the universe?—yet that is whatthose adjectives mean. Nevertheless,when either is used, it is liable to accom-pany some kind of description. Even “in-describable joy” is a description.

A synonym is inexpressible, less oftenunexpressible (adjectives), not subject toexpression. An inexpressible (noun) issomething that cannot be expressed. Atone time inexpressibles applied totrousers. So did unmentionables (noun),which denoted underwear also and occa-sionally is still so used, in a jocular way.An unmentionable is that which shouldnot be mentioned. Unmentionable (ad-jective) means unfit to be mentioned.

Another synonym is unspeakable (ad-jective), meaning beyond speech, unfit tobe spoken, or extremely bad or objec-tionable.

See also Verbal unmentionables.

INDIAN (AMERICAN). See MIS-NOMER; RACE and NATIONALITY.

Indicative. See Mood; Subjunctive;Tense, 1.

INDIFFERENT, INDIFFER-ENCE. See DISINTERESTED andUNINTERESTED.

INELUCTABLY. See Range, trueand false, 2.

INEVITABLE. It is easy to say aboutsomething that has already happenedthat it was “inevitable.” Who can provethat it was not? Part of a main story inan eminent newspaper said:

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ance interests for months, SenatorGeorge J. Mitchell, the majorityleader, bowed to the inevitable andannounced that Congress would notpursue the issue any further this year.

“The inevitable” seems to have been as-cribed supernatural power and station:One bows to it. The supporters of thebill (dealing with health care) probablydid not know that it had been doomedby that mystic force, so they tried formonths to pass it. The writer would havesaved them all that trouble by informingthem earlier of its fate.

That which is inevitable (adjective) iscertain to take place. It cannot beavoided, evaded, or prevented. Fewevents in society are like that.

An example of the fallacy of attribut-ing inevitability to past events is a state-ment in a paper written by a collegiatefreshman. Upon researching the Populistmovement of the 1890s, I penned thevacuous sentence “It was inevitable thatthe farmers would revolt.” Think of allthe oppressed people of the world whodo not “revolt.”

Decades later, a network broadcastercommented, “It was probably inevitablethat Hollywood would team up withMichael Jordan.” At least the “proba-bly” left some room for doubt, but thinkof all the sports stars with whom Holly-wood has not teamed up.

Applying inevitable to future humanevents is especially dubious. (Someschools of thought deny the existence offree will, but who can predict the futurewith certainty?)

The word was part of an exhortationto Congress and radio listeners by Presi-dent Franklin D. Roosevelt on December8, 1941:

With confidence in our armed forces,with the unbounded determination ofour people, we will gain the inevitabletriumph, so help us God.

That “inevitable triumph” was condi-tioned upon two variables, those of“confidence” and “determination.” Yeteven their fulfillment must not have en-sured inevitability; otherwise why wasGod entreated to “help us”?

In a historical documentary on televi-sion, a narrator made the statement “ButAmerican participation in the war[World War I] was inevitable.” In placeof “was inevitable,” came in 1917 orwas declared by Congress or almost anyother pertinent fact would have beenmore informative.

During the height of the so-calledCold War between the United States andthe Soviet Union, one often heard thesentence “War is inevitable,” anticipat-ing an atomic war between the two na-tions. Such a war did threaten on manyoccasions, but now that the Soviet Unionis no more, the speakers of that phraseare proved wrong. Nevertheless, it was adangerous phrase, fostering as well as re-flecting a grim fatalism.

See also DESTINY.

INEXPRESSIBLE. See INDESCRIB-ABLE, UNDESCRIBABLE.

INFER, INFERENCE. See IMPLYand INFER.

Infinitive. 1. Definition; description. 2.Gerund versus infinitive. 3. Perfect infini-tive. 4. Split infinitive.

1. Definition; descriptionThe infinitive is the basic form of a

verb: for instance, know, leave, run, andstop.

The word infinitive comes from theLate Latin infinitivus, unlimited. The in-finitive is not limited by tense, person,number, etc. (that is, not inflected).

It is identical with the imperativeform, go or help; also with the form ofthe ordinary present tense in the thirdperson plural, they speak or they walk,

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and in the first person singular (exceptfor I am), I think or I see.

Usually an infinitive is indicated by to:“He wanted to know.”/ “She needs toleave.”

Infinitives without to regularly followsome verbs, such as can, let, may, might,must, and should (“The man can run” /“You should try”), and appear in certainconstructions (“A crowd watched themfight” / “I will quit rather than move”).

To plus infinitive may act as a noun,either in the subject (“To build is a nobleart”) or in the predicate (“Maria loves tosing”). It may also act as an adjective(“John has an ambition to fly”) or as anadverb (“They came to help”).

One to normally suffices for multipleinfinitives of similar construction: “Iwant to finish my work and go home”—the second to is understood. But a subse-quent to may be desirable for emphasis:“I come to bury Caesar, not to praisehim.”

The use of to to indicate the infinitive(“I want to buy a pig”) should not beconfused with any other use of to, e.g.,to indicate direction or purpose (“I’mgoing to town to buy a pig”). See TO.

See also Verbal, 3; Verbs, 1.

2. Gerund versus infinitiveWhen to use the gerund and when to

use the infinitive puzzles some writersand speakers. It is the difference betweenseeing and to see, between laughing andto laugh. The first is the -ing form of averb when it serves as a noun. The sec-ond is the basic form of a verb, precededby to. For instance, a broadcaster said:

Not all dry cleaners share Robin B——’s enthusiasm to protect the en-vironment.

A more idiomatic phrasing would be“enthusiasm for protecting the environ-ment.” Some other nouns would go withthe infinitive: e.g., “desire to protect” /

“wish to protect.” Still other nounswould go with the gerund: e.g., “concernfor protecting” / “idea of protecting.”

An infinitive is needed in this sen-tence, by a news agency:

HELSINKI—President Boris N.Yeltsin of Russia yesterday acknowl-edged his failure in winning PresidentClinton’s promise that no former So-viet republic will ever be allowed tojoin NATO.

“In winning” should be to win. A cor-rect example of the former: “She is en-couraged by her success in winning thetournament.”

There are no rules pointing to oneform or the other. It is a matter of idiomand knowing how each verb is used. Dic-tionary examples can be instructive.

See also Gerund, 3.

3. Perfect infinitiveA form that borrows the term infini-

tive but should not be confused with theform defined in 1 is the perfect infinitive.Examples are to have gone, to havemade, and to have sung. Using to haveand a past participle, it normally ex-presses action that is, was, or will becompleted before another action orevent indicated in the same sentence.“I’m happy to have won your confi-dence.” / “The office seemed to havebeen ransacked.” / “They plan to havebuilt the house by the end of the year.”

Sometimes the perfect infinitive is un-needed, as in this sentence from a novel:“He would have liked to have huggedhis father.” Probably at that moment hewould have liked to hug his father.

Another example of a misuse of theperfect infinitive: “I planned to havemoved.” It reverses the logical time se-quence. Make it “I had planned tomove”; the planning had to precede themoving.

“He wants to be the first to have

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bought a ticket” can be trimmed to “Hewants to be the first to buy a ticket.”

4. Split infinitiveTo walk typifies the normal infinitive

form. To quickly walk is a split infinitive.It is an infinitive form in which to andthe verb are separated by a modifier (anadverb in the preceding example).

Grammarians differ on the matter.One writes, “Don’t split your infinitives.They’d rather remain intact” (Karen E.Gordon). Another writes that “the splitinfinitive is an improvement of Englishexpression” (George O. Curme).

Split infinitives can be awkward, esp-cially when separated by more than aword or two. They can also be helpful attimes in communicating one’s meaning.

The two quotations that follow con-tain awkward splits. A radio announcersaid, about the temperature, “It’s sup-posed to Sunday night drop lower.” Theend of the sentence would have been abetter place for “Sunday night.” Worseyet: in a sentence from a book, telling theauthor’s purpose, fourteen words sepa-rate to and the verb. (Those two wordsare emphasized here.)

Its main idea is to historically, evenwhile events are maturing, and di-vinely—from the Divine point ofview—impeach the European systemof Church and States.

On the other hand, the fear of split-ting infinitives results in ambiguities likethis:

Some of the stones . . . failed com-pletely to melt before they reached theground.

It was quoted by Sir Ernest Gowers,whose comment cannot easily be im-proved upon:

Did the hailstones completely fail tomelt, or did they fail to completely

melt? The reader has to guess, and heought never to have to guess.

In a book on lexicography, a seemingeffort by its authors to avoid a split in-finitive has resulted in something worse:

General lexicographers were com-monly content to use the Dictionaryas a mine, without attempting greatlyto extend its limits, at least untilRichardson and Webster.

Did the lexicographers make no great at-tempt or did they not attempt a great ex-tension? That is, which verb was theadverb “greatly” meant to modify: “at-tempting” or “extend”? More likely theauthors intended the latter but wantedto steer clear of to greatly extend. Theycould have written “to extend its limitsgreatly,” if they did not mind givinggreatly more emphasis.

. . . Linguistic stiffness . . . is a factor[in air accidents] that the NTSB inves-tigators, because of their own verbalawkwardness, have been unable quiteto recognize.

The writer of a magazine article failed torecognize the verbal awkwardness of“quite to recognize” instead of “to quiterecognize.”

The style books of The AssociatedPress and The New York Times call forgenerally avoiding split infinitives butsometimes making exceptions. The lattercondones “He was obliged to more thandouble the price” but forbids “to clearlyshow.” In the following sentence, from aTimes article, an infinitive has been justi-fiably split in the manner of the forbid-den example (emphasis added):

A special prosecutor said in court pa-pers made public today that shewould urge the Supreme Court toquickly overturn a Federal appellate

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decision Friday that struck down theFederal law on special prosecutors.

Where else could the adverb go? “Tooverturn quickly . . . a decision” wouldseparate verb from object, in Germanicfashion. “She would urge the SupremeCourt quickly” could be misleading.

Sometimes a split infinitive is hard toavoid: “to half surmise the truth”(Robert Browning); “his fortune beingjeopardized, he hoped to more than re-trieve it by going into speculations”(Theodore Roosevelt); “I’ve heardenough to about do for me” (WillaCather). Furthermore, it can contributeto poetic rhythm.

In his grammatical treatise, George O.Curme devoted five pages to examples ofsplit infinitives by such writers as the po-ets Burns (“to nobly stem tyrannicpride”), Wordsworth (“to still furtherlimit the hours”), and Byron (“To slowlytrace the forest’s shady scene”). Curmesaid that inserting an adverb between toand the infinitive was a six-century-oldpractice that “cannot even in the strictestscientific sense be considered ungram-matical.” Yet he drew the line in somecases: “Almost everybody, however, putsnot before the to of the infinitive. . . .”For example, “He promised not to do itagain,” rather than “to not do it again.”His explanation: not is felt as modifying,not the verb, but the infinitive phrase asa whole, to do it again.

One writer seemed unable to decidebetween splitting and not splitting nega-tive infinitives, so she split the difference:

Once called the loneliest man inAmerica because of his agreement tonot only integrate the major leaguesbut agree not to lash back at thosewho assailed him, he knew the impor-tance of his task.

Make it “not only to integrate.” (In ad-dition, omit “agree,” which is redun-

dant; and substitute also, which is miss-ing. See NOT ONLY. A question of styleis whether the twenty-nine words beforethe comma belong with the seven wordsafter.)

The splitting of infinitives, by adverbsand also by pronouns, goes back to thefourteenth century. A Biblical translationby John Purvey in 1388 said, “It is goodto not ete fleisch and to not drynkewyn.” (The Revised Standard Versionsays, “. . . It is right not to eat meat ordrink wine. . . .”)

The practice, not common over thecenturies, spurted in the nineteenth cen-tury; it was then that grammariansdrummed up opposition to the form.Their knowledge of the classical lan-guages of Greek and Latin, in which theinfinitive is a single word, may have in-fluenced them. The term split infinitivecame later, near the end of the nine-teenth.

The infinitive was a single word inOld English. It was a verbal noun (whatthe gerund is today), indicated by thesuffix -an (or -ian); for instance, “Onganhe writan”: he began to write. The to go-ing with the infinitive originally meanttoward. Thus to do in the sentence“Anger drove him to do it” would beconstrued as toward the doing of.

Nowadays the to that goes with theinfinitive, while categorized as a prep-osition, often is not felt as a prepositionand serves merely as a signpost pointingto the infinitive word or phrase. Yetmany consider it to be part of the infini-tive.

The reality today is that the unsplit infinitive remains the norm, and doubt-less there are more than a few peoplewho find the split kind somewhat dis-comforting. But you need not avoidsplitting an infinitive if you have goodreason to split it. A good reason is that iteither expresses your meaning moreclearly or sounds more natural.

Bear in mind that a phrase like “to be

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adequately financed” or “to have slightlymisjudged” is not a split infinitive. It isnot wrong for an adverb (adequately) toseparate an auxiliary verb (be) from amain verb (financed). Grammatical au-thorities agree on that.

An excessively finicky British officialwrote, “They appeared completely tohave adjusted themselves to it.” He hadevidently put the adverb in that abnor-mal position in the belief that “to havecompletely adjusted” would split an in-finitive. It would not. The infinitivewould have been split by “to completelyhave adjusted.”

INFLAMMABLE. See FLAMMA-BLE, INFLAMMABLE, and NON-FLAMMABLE.

Inflected and uninflected forms.See Infinitive, 1.

INFORMATION. See FACT.

INGENIOUS, INGENUOUS, andDISINGENUOUS. See DISINGEN-UOUS and INGENUOUS.

-ING form of verb. See Gerund; Par-ticiple.

Initials. See Abbreviation.

IN MEMORIAM. See IMMEMO-RIAL.

INNOCENT. See Guilt and inno-cence.

INNOVATION. When a radio an-nouncer said “There’s been a lot of newinnovation in the area of laser surgery,”she was using a redundant new. All inno-vation is new.

Innovation (noun) is something that isnewly introduced; a change in method,device, or mode of doing things; or theact of innovating. To innovate (verb, in-

transitive) is to introduce something newor change that which is established.

IN NO WAY, IN NO WISE. SeeNO WAY.

IN ORDER TO. See TO, 2 (end).

IN PERSON. See PERSON, 2.

INSECT. The word insect properlyapplies only to a minute animal with sixlegs in the class Insecta. A book on firstaid uses it loosely when it says:

Insect bites and stings are not usu-ally dangerous except from the blackwidow spider, the brown recluse spi-der, and the scorpion.

A spider, scorpion, tick, or mite is anarachnid, in the class Arachnida; eachhas eight legs.

Popular speech often lumps all tinycreatures together as “insects” or“bugs.” A news magazine reported, un-der an article titled “INSECT ASIDES,”that “all sorts of bugs are making news.”Its first example concerned Japanesepanic over an infestation of spiders—arachnids.

A bug is a crawling insect or, morespecifically, a type of crawling insectwith a mouth adapted for piercing andsucking.

INSIDE. See INTO, 1.

INSOFAR AS, IN SO FAR AS. SeeFAR.

INSTINCT. A book by a lexicogra-pher says, “We can all, by instinct, con-struct sentences more or lesseffortlessly.” By “instinct”? Althoughdefinitions vary, most sources agree thatwhat the term instinct concerns is essen-tially inborn rather than learned. Onelearns a language. Perhaps this is what

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the author meant: “We can all constructsentences without much conscious ef-fort.”

Instinct is often loosely used when ap-titude, impulse, intuition, reflex, skill, orthe subconscious is meant.

The Random House Dictionary ablydefines instinct primarily as “an inbornpattern of activity or tendency to actioncommon to a given biological species.”A migratory pattern of a bird or a mat-ing pattern of a fish may be termed an in-stinct. The tendency to act in such amanner or even the presumed force be-hind that tendency is also at times calledan instinct. The choice of behavior is in-nate, although environmental eventsmay trigger it and modify it.

Related words are instinctive (adjec-tive) and instinctively (adverb). A news-paper article said:

The driver of the Redman car in-stinctively braked when he saw theboulder flying toward them. . . .

“Instinctively” should have beendropped or perhaps changed to reflex-ively. A reflex is an involuntary responseto a stimulus.

INSURANCE and ASSURANCE,INSURE and ENSURE. See AS-SURE, ENSURE, and INSURE, 1.

INTER- and INTRA- prefixes. SeeConfusing pairs.

INTEREST, INTERESTED. SeeDISINTERESTED and UNINTER-ESTED.

INTERMINABLE. Interminable(adjective) literally means not ter-minable, unending, lasting forever. Fewthings last forever, if anything does. Onecould strictly speak of the interminableuniverse, although some cosmologists

believe that even the universe will endeventually.

The word can be extended to meanunending for practical purposes (“thesun’s interminable energy”) or seemingto last forever (“the country’s inter-minable fiscal troubles”). However, itdoes not make sense to apply it to some-thing that plainly has an end, as a collegeteacher did:

Moving up the state’s presidentialprimary would only lengthen the al-ready interminable period of presi-dential selection.

Logically, that which is interminablecannot be lengthened. Anyway, to applythat word to a period of presidential se-lection is absurd. The period terminateson the day that a president is elected.

A critic called a film a “brain-numbing barrage . . . that lasts nearlytwo hours,” and he ridiculed a scene at“the end of this interminable picture.” Itterminated after nearly two hours. “Theend of this interminable picture” is acontradiction.

A music reviewer wrote of a sym-phonic concert with “an interminable in-termission.” The conductor “filled thesecond half of the concert with . . . extro-verted tone painting. . . .” Inasmuch asthe concert had a second half, the inter-mission was not interminable.See also ETERNITY.

IN TERMS OF. 1. Legitimate and il-legitimate uses. 2. Need for anotherpreposition. 3. Need for rewriting or re-thinking.

1. Legitimate and illegitimate usesThe phrase in terms of is encountered

often in speech and writing, and usuallyit is empty verbiage. It has a legitimateuse; it introduces a translation to an-other language, jargon, or way of speak-ing:

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“The buyer must beware—or, interms of Latin, caveat emptor.” / “Interms of baseball, our fund drive entersthe ninth inning and to win we need ahome run with the bases loaded.” / “Towin back her love, you have to start talk-ing in terms of endearment.”

More often its use is either a slovenlyway of tying together two dissimilarideas or a pretentious substitute for asimple word or phrase that is more tothe point. Frequently one of these will dothe job better than “in terms of”: about,as, as for, as to, by, concerning, of, andregarding. Even the three-word phraseswith regard to and with respect to maybe preferable.

2. Need for another prepositionExpressing something in other terms

through mathematical equation is whatscience does continually. Yet the looseuse of “in terms of” is not absent fromscientific writing.

In a book on contemporary physics,the authors use “in terms of” three timesin as many pages. (Emphasis is added tothe excerpts.)

Though we have described the pro-cess of electron scattering in terms ofthe exchange of a single photon be-tween two charged particles, there isalso the possibility that two, or more,photons will be exchanged.

These [nuclear] forces each have theirassociated fields, which can be de-scribed in terms of messenger parti-cles, analogous to photons.

The existence of similar descrip-tions of all three forces—electromag-netic, weak and strong—in terms ofmessenger particle exchanges has en-couraged the belief that a commonunified description of the forces mightbe found.

In the first and third sentences, theycould have replaced “in terms of” withas; in the second sentence, with as ex-changes of. Again, there are valid usesfor in terms of. The authors explainforces and fields in terms of quantumelectrodynamics.

Occasionally all one needs to do isleave words out. A medical researcher isexplaining the close relationship be-tween human immunodeficiency virusand simian immunodeficiency virus:

“In terms of the target cells they en-ter, in terms of the known modes oftransmission, and in terms of the dis-ease caused, they are very similar.”

Except for the first “In,” the emphasizedwords could be scrapped with no sacri-fice to the message.

3. Need for rewriting or rethinkingSometimes no first aid will help; the

sentence must be recast or the ideas mustbe rethought. This newspaper sentenceconcerns a breaking and entering at apolitical campaign office in Washington,D.C.:

Last night’s “vandalism,” the wordpreferred by Martin D. Franks, ex-ecutive director of the committee, according to Mr. Johnson, was so in-substantial, in terms of what weretermed “sensitive files” that remainedlocked in undisturbed cabinets, thatthe committee denied permission to-day for photographs.

“. . . In terms of” is bad enough. “. . . Interms of what were termed” compoundsthe trouble. The sentence could havebeen patched up by replacing “in termsof” with inasmuch as and throwing outthe first “that.” Other faults would re-main, however. (The story mentions“Mr. Johnson” four times, never sayingwho he is. Moreover, by the placement

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of the phrase “according to Mr. John-son,” it tends to apply only to the “wordpreferred” phrase. And the clause aboutphotographs is almost a non sequitur.)So the story was revised for a later edi-tion:

“Vandalism” was the word pre-ferred by Martin D. Franks, executivedirector of the committee, to describelast night’s incident, according toMark Johnson, the campaign com-mittee’s press secretary. . . .

What he described as “sensitivefiles” were still safely under lock andkey, he said.

The revised story (saying nothing aboutphotographs) is an improvement. (But“What he described as” is unnecessary,inasmuch as “sensitive files” is in quota-tion marks and the sentence ends with“he said.”)

The passages below are from a biog-raphy. Nothing but thorough recastingof the sentences could help them.

In terms of the prosecutor’s futurephilosophy, there seemed not to beone word in the controversy about thefreedom of the press provided underthe First Amendment.

In terms of professional memberships,moreover, nothing succeeded like suc-cess, as Black himself noted in an in-terview published after his death—“Iwas trying a lot of cases against cor-porations, jury cases, and I found outthat all the corporation lawyers werein the Klan. . . .”

Sticking an “in terms of” into a sentenceis no replacement for clear thinking. Noone can be expected to speak in terms ofa future philosophy or otherwise foreseethe future. (Besides, there cannot be oneword about press freedom; it takes atleast two words.) The first sample sen-

tence from the biography could berewritten this way:

The prosecutor’s arguments did notforeshadow his future philosophy.There seemed to be nothing in thecontroversy about. . . .

The latter quotation from the book isunwieldy and obscure, somehow tyingprofessional memberships to the clichéabout success and tacking on a quota-tion with still another idea. A rescue at-tempt would be futile.

INTERNECINE. Internecine (pro-nounced inter-NIECE-sin, among otherways) is a useful adjective in the sense ofmutually destructive. It comes from theLatin internecinus, meaning murderous.A word so derived should be expected tobear the concept of deadliness. Indeedinternecine originally meant character-ized by bloodshed or slaughter.

It came to mean deadly to both adver-saries in an armed conflict. This is a use-ful interpretation, for no other singleword expresses the idea.

Still later, it was given another twist.Evidently assuming that the first six let-ters came from internal, some began ap-plying internecine to internal conflicts,e.g., “America’s internecine struggle ofthe 1860s.”

Now we often find the element ofdeadliness, the essence of internecine,slighted or forgotten altogether and theword serving merely as a synonym forinternal in connection with verbal, polit-ical, or other harmless disagreementswithin a group.

In a TV forum, a newspaper publisherwas discussing South Africa’s leadership:

Botha and his successor, de Klerk, areapparently having internecine war-fare.

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They were not actually shooting at eachother; they simply disagreed on policy.

This is from a prominent newspaper:

The prospect of a Warner defection intwo years could shatter the partyunity . . . and throw Republicans intoan internecine war.

No weapons would be discharged in theso-called war, only words.

To adapt that distinctive and powerfuladjective to such unexceptional uses islike resorting to a pistol to dispatch acockroach.

Interrogative sentence. See (-)EVER;Punctuation, 9.

INTO. 1. IN and INTO. 2. IN TOand INTO. 3. Slang use.

1. IN and INTOThe preposition in indicates position,

location, or condition. Among its vari-ous senses, it means inside; within thearea or confines of (the house, the city,the deal, etc.).

The preposition into indicates mo-tion, direction, or change in condition. Itoften means to the interior of (a place);from the outside to the inside of (theplace).

“The children are jumping into thepond” clearly indicates their movementfrom the banks to the water. “The chil-dren are jumping in the pond” is lessclear; they may have already been in thewater when they started jumping.

“We walked into the house” clearlyindicates that we entered the house. “Wewalked in the house” is less clear; wemay have already been in the housewhen we decided to tour the place.

Some contexts in which into is rightallow in as an option. “They let him into[or “in”] the country.” / “Throw the peelinto [or “in”] the trash can.”

The verb put goes with either in or

into. (“Put the dishes in [or “into”] thecupboard.”) But idiom dictates the com-panionship of the verb place and in.(“Place the dishes in [not “into”] thecupboard.”)

Into can also mean against (“Thetruck crashed into a utility pole”), to acertain form or condition (“The vasebroke into little pieces” / “Matter canchange into energy”), to an occupation(“She is going into real estate”), or toward (“We must look into the fu-ture”).

2. IN TO and INTOWhen in, serving as an adverb, comes

in contact with the preposition to, awriter may erroneously unite them. Theresulting “into” can grossly distort themeaning.

Such a mistake could cause alarm.“The ship came in to the pier” simplymeans that it docked. “The ship cameinto the pier” means that it crashed.

The mistake could cause just mirth.“A man wanted as an army deserter forfifteen years turned himself into the sher-iff’s office last night.” Unless the reporterwas describing a magical transforma-tion, the in and the to should have beenseparate.

3. Slang use“Fred is in sales” indicates that selling

is his occupation. “Fred is going intosales” indicates that he intends to enterthat occupation. The era of “flower chil-dren” and “Do your own thing”brought the use of into in the sense of acontinuing participation in a vocation oravocation. One would say “I’m intopainting,” instead of “I do painting” orsimply “I paint.”

The term persisted, and a daily papersaid a designer of science exhibits was“so into tornadoes” that his contribu-tion to a testimonial dinner was a choco-late tornado. “Into” was a columnist’sslangy substitute for absorbed in, con-

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cerned with, enthralled by, interested in,or taken by. Prepositions are not nor-mally modified, yet “so” was forced tomodify “into.”

INTRA- and INTER- prefixes. SeeConfusing pairs.

Intransitive and transitive verbs.See Verbs, 1.

INTRIGUE, INTRIGUING. Didthe writer of this headline (ten years afterthe Watergate scandal) intend to conveya double meaning? “Why Nixon Is StillIntriguing.”

Intriguing can mean plotting intrigue.Intrigue as a noun means secret or un-derhanded scheme or scheming. It canalso denote a secret love affair (one thingthat Nixon was not accused of). Theverb intrigue, in its most settled mean-ings, means (intransitively) to engage inintrigue and (transitively) to plot, tocheat, or to achieve or get through in-trigue. The present participle is intrigu-ing.

Commonly the verb intrigue (transi-tive) is used as a synonym for enchant,excite, fascinate, interest, make curious,mystify, puzzle, or perplex; intriguing asan adjective meaning enchanting, excit-ing, fascinating, etc. Such use is not ac-cepted by all.

H. W. Fowler pooh-poohed it as aGallicism (it came from the French tran-sitive verb for puzzle, intriguer) “confus-ing the sense of a good English word.”His reviser, Sir Ernest Gowers, wrotethat a reason for its popularity was thatit could convey the meanings of twowords at once; he cited puzzle and fasci-nate. “But,” he went on, “it is still truethat intrigue is often used in place of asimpler and better word. . . .”

Theodore Bernstein found the verbturned into “a fuzzy, all-purpose word”in place of various precise words. Just 52percent of The American Heritage Dic-

tionary’s usage panel approved of thepopular use of the verb. On the liberalside, Roy H. Copperud called such use“well established . . . despite carping bysome pedants.”

These are excerpts from a book by theeditors of a news magazine:

What made Gorbachev a truly in-triguing Man of the Year was that . . .so little was known about him. . . .

This reassuring rhetoric was in-triguingly . . . similar to what liberalWestern strategists had accepted asconventional wisdom for decades. . . .

But Gorbachev’s choice [of a con-stituency] was intriguing. . . . Eco-nomic stagnation and political torpor[under Brezhnev] seemed to hatchcorruption and intrigue in the highestplaces.

Following the contestable use of intrigu-ing twice and intriguingly (adverb), fi-nally intrigue is used strictly in the lastquoted sentence.

INUNDATE, INUNDATED.While television cameras focused on ahuge fire in southern California, a re-porter called attention to some houses“just about to be inundated by theflames.” Not burned, consumed, or de-stroyed, but “inundated.” His choice ofverb could hardly have been furtherfrom the mark. To inundate is to flood,to cover with water in the manner of anoverflowing river. Drought and watershortage had contributed to the fire dis-aster.

Inundated can equal deluged, flooded,or swamped. Used figuratively, any ofthose words is drenched with metaphor.

When the moderator of a forum said,“At this point in time, the Americanpeople are completely inundated withpolls,” he overdid it. Scratch “com-pletely.” (See also “AT THIS POINT INTIME.”)

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The pronunciation is IN-nun-date(d)or, less often, in-NUN-date(d).

Inversions. See Backward writing.

INVERTED COMMAS. See Punc-tuation, 10.

INVITE and INVITATION. Whena boy in a situation comedy said, “I got aspecial invite [pronounced IN-vite]tonight to a dance at Hamilton High,”he was perfectly in character. The wordis most informal though. Its use wasquestionable when a broadcaster on aspecialized news program boasted of an“exclusive invite” to a TV wedding.

A courteous request for a person toattend an event or to participate in anactivity is an invitation. So is a note usedin extending it. To extend an invitation isto invite (someone), pronounced in-VITE.

INVOKE. See EVOKE and INVOKE.

Iran. A factual error mars this passage,from a newspaper:

The [Persian Gulf] crisis has shakenthe Mideast regional power balance.Egypt has moved to the forefront, andSyria and Iran have moved toward theArab mainstream.

Iran is not “Arab.” Its official and pre-dominant language is not Arabic butFarsi, which uses the Arabic alphabetplus four additional letters. FormerlyPersia, this sizable southwest Asiancountry has its own culture and tradi-tions. It does share the Muslim religionwith the Arab countries, like Egypt andSyria, although Iranians mostly belongto the Shiah sect whereas the Sunni pre-dominates in most Arab countries. Iranis pronounced either ih-RAN or, moreauthentically, ee-RON.

IRONY, IRONIC, IRONICALLY.1. Contrast essential. 2. SARCASM,SATIRE.

1. Contrast essentialUpon reporting that a maritime colli-

sion had cost a company a vessel, anewscaster told the television audience:

Ironically it’s the same company that lost a boat in a collision ten yearsago.

There was nothing ironic (adjective)about it. The two incidents were parallel.Contrast is the essence of irony (noun).Ironically (adverb) would have been anappropriate word if, for example, themaritime company had been known forads promoting safety afloat but thencaused a collision.

Irony can be a noteworthy incon-gruity of events, a glaring contrast be-tween what one could have reasonablyexpected and what actually happens.Irony is also a literary style, a rhetoricalfigure, or a humorous device. The con-trast then is between the apparent mean-ing of words that are written or spokenand a far different meaning beneath thesurface.

2. SARCASM, SATIRESarcasm is similar to irony in the con-

trast between literal meaning and in-tended meaning, but sarcasm impliesovert ridicule or taunting; irony is milderand subtler. Related words are sarcastic(adjective) and sarcastically (adverb).“This is a fine time to be telling me!” is asarcastic remark.

Satire (noun) is a literary or dramaticstyle using irony to attack or ridiculesomething held to be wrong or foolish.Related words are satirical (adjective)and satirically (adverb). A writer of clas-sic satire was Jonathan Swift, bestknown for Gulliver’s Travels.

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“IRREGARDLESS.” See REGARD-LESS.

IS, AM, ARE (etc.). See BE, AM, IS(etc., cross-reference).

IS and ARE. See Verbs, 3.

-ISE ending. See -IZE ending, 2.

IS IS. Many a speaker follows is withan echo of the word, as though he hasforgotten that he just uttered it.

A double is can be deliberate. “What-ever is, is right” appears in the works ofDryden and Pope and is also attributedto the Greek philosopher Democritus.Dryden wrote also, “Whatever is, is inits causes just.” The poet Ella WheelerWilcox wrote that “whatever is—isbest.” This is a translation from Hegel:“Everything that is, is reasonable.” Amore recent example is President Clin-ton’s reply to a question in testimony, “Itdepends upon what the meaning of theword is is.”

Usually, however, as the followingquotations from television suggest, theechoed word is not the product ofthought. A member of Congress: “Thefact is is that there’s nothing there” (inan investigation of the president). An as-tronomer: “The problem is is that we’vegot an enormous amount of work to getdone right now.” An appraiser: “Thegood news is is it’s worth three to fivethousand dollars.” A writer and TV pan-elist: “The fact of the matter is is that he[the president] is in deep trouble.” Eachsecond “is” was superfluous.

ISRAELI. See JEW, JEWISH.

Italic(s). Italic type, or italics, is a formof printing type or lettering, used for em-phasis and special purposes. The lettersslant to the right (and use fewer serifsthan roman, the common book type).

Writers and editors underline those

words in manuscripts that they want tobe italic. Thus this is a sample becomesthis is a sample.

Among other functions, italics indi-cate that a word is not playing its usualrole, that of contributing to meaning,but is being considered as a word. Forinstance, this book discusses me and I. Itdeals also with and and but.

Names of books, dramatic works,works of art, publications, and generaand species go in italics: Moby-Dick byMelville; The Glass Menagerie byWilliams; Leonardo’s Mona Lisa;Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro;an article in Time; the lion, Felis leo. (Seealso Punctuation, 10.)

Italics serve also to distinguish foreignwords or phrases that are not also con-sidered part of English, such as semperfidelis and et tu, Brute!; introduce newterms: “Automatic speech recognition(ASR) is developing . . .”; and enumeratepoints, principles, or questions that anauthor wishes to stress.

Italics call attention to a particularword or phrase. It may be one thatwould be emphasized if the sentencewere spoken:

“When I use a word,” HumptyDumpty said, in rather a scornfultone, “it means just what I choose itto mean—neither more nor less.”

The highlighted word may be one that isnot usually emphasized, as in this exam-ple from a book on economics:

The discovery that man needs stimu-lation as well as comfort is not new.After all, the ancient Romans clam-ored for bread and circuses.

It may be an unexpected word: “Are thewages of sin wealth?” Or two wordsmay be contrasted: “If he will not do it,she will.”

Italics are effective when used in mod-

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eration. A few writers overdo them, itali-cizing passages here and there in effortsto gain readers’ attention.

The word italic (adjective and noun)is so named because it first appeared inan Italian book (an edition of Virgilprinted in Venice in 1501). The worditalics (noun) is often construed as plu-ral, sometimes as singular.

Styles of italic go with the various ro-man styles. When a word in an italic pas-sage needs emphasis, it may be printed inroman. Another device for emphasis isthe heavy form of type known as bold-face. Italics and boldface are sometimescombined in boldface italics.

IT, anticipatory. See Expletives.

“IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING.”See OF COURSE, 3.

IT IS I (HE, SHE) and IT’S ME(HIM, HER). See Pronouns, 10D.

IT IS I (YOU) WHO. See WHO, 3.

IT, ITS, neuter pronoun. See Pro-nouns, 2B.

ITS and IT’S. Its, the possessive, as in“The cat licked its paws,” has no apos-trophe.

It should not be confused with it’s, thecontraction. Like every contraction, thisdoes have an apostrophe. It’s is usually acontraction of it is, as in “It’s a goodday”; sometimes a contraction of it has,as in “It’s been a long time.”

An apostrophe was erroneously in-serted in each of the four passages thatfollow (from newspapers and a notice toshareholders). “It’s” should be its.

“It would be more racism showingit’s ugly head again.”

We would also like to applaud thecafe for it’s non-smoking policy.

“. . . They shouldn’t have the right todecide the future of the lion or risk it’sextinction.”

. . . Shareholders may now treat aportion of the distributions paid bythe Fund as interest income from obli-gations of the United States and it’spossessions. . . .

The example below (from an ad in atrade magazine) shows the opposite er-ror: the omission of a necessary apostro-phe. “Its” should be it’s.

Ask any talent agent or A&R person.They’ll tell you that, without the rightproduction values, its hard to makegreat music stand out in a world ofmediocrity.

(Another mistake is the use of a pluralpronoun, “They,” with a singular an-tecedent. See OR; Pronouns, 2. Whatabout “mediocrity”?)

See also Punctuation, 1B.

ITSELF. See Pronouns, 3, 4.

“IT STANDS TO REASON.” SeeREASON, 3.

I WHO. See WHO, 3.

-IZE ending. 1. Excessive use. 2. -ISE.

1. Excessive useThe practice of using the suffix -ize to

make verbs goes back to the MiddleAges. Both nouns and adjectives areturned into verbs by tacking on the suf-fix.

Hundreds of legitimate words have -ize. At some time, most of us empha-size, memorize, recognize, and sympa-thize. Finance leads many to amortize,equalize, itemize, and minimize. Somepeople professionally criticize, organize,specialize, and theorize. Miscreants bur-

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glarize, scandalize, terrorize, and victim-ize. Substances energize, fertilize, neu-tralize, and vaporize.

Nevertheless, the practice has longbeen overdone. H. L. Mencken wrote inThe American Language:

I reach into my collection at randomand draw forth such monstrosities asto backwardize, to fordize, to belgium-ize, to respectablize, to scenarioize, tomoronize, to customize, to featurize,to expertize, to powerize, to sanitize,to manhattanize and to colonize; Isuppose I could dredge up at least ahundred more.

Colonize is accepted now as a standardword. Customize, featurize, sanitize, andmanhattanize have reached acceptanceat least as jargon. Mencken later, in thefirst supplement to his work, listed fortymore that had been coined “in recentyears.” By then, he had learned that -izewords dated to the Middle Ages, and heno longer called them “monstrosities.”But we can be glad that few of them sur-vive. Those on his list that have beengenerally accepted (excluding tradenames) are glamorize and publicize; twoothers, finalize and moistureize (nowwithout the first e), have reached the sta-tus of jargon.

Many seem attracted to -ize because itappears impressive, official, or technical.But it is often weak and unnecessary, andthe multiplication of -ize verbs addsmonotony to the language.

“Finalize,” for instance, serves moreoften as a bureaucratic and pretentioussynonym for complete, finish, or endthan as a necessary verb. “Moisturize”essentially says dampen or keep moist,although it can imply the use of a com-mercial product.

A candidate for district attorney saidin an election statement:

We must prioritize the prosecution ofviolent, repeat offenders.

“Prioritize” is no fist-pounding verb.Among stronger choices would havebeen make our top priority (if that iswhat he meant), emphasize, and stress.

A local legislative body argued in sup-port of a ballot measure:

By allowing less than prevailing wagestandards . . . the City can maximizescarce job training funds.

Did “maximize” exceed extend, pro-long, spread, or stretch in clarity or justin pomposity?

Clarity may not have been uppermostin the mind of a business executive on anews telecast as he tried to justify a gov-ernment subsidy for his prosperous cor-poration:

When they [U.S. officials] want an in-dustry to succeed, they incentivize it.

A physician sought to tell a huge TVaudience that some health plans wereharming patients’ health; that holdingdown doctor costs, à la merchandising,was replacing the practice of ethicalmedicine. What he said was:

We are being commoditized and ourpatients are being commoditized.

Perhaps unaware of the verb meta-morphose—to transform (something) orbe transformed, as by magic or meta-morphosis—a journalist said a politicianwho changed jobs had “metamorpho-sized.”

See also FACT- words, 2 (end).

2. -ISEIn Britain the American -ize, the origi-

nal British spelling, usually is spelled -ise(after the modern French practice ofchanging the Greek -izo to -iser). For in-stance, the American realize is spelled re-alise. The Oxford English Dictionaryfinds no good reason for -ise, “in opposi-

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tion to that which is at once etymologi-cal and phonetic.”

Some verbs (not part of the Greek tra-dition) always end in ise though possess-ing the ize sound. Among them areadvise, apprise, arise, chastise, comprise,

compromise, demise, despise, devise, en-terprise, excise, exercise, improvise, re-vise, supervise, surmise, surprise, andtelevise. Advertise and merchandise areinfrequently spelled advertize and mer-chandize.

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JELL-O. As a brand of gelatin dessert,Jell-O is a trademark and should not beused in lower case, the way a manual ofEnglish for newcomers uses it: “Wait-ress: You have your choice of pudding,ice cream, or jello.”

If that particular brand is meant, usecapital J, hyphen, and capital O. Other-wise gelatin (or gelatine) is likely to de-scribe the jellied dessert, salad, or moldin mind. A cold dish of meat, fish, veg-etables, or fruit in gelatin is an aspic.

JEW, JEWISH. Jew denotes either adescendant of the Hebrews or one whoadheres to the Judaic religion, whetherthrough birth or conversion. The namecomes from the Hebrew yehudi, origi-nally a member of the tribe of Judah.

Two critiques, in a reference bookand an editorial, bear criticism them-selves. Each contains an unacceptableword.

An author objected to careless use ofthe terms Jew and Jewish in connectionwith Israel:

Although that nation is closely identi-fied with the Jewish race and religion,the expressions Israeli and Jewish arenot interchangeable.

An “Editorial Board” expressedreservations about a presidential candi-date that it was endorsing:

We don’t endorse anti-Semitism ofany kind, and we’re not happy aboutsome of Jackson’s racial slurs and in-sensitivity toward Jews.

In the first sample, the objectionableword is “race.” (A good substitutewould have been people.) In the secondsample, the word “racial” should havebeen scrapped.

When there are African Jews, ChineseJews, and Jews of just about every race,it makes no sense to refer to Judaism inracial terms. Contrary to Hitler’s doc-trine, there is no Jewish race.

The point made in the book about theseparateness of Israeli and Jewish isvalid. It is incorrect to speak of the Is-raelis as “the Jews,” the way some ad-versaries of Israel have done. Onlyabout 30 percent of the world’s 14 mil-lion Jews live in Israel, and about 18percent of the Israelis—that is, the citi-zens of the State of Israel—are non-Jews, mostly Moslems.

Jew is a noun only (e.g., “Jesus was aJew”). The related adjective is Jewish(“a Jewish temple” / “a Jewishwoman”). Using “Jew” in its place isderogatory.

Hebrew is the name of a languageand an ancient people. It is not “in mod-ern usage interchangeable with Jew,”contrary to a dictionary’s statement.

See also YIDDISH.

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JOBLESS. The average newspaper ed-itor is unlikely to put unemploymentcompensation in a headline when he cansave space with “jobless pay,” eventhough “jobless” misses the mark in thatphrase. An unemployed person can becalled jobless; it is not the “pay” thatlacks a job. Joblessness is comparable tounemployment, but the press does notuse the former often; it saves only oneletter.

“Jobless” has branched out from theheadlines into the bodies of news storiesand into newscasting. A news agency re-ported:

Blue-chip stocks fell in subduedtrading Tuesday as investors stood onthe sidelines waiting for Friday’s keyjobless numbers for September.

A TV newscaster announced a “jump injobless claims.” Another reported that“the number filing jobless claimsdropped. . . .” Still another: “California’sjobless rate has also dropped slightly.”

So far the word has not entered thevernacular. A laid-off worker is likely tosay, “I got my unemployment [not “job-less”] check today.”

Joining of words. Some writers feelcompelled to join pairs of words that areperfectly comprehensible when left sepa-rate. The result can be misleading. Anewspaper item said an ex-president hadthanked “the secret serviceman creditedwith saving his life after an assassinationattempt. . . .” Although an intelligenceagent in the armed services could possi-bly be described as a “secret service-man,” the recipient of the thanks was aSecret Service man.

Usually the reader is unlikely to be ac-tually misled by unwieldy fusions, suchas “Assemblymember” for Assemblymember, “autoworkers” for auto work-ers, or “eightmillion” for eight million.More likely such behemoths will just

look like mistakes and stop the readermomentarily.

Because two words often go together,the writer may think they are wedded.The phrase damn yankee has been socommon in the South that some peoplehave thought it is a single word.

Printed works can be inconsistent intheir choices of words to unite. This isfrom an autobiography: “We were intro-duced to the great military thinkers andtheir ideas—Mahan on sea power,Douhet on airpower. . . .”

Another author practices ortho-graphic discrimination by writing, in abook of reminiscences, “Blackamericansare different from white Americans.”

Phrases that have been published infused form include these thirty-five: adwriters, auto maker, best seller, breakeven, business folk, cab driver, caregivers, catch phrases, child care, com-mon sense, decision making, diningroom, down payment, drug war, facedown, front lines, full text, fund raising,good will, hard cover, home care, housecleaning, job seeker, market share, newswriters, night watchman, park land,phone book, round trip, trap doors,word games, word play, work force,working women, work station.

The innumerable “-person” and “-people” monstrosities can be added tothe list. See PEOPLE as a suffix; PER-SON.

Sometimes hyphenated adjectives likecold-blooded; head-on; hour-long,month-long, etc.; long-time; short-lived;small-town; and worn-out are divestedof their hyphens and jammed together. Arestaurant announces “HOMESTYLECOOKING” on its sign and “HomeStyle Cooking” on its menus. The adjec-tive is home-style. A headline, “BarryGoldwater Is Dead at 89; Conservatives’Standardbearer,” omitted the hyphen inthe noun standard-bearer. (See alsoPunctuation, 4D.)

The combining of moderately sized

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words to build giant words may beproper in the German language. Any ad-vantage of imposing such a system onEnglish, other than the saving of aminute amount of space, fails to come tomind.

In many instances the first word is notemphasized, so sound is no rationale forjoining the words. Each of these ninephrases gives somewhat more emphasisto the second word; joining the twowords obscures that fact: best seller,common sense, down payment, frontlines, full text, good will, night watch-man, round trip, and trap doors. In eachof the nine hyphenated adjectives, bothsyllables get emphasis.

It is true that a long-range trend to-ward the solidification of phrases andhyphenated compounds has been ob-served. That any need exists to hastenthe process has not been shown.

Consult the entries below for notableexamples of wrongly joined phrases.Some of the phrases are supposed to be-come single words at times; others arenot.

ALL RIGHTANYA WHILE and AWHILEBACK(-) prefix and pairsCHECK OUT and CHECK-OUTEVERY DAY and EVERYDAYEVERY ONE and EVERYONEHOLDINTO, 2LAY OFF and LAYOFFLOTNEVER MINDON, 3 (end)PICK UP and PICKUPROUND UP and ROUNDUPRUN AWAY and RUNAWAYSET UP and SETUP

JOKE, JOKINGLY. See QUIP,QUIPPED.

JUDICIAL and JUDICIOUS. SeeConfusing pairs.

JURIST. A jurist is one who is wellversed in the law. He may be a judge, alawyer, a legal scholar or writer, or noneof the above. The popular press gener-ally misunderstands.

. . . The incident raised questionsabout whether K—— had violated ajudge’s rule that says a jurist “shouldnot lend the prestige of his office toadvance the private interests of oth-ers.”

The rule applied to a judge; it said noth-ing about a “jurist.” Evidently the re-porter, thinking it was a synonym forjudge, used “jurist” to avoid repeating“judge.”

In another newspaper, a columnist ap-peared to do the same thing:

. . . The Senator, himself a former ju-rist, wondered out loud if Judge Borkwas really a true conservative. . . .

If the senator is a “former” jurist, hemust have forgotten what he knewabout law.

Here is a similar example but with alittle puzzle: who is the “jurist”?

Neither California nor U.S. judicialrules of misconduct appear to applyto a questionable $1 million legal feeawarded lawyer E—— W—— by aSan Francisco judge before the jurist’sappointment to the federal bench.

Either man could be a “jurist.” The con-text verifies that the judge was the one.There is nothing wrong with “the judge’sappointment.” If the writer found theprospect of repeating a word too dread-ful, he could have written “the latter’sappointment.” A reappearance of “thejurist’s,” six paragraphs later, could eas-ily have been avoided:

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. . . The time limit to investigate amatter of alleged impropriety for a sit-ting judge is six years prior to the startof the jurist’s current term.

Replace “the jurist’s” with his. (Andmake those “judicial rules of miscon-duct” the Code of Judicial Conduct.)

Another story indirectly quoted ajudge on the reinterpretation of princi-ples by “successive generations of ju-rors.” The writer probably knew thedifference between judges and jurors,members of juries, but mixed up his j-words.

The examples above come from gen-eral newspapers. One might think thatthe staff of a newspaper for the legalprofession would know better than torun anything like “Review CalendarForces Jurist to Do Double Duty” (head-line) and “the assignment has passed toseveral jurists” (text underneath). Thearticle was about a judge. So why notsay judge?

Juvenile language. See ALSO, 1;COOL; MOM, MAMA, MA; NEAT;STOMACH; WEIRD; WHEN, WHEREin definitions.

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KIND OF. 1. Combined with plural.2. Improperly used with A or AN. 3.Properly used with A or AN. 4. Replac-ing RATHER or SOMEWHAT. 5. Used“vulgarly.”

1. Combined with pluralKind (noun), meaning class, sort, or

variety, is singular. To qualify it with aplural word is not generally accepted ascorrect. An example, “These kind ofbirds live . . .” instead of Birds of thiskind live or This kind of bird lives.

Kind itself may be made plural, inrepresenting more than one class or vari-ety: Many kinds of fruit grow / All kindsof tools are sold. In these examples, fruitis regarded as an abstract category; toolsare regarded as concrete items.

The grammarian H. W. Fowler for-gave irregular uses of kind of just “inhasty talk.” Confusion is common, evenin more careful use. A U.S. presidentspoke publicly of “those kind of tests,”instead of tests of that kind.

To use a word like all, many, some,these, or those with kind and a pluralnoun and verb used to be generally ac-ceptable. Wyclif wrote: “. . . Alle kyndof fishis gedrynge” (gathering); Shake-speare: “These kind of knaves I know”and “To some kind of men . . .”; andFlatman: “Such kind of Pamphlets workwonders with the credulous Multitude.”

The Oxford English Dictionary says

of the amalgam of kind of and plural:“This is still common colloquially,though considered grammatically incor-rect.” The Random House Dictionary,pointing out the objections to that form,offers the historical explanation thatkind once was an unchanged pluralnoun like sheep and that the s-plural de-veloped later.

The usage panel of The AmericanHeritage Dictionary rejected “Thosekind of buildings seem old-fashioned”(90 percent) and “that kind of buildingsseem” (75 percent) for formal writingbut approved “What kind of books arethese?” (76 percent). A question begin-ning with what or which is a more ac-ceptable deviation.

Although the second edition of Web-ster’s Dictionary said kind of was usedwith a plural “incorrectly,” Webster’sThird accepts the disputed forms with-out qualification or mention of any ob-jections.

What is said about the singularity ofkind of goes for class of, sort of, andtype of. See TYPE.

See also THEM and THOSE.

2. Improperly used with A or ANAnother source of criticism is the in-

trusion of a or an in “That kind of asong” or “this kind of an apple,” wherekind means variety, class, or the like.The indefinite article does not belong

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there, inasmuch as song or apple standsfor a category (of which kind is a subdi-vision), not just one specimen. (But seealso 3.) These follow the acceptableform: “She likes that kind of plant.” /“This is my kind of meal.” / “It’s a rarekind of stone.”

The same principle holds for class of,sort of, and type of. “A gnu is a type ofantelope.”

3. Properly used with A or ANKind of in another sense may go with

a. Being a kind of or a sort of critic, poet,vagabond, or something else can be thesame as being something of a critic etc. Itoften implies that the person possessesthe characteristics of the specified classto a certain extent but not fully. “She’s akind of butterfly.” / “George is a sort ofexpert.”

The same goes for kind of a (or an) orsort of a (or an). “My boss is kind of atyrant.” / “They say Fred is sort of ananimal at home.”

Either way, a second indefinite arti-cle—“a kind of a” or “a kind of an”—isredundant. (It does appear in old writ-ing: “. . . my master is a kind of aknave,” Shakespeare; and “I thoughtmyself a kind of a monarch,” Defoe.)

4. Replacing RATHER or SOMEWHATKind of is used colloquially (as an ad-

verb) to mean rather, somewhat, in away, or to some extent: “We were kindof surprised by the news.” / “Theweather is kind of brisk today” / “I kindof miss her.”

Sort of is used similarly. Neither issuitable for careful writing.

5. Used “vulgarly”The of in kind of is “vulgarly” slurred

(the Oxford’s label). The result may bespelled “kind o’ ” / “kind a’ ” / “kinda” /“kinder,” or otherwise. Dickens put“Theer’s been kiender a blessing fellupon us” in a character’s mouth.

The same is done to the of in sort of,producing “sorta” and so on.

KISS OF DEATH. See WHICH.

KNOT. When a mariner speaks of aship’s going, say, forty knots, he is indi-cating speed, not distance. A knot is onenautical mile per hour.

Television narrators said, over films ofships, “The cruising speed is fifty knotsper hour” and “The Starship will dotwenty knots an hour on the openocean.” With knots, “per hour” or “anhour” is superfluous. A phrase like “fiftynautical miles per hour” would be ac-ceptable—at least for landlubbers.

A nautical mile, also known as a geo-graphical, sea, or air mile, is used byships and aircraft. It equals one minuteof a great circle of the earth, about 6,076feet, or about 1.15 statute miles. Astatute mile, also known as a land mile,is the ordinary mile, about 5,280 feet.

KODAK. Kodak is a trademark, origi-nally the name of a popular camera, nowmore often associated with camera filmsand photocopying machines.

Old dictionaries contain two wordsderived from the camera’s name: theverb kodak, to take a snapshot, and thenoun, kodaker, one who takes snap-shots. H. L. Mencken called them, alongwith kodak fiend, “familiar derivatives.”All are now obsolete. He repeatedly usedKodak and other trade names in lowercase, but they should be capitalized.

George Eastman coined the name ofthe camera he invented, registering it in1888. He said the name was arbitrary. Ithas not been tied to Kodiak island or theKodiak bear. The K probably came fromhis mother’s maiden name, Kilbourn.

KUDOS. This noun originated asGreek for glory and fame. It can conveythat meaning or a shallower sense: creditor acclaim for a particular act or achieve-

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ment. Its life as an English word began asBritish university slang, and when usedcasually to signify a transitory compli-ment, it retains a sophomoric air.

An editorial said that a competing pa-per, impressed by the mayor’s housingpolicy, had given him a compliment—“perhaps the first such unadulteratedkudo” since he took office. “Kudo” isnot a legitimate word. The editorialwriter probably thought of kudos as plu-ral. It is singular. A movie reviewer ontelevision similarly erred when he said,“The greatest kudos go to Martin Lan-dau.” It goes to him.

The second edition of the RandomHouse Dictionary granted the misbegot-ten “kudo” the status of an entry, lead-ing a reviewer to ask whether oneinstance of pathos would now be a“patho.”

The first syllable of kudos is empha-sized and pronounced CUE or COO;the second syllable is pronounced dossor dose.

Let no one confuse that word withkudu (KOO-doo), an African antelope,or its plural, kudus (KOO-dooz).

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LAID and LAIN. See LAY and LIE.

LAMA and LLAMA. See Homo-phones.

LARCENY. See CRIME, MISDE-MEANOR, and FELONY; Crimes (vari-ous felonies), 3.

LAST (in a series). See LATTER.

LAST NAME and SURNAME. Ina newspaper article with a Budapestdateline, a sentence said:

A Hungarian named Laszlo, whodeclined to give his last name, earns10,000 forints a month in his govern-ment job as a repairman. . . .

Laszlo is his last name. What we do notknow is his surname, or family name. InHungary a citizen’s surname comes first;his given name comes last. If that factsurprises some people who know some-thing about Hungary, it is because writ-ers in English switch the names around.For instance, the composer known asBéla Bartók was really Bartók Béla. Thepractice is so pervasive, it may be futileto try to change it. Just do not call hissurname his “last name.”

In China and Japan too the surnamecomes first, then the given name. In En-glish writing, names of Chinese are usu-

ally left in the traditional order (MaoTse-tung), but names of Japanese areusually reversed (Akira Kurosawa).Most immigrants to the United Statesadopt its customary order of names.

LATIN(-)AMERICAN. 1. LATINAMERICA and SPANISH AMERICA.2. LATINO, HISPANIC, SPANISH,MEXICAN, and CHICANO.

1. LATIN AMERICA and SPANISHAMERICA

A columnist criticized the U.S. inva-sion of Haiti for, among other reasons,its lack of approval by “Spanish-speaking” countries of the WesternHemisphere. “So much for ‘Latin Amer-ican’ support,” he remarked.

What do Spanish speakers have to dowith Haiti? The Haitians speak French.

Latin America is by no means syn-onymous with Spanish America. Theformer includes those countries of theWestern Hemisphere south of the UnitedStates where Spanish, Portuguese, orFrench is the official language. The latterexcludes Brazil, where Portuguese isspoken, and French possessions as wellas Haiti. Neither term should be appliedto the countries of Belize and Guyana,where English is the official language,and Suriname, where Dutch is the offi-cial language.

A person from Latin America is a

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Latin American, with no hyphen. Usedas an adjective, as in Latin-Americancountry, the term takes a hyphen.

2. LATINO, HISPANIC, SPANISH,MEXICAN, and CHICANO

Latin(-)American used to be colloqui-ally shortened to Latin. This has givenway to a use of the Spanish word latino,capitalized. In Spanish it primarilymeans of the Latin language (adjective)or a scholar in the Latin language(noun). It is often used in the UnitedStates to mean a person here with anyethnic tie to Latin America. It is usedalso as an (attributive) adjective, “thiscountry’s Latino population,” an un-Spanish form. (Spanish would say lapoblación latina.)

Another popular term, older andsomewhat more formal, is Hispanic. Asan adjective, it has long meant Spanish,in the sense of pertaining to or originat-ing in Spain. In the popular use of His-panic, the adjective includes SpanishAmerica and the word serves also as anoun, meaning a person with ties to ei-ther place.

A Spanish person is one from Spainand nowhere else, although a Spanish-speaking person may be from anywhereelse. It is incorrect to use the adjective“Spanish” in lieu of Mexican, althoughsuch use has sometimes been quietly en-couraged by Americans of Mexican ori-gin as a response to discrimination. Inrecent decades they have more promi-nently used Chicano to describe them-selves (from an elision and dialectalpronunciation of Mexicano, meaningMexican); however, some Mexican-Americans object to the term.

LATTER. 1. As adjective. 2. As pro-noun. 3. With number.

1. As adjectiveThe latter refers to the second of two

things or persons mentioned. The com-

parable term for the first of the two is theformer.

Latter is used correctly as a compara-tive adjective in this way: After twochoices have been offered, one might say,“The latter choice is more practical.” Or,if one has been asked to choose betweentwo paragraphs: “I prefer the latter para-graph.”

The word is used incorrectly to referto the last of three or more things. Fur-thermore, its use can have other draw-backs.

An article enumerates six local politi-cal meetings that took place in one nightand adds: “It was the latter event thatdrew the most political luminaries.”Last, not “latter,” would be grammati-cally correct; so would last-mentioned orlast of those events. But any of the termscould slow down readers by sendingthem back to find out what it pertains to.Although the writer did not need to re-peat the thirty words used to describethe particular event, he could have madea capsule reference to it: “The birthdaydinner drew the most political luminar-ies.”

The “latter” device, aimed at verbaleconomy, sometimes brings verbosity.This passage is from a book on comput-ing:

If you’re looking for an inexpensiveprinter, your best bet is an HPDeskJet, which is small, light, andwhisper quiet. The latter attributemay not seem very important un-less, like me, you once had yournerves . . . shattered daily by the jack-hammer clanking of a dot matrix ordaisy wheel printer.

Last instead of “latter attribute” wouldbe correct but still roundabout. If the au-thor had replaced “latter attribute” withquietness, he would have been correct,saved a word, and avoided a conspicu-ous circumlocution.

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This passage is from an article in a fi-nancial newspaper:

The quarry gang was the machocrew. They never wore shirts, vied forthe deepest tans, walked with a dis-tinctive “strut,” and clinched theirbelts unbelievably tight to accentuatea “Scarlett-O’Hara”-type waistline.(This latter habit the camp physicianbelieved to be at least partially re-sponsible for the four cases of appen-dicitis during the year I spent atHenryville.)

Changing “latter” to last would improvethe third sentence but not completely fixit. A “habit” is a noun, whereas the pre-vious sentence enumerated a series ofverbs. Better: “The camp physician be-lieved the belt-tightening habit tobe. . . .”

Latter can also mean later, in time orsequence. It should not pertain to an ear-lier event. There should never be anydoubt what latter refers to. See FOR-MER.

2. As pronounThe latter may be used without a

noun; so may the former. An illustrationof correct usage (though bad poetry):“Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch apail of water. The former fell down andbroke his crown, and the latter cametumbling after.”

Latter denotes the second of twothings. It should not be used in the man-ner of the following passages.

In ensuing weeks, Mr. Momperwon from the environmentalists anagreement on three basic principles—the presence of the allies, legal ties toWest Germany and the government’smonopoly on the legal use of force.The latter was a singularly WestBerlin issue.

If there are three principles, the third isnot “the latter” but the third, or the lastor the last of those or something similar.

Among the items kept there are thediary of Nazi propaganda chiefJoseph Goebels, an X-ray of AdolphHitler’s skull and the first edition ofPravda, the newspaper of the SovietCommunist Party.

The latter is so rare that even Sovietofficials don’t have an original; theyhad to photocopy the Hoover Institu-tion’s edition.

Change “latter” to last or last of thoseor—best of all—newspaper. (Two namesare misspelled: Goebbels and Adolf. And“edition” at the end should be copy.)

Latter is commonly used—or mis-used—to avoid repeating something.Many journalists are averse to repeti-tion. But repetition is not necessarilybad. There is nothing wrong with re-peating a word or short phrase to beclear or grammatical.

D’Amato owns [?] the Republican,Conservative and Right to Life lines,and the latter got more than 130,000votes in the 1978 gubernatorial elec-tion, displacing the Liberals as thefourth strongest party in the state.

Replacing the erroneous “latter” withlast-named or the like would correct theerror. A better solution is to turn the sen-tence into two sentences. End the firstwith “lines.” Start the second: “TheRight to Life Party got. . . .”

The writer of the next sample seemsbaffled by grammar as she switcheschaotically between the comparative andthe superlative in a book on calligraphy:

It [vermilion] is obtainable in sev-eral shades—in vermilion, scarlet ver-milion, orange vermilion and Chinesevermilion; this latter, being the deepestshade, is considered the more reliable.

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Change “latter” to last and “more” tomost.

3. With numberUse of the latter implies the existence

of the former, in the same category. Ifyou speak of the latter choice, you areimplicitly distinguishing it from the for-mer choice. Similarly, if you speak of thelatter three (days, games, etc.), theremust be the former three.

This passage, from a news article,contains an illogicality:

. . . He [President Bush] would permitabortion only in cases in which a con-tinued pregnancy would threaten thelife of the mother, or when a preg-nancy results from rape or incest. Buthe has also said that he opposes theuse of federal funds in the latter twocases.

“The latter two cases” would be properif one could speak of “the former twocases,” but only three categories arementioned altogether. The writer wouldhave done well to grit his teeth and re-peat three words: “in rape or incestcases.”

LAUDABLE and LAUDATORY.See Confusing pairs.

Law, courts, legal terms. See AC-CUSED, ALLEGED (etc.); ATTORNEYand LAWYER; CHIEF JUSTICE; CIR-CUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE; Confus-ing pairs (judicial, prosecute); CRIME,MISDEMEANOR, and FELONY;Crimes (various felonies); EVIDENCEand PROOF; EXECUTE; Guilt and in-nocence; “HIGH COURT”; JURIST;LIGATION and LITIGATION; Num-bers, 9; PAROLE and PROBATION;Pronouns, 2A; PURSUIT of HAPPI-NESS; Quotation problems; REGULA-TION, STATUTE, and LAW; Reversalof meaning; REVERT; RULE, RULING;SAID; TESTAMENT and TESTI-

MONY; Twins; UNLESS and UNTIL;VENUE; Verbs, 1C; WARRANT;WITH PREJUDICE and WITHOUTPREJUDICE.

LAY and LIE. You lay your pendown. You lie in bed.

The verb lay is transitive. (That is, ittransmits the action from subject to ob-ject; and the object is essential for theverb to have full meaning.)

The verb lie is intransitive. (It does nottransmit the action. Just the subject par-ticipates in the action.)

Thus a U.S. president spoke ungram-matically when he declared that “a newworld of freedom lays before us.” It liesbefore us. A manual said incorrectly thatenvelopes “should lay flat.” They shouldlie flat. A newspaper columnist waswrong to write, “I was laying on myback. . . .” She was lying on her back.Lying was needed also in radio and TVreports of a truck “laying there on itsside” and a crime victim “laying in thestreet.”

There are a few exceptions to the rulethat lay is a transitive verb. A hen can layand a sailor can lay aft, for example. Butlie is always intransitive.

The past tense of lay is laid; the par-ticiples are laid (never “lain”) and lay-ing. Examples: I laid my pen downyesterday. I have (or had) laid it downoften. I am laying it down now.

Lie becomes lay, lain (never “laid”),and lying. Examples: I lay down lastevening. I have (or had) lain on the bedoccasionally. I am lying on it now.

“He lied down,” a radio host said in-correctly. He lay down. Lied is the pasttense of lie (verb) in another sense: to tella lie, a falsehood.

LAY OFF and LAYOFF. “. . . Man-agement still planned to layoff Teamsterdelivery drivers”; so said an article (bytwo writers quoting “sources” quoting aunion representative quoting a manage-ment negotiator). It was in error: man-

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agement would not “layoff” anyone.The correct verb is lay off, two words.

Layoff as a single word is a noun only,for example: “The layoff of workers willstart next week.” The verb (transitive)has two words: “The company will layoff workers starting next week” or“Workers will start being laid off nextweek.”

To lay off someone is to suspend ordischarge him from employment for animpersonal economic reason.

To discharge, dismiss, or fire an em-ployee is to stop employing him, usuallyfor cause, such as performance on thejob. In that sense, fire is an informalverb, probably originating in a humor-ous analogy with discharge; both alsomean to shoot a gun.

A layoff used to occur typically duringa slow period for an industry or at atroubled time for a particular company,and it was often temporary. Now its onlyreason may be to save money, and it isusually permanent.

When not describing lingerie, pinkslip is a colloquial term for a notice oflayoff, dating from the 1920s.

See also LET GO.

LEAD (noun). While the televisionscreen depicted a group of miners atwork, an announcer remarked that for acentury “Idaho has been producing leadfor pencils or whatever else lead is usedfor.” He thereby publicly announced hisignorance of the difference between apencil’s graphite, a form of carbon that iscolloquially called “lead,” and the reallead, a metal used in alloys, bullets, pip-ing, printing type, and so on. Both are elemental substances and both are pro-nounced LED, but the similarity endsthere.

A writer for a metropolitan newspa-per also confused the two:

What if they come out with a studythat claims the best way to fightcholesterol is to pump more lead inyour diet?

Pretty soon people would be toss-ing their oat bran in the trash andchewing on No. 2 pencils.

At a time when warnings about lead andhealth are common, the first sentenceleads us to thoughts of the metal. Onlywhen we read to the last word of the sec-ond sentence do we realize that thewriter had a different “lead” in mind.

(Among shortcomings is an inconsis-tency in mood. Either change “come . . .claims . . . is” to came, claimed, and was[subjunctive], or change “would” to will[indicative]. See Mood; Subjunctive. Bythe way, why would people necessarilypick the No. 2 pencils? I prefer the No.1.)

See also LEAD (verb) and LED.

LEAD (verb) and LED. An other-wise tightly written novel contains thissentence: “Pierce Bascomb lead the wayup a slight hill and then down another.”Bascomb “led the way.”

The past tense of the common verblead—pronounced LEED and meaningto direct, go first, or be the head of—isled and only led, pronounced LED. Thesame goes for the past participle: She hasled the cause for years. He had led thearmy to defeat.

An article in a legal newspaper quotesa lawyer as telling the Supreme Courtthat “jurors could be mislead by theanti-sympathy instruction.” Evidently athought of lead, the metal, pronouncedLED, misled the writer.

There is an uncommon verb lead, pro-nounced LED and meaning to put leadin or on; or, in traditional printing, tocreate spaces by placing lead strips be-tween lines of type. Its past tense andpast participle is leaded.

See also Homophones; LEAD (noun).

LEAP, LEAPED, LEAPT. A musiccritic, reviewing a symphonic perfor-mance of a Bartók piece, wrote that “themiddle Elegy lept into prominence.” Al-though it may be pronounced LEPT, the

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verb he needed is spelled leapt. It is avariant of leaped, past tense of leap: tospring, bound, or jump. Another way topronounce leapt is LEEPT, the same wayleaped is pronounced.

LEAVE and LET. See LET, LET’S, 1.

LECTERN and PODIUM. Thestand for a speaker’s notes or papers is alectern. In a broadcast, an autobiogra-phy, and a grammar, it was confusedwith something else seen in an audito-rium:

We want to return to the podium forthis evening’s featured speakers.

. . . When I walked into the audito-rium . . . to meet the press for the firsttime, I noticed that the thirty or so mi-crophones on the podium left me noroom for my notes.

. . . The new audio-visual system self-destructed while the CEO stood help-lessly at the podium.

A podium is a small platform onwhich the conductor of an orchestrastands.

The roots of the two words, shared bylecture and podiatrist, are Latin andGreek for read and foot respectively.

LED. See LEAD (verb) and LED.

LEGATION and LIGATION. SeeLIGATION and LITIGATION.

LEGEND, LEGENDARY. 1. Ambi-guity. 2. Before and after. 3. Othermeanings.

1. AmbiguityThe trouble with the contemporary

practice of applying “legend” or “leg-endary” to real people or activities isthat it has created ambiguity and threat-ened a distinctive pair of words. Now we

cannot always be sure whether a user istalking about fact or fiction.

A book (which purports to clarifywords) tells us that “Too often a name islegendary” while few people knowabout the person. The same book says:

It was a legendary television talk-show host who once said of hisnightly performance, “I just keep talk-ing until I have something tosay.” . . . The British upper-class stam-mer (or traulism) is a legendary man-nerism.

Does “legendary” imply that the person,the story, and the stammer are of doubt-ful authenticity? Or is “legendary” sim-ply the author’s synonym for famous?

2. Before and afterIn the BC era—before corruption—

legendary (adjective) primarily pertainedto a legend (noun): a traditional story,usually about a famed personage, thatwas popularly believed to have a factualbasis but could not be accepted as histor-ical fact. It might be partly true orwholly fictional. Examples are the leg-ends of Don Juan, Saint Nicholas, andKing Arthur. Longfellow wrote: “Listento this Indian legend / To this Song of Hi-awatha!”

Then someone was described as beingso famous that he was “a legend in hisown time.” A strikingly fresh phrase atfirst, it became a cliché. After a while “inhis own time” began to be dropped.

When a baseball player changedteams, a big headline said “A legend de-parts.” A blurb for a book on sciencecalled one of its authors “a teaching leg-end,” and the author wrote that “leg-endary chefs of the past have gone tothirteen doublings” (of dough in makingnoodles). The introduction of anotherscience book said, “Stephen Hawkingwas a legend even then.” On TV news:“His [David Packard’s] story is leg-endary and it all began here. . . .” A mag-

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azine said, “Senator Robert Byrd . . . islegendary for directing wasteful spend-ing in West Virginia.” To another maga-zine, “ ‘Louie, Louie’ . . . is one of themost legendary songs in music history.”And a newspaper told “a story that be-came an instant Broadway legend”(about a Sondheim show).

The language has plenty of synonymsfor famous and famous person. It cannotafford to lose legendary and legend.

3. Other meaningsA legend is also an inscription on an

object like a coin or monument; a tabletor identification accompanying an ex-hibit or picture; or a key to symbols usedin a map or chart.

Legend, not preceded by an article,denotes a body or collection of popularstories handed down from earlier eras;or myth or traditional story in general;or popular belief as distinct from fact orscholarship.

In the distant past, a legend was sup-posed to represent historical truth. It wasa medieval story of the life of a saint; acollection of stories about saints or otheradmirable figures; or in general an ac-count or history of a person’s life.

LENIENCY. See MERCY and PITY.

“LEPT.” See LEAP, LEAPED, LEAPT.

LESS. See FEWER and LESS.

LESSER, LESSOR, and LESSEE.See Homophones.

LET GO. As a verb phrase meaning toterminate employment, let go suits infor-mal contexts, unlike an article in a news-paper’s normally staid financial section.It reported that the news division of abroadcasting company, to cut costs, “letmany senior people like Mr. P—— go.”Obviously they did not want to go. Tosay they were “let” go when they were

ousted from their jobs is euphemistic.See also LAY OFF and LAYOFF.

The main standard meanings of let goare to release from confinement (“Letmy people go”), to release one’s hold(“He let go [or “let go of”] the rope”)and to abandon or relinquish (“Ah, takethe cash and let the credit go”).

LET, LET’S. 1. LEAVE and LET. 2.“LET’S DON’T.” 3. With pronouns.

1. LEAVE and LETThe chorus of a once-popular song

presents the words “leave me alone” adozen times. It reflects a widespread us-age. To leave one alone commonlymeans to refrain from disturbing the per-son. But some strict writers and speakersapply let alone to such a sense. For them,the meaning of leave alone is to go awayand leave one in solitude.

To say, for instance, “She wants to beleft alone” instead of “let alone” is notincorrect, but it can be ambiguous. Doesshe want to be alone or does she justwant to be undisturbed? Unless the con-text makes it clear, distinguishing be-tween let and leave (or left, its past tenseand past participle) can be useful.

Leave, aside from its companionshipwith alone, should never be substitutedfor let in the sense of allow or permit.“Leave” is improper in such sentences as“Let us be merry” / “Let me go” / “Let itcook” / “Let John speak.”

2. “LET’S DON’T”A letter to the editor of a financial

newspaper was headed “Let’s Don’t En-danger the Truth.” To demonstrate why“Let’s Don’t” is bad English, we expandthe contractions, producing “Let Us DoNot.” The editor who wrote the head-line could have either omitted the“Let’s” (“Don’t Endanger the Truth”) orchanged the “Don’t” to Not (“Let’s NotEndanger the Truth”) without endanger-ing the English language.

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Sometimes the first two words areswitched around: “Don’t let’s take achance.” It suits only casual conversa-tion. Let us not or let’s not is the pre-ferred phrase.

3. With pronounsNo one is likely to say, “Let I decide.”

Mistakes are liable to enter when an-other noun or pronoun is introduced.After the verb let, any personal pronounhas to be objective, not subjective (nomi-native): “Let Agnes and me [not “I”] fin-ish it.” / “Let you and him [not “he”]make the arrangements.” / “Let him andher [not “he and she”] know.” See alsoPronouns, 10.

These are right: “Let us walk” / “Let’swalk” / “Let you and me walk” / “Let’sall walk.” But “Let’s you and me walk”and “Let’s all of us walk” are redundantsentences.

LIABLE. This adjective primarilymeans legally bound or responsible, orobligated by law: “One who lies underoath is liable to prosecution.” / “Thejury found the driver liable for Smith’sinjuries.” / “Parents are liable for thesupport of minor children.”

In addition, liable means susceptibleto something undesirable; or likely todo, experience, or be exposed to it. “Ac-cidents are liable to occur in this storm.”/ “Your house is liable to be flooded.” /“We’re liable to get complaints.”

In its first edition, The RandomHouse Dictionary said, “LIABLE shouldnot be used to mean ‘probable’ ” inplace of “the true meaning, susceptibilityto something unpleasant, or exposure torisk.” The second edition says “LIABLEis often interchangeable with LIKELY . . .where the sense is that of probability.”Its example is “The Sox are liable (orlikely) to sweep the series”—but liablewould be wrong on the basis of the re-striction in the first edition; likely wouldbe right.

Likely does mean probable or proba-bly going (to be, do, have, happen, etc.).It does not in itself suggest unpleasant-ness; its context may or may not. Likelyis more general than liable or apt andcan often substitute for either.

Apt is similar to liable. It suggests notonly that unpleasantness is likely butalso that a bent or characteristic of thesubject is contributing to the outcome,and it carries a hint of apprehension bythe speaker. “He’s apt to pick a fight”but “She’s likely to receive a big ova-tion.” / “The old tire is apt to blow outsoon” but “This new tire is likely to lastfor years.”

LIBEL and SLANDER. An untruecommunication about someone that in-jures his reputation or holds him up tohatred, contempt, or ridicule is adefamation. When the defamation is ex-pressed in writing or print, it is libel.When it is spoken, it is slander.

Journalists should know all that. Yet anewspaper headline read, “Hughes ru-ined me—Maheu tells libel jury.” Thejury found that Howard Hughes had de-famed his former assistant in a newsconference conducted by telephone. Thesuit was not for “libel” but for slander.

See also ACCUSED, ALLEGED (etc.);Guilt and innocence, 5; Quotation prob-lems, 1.

LIE. See LAY and LIE.

LIFE EXPECTANCY and LIFESPAN. It is a fairly common miscon-ception that a long life span is a modernphenomenon and that in past centuriespeople did not live to ripe old ages. Astatistical misunderstanding and a con-fusion of terms both appear to be at thebottom of it.

It is written that two centuries ago theaverage life expectancy, at least in somecountries, may have been in the thirties.Some forget that such an average in-

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cludes a high infant mortality rate anddeadly childhood diseases. One who sur-vived the first decade might expect ahalf-century more of life. Some individu-als lived even longer. In the fifth centuryB.C. the Greek writer Sophocles lived toabout ninety when the average life ex-pectancy was probably in the twenties.

This passage by a prominent writer ofpopular science, who must have under-stood the statistics, uses the term “lifespan” loosely:

. . . Until the coming of modernmedicine human beings did not have along life span on the average. Mostpeople, even in comparatively goodtimes, were dead of violence or infec-tious disease before they were 40. . . .

. . . The average human life spanhas reached 75, in many parts of theworld. . . .

Change “span” to expectancy. Studentsof longevity distinguish between life ex-pectancy and life span.

Life expectancy is the number of yearsthat a newborn or an individual of agiven age in a particular population isexpected to live, based on statisticalprobability and the likelihood of mortalillness or trauma.

Life span is the maximum number ofyears that a human being or animal canlive under ideal conditions, in the ab-sence of illness or trauma. The humanlife span is not known, but one authorityestimates it to be 120.

See also Numbers, 10E.

LIGATION and LITIGATION. Awoman calling a radio talk show saidthat mothers on welfare should beforced to have “tubal litigation.” Litiga-tion, pronounced lit-ih-GAY-shun, is alegal action or the carrying on of legalaction. Although intending to sic thedoctors, not the lawyers, on the haplessmothers, the caller put an extra syllablein ligation. Pronounced lie-GAY-shun, it

means an act of binding, a state of beingbound, or a thing that binds. In medicineit is the application of a ligature, LIG-a-choor, any material that is tied around ablood vessel or other structure to con-strict it. To so tie the part is to ligate it,LIE-gate. Tubal in the context of ligationpertains to the Fallopian tubes.

A word that looks similar is legation,lih-GAY-shun, a diplomatic establish-ment in a foreign country, below the sta-tus of an embassy; also a mission onwhich an envoy of the pope is sent.

LIGHTENING and LIGHT-NING. See Confusing pairs.

LIGHT YEAR. What is wrong withthis statement (by a national press ser-vice)?

On Aug. 23, the telescope’s faint-object camera took an image of super-nova 1987a, a star that explodedabout 160,000 light years from Earthin February 1987.

The latter half of the statement is impos-sible. It takes about 160,000 years forlight to reach us from that distance. Ifthe “star . . . exploded” in 1987, nobodywould know about the explosion untilapproximately the year 161,987. It ismore likely that 1987 was simply theyear in which telescopes picked up theevent. In that case, it must have occurredabout 160,000 years before, in approxi-mately the year 158,013 B.C.

A light year, or light-year, is the dis-tance that light travels through space in ayear, at its speed of about 186,000 milesper second: about 5.878 trillion (5.878 ×1012) miles.

LIKE. 1. Ambiguity. 2. Incomparabil-ity. 3. Sense and senselessness.

1. AmbiguityThe meaning of sentences combining

not and like can be uncertain; for exam-

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ple: “Farnsworth is not a lawyer, like hispredecessor.” Was his predecessor alawyer or a nonlawyer? Depending onthe answer, one might either (a) change“like” to unlike or (b) place “Like hispredecessor” first, followed by a comma.An alternative way to correct the exam-ple is to change the comma to a periodand start a new sentence: “His predeces-sor was. . . .” See also NOT, 1C, E.

A fear of misusing like leads occasion-ally to an ambiguous use of as. See ASand LIKE, 1.

2. IncomparabilityLike primarily likens one thing to an-

other. The things need to have a similar-ity, albeit not the equivalence of amathematical equation.

A weekly’s review of a recording pur-ports to equate a voice with certainpeople:

Like all great hip-hop MCs, Keith’svoice has natural personality.

It seems to say that the man’s voice is likemasters of ceremony. They are not com-patible ideas. Change one or the other;for instance:

A. “Like the voices of all great hip-hop MCs, Keith’s voice has naturalpersonality.” Here voice is like voices.

B. “Like all great hip-hop MCs,Keith has a voice with natural person-ality.” Here person is like persons.

A news story of a (revised) theory bytwo geochemists about a prehistoric col-lision is headed:

Asteroid once rocked Earthlike 10,000 megatons of TNT

The headline seems to say that what anextraterrestrial body did (verb) equaledan explosive force (noun). The ideas areat odds. Among possible corrections:“Force of asteroid crash was / like . . .”

Now one force is likened to another. Analternative: “Asteroid hit Earth withforce / of 10,000 megatons of TNT.”

A large daily almost gets it right butappears to go astray:

Like most of the other successfulfarmers on formerly Mfengu land, hestruggled at first and later was di-vorced by his wife during the hardtimes.

It is right through “he struggled at first.”End the sentence there—unless most ofthe man’s colleagues were divorced bytheir wives too—and start a new sen-tence: “His wife divorced him. . . .”

See also AS and LIKE, 2; UNLIKE.

3. Sense and senselessnessLike, while a legitimate word, is per-

haps used more often in a slang sense orsenselessly.

In standard usage, like, as a preposi-tion, means similar to (“She’s like adoll”), similarly to (“He worked like ahorse”), in the usual manner of (“It’s justlike him to joke about it”); desirous of(“I feel like eating”), or indicative of (“Itlooked like rain”). Like, as an adjective,means equal or similar (“three pounds ofpotatoes and a like amount of carrots”);as a noun, something similar (with the:“squirrels, chipmunks, gophers, and thelike”); or, as a verb, to be fond of (“I likeMike”).

Like, the preposition, can also meanfor example, for instance, or such as.Sometimes it is redundantly used withone of those expressions. A columnist ina television panel spoke of the weightyissues that the president was attendingto, “like, for instance, the poison gastreaty.” Either like or for instance wouldhave been enough.

While not a conjunction in strict us-age, like often is casually used in place ofas or as if. A correction is inserted ineach of these remarks: “Like [as] I toldthe team, ‘Keep gnawing at ’em. . . .’ ” /

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“It was like [as if] she had been pickedup and put there.” The distinction iscovered in AS and LIKE.

Like figures in various informal ex-pressions: “like a bat out of hell,” veryfast; “like crazy,” wildly or violently;“like hell,” never, not at all, strongly, orrapidly; “like a hole in the head,” not atall (needed); “like a million bucks,” verygood (looking); “like there’s no tomor-row,” avidly; and so on.

On a still lower level, it substitutes forapproximately (“It lasts like threehours”), for example (“They have likesteaks there”), perhaps (“They went,like, to the store”), and unfortunately (“Iaccidentally, like, broke the dish”). Theword serves also as a verbal crutch, inthe manner of a pause or a grunt.(“Mary doesn’t want to, like, come.” /“He was, like, terrific.”)

Like undergoes further maltreatmentin a faddish replacement of I think, Ithought, she said, he said, etc. An actressdisplayed minimal artistry when script-less in a television interview:

I just came from a big dinner and I’mlike I shouldn’t have had that wine. . . .He said, “How much?” I’m like okay.

And a university student showed limitedgrasp of his language in a magazine in-terview:

There are days where I’m like, “Oh,my God, I’m so happy I’m living thelife I’m living.” . . . And I’m like,“What if they offer me this job?” . . .To my dad, I’d be like, “I gotta findmyself. . . .”

“Like” could have been removedfrom each of the following remarkswithout any loss of meaning:

[The student again:] OK, like, here’sthe deal. . . . Like, how can I startworking when I don’t know who I amyet[?].

[A man praising a car for a commer-cial:] You are [able to go] from zero tolike sixty in no time.

[A mother calling a radio psychologistabout a baby:] She was getting up likefour or five times a night. . . . She’swaking up like a lot.

[A woman calling a general talkshow:] Cars think that I’m like a tar-get.

LIKELY. See LIABLE.

LIMERICK. One word does not be-long in the following sentence, from abook:

Gelett Burgess, who invented theword “blurb” and was the creator ofthe limerick about “the purple cow,”once tried to smuggle “huzzlecoo,” aword he coined, into English.

“The Purple Cow” by Burgess is a qua-train, a verse, a nonsense poem—but nota “limerick.” Here it is:

I never saw a purple cow,I never hope to see one;

But I can tell you, anyhow,I’d rather see than be one!

A limerick is not just any humorousverse, but one with five lines and a strictform. Many are ribald. This one is not:

A flea and a fly in a flueWere imprisoned, so what could they

do?Said the flea, “Let us fly!”Said the fly, “Let us flee!”

So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

(Technically, the first, second, and fifthlines of a limerick have three feet each;the third and fourth lines have two feeteach. The rhyme scheme is usually A, A,B, B, A.)

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Dating from the early eighteenth cen-tury, limericks were popularized by Ed-ward Lear, English humorist and artist,in The Book of Nonsense (1846). Theword limerick is said to have developedlate in the century from a communalnonsense song that included the words“come up to Limerick [Ireland].”

LIMITED, LTD. See FIRM.

LIMP. To limp (verb, intransitive) is towalk unevenly, haltingly, or as one walkswith a lame leg or foot: favoring theother.

The first time some writer tried outthe word in describing a disabled ship orairplane, it may have been an effectivemetaphor. Now that innumerable crafthave been limping about in the press fordecades, it has turned into a lame cliché.A newspaper’s use is typical:

Later, planes limped back from adozen secret arms drops insideNicaragua on one engine, with smokeand oil spewing behind.

In the following passage, from a bookof true adventure, the word is turnedinto a transitive verb.

. . . As I hurtled along at full powerinto lift-off, the motor spluttered andone cylinder conked out. . . . Welimped the plane back to the apron.

(It is not clear whether the plane was stillflying when they “limped” it.)

Linking verbs. See BAD and BADLY;Complement; FEEL; GOOD and WELL;Pronouns, 10D; Verbs, 1F.

Lists. See BACK(-) prefix and pairs;CAN and MAY (example); Clichés; Con-fusing pairs; DRAMA (etc.), 2; Generaltopics (near the front); Gerund, 3B; Ho-mophones; Introduction (to the book),Wounded Words; Joining of words; Plu-

rals and singulars; Prepositions, 7; Re-versal of meaning; Series errors (princi-ples of listing); Spelling; Twins.

LITERALLY. Picture the amazingsight described by this headline:

Literally waltzing on airJesse Winchester comes to town

A television commentator describedanother weird phenomenon.

We’ve seen in this election RonaldReagan literally change his spots infront of our eyes.

Maybe Mr. Reagan’s special-effects de-partment was responsible for that. Any-way, as president he discovered thatpeople were starving in national parks.

When we took office, we found that . . . the funding for the maintenanceand upkeep of our parks had been lit-erally a starvation diet.

One day a gunman invaded the Senateand demanded the approval of stopgapfunds before midnight. A senator wasquoted as saying on the Senate floor:

We are literally here today with a gunto our heads.

The senators acquiesced and werespared. But another culprit (we learnfrom TV news) was not at all merciful.

. . . He literally made a killing in oiland real estate stocks.

How he perpetrated the deed was notspelled out. Possibly he smothered hisvictim in a mound of stock certificates.

Because all those things happened lit-erally, you could see them actually hap-pen. No metaphor was intended. Noimagination was shown. Words wereused in their strictest senses.

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Had people been speaking poeticallyor metaphorically or with imagination,they would not have said literally. And, ifthey had any concern that their figura-tive statements would be taken as literaltruth, they might have explained thatthey meant “figuratively a starvationdiet” or “figuratively here today with agun to our heads” or “figuratively madea killing.”

Poets do not require such explanationfor their metaphors, like this one: “Life’sbut a walking shadow, a poor player /That struts and frets his hour upon thestage.” Shakespeare had no need for fig-uratively or, heaven knows, for “liter-ally.”

LITIGATION. See LIGATION andLITIGATION.

“LITTLE MUCH.” See MUCH.

LIVE. 1. Adjective: LIVE and ALIVE.2. Verb: LIVE with IN.

1. Adjective: LIVE and ALIVEThe adjective live (rhyming with dive)

is not interchangeable with alive, al-though both primarily mean possessinglife. “These are live flowers” but “Theflowers are alive.” In that sense, live goesbefore the noun; alive goes after thenoun.

In certain, technical senses, live mayeither precede or follow the noun: “Thisis a live broadcast” or “The broadcast islive,” meaning it is being made now, nottransmitted from a recording. “It’s a livewire” or “The wire is live,” meaning it iscarrying electric current.

2. Verb: LIVE with INThis section deals with the verb live,

rhyming with give. An editor wrote, “Soit might be the one place I’ll ever live thathasn’t been ‘discovered.’ ” You do notlive a place. You cannot live Chicago

but can live in it. Correction: “place I’llever live in” or “place in which I’ll everlive.”

The verb live is intransitive in thesense of reside and in most other senses.It is transitive when it means to spend(one’s life) in a particular way or to carryout (something) in one’s life: “He lived acelibate life” / “They live their religion.”

LIVID. Bluish in the shade of a bruiseor in any other dull hue is the primarymeaning of livid, just as it was of lividusin Latin.

Some people mistakenly identify lividwith another primary color, red, and thesecond Random House Dictionary rub-ber-stamps that misunderstanding. Thisodd distortion of recent years may havecome about in these steps: from blue tograyish-blue, to gray, to pale-faced, topale with anger, to very angry, to flushedwith anger, to red.

Livid in the sense of very angry istermed colloquial by The Oxford En-glish Dictionary. It is common in thenews media. A four-word paragraph in anewspaper: “Environmental groupswere livid” (when Congress refused tosupport a desert preserve). A quotationfrom a recording-academy president, inanother paper: the trustees “were justlivid about the situation” (the discoverythat a prize-winning duo did not sing).

LOATH and LOATHE. A com-puter magazine was discussing desktoppublishing programs:

PageMaker users who find their pro-gram to be simple will be loathe totread in new waters.

“Loathe” was wrong. Adding e to loath(presumably by the article’s two writers)was a mistake.

Loath (adjective) means reluctant, un-willing. You should be loath to add an-other letter to it. (Sometimes a letter is

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taken away: loth is found in some old lit-erature.)

To loathe (verb, transitive) is to hateintensely, to abhor, to detest. This onehas the e—as in enemy.

The words appear to have in commonan ancient, Teutonic root meaning tohate.

LONGSHOREMAN. See STEVE-DORE and LONGSHOREMAN.

LOOSE and LOSE. The (transitive)verbs loose and lose sometimes are con-fused. The former, pronounced LOOS,means to let loose, to release, or to makeless strict. “Did he loose the boat fromits moorings?” The latter, pronouncedLOOZ, means to suffer the loss of, to bedeprived of, or to be defeated. “Don’tlose your ticket.”

A passage from a book about books isfollowed by part of a testimonial for agymnasium in a published ad:

A bright, colorful, attractive cover canonly increase the sales of a publica-tion. A poorly designed cover willloose sales.

I always wanted to loose weight andbecome stronger.

“Loose” is almost the reverse of whatboth excerpts need: lose.

The past tense and past participle ofloose is loosed; of lose is lost. A verb sim-ilar to loose is loosen, meaning (transi-tive) to make looser; past tense and pastparticiple: loosened. (The three verbshave intransitive senses also.)

LOOT. A radio report said, regardingthe theft of money from a truck wreckedin an accident, “Attempts are ongoing toidentify others who helped themselves tothe loot.” To the money. It was not“loot” before it was stolen. (See alsoONGOING.)

To use “loot” as slang for money orvaluables is not advisable, unless in pri-vate conversation. The owner may ob-ject to seeing or hearing what he ownsassociated with a word for stolen goods.

The noun loot, acquired directly fromHindi, originally meant the booty orspoils of war or pillaging. Now it canalso be any goods or money stolen or ap-propriated dishonestly: “The burglarshid their loot in the cellar.” It can also bethe act of plundering: “He was accusedof the loot of the treasury.”

Loot is also a verb (transitive and in-transitive), meaning to plunder. “Thearmy looted the town.”

LOSE. See LOOSE and LOSE.

LOT. 1. Meaning MANY or MUCH.2. Two words.

1. Meaning MANY or MUCHUsing a lot (of) to mean much or

many used to be generally consideredjust colloquial, and some writers stillavoid it in serious writing, although oth-ers use it without hesitation. The same istrue of lots (of), a synonym.

A reporter said on national television,alluding to statements by Republicanelection campaigners:

A lot of people is saying, “We’re talk-ing about matters of trust.”

“People is saying”? The reporter wouldprobably not announce that “manypeople is saying.” A “lot” is not speak-ing; people are. In that context a lot (of)means many.

A lot (of) can mean much. “A lot ofmoney is invested in the project.” Theverb is singular because “money” is sin-gular.

Similarly, lots (of) can mean many ormuch.

In other senses, a lot is a piece of land;an object used for random choosing, as

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in, “We’ll draw lots”; and a number ofpeople or things considered as a group,as in “They’re a sorry lot” and “Howmuch for the lot?” One’s lot is one’s for-tune in life.

2. Two words“There’s no need for ice or a glass,

you can buy it almost anywhere, andit’s the kind of thing you want todrink alot of,” Sousa added.

The first time you see that four-letteranomaly in a newspaper, you can dismissit as a typesetter’s error. Perhaps he for-got to put a space between the a and lotin a lot. But in the next paragraph, it ap-pears again, twice:

“Although wine is also cheap, ifyou drink alot of wine, you are calleda wino; but if you drink alot of beer,you’re just a big macho,” Sousa said.

After three appearances of the bar-barism, it becomes apparent that the re-porter did not know any better. If aneditor examined the copy at all, he didnot know enough to correct it. Possibly avague memory of the word allot (verb),meaning to apportion, had played a partin the muddling. The interviewed manwould deserve sympathy if he were notan advertising executive who probablywelcomed the free publicity for hisclient, notwithstanding a lot of errors.

LTD., LIMITED. See FIRM.

LUNCH. See DINE.

LUXURIANT and LUXURIOUS.See Confusing pairs.

-LY ending. See Adjectives and ad-verbs.

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MA. See MOM, MAMA, MA.

MAGNETIC POLE. See NORTHPOLE and MAGNETIC POLE.

MAJORITY. 1. MAJORITY andPLURALITY. 2. Singular or plural?

1. MAJORITY and PLURALITYAn error in word usage can amount

to a factual error, as in this passage froma local newspaper:

All that was needed to win the elec-tion to replace Horcher was a simplemajority and, according to tallies, thetop vote-getter was Republican GaryMiller, who will take office immedi-ately upon certification of the elec-tion. . . .

Miller . . . garnered 18,304 votes,or 40 percent, in the field of six candi-dates.

If Miller won with 40 percent, he didnot have a “simple majority”—or anyother majority. He had a plurality.

A majority is at least half of the votescast plus one. If three or more candi-dates run and none gets more than 50percent of the total vote, the highestnumber of votes is a plurality.

Under many election laws, a pluralityis enough to win. Others require a ma-jority to win, and if no candidate gets it

in the main election, those with the twohighest totals compete in a run-off.

2. Singular or plural?A network’s chief anchor man was re-

porting from South Africa, using a verbinconsistently: The vast majority ofblack students “is” undereducated. Themajority of blacks “are” under twenty-one. “Is” is incorrect. Are is correct.

If majority signifies a particular num-ber or a numerical superiority as such, itgets a singular verb. “The majority wasonly three votes.”

If majority signifies the larger of twogroups, the verb may be singular or plu-ral. It depends on what the speaker orwriter has in mind. When the group’sunity is emphasized, the verb is singular.“The majority stands solidly behind thebill.” But when majority refers to mostindividuals in a category, the verb is plu-ral. “The vast majority of black studentsare undereducated.”

This passage is from a special articlein a financial newspaper:

Many middle-ranking Chinese offi-cers have expressed fears of a civilwar because recent events have in-creased the divisions within the army.But the majority believes that the re-sult will be not an army split, but anarmy controlled by the hard-lin-ers. . . .

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Change “believes” to believe. “Many . . .officers” foresee a split. But more officersforesee no split. “The majority” refers tomost individuals in a category, not to aunified group.

See also Collective nouns.

MAMA. See MOM, MAMA, MA.

-MAN-, MAN. The combining form-man- means human being. It is found inwords like mankind and manslaughter,as a prefix; and freeman and woman, asa suffix. The plural of the suffix is -men.

Woman came from the Old Englishwifman, from wif, meaning female orwoman, and man, meaning human be-ing (the meaning of manu in Sanskrit).The other meaning of man, that of anadult male, developed later.

The sense of man as human being orhumanity is reflected in the Biblical line

So God created man in his ownimage . . . male and female created hethem.

and in a passage by the philosopherDavid Hume:

There is in all men, both male and fe-male, a desire and power of genera-tion more active than is everuniversally exerted.

Similarly, Jefferson’s line in the Declara-tion of Independence that “all men arecreated equal” refers to all people.

Man retains that meaning to this day.Man cannot live by bread alone. Man’sinhumanity to man. Man’s best friend.The dawn of man. God or man. Man orbeast. Man overboard!

That millennia-old syllable wasthreatened in the sixties and seventieswhen a radical movement arose to fixwhat was unbroken and break what wasfixed. The mistaken belief that -man-meant male, coupled with the perversenotion that masculinity was ipso facto

bad, gave rise to several circumlocutions.They pollute the language to this day.One of them has been to substitute otherwords, no matter how unidiomatic or lu-dicrous the result.

Taking politic license, a book reviewerwrote:

It’s a visiting firefighter type thatdrew understandable derision fromSafer and other correspondents sta-tioned in Saigon at the time. . . .

“Firefighter” stands out embarrassingly.Although that word may be an accept-able job title, the expression that the re-viewer corrupted is visiting fireman. Itmeans a visitor who is catered to becauseof his importance or money.

Some have chosen to change mankindto the windier humankind, unaware thathuman derives from the Latin homo,meaning man or a man.

Another circumlocution has been todrop -man: to give a chairman the nameof a piece of furniture, a “chair.” (SeeCHAIR.)

Then there are the “person” and“people” monstrosities, in which the of-fending monosyllable in almost anyword is replaced with a disyllable. Forexample, manhole gets corrupted to“personhole,” airman to “airperson,”and congressmen to “congresspersons”or “congresspeople.” (See PERSON;PEOPLE as a suffix; SPOKESMAN.)Turning woman into “woperson” haseven been suggested. Unfortunately formale-haters, person has a -son. A fewchoose to misspell woman “womyn,” asif to fool the English-speakers of theworld.

The words virtual, virtue, and virtu-oso do stem from the Latin word for amale, but thus far there has been nomovement to resist them. See VIRTUE.

MANNER and MANOR. See Ho-mophones.

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MANSLAUGHTER. See Crimes, 4.

MANY and MUCH. “You won’tget much extra sales if you throw in apencil with every purchase of a car,” saysa book on marketing. Change “much”to many: “many extra sales. . . .”

Use much when you talk about a largeamount of something (“much money”)or a large degree (“much wisdom”) or alarge extent (“much devastation”). Itgoes with a singular noun.

Use many when you talk about a largenumber of things (“many trees” / “manypeople” / “many sales”). It goes with aplural noun.

Occasionally, in a more or less poeticvein, many is followed by a or an and asingular noun. “And many an eye hasdanced to see that banner in the sky.”The meaning of many remains the same:a large number of things, though repre-sented by one thing.

In that construction, any verb shouldbe singular, e.g., “has danced.” The nar-rator of a travel series on television erredin saying, “Many an amusing anecdotehave been born” on a railway. It hasbeen born. In a more common construc-tion, the verb is indeed plural: “Manyamusing anecdotes have been born” /“Many brave hearts are asleep in thedeep.”

See also MUCH.

MARGINAL, MARGINALLY. Ingeneral, marginal (adjective) pertains toa margin (noun). A margin is an edge orborder of something. It can be literal, asthe margin of a page; or figurative, as amargin for error or the line between be-ing able or willing to carry out an activ-ity and not.

The terms are used in various ways inbusiness and economics. We may regardmargin as the line between being in theblack and being in the red. A marginalbusiness barely meets its costs. The re-ceipts for a marginal product barely

cover the cost of production. A producerin that situation operates marginally (ad-verb).

Writers and speakers in the popularmedia often use “marginal(ly)” when allthey mean is small, slight(ly), a little—orany of numerous synonyms. Perhapsthey think that it has a more learned ringto it. A columnist wrote:

Mr. Marchais has presided over a de-cline of the French Communists’ voteby well over half, from a powerfulforce that blocked alternating politicsto a marginal role on the nationalscene.

If she meant a small, slight, or modestrole, she could well have said so.

Here is a part of a news dispatch fromLuxembourg:

. . . Appreciation of the United Statesis overshadowed these days by ner-vous talk of sabotage and snubs inthis bucolic land, which is marginallysmaller than Rhode Island.

“Marginally smaller” is better changedto “somewhat smaller” or “a littlesmaller.” A still better way is to be spe-cific: “18 percent smaller.”

A report said that ten staff membersof a university had found a managementtraining program to be “a beneficial ex-perience, but only marginally so.” Thatroundabout wording—apparently laud-atory at first but reversing course mid-way—could perhaps have been boileddown to “a slightly [or “barely”] benefi-cial experience.”

MARIJUANA. Marijuana, some-times spelled marihuana, is a complexdrug produced from the Cannabis sativaplant and used illicitly, usually by smok-ing, for its intoxicating effect. It consistsof any part of the plant that has beenprepared for smoking, primarily by dry-

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ing. Containing at least 426 compounds,it produces thousands more whenburned.

These headlines distorted the facts:

U.S. OK’s marijuana pills

Legal marijuana capsules on way to 4 cancer victims

The first story described the contents ofthe pills as “synthetic marijuana,” whichis impossible. The second described thecontents as “federally grown mari-juana,” which was erroneous. The pillscontained no marijuana. Their active in-gredient was synthetic THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol). THC is theprincipal mind-affecting ingredient inmarijuana but it is just one of the 426compounds.

Headlines like these went further indisseminating misinformation:

Pot—a New Prescription for Cancer?

Pot for cancer available

“Pot,” which is slang for marijuana (asis “grass” / “weed” / “dope” / “herb” /“tea” / and “Mary Jane”), does not cureor ameliorate cancer and never has beenused to treat cancer. Its smoking pro-vides no medical benefit that is recog-nized by the medical profession or thefederal government and, according tothousands of scientific studies, causesmany injurious effects. These effects in-clude transportation accidents, lung ail-ments, and probably cancer.

Marijuana cigarettes and, more often,synthetic THC in capsule form weretried out as an antiemetic, a drug forcurbing nausea and vomiting, in somepatients taking anticancer drugs. TheTHC was found to be effective. In 1986the federal government approved thecommercial production, not of mari-juana, but of the encapsulated THC in

an oil base (under the trade name Mari-nol) and its dispensation by prescriptionto cancer patients unresponsive to con-ventional antiemetics.

MARSHAL. This word traces to theOld High German marahscalh, meaninghorse servant. Originally a marshal wasa groom, one who took care of horses.Later marshal was applied to the masterof horses in a medieval royal household,then to the official in charge of militaryaffairs for a sovereign. In various coun-tries today, a marshal is the highest ranking military commander or a com-mander of a particular military branch.In the United States, officers of differentkinds bear the title marshal: one whocarries out federal court orders; a munic-ipal functionary, such as a fire marshal;and the head of a parade.

The verb marshal means (transitive)to arrange in order (“marshal thetroops”); to direct as a marshal; to lead,someone, ceremoniously; to enlist andorganize for action; or (intransitive) totake up positions in proper order, partic-ularly in military formation. The pasttense or past participle is marshaled andthe present participle is marshaling. TheBritish prefer marshalled and mar-shalling.

Whatever the meaning, the noun orbasic verb marshal is properly spelledwith one l and should not be confusedwith the name Marshall (as borne bytwo Supreme Court justices, a vice-president, and a general and statesman).Confuse them is what Webster’s ThirdDictionary has done, indicating that thespelling is “also marshall.” It is if you area grade-F speller.

Marshal is pronounced the same asmartial, warlike or related to war. Thisadjective derives from the Latin mar-tialis, of Mars, the god of war.

MASTERFUL and MASTERLY.When a political party spokesman told a

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television audience that the president“has handled this crisis in a very master-ful fashion,” he was saying in effect thatthe president had acted in a very dictato-rial, arbitrary, domineering fashion, as amaster acts toward a servant. Being ofthe same party as the president, thespokesman would not have uttered sucha verity on purpose. Perhaps, had heknown better, he would have used theword masterly, meaning like a master ofa skill or discipline; possessing or ex-hibiting the ability, knowledge, or skillof a master.

Centuries back, masterful and mas-terly were both used in either sense. Thedistinction between the two was a usefuldevelopment, but there has been retro-gression. Now “masterful” is mistakenfor masterly so often that modern dictio-naries have rubber-stamped the misuseand accepted it as a secondary meaningwithout comment, thus contributing toconfusion rather than to clarity.

Masterful is an adjective; masterfullyis the related adverb. Masterly is both anadjective and an adverb.

From an autobiography: “He gave amasterful speech, greeted by a thunder-ous ovation.” Befitting a foreign dictator,the sentence actually was meant topraise a U.S. president (another one).

MATERIAL and MATERIEL. SeeConfusing pairs.

MAXIMIZE. See -IZE ending, 1.

MAY and MIGHT. 1. Fact versussupposition. 2. Other distinctions.

1. Fact versus suppositionA comment by a government official

that “The accident at St. Louis may havebeen prevented” was a mistake on itsface. May have deals with fact, withwhat was possible. The speaker neededmight have to express what was hypo-thetical, a supposition contrary to fact.

To say “He may have won all four”tournaments, as a golf authority said ofthe late Ben Hogan, is tantamount tosaying “I’m not sure if he won all four ornot.” The intended meaning was “Hemight have won all four” had he playedin them.

The opposite error enters this sen-tence (from an article):

Those in attendance last night, as wellas a national cable audience, mighthave been years removed from thesegregated world that Robinson chal-lenged in such a public, yet lonely,fashion.

“Might” should be may, expressingwhat is possible.

These two sentences illustrate correctuses of may and might with have:

• “I may have attended the meeting,but I don’t remember if I did.” Itdiscusses a question of fact,something that could havehappened.

• “I might have attended the meetingif my health permitted.” It dealswith the hypothetical, presenting asupposition contrary to fact.

See also Subjunctive.

2. Other distinctionsThese are some other distinctions be-

tween the two words (used as auxiliaryverbs):

A.May, expressing permission in the pre-sent tense, as in “The boss says wemay take the holiday off,” becomesmight in the past tense: “The boss saidwe might take the holiday off.”

B. May, expressing possibility in the pre-sent tense, as in “The Browns say theymay buy a house,” becomes might inthe past tense: “The Browns said theymight buy a house.”

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C.Might can be used to express possibil-ity in the present tense: “She mightsue him.” When it is used in that way,it is less forceful than may: “She maysue him”; the likelihood is greaterhere.

D.May can express a purpose or result,in a clause beginning with that or sothat: “I work hard so that my childrenmay be cared for.” Might expresses amore forlorn hope: “We struggle thatsomeday our people might be free.”

E. Might in a courteous request as in“Might I say something?” is weakerand hence more humble than may.

MAYHEM. See Crimes, 4.

MEAN (adjective). Mean in thesense of inhumane, malicious, or unkindoften gets a tail these days, as in this snipfrom a movie review: “She is a mean-spirited, dishonest, highly judgmental in-dividual. . . .” Followers of the fadwould not be satisfied to call SimonLegree mean; he was “mean-spirited.”The “-spirited” is not wrong, just oftenunnecessary.

So far the appending has not extendedto mean in the sense of humble, low-grade, paltry, or petty.

MEAN (noun). Three books onword usage misleadingly define the sta-tistical term mean as “the midpoint” or“the middle point.” In addition, a bookon press style calls mean “a figure inter-mediate between two extremes.” It gives45 as the “mean temperature” between ahigh of 56 and a low of 34.

In a general sense, the noun mean doesdenote a middle point or medium. In astatistical sense, a mean, also known asan arithmetic mean or arithmeticalmean, is what people commonly call anaverage. It is the sum of a set of figures di-vided by the number of figures in the set.

The definitions coincide only for a set

of two figures. The mean of 56, 36, and34 is 42.

A statistical term in which the middlepoint is essential is median. It is a figuremidway in a set of figures arranged in or-der of size. In the set of three just above,the median is 36. (When the number ofitems is even, the median is the mean ofthe two figures in the middle.) Techni-cally, the mean and the median are bothaverages.

ME and I. See Pronouns, 10.

ME and MYSELF. See Pronouns,3, 4.

Measures, quantities. See AMOUNTand NUMBER; Collective nouns, 3;FEWER and LESS; MANY and MUCH;Numbers; Verbs, 3.

MEDAL and MEDDLE. See Ho-mophones; Verbs, 2.

MEDIA and MEDIUM. 1. MassMEDIA. 2. Other MEDIUMS.

1. Mass MEDIARadio is a medium of mass communi-

cation. Television is another suchmedium. So is the newspaper. So is themagazine. They are media of mass com-munication—and people in those mediashould know that, but not all of themdo:

[Radio:] They pulled it off secretly[setting a killer free on parole]. Nomedia was on hand.

[Television:] How well does the newsmedia cover the story?

[Newspaper:] However, in this gener-ation, the media is not so meek.

[Magazine:] While the argument thatthe media has become too powerful is

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plenty convincing . . . a majority ofthe public (54 percent) believes themedia is fair. . . .

When bitten, the media has a habitof biting back.

The quoted sentences may be correctedas follows: “No media were on hand” or“No news medium was on hand.” /“How well do the news media cover thestory?” / “. . . The media are not someek.” / “. . . The media have becometoo powerful . . . the media arefair . . . the media have a habit of bitingback.”

Media is a plural of medium. Exceptin sentences like that one and this one,media is improper in the singular. Thereis no such word as “medias.”

Agencies of mass communicationhave become known as the mass media.Those agencies in general, or at timesjust the news media, are colloquiallycalled the media.

A talk show host used media wrongand right in the same sentence when alistener complained about excessive in-terest in O. J. Simpson.

To some extent the media is responsi-ble, because they’re covering all ofthis.

Make it “the media are responsible. . . .”They’re is correct.

This sentence appears in a book, an-other mass medium:

Direct marketing is not restricted toany one media.

There cannot be “one media.” Make it“one medium.”

2. Other MEDIUMSMediums is another plural of medium

and the only plural of the word whenused in the sense of a person claiming thepower to communicate with the de-

ceased. “She is superstitious and hasgone to fortune-tellers and mediums.”

The use of media rather than medi-ums is more common in designatingagencies of mass communication.

A medium is also a means or instru-mentality through which an effect is pro-duced; an environment in whichsomething exists and functions; or a nu-tritive substance in which organisms cangrow. On a television news program, aphysician tried to use the word in thatlast sense.

It’s the water in the ear that makes anice media for bacteria to grow.

“Media” should have been put in thesingular: “a nice medium.”

A medium is also something that is in-termediate between two extremes. It islike the more common medium (adjec-tive—the others are nouns), meaning in-termediate or average, as in “small,medium, and large sizes.” The last twomediums resemble the Latin medium,meaning middle, which English adopted.

MEDIAN. See MEAN (noun).

MEMORANDA and MEMO-RANDUM. A U.S. senator at a hear-ing kept referring to a written record as“a memoranda.” It was a memorandum.

A participant in a television forumsaid, “North drew up memoran-das. . . .” They were memoranda ormemorandums.

Because memoranda is plural, “amemoranda” and “memorandas” arewrong.

MERCY and PITY. Heavy rains hadswelled streams and caused widespreadflooding. When the deluge subsided, abanner headline across a newspaper’sfront page read, unidiomatically:“Rivers take mercy.” It looked as thougha confused editor had combined a part

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of two common phrases: take pity andhave mercy. Sometimes a creative writerdeparts from idiom, but a serious head-line calls for communication more thancreativity, and the humanizing of riversis literary license enough.

Mercy and pity are not synonyms,though aspects of each are related. Oftenmercy is more active. It can suggest (1)an extraordinary act of kindness, possi-bly toward someone whom one is in aposition to harm; (2) compassionatetreatment, such as the relief of suffering;or (3) an inclination to be kind, to for-give, or to pity. Often pity (noun) is lessactive. It denotes a feeling of sorrow,sympathy, or compassion for another’smisfortune or suffering. It may imply anattitude of condescension toward some-one considered inferior or weaker.

Some words associated with mercyare charity, alms-giving, benevolence, ortolerance in judging one; clemency, a re-prieve or lenient act by someone in au-thority; and leniency, mildness indispensing justice or administering rules.

Some words associated with pity arecompassion, sorrow for one’s sufferingwith a desire to help; commiseration, afeeling or expression of sympathy with aperson in distress; condolence, an ex-pression of such sympathy; and sympa-thy, an understanding of and a sharing inone’s grief, pain, or other feelings.

METAL and METTLE. See Homo-phones.

METAMORPHOSE. See -IZE end-ing, 1 (end).

Metaphor. See BEGET; BIG TIME;Cliché clash; Double meaning; LITER-ALLY; Metaphoric contradiction; SIRE.

Metaphoric contradiction. Insteadof saying “What bad luck I’m having!” apoetically minded person might say “Iam drowning in a sea of trouble.” Thestatement would be a metaphor, a figure

of speech in which one thing is likened toanother. Often a concrete object (e.g.,the sea) is used to describe an abstraction(trouble).

If that poet’s main trouble is adrought that has dried up his vegetablegarden, his metaphor is compromised—or it does not hold water, to use anothermetaphor. If it stirs mirth in his listenersor readers, he has defeated his purpose.Thus one needs to think of the literalmeaning of a metaphor before using itfor a particular purpose.

A newspaper story about health risksin restaurants pointed out that “a dinerdoes not always know how long foodhas been sitting unrefrigerated” and itquoted thus a Food and Drug Adminis-tration spokesman: “If it’s lukewarm,they’re just playing with fire.” Callingfor a vision of lukewarm fire, themetaphor fizzled.

A news story about the tunnel underSan Francisco Bay bore this lead:“BART will pull out all the stops todayto try to locate the spot where water isstill leaking into the trans-Bay tube at therate of eight gallons an hour.” It madeone want to dash into the offices of theBay Area Rapid Transit and shout,“Wait! Don’t pull out the stops! Do youwant to flood the tube?”

The topic on a national TV news pro-gram was skin cancer. A physician said,when asked about the safety of the tan-ning salon: “If people use it, they shoulduse it with their eyes open.” The inter-viewer missed a chance to ask:“Wouldn’t people be safer using it withtheir eyes closed?”

Metaphors can be single words, justas they can be phrases. The same admo-nition applies. The task may be harder,inasmuch as the words are often usedwithout regard to their literal meanings.A few examples:

• Bottleneck—“The biggest bottleneckin housing” fails as a metaphor. Itspurpose is to describe the worst

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problem, so an analogy would be thenarrowest, most constrictingbottleneck, not the biggest.

• Breakdown—“The breakdown ofpatients by . . . departments . . .should be strictly followed.” / “Thehouses should be broken down intotypes.” Nobody is accused ofpromoting patient breakdowns in ahospital or broken-down houses inthe real estate business, butclassification or classified wouldhave been preferable.

• Depression—A board was urged topromote industrial developmentbefore “a depression . . . arises.”Literally a depression is a sunkenarea; to arise is to move upward. Arelated contradiction is the use of“as much as” together with “less.”See Numbers, 2 (end).

• Inundate—Someone or somethingmay be figuratively inundated, orflooded, but not by flames. SeeINUNDATE, INUNDATED.

• Spawn—A newspaper reported thatone conference had “spawned” (thatis, prolifically given birth to) othersthroughout the state. Theconferences dealt with theprevention of teenage pregnancy. SeeDouble meaning.

Two metaphoric words or expressionsthat are close by may contradict eachother, even if they are individually satis-factory: “This is a virgin field, pregnantwith possibilities” (a pregnant virgin?).“We must not allow ourselves to bestampeded into stagnation” (no placefor a stampede).

Additional examples of ludicrousmetaphors are in BEGET; Cliché clash;LITERALLY.

METEOR, METEORITE, andMETEOROID. A television newsman described sightings of a blue, scintil-lating object in the sky, attributing to theNational Weather Service that “it proba-

bly was a meteorite and it probably fellinto the ocean.”

Meteorites are not seen in the sky. Ameteorite by definition is a body fromspace that has survived the trip to earth.

While it was traveling through theearth’s atmosphere, it was a meteor. Theterm is applied also to the luminousstreak produced by the meteor’s frictionwith the atmosphere.

Before reaching the atmosphere, theobject was a meteoroid, a small bodythat travels through outer space. Anewspaper’s science writer was imprecisein writing:

More precise radioactive datingmethods have fixed the age of the old-est meteorites orbiting the Sun atabout 4.53 billion years.

Those bodies are meteoroids, not “mete-orites”—except in the loosest of lan-guage, unbefitting a science column.

MIDNIGHT. See A.M., P.M., NOON,MIDNIGHT.

MIGHT. See MAY and MIGHT.

MILE. See KNOT.

MILLIARD. See BILLION.

MIND. See NEVER MIND.

MINER and MINOR. See Homo-phones.

MINIMIZE. To minimize somethingis to reduce it to a minimum (“We mustminimize our cost”) or to place it at thelowest or smallest estimate (“I mini-mized my estimated tax”) or to make itappear as small or trifling as possible(“Smith, the attorney, minimized hisclient’s responsibility for the accident”).

Minimize (verb, transitive) is an abso-lute term, several authorities agree. It isnot properly qualified by adverbs like

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considerably, greatly, or somewhat. Theycan qualify a verb such as belittle, dimin-ish, reduce, or underrate, none of whichis the meaning of minimize.

Even when used properly, the wordcan be misunderstood. In isolation, thispress sentence permits two interpreta-tions:

In his session with the Tower com-mission, McFarlane said he had ac-quiesced in a White House effort tominimize the president’s role in the af-fair.

Was the effort (1) to make sure that thepresident would play as small a role aspossible or (2) to make the president’spast role appear as small as possible inthe eyes of the public? The contextshows that it was the second.

A related adjective is minimal, theleast possible (cost, tax, role, etc.).

MISCHIEVOUS, MISCHIEVOUS-NESS. Discussing a case of sexual harassment on the job, the host of a na-tionally televised talk show said, “Itreally seems that it went from a kind ofmischeviousness to a much more mali-cious acting out.”

“Mischevious” or “mischeviousness,”with the emphasis on the second sylla-ble, is not a legitimate word. It is a dis-tortion of the proper word mischievous(adjective) or mischievousness (noun),pronounced MISS-chuh-vuss (ness).

Mischievous means causing mischief;mischievousness, the inclination to causemischief. Mischief is vexing action orconduct, or its result. Depending on thecontext, it can vary from a child’s imp-ishness to destruction or violence by amiscreant or nonhuman agent. A relatedword is mischievously (adverb), in a mis-chievous way.

MISDEMEANOR. See CRIME,MISDEMEANOR, and FELONY.

MISINFORMATION. See FACT.

MISLEAD and MISLED. SeeLEAD (verb) and LED.

MISNOMER. A guest on a TV inter-view show said that Henry Kissinger wasborn in the United States, not in Ger-many as many people thought. “It’s acommon misnomer,” he said.

An incorrect idea may be a misbelief,a misconception, or a mistake, but it isnot a “misnomer.” A misnomer is aname or epithet that is wrongly or inap-propriately given to a person or thing; oran error in a name, particularly in a legaldocument.

For instance, the term Indian whenapplied to an aborigine of the NewWorld could be called a misnomer.Columbus was said to have used it fornatives of the Bahamas in the erroneousbelief that he was in India.

(As for Mr. Kissinger’s country ofbirth: five reference books say Germany.)

Misquotation. See Clichés; Quota-tion problems, 1.

MISQUOTE. See QUOTE andQUOTATION.

MISS, MR., MRS., MS. See Pluralsand singulars, 2H; Titles, 2.

Modifiers. 1. Dangling. 2. Extrane-ous. 3. Misplaced. 4. Piled up. 5. Restric-tive. 6. Senseless.

1. Dangling

A. Dangling participles

Although widely used by the men,Bashilange women were rarely al-lowed to smoke cannabis.

One might think that the topic was fe-male abuse rather than drug abuse. The

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sentence, from a book about cannabis,literally says that the women were“widely used by the men.”

It is an example of a dangler, a phrasethat does not fit the rest of a sentenceand does not accomplish what the writerthinks it does. It may apply to the wrongperson or thing or to nothing.

As a rule, modifiers adjoin the wordsthey modify. (See Modifying.) In the ex-ample above, the writer wanted a phraseat the beginning of the sentence to mod-ify the word at the end, “cannabis.” Theplacement of the phrase and its lack ofsubject and verb encourage its bondingwith the nearby subject of the sentence,“Bashilange women.” Here is a possiblecorrection: “Bashilange women wererarely allowed to smoke cannabis, al-though it was widely used by the men.”

In each of the four examples comingnext, the noun that is supposed to bemodified is not even there; it exists onlyin the mind of the writer or speaker. Thedangling phrase affixes itself to the sub-ject that is there.

A news report on national televisionabout a car accident included this sen-tence:

Severely burned and nearly an invalid,her lawyer expects that any agreementwith General Motors will require se-crecy.

If any who heard it sympathized with thelawyer, blame the opening phrase.Grammatically it applies to the subject,“her lawyer.” The description couldhave been placed in another sentence:“The girl is severely burned and nearlyan invalid. Her lawyer expects. . . .”

This was on the radio:

After being hit by the spray, the offi-cers called the fire department and anambulance.

Anyone who had just tuned in could rea-sonably gather that officers had been hit

by spray. Just before that, the newscasterhad announced that it was a seeminglydrunk man who had been pepper-sprayed. Change the opening phrase to“After hitting the man with the spray”or “After the man was sprayed.”

A newspaper example follows. Thewriter had escaped an earthquake.

Now, finally, overlooking the GoldenGate Bridge, tears started to fall, tearsof gratitude.

This seems to say that the falling tearsoverlooked the bridge, a senseless state-ment unless “tears,” the subject, is ametaphor for rain. Change “overlook-ing” to as we overlooked, or else change“tears started to fall” to we started toshed tears.

A dangler can appear at the end of asentence. The example is from an articleabout alcoholic policemen.

Termination is recommended if founddrunk on the job.

The subject is “Termination,” which ofcourse cannot be “found drunk” thoughthe sentence literally suggests otherwise.After “if,” insert an officer is.

The examples above illustrate whattextbooks and teachers call the danglingparticiple and have derided for genera-tions. Whoever coined the term evi-dently visualized a participle danglingprecariously from a sentence. H. W.Fowler called them unattached partici-ples. As he saw them, they were not evendangling. They have been called alsoconfused, disconnected, misrelated, sus-pended, and wrongly attached partici-ples. (See Participle for a definition.)

B. Some other danglersThe problem goes beyond participles.

Danglers come in different varieties,such as adjectival, adverbial, and nounalphrases. Examples follow, first a caption

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that appeared under a picture of a car-toon character.

At 52, the feisty little black duck’s starmay finally be on the rise.

The subject is the duck’s “star,” which,we are literally told, is 52 (young for anastronomic object). If that is the duck’sage (an advanced age for a fowl), oneway out of the dangling would be toscrap “At 52.” A sentence could beadded after “rise”: Daffy Duck is 52.(That pile-up of adjectives is dubioustoo. Commas would help: “The feisty,little, black duck’s. . . .”)

This was broadcast on a national ra-dio news program:

Travelers checks may protect youagainst thieves while on vacation.

It seems to imply that traveler’s checks, ifnot thieves, are on vacation. After“while,” insert you are.

Up to now, the examples all have con-tained phrases applying to the wrongwords. But sometimes a phrase just dan-gles there, applying to nothing in the restof the sentence. This example is from arestaurant review:

More culinary independence wasshown with what the menu called“Pork, Chicken and Veal Spiedini”($7.50) with Polenta. Basically agrilled brochette, there was nochicken anywhere in sight.

The latter sentence makes no sense. Thefirst part of it has nothing to do with thesecond part grammatically or logically.Splitting it into two sentences helps tocorrect it: “It was basically a grilled bro-chette. There was no chicken anywherein sight.”

C. Journalistic danglersThere is a similar type of dangler, so

common in newspapers that it might be

called the journalistic dangler. It is a de-scriptive noun phrase that comes at theend of a sentence and bears no grammat-ical relationship to the rest of the sen-tence. Often it deals with a precedent ora record. It may follow a dash. Five illus-trations from the press follow.

By the time the last valve is in place,the tunnel’s price tag is expected to to-tal $5 billion—the most expensiveproject financed by the city.

The phrase following the dash does notconnect with anything. One expects it tomodify “$5 billion,” for it immediatelyfollows it. Now “$5 billion” is anamount, a cost, or a sum, but it is not a“project.” Change the phrase to some-thing like this: “—the highest sum forany project ever financed by the city.”

Sister Francis Russell has co-founded a home for needy men,women and children, resettled Cam-bodian refugees in Denver, Cubans inCheyenne, and recently received theSocial Worker of the Year award fromthe National Association of SocialWorkers—the first recipient to havebeen active in the anti-nuclear move-ment.

The phrase following the dash ought tomodify the “award,” but “the first recip-ient . . .” does not do it. Either make thephrase a separate sentence (“She is thefirst recipient of the award . . .”) orrephrase it (“—the first such award pre-sented to someone active in . . .”). By theway, the sentence has other faults, in-cluding a bad series and confusing punc-tuation. (Omit the comma after“Denver” and substitute and. Changethe commas after “children” and“Cheyenne” to semicolons. See Punctua-tion, 11; Series errors.)

For a while it appeared that theparties would simply be canceled,

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a multibillion-dollar disaster forTokyo’s hotels and restaurants.

What does “a multibillion-dollar disas-ter” modify? Nothing visible. Precedingit with a verb, say causing, rescues thesentence.

A newspaper and a news agency cov-ered the same event, and the lead para-graphs of both stories containedjournalistic danglers of similar wording:

Residents of Sacramento, Calif.,voted Tuesday to shut down their util-ity’s only nuclear power plant, the firsttime voters have decided to close aworking reactor.

Residents of the capital area havevoted to shut down the trouble-plagued Rancho Seco nuclear powerplant, the first time such a facility hasbeen closed by voters.

What does “the first time” modify? Notthe nearest noun, “plant”; not “Resi-dents”; not anything obvious. Again, thedangling phrase may be placed in a sepa-rate sentence, for instance: “This is thefirst time. . . .” Or else: “For the firsttime, voters have decided to close aworking nuclear reactor. Residents ofthe Sacramento area voted Tuesday toshut down. . . .” (It was the first timewhere?—in the world, in the U.S.A.?Neither story explained.)

D. Absolute constructionsSome expressions resemble danglers,

yet they have won the right to existalongside their grammatical cousins.They are absolute constructions. A wordor phrase in that category is not gram-matically connected with the sentence itappears in. Referring to no specific thingor person, it modifies a thought in a gen-eral way.

Here are some examples: “Strictlyspeaking, the stomach is an organ of di-gestion.” The opening phrase is very

common, and nobody will think that thestomach is speaking. “Let’s play onemore game, winner take all.” There theunconnected phrase comes at the end.“The storm having ended, we set sail onthe third of May.” / “My secretary beingill, I hired a temporary employee.” Thatform is well established, though consid-ered artificial by some. One difficulty isthat someone may be tempted to insert acomma, incorrectly, after the first noun(storm or secretary).

Absolute constructions include ad-verbs, such as admittedly, conceivably,happily, and thankfully; participles, as-suming, barring, concerning, consider-ing, failing, following, given, granted,judging, provided, and regarding; par-ticipial phrases, all things considered, de-pending on, generally speaking, andspeaking of; and other phrases, after all,by and large, on the whole, in the longrun, in the final analysis, to be frank, andto be honest.

This is acceptable: “Considering theera, it was a remarkable accomplish-ment” Considering is not connectedwith the subject. But this is a danglingparticiple: “Considering his merits, mycat deserves to win the contest.” The catseems to be engaged in an intellectualpursuit.

E. Danglers that dangleLet us end our discussion of danglers

with a couple of sentences from newsstories (about the Amazon Basin andKennedy Airport) in which things aresaid to really dangle.

As the boats swerved amongpalms, rosewood and wild fruit trees,the rescue team kept ducking to avoidvines and aerial roots, dangling likedangerous nooses overhead.

A cigarette dangling from his mouth,he said he wanted to sit down withthe Port Authority management to

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discuss his “plan” to legalize SmarteCarte hustling.

To keep the rescue team from “dan-gling,” make it which dangled. And toavoid equating the man at the airportwith a dangling cigarette, precede thelatter sentence with With.

See also Gerund, 2 (more danglingparticiples).

2. ExtraneousThe newspaper article quoted below

is referring not to four governors (thediminutive governor, the conservativegovernor, etc.), but to only one.

Mr. Mecham’s decision . . . pro-voked a constitutional confrontationbetween the Legislature and the first-term Republican Governor. . . .

After his statement, the 63-year-oldGovernor agreed to answer questionsposed by the committee. . . .

The diminutive Governor arrivedat the hearing dressed in a powderblue suit. . . .

The recall campaign and a boycottof the state by many conventiongroups began almost as soon as theconservative Governor took office.

This illustrates a peculiar journalisticpractice. Instead of devoting a sentenceor paragraph to a description of a per-son, the writer sticks in descriptions atirrelevant places.

Sometimes an extraneous modifyingphrase interrupts a sentence: “Marceca,a civilian Army employee, refused to tes-tify at a Senate hearing Friday.” At timesit starts a sentence: “Born in . . . Aus-tralia . . . , Mr. Mitchell served as a RoyalCanadian Air Force pilot. . . .” / “AWest Point graduate from Bridgeport,Conn., Mr. Mucci ran unsuccessfully forCongress. . . .” Neither of the forms rep-resented by the quotations is necessarilywrong. Either is acceptable when the

facts are related: “Murphy, an amateurastronomer, discovered a comet lastyear.” / “A corporate executive, he iswell to do.”

See also HAVE, HAS, HAD, 1; WHO,2.

3. Misplaced

A. Ludicrous placementThis sentence appeared in a restaurant

“guide” in a neighborhood newspaper:

Enjoy Scallops Provencal or freshsalmon cooked to order while watch-ing football.

If the fish’s last request is to see the SuperBowl on TV, the phrase “while watchingfootball” is in the right place. Morelikely, it belongs at the beginning of thesentence.

A modifier tends to bond with anearby word or phrase. When the modi-fier is placed too far from what it is sup-posed to modify, the result can beludicrous, like the example above or thefour examples that follow.

The moderator of a television forumended the program by saying, “Thankyou all for watching very much.” Was hethanking people for watching very muchtelevision? More likely the phrase “verymuch” was misplaced, belonging imme-diately after “all.”

Interviewed on television, a lawyertold families of homicide victims:

You have the right to recover, thesame as if someone ran over your littlegirl in the street who was drunk.

He was not implying that they wouldgive their small daughters booze. Again,the final phrase was misplaced. Here iswhere it should have been: “. . . thesame as if someone who was drunk ranover. . . .”

A heading in a postal brochure reads:

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Let everyone know you’re moving ahead of time.

Literally it says to announce a prematuremove. To make it say what was in-tended, put “ahead of time” ahead of“you’re moving.”

This message seems to be a fixture onso-called noncommercial television:

With twelve billion dollars in annualsales, your broker knows McKesson.

No doubt he would love to do that muchbusiness. The phrase preceding thecomma belongs after “McKesson.”

Excerpts from a newspaper and amagazine are reminiscent of GrouchoMarx’s tale of the time “I shot an ele-phant in my pajamas.”

Police said he was convicted . . . of amisdemeanor . . . after he was stoppedby police in a stolen truck.

Face and hands greasepainted gold, . . .he collects a hefty amount of moneyfrom European tourists in a gold can.

Groucho wondered what the elephantwas doing “in my pajamas.” We canwonder what the police were doing “in astolen truck” and what the Europeantourists were doing “in a gold can.”

B. Ambiguous or misleading placementAs absurdly as the above examples are

worded, their meanings are nonethelessunderstandable. The six press quota-tions below illustrate that separating amodifier from what it is supposed tomodify can obscure or transform themessage. We start with three headlines;in each the modifying phrase waswrongly placed last.

Readers of the headline “Northlearned he was fired from TV” couldreasonably deduce that North hadworked in TV. But the story under the

headline said he had learned from TVthat the President had announced hisdismissal as a staff member of the Na-tional Security Council. The phrase fromTV needed to modify learned, not“fired.”

“Torture Is Depicted in Turkey” im-plies that someone in Turkey has de-scribed the matter in pictures or words.Actually the description took place inEngland, where a group (Amnesty Inter-national) had issued a report that ac-cused Turkish authorities of harmingpolitical prisoners. “Torture in Turkey IsDepicted” would have been right. Thephrase in Turkey needed to modify Tor-ture, not “Depicted.”

“Children gather to celebrate life atMount Zion Hospital” boosts the hospi-tal. But the story said that former pa-tients in the intensive care nursery hadattended a party “to celebrate the gift oflife,” not life at the hospital. The head-line’s last four words need relocation, asin this version: “Children gather atMount Zion Hospital to celebrate life.”

The rest of the city relies on Staten Is-land mainly as a garbage dump; morethan three-quarters of the city’sgarbage is disposed of in a vast landfillon the island known as Fresh Kills.

A reader might wonder: is “the islandknown as Fresh Kills” off the coast ofStaten Island, or did the writer put thephrase “known as Fresh Kills” in thewrong place? A possible editing: “. . . avast landfill, known as Fresh Kills, onthe island.”

This excerpt deals with a concert inPrague:

Mr. Neumann, who conductedwith a large Civic Forum button in hislapel, was joined on the stage after thelast movement, the “Hymn to Joy,”by Vaclav Havel, the playwright who

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is the Forum’s leader and presidentialcandidate.

Havel would not have appeared to getcredit for a Beethoven composition if thesentence had begun, “After the lastmovement, the ‘Hymn to Joy,’ Mr. Neu-mann. . . .”

This one deals with health records ofnuclear weapons workers:

Last month, the Department of En-ergy halted an agency letter from be-ing sent to the group that officiallydenied its request.

Taken alone, the sentence seems to saythat a certain “group that officially de-nied” a certain request of the depart-ment almost received some kind of letter.A study of the context suggests this rein-terpretation:

The Department of Energy had pre-pared to send the group a letter thatofficially denied its request, but thedepartment decided last month not tosend it.

This version, bringing the letter and itsmessage together, would have avertedthe confusion (and left no one wonder-ing what an “agency letter” was andhow it differed from any other letter).

C. Unidiomatic placementAdverbs can get misplaced in unneces-

sary efforts to avoid split infinitives orthe division of verb phrases. See Adjec-tives and adverbs, 2; Infinitive, 4; Verbs,4.

D. Intrusion between THE and nounThe, the definite article, pertains to

what is already known. A common de-fect in the press is to intrude an adjectivewith new information between the andits noun. See THE, 2C.

4. Piled upThe practice of piling up modifiers on

top of a noun is a journalistic practicethat results from an effort to be terse. Ina typical example, a press item identifieda man as “South Oklahoma City Cham-ber of Commerce executive vice presi-dent Jim Crosby.” The standardconstruction would be “Jim Crosby, ex-ecutive vice president of the South Okla-homa City Chamber of Commerce.”The writer’s purpose seemed to be tosave the space of of, the, and a comma. Itcan get more confusing, as in this itemfrom a magazine:

What was O. J. Simpson white knightJohnnie Cochran doing popping intothe fraud trial of Robert Maxwell’ssons in London recently? [Emphasisadded to modifiers.]

At first the item seems to be about Simp-son. While the style saves a minuteamount of space, it may waste a bit ofthe reader’s time by obliging him toreread a passage to understand it.

Seven words, a figure, and an initial-ism intervene between “purchase” and“buses” in this sentence from a newslet-ter:

In January 1996, the Golden GateBus Transit Division got the go aheadto purchase 30 newly designed MotorCoach Industries (MCI) “CommuterSpecial” buses. [Emphasis added.]

A neater and clearer sentence would getto “buses” sooner, deferring part of thatdescription (and putting a hyphen in go-ahead).

To avoid a mere two-letter word,someone writes, “Police arrested him onreceiving stolen goods charges,” insteadof “charges of receiving stolen goods.”Then there are the strings of hyphenatednouns used as adjectives, such as “theworkers’ 50-cents-an-hour wage-

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increase demand,” instead of “Theworkers’ demand for a wage increase of50 cents an hour.”

See also Nouns, 5; Prepositions, 6; Ti-tles, 1; UNLIKE, 1.

5. RestrictiveThis is the last paragraph of a crime

story distributed by a national news ser-vice:

After Mr. L—— was arrested, heconfessed to the Monday burglary.

On reading the sentence above, onemight wonder if there was a Sunday bur-glary, a Saturday burglary, and so on.Slipping in the word “Monday” tends torestrict the meaning. It implies that bur-glaries were committed on more thanone day but that the arrested man con-fessed only to the one on Monday. Thatis not the case; only one burglary wasunder investigation. The essential fact isthat the man confessed it.

Four paragraphs above, the storymentions that the man was arrested on aTuesday. That might have been a goodplace to make known that the arrestcame a day after the crime. Instead, thewriter waited until the end to stick thefact about Monday in a place where itdid not belong.

Here is a similar example, by a news-paper writer:

The patient was reported in stablecondition after the 7:30 a.m. opera-tion.

The qualifier “7:30 a.m.” could make areader wonder if there was, say, a noonoperation or a 6:45 p.m. operation too.Three paragraphs earlier, the story saysthat the operation lasted more than sixhours. That would have been an idealplace for the time.

Two variables becloud the sentencebelow, broadcast on network television.

Of the several special-education stu-dents aboard the bus, only one suf-fered minor injuries from flying glass.

A person who had tuned in late andheard that sentence alone might reason-ably wonder: Did the others suffer majorinjuries from flying glass? Minor injuriesfrom other causes? Major injuries fromother causes? The problem lay in themodifiers of the noun “injuries” that thetelecaster had jammed into the sentence.Those modifiers, “minor” (adjective)and “from flying glass” (prepositionalphrase), tended to restrict the meaning.One who had heard the whole piece, ofwhich the above excerpt is the final sen-tence, might guess that this message wasintended:

. . . Only one suffered any injuries.They were minor wounds, caused byflying glass.

Here each fact is isolated, not confusedby any other fact.

6. SenselessAnnouncements like this make one

want to talk to the television set:

We will be back two weeks fromtonight. Until then, this is Dan Rather.

Who will you be then, Dan? “Untilthen” made no sense and could easilyhave been left out.

Phrases of that sort often concludebroadcasts, their purpose evidently beingto connect sentences and providesmooth transitions. They have little orno meaning.

Radio disc jockeys typically utter lineslike this: “You’re listening to KAZOO,Zanyville, where the time is 7:39 a.m.”What time is it elsewhere in town?

Modifying. To modify in grammar isto qualify or limit or alter the sense of (a

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word or group of words). In “the redmill,” for instance, the adjective redmodifies the noun mill. In “They runfast,” the adverb fast modifies the verbrun.

A modifier is a word or word groupthat modifies another word or wordgroup. It may be an adjective, an adverb,a participle, a phrase, etc. See Modifiersfor a catalogue of misused varieties, suchas danglers.

MOISTURIZE. See -IZE ending, 1.

MOM, MAMA, MA. Mom origi-nates in baby talk. It is short for mama,also spelled mamma and momma, whichis a doubling of ma. Ma is an infantileutterance that is common internation-ally.

Such terms are expected in children’svocabulary and among the appellationsby which adults address their mothers.They appear increasingly in other collo-quial speech. Except in quotations, noneof them has any place in more formalspeech or writing, particularly in an oth-erwise solemn piece like an obituary:

K——’s mom said he loved to surfso much that he will have a surfer’s fu-neral with an ocean ceremony offStinson at sunset on Friday. . . . Ser-vices will be held at 4 p.m. Friday athis father’s house in Stinson Beach.

Note that the quoted obituary does notsay “his pop’s house” or his “papa’s” or“dad’s” or “daddy’s” house. “Mom”stands out conspicuously and undigni-fiedly. Only one word takes its place:mother.

MONKEY. See APE and MONKEY.

Mood. The word mood as used ingrammar is a set of verb forms. It doesnot have anything to do with the happyor sad type of mood. The grammatical

mood is just a variation of mode. Itshows the mode, or manner, in which aspeaker or writer wants to represent anaction, whether factually, command-ingly, or otherwise.

Grammarians call the moods indica-tive, imperative, and subjunctive.

By far, the most frequently used one isthe indicative mood. It is the ordinaryverb form. It suggests that one is present-ing a fact or asking a question aboutfact. Every sentence in this entry up tonow is in that mood.

In the imperative mood, one gives acommand or tells someone to do some-thing. Examples of sentences in thatmood are “Come here” / “Stop, look,and listen” / “Friends, Romans, country-men, lend me your ears.”

The subjunctive mood is for variousstatements or questions in which the ac-tions are doubtful, hypothetical, condi-tional, or otherwise not factual. It is themood that is used least often. See Sub-junctive.

MORAL and MORALE. See Con-fusing pairs.

MORE and MOST. It is a rathercommon error to use “most” in place ofmore. A news article produced the ex-ample.

Foreign analysts here are undecidedover which version [of events inChina], the official or the foreign, ismost believed.

“Most” should be changed to more, be-cause only two versions are mentioned.

The rule is that when just two thingsare compared, more (comparative) is theword to use; and when three or morethings are compared, most (superlative)is the word.

See also Comparative and superlativedegrees; MORE with COMPARATIVE;MOST with superlative.

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MORE THAN and OVER. SeeOVER and MORE THAN.

MORE THAN ONE. Although alogical case could perhaps be made for itsplurality, the phrase more than one isusually treated as singular. “More thanone union claims jurisdiction.” / “Thereis more than one way to skin a catfish.”(One draws the next word, the subjectnoun [union or way], into its singularsphere of influence; and the predicateverb [claims or is] agrees with the noun.)

It is different when the phrase morethan one is split up. “More unions thanone claim jurisdiction.” / “There aremore ways than one to skin a catfish.”(The plural implication of more makesthe subject noun that follows it [unionsor ways] plural; the predicate verb [claimor are] agrees with the noun.)

In the journalistic sample below, thetrouble transcends the question of singu-lar versus plural.

More than one out of five Hispanicsin HISD [Houston IndependentSchool District] drops out of school.

If the statement had said that “one out offive Hispanics in HISD drops out . . . ,” itwould not be arguable. But the “morethan one” phrasing is an absurdity. Morethan one person is at least two persons;you cannot have, say, a person and a half.Presumably the writer meant not two (orshe would have said so) but somethinglike “22 percent of Hispanics” or “morethan one-fifth of Hispanics.”

MORE with comparative. Moredoes not go with the comparative formof any descriptive word. The radiospeakers who slipped up as followsprobably knew that elementary rule.

Sometimes it [purple asparagus] canbe a little more sweeter than the greenasparagus.

There is a way to empower your chil-dren and make them far more betterand powerful students.

. . . You have canker sores and that’sgoing to let the organism get in a littlemore easier.

In the first quotation, omit “more.” Inthe second, relocate it (“far better andmore powerful”). In the third, keep itbut change “easier” to easily (“a littlemore easily”).

More and the -er ending, whichmeans more, are redundant together.One speaking standard English does notnormally say “more sweeter” / “morebetter” / “more easier,” and so on.(Speakers of Hawaiian pidgin do saysuch things.)

“More preferable” is another redun-dancy. “More” is usually superfluous,because preferable is a comparativeform.

See also Comparative and superlativedegrees; MOST with superlative.

MOST and MORE. See MORE andMOST.

MOST with superlative. An articleabout selecting meat appeared with thismistake (or shall we say “mis-steak”?):“The filet mignon, he said, is the mosttenderest but also has the least flavor.”

You may say that something is themost tender or the tenderest but not thatit is the “most tenderest.” Most (as anadverb) does not go with any word con-taining the suffix -est, which means thesame as most. Someone can be the mostclever or the cleverest, the most happy orthe happiest, the most silly or the silliest,and so on.

Certain superlatives take only themost form. Most regularly precedes ad-jectives and adverbs of three or more syl-lables (such as astounding and terribly)and sometimes those of fewer syllables(such as dreadful and aptly).

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Some other adjectives and adverbstake only the -est form (for example, fewand fast, which become fewest andfastest). Still others are irregular (goodand less becoming best and least).

See also Comparative and superlativedegrees; MORE with comparative.

MOTHER. See MOM, MAMA, MA.

MUCH. 1. “A BIT MUCH.” 2.“MUCHLY.”

1. “A BIT MUCH”The contemporary cliché represented

by these press excerpts seems a bit con-tradictory: “His IRA penalties seem a bitmuch” / “Houseman says the success ofhis S-B ad has become a bit much” /“The Government began to fear that thereaction was a bit much.”

When “bit” and “much” are juxta-posed, the idea of smallness or modera-tion clashes with the idea of largeness ornotableness.

Such a clash occurred also when “alittle” became the modifier, in a televi-sion forum: “To be shocked that this isgoing on [charging people money to dinewith the president] is a little much.”

Too much means an excessiveamount, degree, or extent. That amountetc. may be only slightly excessive: a lit-tle too much or a bit too much. To omitthe too is to create a contradiction.

In the first example, a headline, thereis also a conflict between the plural“penalties” and the singular “much.”See MANY and MUCH.

2. “MUCHLY”Occasionally someone attaches a su-

perfluous -ly to much, either mistakenlyor facetiously (“Thank you muchly”). H. W. Fowler dismissed “muchly” asworn-out humor in 1926, and it has notgrown funnier since then. Centuries backit was used seriously and deemed proper.Much is now the standard adverb. “We

don’t depend much on the government”is synonymous with “We don’t dependgreatly on the government.”

Much can be an adjective (“It givesme much pleasure”). It can also be anoun, meaning a large amount or quan-tity (“Did you find much”?) or a greatthing (“The job is not much”).

MUNCH. Dictionaries do not agreeon how munch originated. Some say itwas an imitation of chewing. Others sayit came from the French manger, to eat,plus the English crunch by way of theMiddle English munchen. To most ofthem, munch suggests the sound ofchewing. The chewing is at least ampleand vigorous and perhaps steady. Ismunching really going on in the press ex-amples below?

Wednesday evening at the OperaHouse, Dance Theater of Harlem in-vited the community to munch on abit of birthday cake. [Only “a bit of”cake for the whole community?]

The streets of the city still are filledwith people of money munching branmuffins as they push their waythrough the crowd. [A strange por-trait of San Francisco.]

Too late for a prime table, theyseemed to be happy in a tiny cornerspot[,] munching on steak sandwichesand beer.

You munch raw carrots and crisp toast,not a typical, fluffy birthday cake. Abran muffin is not likely to be munchedeither. Sandwiches on toast may requiremunching, but how on earth does any-one munch beer?

MURDER. See Crimes, 4.

MUST HAVE and “MUSTA.” SeeHAVE, HAS, HAD, 2.

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MUTUAL. The adjective mutual de-scribes a relationship between two per-sons or things in which there is aninteraction or exchange: mutual admira-tion, mutual assistance, mutual fear.

An old use of the word to describesomething held in common was popular-ized by the Dickens novel Our MutualFriend. A dictionary’s rationale for “mu-

tual friend” is that the adjective com-mon, connoting “low” or “ordinary,”would be a stigma. But a friend in com-mon would not. If Jack and Jill likeclimbing hills, they have a common—not “mutual”—interest.

MYSELF. See Pronouns, 3, 4.

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Names of products. See Trade-marks.

Names, plural. See Plurals and singu-lars, 2H, K.

NANO- prefix. Nano- is a combin-ing form meaning billionth (in theAmerican sense: one part in1,000,000,000). It is used in scientificcontexts. A nanocurie is one billionth ofa curie. A nanogram is one billionth of agram. A nanometer is one billionth of ameter. A nanosecond is one billionth of a second. Although it is a theoreticalunit and brief beyond perception, it hasbeen seized by nonscientists for displaysof verbal extravagance.

A journalist said, in a TV forum, thata political adviser had worked for a can-didate, not for a day or a week, but “fora nanosecond.” The host of a radio talkshow said, “Anyone who can think formore than a nanosecond knows howspecious that whole line of argumenta-tion [for natural birth control] is.” Aheadline in a full-page, full-color maga-zine ad for an employment service read,“Opportunity Knocks Every OtherNanosecond In Silicon Valley.” Perhapsthe company felt that “Every Nanosec-ond” would be overdoing it. Still, a hintof 500 million jobs every second depre-ciated the ad’s credibility.

Nano- was drawn from the Latin

nanus, which came from the Greeknanos. The words mean dwarf.

See also BILLION.

NATIONALITY. See RACE andNATIONALITY.

NATURAL GAS. See GAS.

NAUSEATED and NAUSEOUS.The title “Feeling Nauseous” flashed onthe television screen several times to an-nounce a forthcoming report on motionsickness. Nauseated was needed. “Nau-seous,” although common in conversa-tion, is improper for more formal use.

Nauseated (adjective) means sufferingfrom nausea (noun), a feeling of sicknessin the stomach. “I feel nauseated.”

That which is nauseous (adjective)produces nausea. “It’s a nauseous gas.”A synonym is nauseating.

A person can be nauseated withoutbeing nauseous in the same way that aperson can be endangered, periled, orpoisoned without being dangerous, per-ilous, or poisonous.

To nauseate (verb, transitive) some-one is to produce nausea in the person.“The gas nauseates me.” / “The roughsea has nauseated us.” Less common rel-atives are nauseation and nauseousness(nouns) and nauseatingly and nau-seously (adverbs).

All those n-words come from the

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Greek nausia, meaning seasickness. Itstems from naus, ship, the origin of ourword nautical.

NAUTICAL MILE. See KNOT.

NAVAL and NAVEL. Three foodstores sold “NAVAL” oranges. So indi-cated a newspaper advertisement, a win-dow sign, and sales receipts. None of thestores suggested any connection betweenthe navy and the oranges. (For instance,“These vitamin-rich fruits are good forthe high C’s, a sweet treat for the fleet!”)Hence we can assume that they all mis-spelled what should have been NAVEL.

A seedless orange that bears a depres-sion resembling a navel is called a navelorange. The navel (noun) is the mark onthe abdomen representing the placewhere the umbilical cord was connectedto the fetus. Naval (adjective), as innaval officer, pertains to a navy. If youneed a memory aid, you can think of thea’s in anchors aweigh.

NEAR MISS. “Canadian Jet in Near-Miss,” a headline said. The incident maybe described as a near-accident, a near-disaster, or a near-tragedy, but it was anactual miss.

When near is tied to the noun with ahyphen, it implies that the accident, dis-aster, tragedy, or other incident almostoccurred. It came close to occurring but was barely avoided. The miss wasnot avoided. What should have beenavoided was the hyphen—or, better yet,the whole phrase.

What about these two headlines, withno hyphen?—“Near Miss for ElizabethDole” and “Near Miss Reported inSmoke.” Near can also mean narrow. Asan example, at least four dictionariesgive “near escape.” So we cannot con-demn whoever wrote those two head-lines. But why use an expression that canbe confusing? Some readers may notknow whether a “near escape from

prison” was an escape or not. As for lis-teners: oral reports have no punctuation.

There are better ways to express theidea of a narrowly averted air accident,or other mishap, as in the following ex-amples. An article was headed, “PlanesJust Miss Collision Over Sea.” One sen-tence of the text said, “Both crewsplanned to file official near-collision re-ports with the F.A.A.” The Dole storysaid that a plane carrying her “was in-volved in a near-collision with anotheraircraft.”

NEAT. Nothing is wrong with a neathome, desk, or person—one that isspick-and-span, orderly, uncluttered. Aneat trick or job is performed withadroitness, deftness, precision. And ifyou drink whiskey neat, undiluted, youcan get drunk quickly.

On the other hand, “neat” in the juve-nile sense is slang: like “cool,” an all-purpose adjective of approval,synonymous with “keen,” “groovy,”and “swell” from earlier eras. Adultshave been perpetuating the childish useof “neat.”

In response to a news report of arobot designed to save lives by destroy-ing land mines, a young woman at a TVanchor desk made this penetrating com-ment: “That’s pretty neat.”

On the same day, also on TV, a notedcritic expressed his discerning appraisalof the Theremin, the electronic musicalinstrument: “It sounds neat.”

A book instructs computer users thata certain program “has a neat way tochange text” and that “you can do allkinds of neat things with headers. . . .”

See also COOL.

NEE. Nee or née, pronounced NAY,means born, as it does in French. It isused to introduce the maiden surname ofa married woman, for instance “I amGladys Goldman, née O’Brien.” In strictuse, it is not followed by the woman’s

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given name, only by her name at birth:her family name.

A legend under a published photo-graph identified a governor with “Mrs.Thomas Pattinson, nee Marcy Taylor,”who under her original name gainedcelebrity for a valorous act. Formerlywould have been preferable, because thegiven name needed to be mentioned butdid not properly go with “nee.”

See also BORN with name.

NEEDLESS TO SAY. See OFCOURSE, 3.

Negatives. See “AIN’T”; “AREN’TI?”; AS, 4; BECAUSE, 1; BUT, 6; Con-tractions, 2; Double negative; Ellipsis;FLAMMABLE (etc.); Infinitive, 4; LIKE,1; NEITHER; NEVER MIND; NOCHOICE; NO WAY; NONE; NOR;NOT; NOT ABOUT TO; NOT ONLY;NOT TO MENTION; PROOFREAD(etc.); REALLY (end); Reversal of mean-ing, 1; THAT, ALL THAT; TOO, 1;TO SAY NOTHING OF; UNLIKE;WHICH, 1; WILLY-NILLY.

NEITHER. 1. Equation. 2. Negativ-ity. 3. Number and person.

1. EquationNeither . . . nor must connect two

equal things. So must either . . . or andsimilar forms (correlative conjunctions).One side must be grammatically parallelto the other. If a verb follows neither, averb follows nor; if a noun, a noun; andso on. This quotation is aberrant:

In a news conference, the Pravdaeditor, Ivan T. Frolov, also vowed thatunder his direction Pravda would nei-ther cater to conservatives nor radi-cals. . . .

The sentence is not logical. It says that Pravda would neither “cater” (verb)nor “radicals” (noun). “Neither” and

“nor” are followed by different parts ofspeech.

The simplest way to fix the sentence isto exchange the positions of “neither”and “cater to,” thereby equating nounand noun: “. . . Pravda would cater toneither conservatives [noun] nor radicals[noun]. . . .” Another way is to exchange“neither” and “cater” and add anotherto to the “nor” side, thereby equatingprepositional phrases: “. . . Pravdawould cater neither to conservatives norto radicals. . . .”

Neither does not go with “or.” How-ever, if nor introduces two closely relatednouns, or may connect them: “NeitherBennett nor Johnson or his wife was inthe house when the fire broke out.”

See also NOR.

2. NegativityNeither without nor means not either

(adjective) or not either one (pronoun).Respective examples: “She selected nei-ther suitor” and “She selected neither.”

Inasmuch as neither carries a negativemeaning, it is wrong in a sentence likethis, which has another negative: “Ididn’t go neither.” Use either to avoid adouble negative.

Two dialogues from a situation com-edy follow. Each response has twowords, both wrong.

[Elaine:] I haven’t been eating any-thing different.

[Jerry:] Me either.

[Mother:] I’ve never seen your armmove like that.

[Father:] Me either.

The negative does not carry over fromthe first speaker to the second. The latterneeds his own negative, whether neitheror another n-word. Among correct re-sponses that could have been put in thescript are “I neither” / “Neither have I” /“Nor have I” / Jerry: “I haven’t either” /

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Father: “I’ve never seen it either.” (“Meeither” might at best be defended as anellipsis, or a short form, for a sentencethat nobody would be likely to utter:“Me haven’t been eating anything differ-ent either” or “Me have never seen it ei-ther.” Maybe Tarzan could get awaywith “Me” instead of I for the subject ofa sentence, but native speakers of Englishshould know better. See Pronouns, 10.)

3. Number and personNeither without nor is construed as

singular. A verb that follows must be sin-gular: “Only two of the suits are left andneither fits me” (not “fit”).

Any object of the verb also is singularif it would normally be singular for anindividual subject. This is from a newsarticle:

Neither of the women, who were saidto be babysitting the children, waswearing seat belts. . . .

The verb, “was wearing,” is correctlysingular; but the object is inconsistentlyplural: “seat belts.” Neither was wearinga seat belt. (The material between thecommas is irrelevant to the mainthought and belongs in another sen-tence.)

Neither without nor pertains to onlytwo things or two persons, not to threeor more. “Neither of the two boys” /“neither of the couple” / “neither of thepair” are correct. “Her feelings werevery hurt that neither of the three of usshowed up” (said by a caller to a radiopsychologist) is incorrect. See NONE, 1.

The neither . . . nor constructionsometimes applies to more than twothings or two persons: “Neither snow,nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of nightstays these couriers. . . .” Note that noris repeated for each item. This excerptfrom a book is not idiomatic:

. . . Neither the President, Congress asa whole, nor either of its houses may

constitutionally defeat action by therest of the government to meet thecountry’s responsibilities abroad.

When nouns that immediately followneither and nor are singular, the verb issingular: “Neither Jim nor Al earnsmuch money” (not “earn”). When bothnouns are plural, the verb is plural:“Neither gems nor precious metals werefound in the wreckage.”

When the nouns differ in number,should the verb be singular or plural? Ifthe plural noun is nearer to the verb thanthe singular noun, the verb should beplural: “Neither his wife nor his sisterslike his politics.” But if the singular nounis nearer, a problem arises. In the sen-tence, “Neither his sisters nor his wife———his politics,” some authoritieswould allow likes, others like. The ad-vice here is to place the plural noun(“sisters”) second, as in the former ex-ample, or to recast the sentence, e.g.:“His wife and sisters dislike his politics.”

Any possessive pronoun that followsnor also must agree in number with theverb: “Neither Charles nor Susan ownshis or her own home” (not “their”).

A final puzzle concerns the verb fol-lowing a personal pronoun. An author-ity lets the nearer subject govern theverb: “Neither he nor I am at fault.” /“Neither I nor he is at fault.” But revi-sion may be better: “He is not at fault,and neither am I.”

See also EITHER.

NEVER MIND. A weekly’s frontpage contained the headline “Never-mind the English” (referring to competi-tion from New Zealand in popularmusic). In a column in a daily, one read,“Nevermind that I had repeatedly beenwarned . . .” (not to lean too far back ina chair).

Never mind is a phrase of two words:the adverb never, meaning at no time ornot at all; and the verb mind, meaning to

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pay attention to or care about someoneor something (transitive) or to take no-tice or be concerned (intransitive).

The journalists were probably unfa-miliar with the song “Never Mind theWhy and Wherefore”—stressing mind—from Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S.Pinafore.

NEVERTHELESS. See BUT, 5.

NEW RECORD. See RECORD.

NICKEL. The metallic element sym-bolized by Ni is nickel. The five-centpiece is a nickel, after one of its metals.Both end in -el only.

In defining “nickle,” Webster’s hasbeen fickle. It was a local British term for“the green woodpecker” in the seconddictionary. Webster’s Third ignores thebird and calls “nickle” a “var ofNICKEL,” instead of the misspelling itis.

NIL and NILL. See WILLY-NILLY.

NISEI. A biography harks back toWorld War II and

the case of the 112,000 Nisei, over75,000 of them native-born Americancitizens, who were removed fromtheir homes on the West Coast andsent to “relocation centers” in themountain states. . . .

Those who were born in Japan shouldnot be called “Nisei.” An immigrant tothe United States from Japan is an Issei;the word is Japanese for first generation.Nisei, meaning second generation, refersto a U.S.-born child of those immigrants.A U.S.-born grandchild of the immi-grants is a Sansei, which means thirdgeneration. Each term may be used un-changed as a plural, or s may be added:Isseis, Niseis, and Sanseis.

If all of that looks too complicated,

one may refer to Japanese immigrants,children or grandchildren of Japaneseimmigrants, or Americans of Japaneseancestry.

NOBEL PRIZE. Two scientists at theUniversity of California School ofMedicine were being honored for a dis-covery concerning cancer cells. “Todaythey won the Nobel Peace Prize forMedicine,” a newscaster announced ontelevision. She was confused. The DalaiLama of Tibet won the Nobel PeacePrize that year. His activities had nothingto do with medical discoveries, and theresearch of the scientists, Bishop andVarmus, had nothing to do with the pro-motion of peace.

The peace prize is decided andawarded in Norway; the prize inmedicine or physiology, in Sweden alongwith separate prizes for accomplish-ments in chemistry, economics, litera-ture, and physics. A bequest of Alfred B.Nobel, Swedish chemist and the inventorof dynamite, established the NobelPrizes in five fields. They were firstawarded in 1901. The Bank of Swedenadded the economics prize in 1969. Win-ners get money and medals.

NOBODY. See Pronouns, 2C.

NO CHOICE. A restaurant may of-fer no choice of soups. A dictatorshipmay offer no choice in an election. But “Ihad no choice”—or “We have nochoice” or a variation on that theme—isalso a hoary excuse for gory acts.

Hitler said, on launching World WarII, “I have no other choice” than to fightPoland. In the United States, “We haveno choice” was Theodore Roosevelt’s ra-tionale for the nation’s asserting itspower abroad.

At a time of supposed peace, a na-tional newspaper reported that U.S.planes had attacked Serbian planes. Itsexplanation was that the Serbs had

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flown contrary to the United Nations’wishes, leaving the Americans “littlechoice but to blow them out of the sky”(a non sequitur). “Little choice”? TheAmericans had the choice of not blowingthem out of the sky; the choice of talkinginstead of shooting; the choice of goinghome. Life presents most of us with in-numerable choices, and national leadersgenerally have more choices than the restof us.

A local newspaper reported that the mayor “felt he had no choice but tofire almost his entire Library Commis-sion. . . .” The headline read, “JordanDidn’t Have Choice in ‘Massacre.’ ” Butas a city’s chief executive, he had thechoice of not doing it. By the way, toquote a politician’s self-serving blather isexcusable; to headline it without attribu-tion, thus presenting it as fact, is not.

Nominative case. See Pronouns, 10.

Nondefining clause. See THAT andWHICH.

NONE. 1. Number. 2. Other uses.

1. NumberNone (pronoun) may be construed as

singular or plural or either, depending onits meaning in a sentence. A pedagogicand journalistic rule has long held it tobe singular only. Indeed its original ver-sion, in Old English, nan, meant not one:it was a fusion of ne, not, and an, one.

Yet most authorities accept both con-structions, and literature records both.In the Bible we find both “trouble is nearand there is none to help” and “nonecome to the appointed feasts.” Drydenwrote that “none but the brave deservesthe fair” and Tennyson, “I hear a voice,but none are there.”

None may mean not one, emphasiz-ing singularity: “I asked each person,and none was aware of the problem.”Instead of none, however, using not one

or not a single one may be a strongerway to make the point. Unquestionablynone is singular when it means not anyamount or part: “None of the merchan-dise is domestic.” / “She says none of theadvice helps her.”

None may be plural when it meansnot any (people or things): “Of all thepeople in our town, none appear moreindustrious than the Lees.” At times itmust be plural: “None of these con-tenders have much fondness for one an-other.” Using “has” would conflict with“one another,” which is plural. “Noneof the troops were completely preparedfor their mission abroad.” Nobodywould be speaking of one “troop.”

At times none may be regarded as ei-ther singular or plural. “Of the modelsadvertised, none suits me” or “none suitme.” Singularity is possible in this sen-tence: “None of the houses is for sale.”But “houses are” has fewer s’s, a consid-eration if the sentence is to be spoken.

Whichever construction is selected,any related verb and pronoun mustagree in number. “None of the machinesstill works as well as it used to” or“work as well as they used to” / “Noneof the men has his orders yet” or “havetheir orders yet.” (See also Pronouns, 2.)

Whether you deem none to be singu-lar or plural in a particular sentence,stick with your decision. The quotationis from a short story in a magazine.

None of these players was over 18,and they were trying too hard eitherfor the $100 prize or to impress thegirls gathering behind them.

Were should replace “was,” which is inconsistent with “they were” and“them.”

None meaning not any applies tothree or more people or things, not totwo. The phrase “none of the three cats”is right but “none of the two cats” iswrong. See NEITHER, 3.

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2. Other usesNone (adjective) meaning no is an ar-

chaic use that survives in the phrasenone other. “The winner was none otherthan my sister.”

A paragon, someone or somethingwithout equal, may be called a nonesuch(noun). “Caruso was a nonesuch amongsingers.”

None, as an adverb, appears in thefollowing expressions:

• None the less. The phrase none theless or word nonetheless meansnevertheless or however. “Small instature, he was none the less [or“nonetheless”] skilled inbasketball.”

• None the plus comparative. In asentence like “They were none thewiser,” none means not at all or tono extent.

• None too. In its understatement, thisphrase serves as mild sarcasm. It canmean not sufficiently: “This horse isnone too fast.” Sometimes it isambiguous, meaning either barelyenough or not quite enough: “Wearrived none too soon.” See alsoTOO.

NONESUCH, NONETHELESS,NONE TOO, etc. See NONE, 2.

NONFLAMMABLE. See FLAM-MABLE, INFLAMMABLE, and NON-FLAMMABLE.

“NO NOTHING.” See Double neg-ative, 1.

Nonrestrictive clause. See THATand WHICH.

NOON. See A.M., P.M., NOON,MIDNIGHT.

NO ONE. See ONE as pronoun, 3;Pronouns, 2C; Reversal of meaning, 1.

NOR. 1. How it is used. 2. NOR andOR.

1. How it is usedNor (conjunction) often serves as the

negative version of or. It is most com-mon in the construction neither . . . nor:“This is neither fish nor fowl.” In such aconstruction, nor is always right. It is nomore correct to say “neither . . . or” thanto say “either . . . nor.”

Nor, like or, links alternatives. Whenthe alternatives make up the subject of asentence and each alternative is singular,the verb too must be singular. Example:“Neither Dan nor Tom speaks French”(not “speak”). When the alternatives areplural, the verb is plural. When the alter-natives differ in number, complicationsarise. See NEITHER, 3.

A sentence without neither may stilltake nor. Example: “The telephone hasnot rung, nor has any mail arrived.”Such a sentence contains two thoughts,or ideas, and the negative force of thenot would not carry over to the secondthought without help. Nor furnishes thathelp. (Some may find this constructiondifficult to master or too formal for theirtastes. The second clause may be ex-pressed in other ways, e.g., “and no mailhas arrived.”)

“Will you condemn him . . . whoshows no partiality to princes, nor re-gards the rich more than the poor . . . ?”In that Biblical example, the no unaidedwould have no effect on the idea aboutthe rich and the poor. Nor negates theaction of the verb regards. “Or” wouldnot do it.

See also NEITHER, 1, 2.

2. NOR and ORA rather common error is to use

“nor” redundantly in place of or. Gener-ally you use or when (1) the sentence is asimple one (that is, it has essentially onethought) and (2) the negative word orphrase fits each item.

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A book says a little airplane “didn’thave a rudder, nor a tailplane.” Manygrammarians would disapprove of thesentence, considering it to contain a dou-ble negative. (Literally neither . . . noramounts to a double negative; neverthe-less it is well established.) A better phras-ing is “didn’t have a rudder or atailplane.” The sentence is simple, andthe one negative (“didn’t have”) fits eachitem (each aeronautic part).

An alternative phrasing is “didn’thave a rudder, nor did it have a tail-plane.” The sentence no longer is a sim-ple one (a clause has been added), andno longer does the one negative cover itall. Under those circumstances, nor is theconjunction to use.

In another book we read: “His son’sliterary success would never cheer LordAuchinleck nor improve relations be-tween them.” Change “nor” to or. Thesentence is simple, and the first negative(“never”) fits each item (“cheer” and“improve”).

Some grammarians would condonethe use of nor in each excerpt as a way ofstressing a difference between the twoitems. It conforms with the practice ofsome past writers, including Shake-speare and Shaw. Except for those whofancy themselves in that class, the safestcourse is to follow the rules.

See also OR.

NORMALCY. A myth that “Presi-dent Harding coined ‘normalcy’ from ig-norance of ‘normality’ ” has beenperpetuated since the twenties. Two au-thors of a handbook for writers repeatedit (in the above quotation). So did a his-tory teacher of mine in high school. Itdates at least from 1929, when a writeralleged in a tract of the Society for PureEnglish:

If . . . ‘normalcy’ is ever to become anaccepted word it will presumably be

because the late President Harding didnot know any better.

The Oxford English Dictionary tracesnormalcy to a mathematics dictionarypublished in 1857—eight years beforeHarding was born.

It is the persistent objection to nor-malcy, not the use of the word, that isbased on ignorance. The word is a validalternative to normality, but be advisedof that objection.

The statement below was uttered in1920 by the man who occupied theWhite House from 1921 to 1923. It istechnically impeccable, perhaps tooslick; it has the earmarks of a speechwriter.

America’s present need is not heroicsbut healing, not nostrums but nor-malcy, not revolution but restoration.

NORTH POLE and MAGNETICPOLE. At a national meeting of math-ematics teachers, a salesman was sellingcompasses. “These compasses draw cir-cles; they won’t point to the NorthPole,” a columnist wrote.

The magnetic compass, the type ofcompass that he probably was alludingto, does not point to the North Pole. Itpoints to the North Magnetic Pole (orMagnetic North Pole). The location ofthe latter varies from time to time, butatlases published in the 1990s place itamid the Queen Elizabeth Islands in thewaters of northern Canada, some 800miles from the true North Pole. (There isanother type of navigational compass,the gyroscopic compass, used on largeships, which does point to the trueNorth Pole, although no one would ex-pect it to be for sale at a teachers’ con-vention.)

Just as the earth has two poles, northand south, it has two magnetic poles,north and south. Either end of a magnetalso is called a magnetic pole.

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NOT. 1. Ambiguity. 2. Problems ofplacement.

1. AmbiguityThe use of this adverb requires care.

Usually not is definite in its meaning:negation, refusal, in no way, to no de-gree, no. Yet in some contexts, as indi-cated below, not can permit widelyvarying interpretations.

A. NOT ALL and ALL . . . NOTNot all . . . are is different from

all . . . are not. The latter invites confu-sion. Normally the place for not is im-mediately before the word or phrase thatit qualifies.

These two sentences do not have thesame meaning:

• Not all lawyers are truthful.• All lawyers are not truthful.

The first means that some are untruth-ful. The second means that all are un-truthful; that is the literal meaning,although it may not be the intendedmeaning.

The problem is essentially the samewhen not is separated from every plusnoun, everyone, or everything. “Not ev-ery applicant is qualified” (some are un-qualified) is far different from “Everyapplicant is not qualified” (literally, allare unqualified).

A book says (about writing an arti-cle): “Everything that will go into it isnot in your notebook.” The authorsmeant: “Not everything that will go intoit is in your notebook.”

B. NOT TOOThe standard meaning of not too is

not excessively. It can be confused with acolloquial meaning: not sufficiently.

“That chinaware is not too fancy for aholiday dinner,” says Gertrude. Does sheapprove or disapprove of the dishes?The standard meaning is that they are

not excessively fancy. The colloquialmeaning is that they are not sufficientlyfancy.

Fred, a farmer, says, “We haven’t hadtoo much rain this year.” (Of course -n’tis a contraction of not.) He could be ei-ther pleased or displeased by theweather. If rain was excessive last yearand flooded his farm but has been nor-mal this year, Fred may be speaking liter-ally and expressing his relief. On theother hand, if there is a drought,“haven’t had too much” may be his wayof saying “haven’t had enough.”

See also TOO.

C. NOT with ASIt can be confusing to follow not with

as, in the manner of this example:“Columbus was not the first Europeanto discover America, as many people be-lieve.” Do “many people” believe thathe was or that he was not? Rephrase it.Depending on meaning, you might eitherbegin with the phrase “Contrary to pop-ular belief, . . .” or end the sentence with“America” and add a sentence: “Manypeople now believe that other Europeansarrived earlier.”

See also AS, 4.

D. NOT with BECAUSE etc.Whether not applies just to the next

word or to more can be a puzzle. Thesentence is apt to include because.

“He was not hired because of hisbackground.” Was he hired for anotherreason? Or was he turned down, and, ifso, was the reason something in hisbackground? In either case, rephrasing isdesirable. For example: “He was hired,not because of his background, but be-cause . . .” or “He was not hired, andthe reason was his background.” If asentence has two ideas, they should beclearly distinguished.

An explanatory phrase without be-cause can create a similar ambiguity.

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“The bill was not introduced for politi-cal reasons.” / “We did not file at Grant’srequest.” Does “not” modify all that fol-lows or just the verb (“introduced” or“file”)?

See also BECAUSE, 1.

E. NOT with LIKEThis is a problem similar to that of

not with as, though less common. “Aliceis not married, like Betty.” Is Betty mar-ried or single?

See also LIKE, 1; UNLIKE, 1.

F. Omission of NOTThe fear of omitting not leads the

press to misrepresent legal proceedings.It usually reports pleas and verdicts ofnot guilty as “innocent.” Not is infre-quently forgotten; Reversal of meaning,1, gives examples.

See also Guilt and innocence, 2.

G. Superfluous NOTIn a complicated sentence, not is

sometimes introduced unnecessarily,producing a double negative.

“. . . He had found nothing to makehim doubt that H—— was not rightlyconvicted.” In other words, he firmly be-lieved that the person was wrongly con-victed. That is the opposite of theintended meaning: Actually he believedthat the conviction was justified. But anot was erroneously slipped into the sen-tence, canceling the negative effect ofdoubt and reversing the meaning. Omitnot, or rephrase the sentence; for in-stance: “. . . He had found no reason toquestion H———’s conviction.”

See also Double negative.

H. Uncompleted NOTSometimes it is unclear what not per-

tains to. Whatever that is has been omit-ted.

“The Senate’s current version calls forspending $2.6 billion for drug enforce-ment that the House does not.” The

House “does not” what? The writer hasleft out a necessary verb.

See also Ellipsis.

2. Problems of placementReferring to the two sides in a labor

dispute, a television reporter said, “Theyhave been not making any progress.”The statement is clear, but “have notbeen making” would be more idiomatic.Perhaps he was under the erroneous im-pression that splitting a verb pair, likehave been, was wrong.

Putting not in the wrong place canthrow a sentence out of kilter; witnessthis complex example from a newspa-per’s front page:

It was an attempt not to changePresident Bush’s mind, which the or-ganizers of the march consider im-probable if not impossible, or topersuade Congress to pass a law,which they deem unnecessary.

Better: “It was not an attempt to change. . . .” Thus not modifies “was anattempt.” The news writer misplaced“not,” modifying “to change”; a readercould at first think the organizers at-tempted to avoid changing the presi-dent’s mind. The “which” clauses (withunclear antecedents and four negatives,including a second “not”) contribute tothe muddiness.

When a sentence has multiple verbs, itmay not be clear which one not modifies.It takes some effort to interpret this pressexample correctly:

Defense attorney Nancy G——asked the court to dismiss that chargebecause the ruling involved a thirdparty who struck a pregnant woman,not the mother herself [emphasisadded].

Does the emphasized phrase contrastwith “involved a third party” or with

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“struck a pregnant woman”? A reader atfirst could reasonably think it refers tothe latter, because “woman” immedi-ately precedes “not.” However, the storysuggests that the other interpretation iscorrect. It would be less ambiguous tosay that “the ruling involved, not a preg-nant woman, but a third party whostruck a pregnant woman.” (The writerencouraged confusion by following“pregnant woman” with “the mother,”instead of repeating “pregnant woman.”One could take them to be two people,for a pregnant woman is not necessarilya mother. See Synonymic silliness.)

A fad based on a disconnected “not”appears to be fading away, fortunately.Someone first makes an outlandish state-ment; for example, “The President hasditched his wife and moved in his girlfriend.” After a pause, the single word“not” follows, supposedly canceling thefib. If a listener does not stick around forthe “not” or fails to recognize it when sogrossly misplaced, a rumor can takewing.

Not goes before the to of an infinitive:“She swore not to reveal their secret,”instead of “to not.” See Infinitive, 4.

Among entries dealing with not areBECAUSE, 1; BUT, 6; Contractions, 2;Double negative; NOT ABOUT TO;NOT ONLY; NOT TO MENTION;PROOFREAD, PROOFREADING (ex-ample); Reversal of meaning, 1; THAT,ALL THAT; WHICH, 1 (example).

NOT ABOUT TO. The subtitle of amagazine article about hotel maids wasa long one:

If they were going to clean rooms,they were going to be well paid—sothey struggled for their union. Andthey’re not about to give it up.

The phrase “not about to” in the senseof determined not to or unwilling to (dosomething) is colloquial and regional. It

was curious to find it displayed promi-nently in a reputedly sophisticated publi-cation representing a city where thatexpression was alien.

The standard meaning of about to isready to or soon to (do something). Inthe negative, the encroachment of thenonstandard meaning brings problemsof ambiguity. “He is about to leave forhome” is fairly clear. “He is not about toleave for home,” as broadcast nationally,is ambiguous. Does it mean that he willnot leave soon (the standard meaning) orthat he is determined not to leave at all(the nonstandard meaning)?

Even when the meaning is clearer, thenonstandard phrase is not appropriate inwriting, unless the writer’s intent is to re-produce colloquial, regional speech; andit can be risky. In the press sample below,a foreign correspondent used the phrasein the nonstandard way (the context in-dicates), using it inappropriately and—as it turned out—inaccurately:

But the reaction by the authoritiesindicated that the Czechoslovak[Communist] leadership is not aboutto take the path chosen in East Ger-many.

The leadership in Czechoslovakia wasindeed “about to take the path chosen inEast Germany.” Four weeks after the ar-ticle appeared, it resigned.

NOT ALL THAT. See THAT, ALLTHAT.

“NOT HARDLY.” See Double nega-tive, 3.

NOTHER. As a legitimate variationof other, nother is obsolete. It is now di-alectal and nonstandard.

A radio announcer, advertisingrecorded products, said, “Video is awhole nother thing.” Correction: “Videois a whole other thing,” or, better,

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“Video is another thing entirely.” An-other equals an other. The n is neededonly when the indefinite article adjoinsthe o. See A and AN.

NOT JUST, NOT MERELY, NOTSIMPLY. See NOT ONLY.

NOT ONLY. In using the phrase notonly, watch out for three pitfalls. Thissentence (from a book on marketing) il-lustrates them:

The franchise not only buys train-ing, but a recognized brand name.

1. Misplacement of not only. The wordonly tends to attach itself to whateverimmediately follows. In the sample,the word following “only” is “buys.”The writer did not intend to empha-size “buys,” but that is what he hasdone. He meant to emphasize “train-ing.” (See also ONLY.)

2. Grammatical imbalance. Not onlyand but also are sister (correlative)conjunctions. The grammatical struc-tures following them must match. Inthe sample, the phrase following “notonly” is a verb and its object (“buystraining”) whereas what follows“but” is a noun phrase (“a recognizedbrand name”). The phrases do notmatch grammatically.

3. Omission of also (or a synonym). Asentence like the following does notneed also (or a synonym): “Today Ichoose not steak but lobster.” An itemis substituted for another. However,the next sentence needs the also: “To-day I choose not only steak but alsolobster” (or “but lobster too” or aswell or in addition). An item is addedto another.

We correct the quotation by inter-changing “not only” and “buys” and byinserting also:

The franchise buys not only train-ing but also a recognized brand name.

Now noun matches noun, and also (ad-verb) announces an addition. (Thecomma is not necessary.)

“The franchise not only buys trainingbut” would be acceptable if followed byanother verb and its object, e.g., “buys arecognized brand name also.”

The next (newspaper) example prop-erly contains “also,” but it too misplaces“not only,” producing a grammaticalimbalance.

The fact that the army fired on Chi-nese citizens not only shocked theChinese people but also large seg-ments of the army. . . .

Again “not only” is followed by a verband its object (“shocked the Chinesepeople”) whereas “but” is followed by anoun phrase (“large segments of thearmy”). The sentence may be correctedmost simply by interchanging “notonly” and “shocked”:

. . . shocked not only the Chinesepeople but also large segments of thearmy.

This way, noun matches noun.Occasionally not only does not need

to be followed by but or by also (or syn-onym):

• But is unnecessary if the contrastthat it expresses is indicated inanother way; for instance:“Protecting the environment is notonly good public policy: It can begood business too.”

• Also (or synonym) is unnecessarywhen what follows the but does notadd something substantial butmerely intensifies what came before;for instance: “He was not only apoet but a great poet.”

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The principles that apply to not onlyapply also to similar phrases, like notjust, not merely, and not simply. “Whathelps agriculture benefits not just farm-ers but the nation as well.”

NOTORIETY, NOTORIOUS. Aperson who is notorious (adjective) iswell known for something bad or objec-tionable. “The accused is notorious forhis drug dealing.” / “He’s a notoriousliar.” The condition of being notorious isnotoriety (noun).

A Wall Street analyst was introducedon television as “one man who hasachieved some notoriety for his predic-tions.” Fame, prominence, or reputewould probably have expressed themeaning intended by the host, withoutinsulting his guest.

The featured words should not beconfused with other words beginningwith not-: A person of note has achievedsome notice or notability (nouns), thatis, distinction, eminence, or importance,but not “notoriety.” The person is no-table or noteworthy (adjectives) but not“notorious.”

The implication of badness may ormay not apply to inanimate objects: “anotorious gambling house” / “a notori-ously [adverb] soft metal.”

NOT REALLY. See REALLY.

NOT THAT. See THAT, ALLTHAT.

NOT TO MENTION. Should wemention this expression at all? It wasused as follows in a telecast and a news-paper:

These were bikers [motorcyclists] forDole, not to mention it was a greatday to go biking.

One of the many oddities in this bat-tered capital is that a son of Gen. Mo-

hammed Farah Aidid, the Somali fac-tion leader who humiliated the UnitedStates in 1993, was a naturalizedAmerican citizen, not to mention aUnited States marine.

Another oddity is the expression “not tomention.” If one is not to mention some-thing, why does one mention it?

At times the phrase is a colloquialsubstitute for and by the way (whichwould have suited the first example) orlet alone. At other times its purpose isunclear; the item or point that it intro-duces might better be joined to the mainidea by and or or. The second examplecould have said the son “was a natural-ized American citizen and a UnitedStates marine.” A book on word usagesays of an adverb:

. . . Where may also be a pronoun or anoun (not to mention a conjunction).

How about “a pronoun, a noun, or aconjunction”?

See also TO SAY NOTHING OF;Verbal unmentionables.

NOT TOO. See TOO.

Nouns. 1. Definition. 2. Noun cre-ations. 3. Number. 4. Omission. 5. Us-ing nouns as adjectives.

1. DefinitionA noun is the name of something or

someone. These are the main kinds:

• Proper noun (also called propername)—the name of a specificperson, place, or thing, spelled withan initial capital (Gertrude, Chicago,Acme Laundry).

• Its opposite: common noun (alsocalled common name)—a name thatrepresents no specific thing, place,person, etc. but rather a category

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with multiple specimens (antelope,planet, noise).

• Abstract noun—the name of an idea,quality, or state (patience, length,merriment).

• Its opposite: concrete noun—thename of an object that one’s sensescan perceive (apricot, robin,telephone).

• Collective noun—the designation ofa group of things or people (team,gang, army).

Besides being single words, nounsmay be hyphenated words or groups ofwords (will-o’-the-wisp, human being,scarlet fever).

Among other uses, nouns may be sub-jects (“Rain is falling”), objects (“He hitthe target”), complements (“That lady isher mother”), and appositives (“Jim, theguide, has arrived”). An appositive is aword or group of words in apposition,i.e., placed beside another to identify orexplain it. (Guide is a noun in appositionwith Jim. See also Punctuation, 3A, oncommas.)

Some words, like love and set, areclassified both as nouns and verbs. Otherwords, although not classified as nouns,can serve the function of nouns. In thesentence “I love eating,” the last word isa gerund, a verb form acting as a noun.(See Gerund.) A word or group of wordsthat serves the function of a noun,whether it is a true noun or its equiva-lent, is called a substantive.

2. Noun creationsUsing an adjective as a noun in place

of a legitimate noun is a contemporaryfad, illustrated as follows.

A commercial for a shampoo said,“You really can feel the clean.” Askedwhat an R movie rating meant to him, achild said, “It means in some ways moreintense. We like intense.”

Perhaps one cannot expect an adver-tiser to care about using the noun clean-

ness or cleanliness properly or a ten-year-old to know the noun intensity.However, a radio psychologist shouldknow politeness. She advised a caller to“Just turn on the polite.” And a stand-up comedian should know humility(even if he does not practice it): He calledParisians arrogant and added, “If youwant humble, go to Paris, Kentucky.”

Those who put on situation comediesare guilty of similar distortions, such as acomedienne’s comment, “It’s not aboutcute. It’s about pitiful.” Could she andher writers all have been ignorant of thenouns cuteness and pitifulness? Anothercomedienne said, “I think there are dif-ferent types of pretty”—instead of pretti-ness or beauty. Her counterpart onanother show instructed sonny in thedifferent types of “proud.” She neededpride. A supporting actor on still an-other show said, “If you want common,you name a kid John.” The noun is com-monness.

Clean, intense, polite, humble, cute,pitiful, pretty, proud, and common areall adjectives, modifiers of nouns but notnouns themselves. Some words that areprimarily adjectives legitimately doubleas substantives; the nouns they wouldmodify are understood: a commercial(announcement); a musical (comedy);the rich and the poor (people). One mayspeak of the humble, but not of wanting“humble.”

The nouns are ripped more painfullyfrom some adjective-noun phrases, in-cluding classified ads, personal ads, andgay man; and the adjectives are dubi-ously made plural: “classifieds” / “per-sonals” / “gays.” (See also GAY, 3.)

News people create some nouns oftheir own. In traffic reports, “the road-way is blocked by an overturn” (insteadof overturned vehicle) and “we do havea stall on Highway 24, eastbound” (nota place for a horse but a substitute forstalled vehicle).

“There are more layers of pretend in

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‘Waiting for Guffman’ than in mostmovies,” a critic wrote. “Pretend” is averb. Pertinent nouns include pretense,pretending, and make-believe.

Nouns are sometimes forced into ver-bal roles. See Verbs, 2.

3. NumberAn elephant has a trunk. Two ele-

phants have two trunks. Who could dis-agree? Yet the choice between singularand plural nouns seems to baffle somepeople, who figuratively attempt to forcetwo elephants to accept one trunk. Forexample:

Both were from Central America andhad a visa, but they didn’t have awork permit.

A newspaper erred. Two visitors wouldnot share one visa or one work permit.They had visas. They lacked work per-mits. The thing possessed would be sin-gular if the subject of the sentence weresingular; for instance: “Each man had avisa but neither had a work permit.” An-other paper made a similar mistake:

SEG Technologies Inc. in Philadelphiaeven invites people to watch their PCbeing assembled.

Just one “PC” for all to share? Make it“their PCs.” A number of people have anumber of the devices, which are, afterall, personal computers.

A newscaster said, “Cats seem to havea mind of their own.” There is no collec-tive feline mind. “Cats seem to haveminds of their own” or “A cat seems tohave a mind of its own.”

An author believes that “editorsshould be required to write a novel.”They would not all collaborate on thesame novel. Either “editors should . . .write novels” or “an editor should . . .write a novel.”

The rule that plural subjects possessplural things has exceptions:

• Individuals that constitute a subjectmay possess something in common:“The Smiths had a lease.” / “Agnesand John met at their college.”

• If what is possessed is not a concreteitem but an abstract quality, thesingular will do: “The cars gainedspeed.” / “The boys’ angersubsided.”

Propriety of number is more than amatter of tidiness. It makes a differencewhether Tom and Mary are looking forapartments or an apartment.

A grammar rightly points out a badshift in pronouns: “. . . A [job-seeking]person who interviews a company ismore successful . . . than one who waitsfor a company to interview them.” This isgiven as correct: “. . . People who inter-view companies are more successful . . .than those who wait for a company to in-terview them.” But the second “com-pany” should be made plural too.

Two statements on the radio exem-plify an occasional mistake: “We canprovide that [neutering] service for dogand cats.” / “Doctors have more bag oftricks. . . .” Dogs and cats. Bags oftricks. Making the final noun plural isnot enough.

See also Collective nouns; ONE OF, 3.

4. OmissionIn a complicated sentence telling of

multiple actions, sometimes it is not im-mediately clear who or what is perform-ing one of the actions. The writer orspeaker has left out a subject (the doer ofan action), either a noun or a pronoun,leaving a disconnected predicate (thepart of a sentence or clause that tellsabout the subject).

A TV network’s anchor man spoke ofan explosion on a train in Pakistan:

Pakistan said it has proof Indian intel-ligence agents planted the bomb andlinked the attack to tensions over nu-clear testing.

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Who did the linking? The sentence seemsto say the agents, but the speaker proba-bly meant Pakistan. A noun (e.g., Pak-istan) or pronoun (it) should havepreceded “linked.” (And “has proof”should have been “had proof.” SeeTense, 2.)

See also Pronouns, 6.

5. Using nouns as adjectivesNouns often serve as adjectives: fire

insurance; snow removal; spring clean-ing. Such use is not necessarily objection-able. What can be criticized are uses likethese:

• “The Senate consent to the treatyand its rejection of fouramendments . . . was adisappointment toconservatives . . .” (from a newsdispatch). “Senate” should bepossessive—Senate’s—just as its ispossessive. “Senate consent” isheadline language.

• “She displays both dramatic andmusic skills.” Dramatic ought to bematched by musical. A standardadjective does not mix well with anoun-adjective.

• “. . . Exotic species invasions” / “thebiggest selenium discharger” / “amultimillion-dollar aid package” (bytwo men of science and a newsservice). Better: invasions of exoticspecies / discharger of selenium /package of aid.

See also Modifiers, 4; Prepositions, 2,4.

NOW. See Anachronism, 2; PRES-ENTLY.

NO WAY. Years ago I asked a formerflame if she cared to renew our relation-ship. “No way!” she exclaimed. I re-sponded, “Where there’s a will, there’s away.” She amended her answer: “Nowill.” At least I had the satisfaction of

winning her concession on a point of En-glish usage.

In popular use, “No way” often sub-stitutes for a more straightforward nega-tive like no or not. At times it standsalone as an interjection. At other times itis stuck onto sentences crudely—ofteninaccurately as well, for frequently thereis a way.

The form in which the expressionreached my ears at the start of the seven-ties was “in no way.” Before long, the“in” was being dropped and the utteringof “no way” became a fad. The exampleis from a restaurant review:

No way am I hungry after thismeal; not for at least 8 hours.

An improved version, “In no way am Ihungry after this meal for at least 8hours,” adds in and deletes “not.” (SeeDouble negative.) A still better versionscraps “no way” and relocates threewords:

I am not hungry after this meal forat least eight hours. [Most publica-tions spell out the digits.]

The following sentence opens a newsbrief:

There’s no way Reagan will acceptan invitation by leaders of SouthAfrica’s neighboring black states tovisit the region in an attempt to endthe violence.

To keep the first three words but makethe sentence minimally grammatical, ex-tra words are needed to connect the nounphrase “no way” to the verb “accept”;for instance: “There’s no way in whichReagan will accept . . .” or “There’s noway to get Reagan to accept. . . .” Butwas there truly no possible condition un-der which he would accept? The best so-lution might be to toss out the first threewords and insert not:

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Reagan will not accept an invita-tion by leaders of South Africa’sneighboring black states. . . .

Unless no way is used to mean not aproper way—“This is no way for a ladyto behave”—its unqualified use shouldbe reserved for impossibilities: “There isno way to travel faster than the speed oflight.”

An even clumsier opening than“There’s no way” is “No way there’s,”heard in a TV report:

No way there’s enough money in theeducation budget to pay for all this.

It is simpler and neater to say, “There’snot enough money. . . .”

The columnist who wrote the samplesentence below (on how a comediantried to help a New York mayoral candi-date) seemed hell-bent on using thephrase, at the cost of a confusingly con-voluted sentence with two double nega-tives.

No way he wouldn’t say somethingoffensive and no way it wouldn’t bepicked up, set aside and then repeatedjust when it would hurt the most.

This is simpler and clearer:

He would say something offensiveand it would be picked up, set aside,and then repeated. . . .

Noway or noways is an old adverb,meaning in no manner or by no meansand pronounced with stress on no-. Thetwo-word version either stresses way orgives the two words about equal stress.These are correct examples from TheOxford English Dictionary: “They weretied up and could noways appear”(1702). “I have lived a virgin and Inoway doubt I can live so still” (1875).A synonym of noway is nowise or, morecommonly, in no wise.

NUCLEAR. Nuclear is pronouncedNOO-klee-urr. Sometimes it is mispro-nounced “NOO-kyuh-lurr,” and someof the mispronouncers are people whoshould know better: a secretary of de-fense was heard uttering it the latter wayseventeen times in one interview. Presi-dent Eisenhower was said to have habit-ually given the word the same twist.(Maybe there ought to be a law sayingthat nobody shall have any control overweapons that he cannot pronounce.)

Nuclear, in the sense of pertaining toweapons and energy, its predominantsense, is now more common than its syn-onym, atomic, the original term. Basi-cally nuclear (adjective) pertains to anucleus (noun): a center or core aroundwhich things are collected. The nucleus,in biology, is a body of protoplasmwithin an animal or plant cell that is es-sential to such functions as growth andreproduction. In chemistry and physics itis the central part of an atom, includesprotons and neutrons among its parts,and makes up nearly all the atom’s mass.Either nuclei or nucleuses serves as a plu-ral.

Two terms that look and sound rathersimilar but have significant differencesare nuclear fission, the principle of theatomic bomb and civil atomic energy,and nuclear fusion, the principle of thehydrogen bomb. In fission, the nuclei ofatoms are split; in the process, part oftheir mass is converted to energy. In fu-sion, the nuclei of atoms fuse into heav-ier nuclei (e.g., tritium, or heavyhydrogen, into helium), but the totalmass is less and the balance is convertedinto energy. Thermonuclear, pronouncedthur-mo-NOO-klee-urr, pertains to thefusion process, which is conducted athigh temperatures. Thermo- means heat.

NUMBER and AMOUNT. SeeAMOUNT and NUMBER.

Number (grammatical). Number ina grammatical sense is mainly (1) the dis-

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tinction between singular and pluralwords; that is, between words that applyto one thing or person and words thatapply to more than one; or (2) a form ofa particular word or phrase that indi-cates such singularity or plurality. Tree,woman, and this are in the singularnumber, whereas trees, women, andthese are in the plural number. A subjectand its verb must agree in number; forinstance, “A tree stands in the yard” but“Two trees stand in the yard.”

Among entries dealing with numberin a grammatical sense are the following:AMOUNT and NUMBER; BE-TWEEN, 2; Collective nouns; Contrac-tions, 1; COUPLE; EACH, EACH OF;EACH OTHER; EITHER, 1, 2; EVERY-BODY, EVERYONE, 4; EVERY ONEand EVERYONE; Expletives; FEWERand LESS; LATTER; LOT, 1; MAJOR-ITY, 2; MANY and MUCH; MORETHAN ONE; NEITHER, 3; NONE, 1;NOR; Nouns, 3; ONE OF; OR; PER-SONNEL; PLUS; Pronouns, 2; STAFF;TOTAL, 2; TRIO; Verbs, 3;

See also Plurals and singulars with ref-erences listed in 2L.

The entry Numbers concerns figuresand statistics.

NUMBER OF. See Collective nouns,2.

Numbers. 1. Ambiguity. 2. Contradic-tion. 3. Division between lines. 4. Im-possibility. 5. Inaccuracy. 6. Inanity. 7.Incomparability. 8. Incompleteness. 9.In lawsuits. 10. Misinterpretation. 11.Spelling out.

1. Ambiguity“Building permits were down six

point eight percent in October,” a news-caster announced. “Down” from what?Were they down from what they hadbeen in September, or were they downfrom what they had been in October ofthe previous year? The newscaster, onnetwork television, failed to say. Further-

more, was she referring to the total num-ber of permits or to the total of esti-mated costs? We do not know. The “sixpoint eight percent” hinted at a precisionthat was not there.

When comparisons are made, it mustbe clear what is being compared to what.When totals are presented, it must beclear what items have been added up.See Comparison, 1.

A man saw “between four and fivehundred people” at a place. What wasthe smallest number of people he sawthere at any time? It is plausible that if hewas the fifth to arrive, he saw four thereat first. The context, in a biography, indi-cates that the writer meant four hundredbut omitted hundred.

This was heard on television news:“Estimates range from 250 to 400,000.”This time we cannot figure it out. Wemust guess. It is likely that the speakermeant 250 thousand but omitted thou-sand.

To save one word, the author and thenews man each risked misinterpretation.

2. ContradictionIt is a serious problem when numbers

contradict their interpretation, as in thetwo press examples that follow.

. . . The southwestern neighborhoodsrejected the ballot measure 9,323votes against to 17,251 in favor.

The number of marriage licenses isalso down in Louisiana, the onlyother state that requires premaritalAIDS testing. In the first quarter of1988 776 marriage licenses were is-sued in New Orleans, the only parishmonitored by the State Department ofHealth, as against 628 the previousyear. . . .

In the first excerpt, the figures contradict“rejected.” The second excerpt showsthe figures going up, not “down.” (It hasthree lesser flaws: For one thing, running

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two successive figures risks confusion;this year could have replaced the date.Then too, “the previous year” is not usu-ally used for last year. Anyway, it lacks aqualification, like during the correspond-ing period.)

It is equally troublesome when twonumbers contradict each other, as in thenext two extracts.

An article attributes a number to “in-dustry analysts” and a second number,ten paragraphs later, to “some esti-mates”:

They estimate, however, that thereare fewer than 20,000 fax machines inAmerican homes. . . .

By some estimates, there are morethan 20 million people working athome with a facsimile machine. . . .

The two estimates differ by a factor ofmore than 1,000. Yet we are offered noexplanation of that remarkable discrep-ancy (let alone how 20 million peoplecan share “a facsimile machine”—seeNouns, 3).

Where was the copy editor when thefollowing passage went into the paper?

A 31-year old man fell six storiesfrom a window ledge down a lightwell while attempting to gain accessto his apartment early yesterday.

San Francisco Police said that T—— G——, 27, of 250 F—— Streeteither locked himself out or had beenlocked out by his roommate.

The four-year discrepancy is glaring,granted that a harrowing experience canage one. (By the way, a hyphen is missingafter “31-year.” And we may wonderwhy a news story has to begin with suchan insignificant detail, particularly whenthe very next sentence includes that de-tail. A far more important fact, the vic-tim’s “guarded condition,” wasrelegated to the third paragraph.)

Although the final example does notleave us readers puzzled, the way it is ex-pressed may be questioned.

In addition, Mr. Dukakis’s adminis-tration announced last week that taxrevenue would be as much as $77 mil-lion less than anticipated, creating apotential deficit in the nearly $11 bil-lion budget for 1988.

“As much as” lifts us. “Less than antici-pated” drops us. That roller-coaster ef-fect could have been avoided, forinstance by changing “would be as muchas” to could fall to or by simply chang-ing “much” to little.

3. Division between linesWhen a figure and a word together

represent a number, particularly a dollaramount (like $3 billion), both elementsshould go on the same line, unlike thesetwo examples:

By last month, more than $2million of this fiscal year’s $2.5million overtime budget had alreadybeen paid out. . . .

. . . He does not know how much of a subsidy the east hotelwould get but it would not be “significantly less” than the $17 million awarded to the Hilton.

Separating “$2” or $17” from “million”is likely to impede readers.

See also Division of words.

4. ImpossibilityThe statements quoted below cannot

literally be true. They imply calculationsthat are impossible. First an excerptfrom a news article:

. . . Tests of apple products fromtwo education department ware-houses showed that they contained

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levels 400 times lower than federallimits.

. . . Some tests showed the productsat 1,000 to 10,000 times lower thanallowable limits.

Inasmuch as one time lower is zero,“400 times lower” defies the imagina-tion, let alone “1,000 to 10,000 timeslower.” Could the levels (of a pesticide)found in the tests have been one four-hundredth of the limits, one thousandthof the limits, and so on?

A magazine ad for a computer com-pany (not Apple) makes a similarly im-possible claim:

. . . Our latest microprocessor tech-nology requires each transistor to be100 times thinner than a human hair.

The statement is corrected by a captionelsewhere in the ad: “1/100th the thick-ness of a human hair.”

A book on science says that a film ofoil was “on average ten or twenty timesthinner” than gold leaf. One-tenth orone-twentieth as thin? Later the spacialseparation of atomic layers of gold isjudged to be “two dozen times less thanthe minimum thickness we found so eas-ily for an oil film upon water.” Onetwenty-fourth as large? (The consistencyof “on average” [a mean?] and “ten ortwenty” [a range?] is a lesser question.)

A well-known anchor man an-nounced to the nation the incrediblenews that “U.S. farm exports declinedmore than 300 percent last year” (pre-sumably from the year before). If farmexports had declined 100 percent, allfarm exports would have ceased. Couldsomeone have typed an extra zero in thecopy that he read?

5. InaccuracyWhat we see in print is not necessarily

so. Most of us know that and still tendto trust the printed word. Like everyone

else, a professional writer can get a factor figure wrong. Usually a copy editorreviews his work, but errors do sneak by,particularly those that cannot be cor-rected without specially researchedbackground information.

The cause of a mistake may be absent-mindedness, carelessness, faulty mem-ory, haste, ignorance, inadequateresearch or thought, miscalculation, mis-understanding, repetition of another’serror, slip of the keyboard, or a combi-nation of the foregoing. It may be “justone of those things” and truly “everyonemakes mistakes,” as we often say. What-ever the reason, it does not justify infect-ing readers with misinformation, whichcan be passed on to others in viral fash-ion.

A news service circulated a factualmistake far and wide:

Syria, along with Egypt and Jor-dan, lost territory to Israel in the 1967seven-day war and was known tohave adopted a hard line on gettingthe lost ground back.

The Israelis fought the war in six days,hence the well-known appellation theSix-Day War. (On the seventh day theyrested.)

The same news service reported thisstartling intelligence: “Seven out of everyten married Italians commit adultery.” Itbased its report on a survey of 1,000families by the weekly magazine L’Euro-pea showing that “49 percent of the menand 21 percent of the women” admittedthe sin. The service was wrong, even ifwe assume that the survey was reliable,that it represented all Italians, and thathalf of them were men and half women.Adulterers then would make up 35 per-cent of married Italians, or seven out oftwenty. Evidently someone had simplyadded 49 and 21, forgetting that 100percent of each sex made up only 50 per-cent of the total.

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A newspaper item told of nuns with aconvent at the scene of the formerAuschwitz death camp, “where theypray for the thousands who died in theNazi Holocaust.” How could any writeror editor on the staff of a largemetropolitan daily be ignorant of thefact that the Nazis murdered millions?

The sentence below is extracted froman earlier issue of the same newspaper.What the writer apparently lacked (andhis copy editor failed to provide) was notfactual knowledge but the ability to di-vide sixty-five by six.

There are about six phones per 100persons in the Soviet Union, which isless than one-fifth the American ratioof 65 per 100.

But then they probably surpassed us inarithmetic.

See also 10B.

6. InanitySome writers can find no other way to

compare figures than to state the obvi-ous. The first example deals withNicaragua.

. . . The country’s per capita grossdomestic product has fallen toroughly $300 a year. That figure is lessthan the comparable figure of $330 ayear for Haiti, long the hemisphere’spoorest nation.

Industrial accidents in the SovietUnion killed 14,377 people last year.. . . That’s more than the 13,833troops the Soviets say they lost ineight years of fighting in Afghanistan.

Can there possibly be any reader whodoes not know that $300 is less than$330 or that 14,377 is more than13,833?

See also FRACTION.

7. IncomparabilityThe quoted sentence, from a well-

known work, purports to compare theincomparable.

Among the browsers, for example,was the Diplodocus carnegii, whichmeasured eighty-four feet in length.The Brachiosaurus was still morecolossal—it had a live weight of aboutfifty tons!

We could compare the two dinosaurs inlength if we knew how long the Bra-chiosaurus was. We could compare themin weight if we knew how much theDiplodocus weighed. All we have is thelength of one and the weight of the other,and how can these be compared?

In the following example, from apress article, the problem may lie in thewriting, rather than in the data.

. . . U.S. postal employees handle anaverage of 190,000 pieces of mail peryear, compared to just 50,000 piecesof mail per employee in West Ger-many.

It appears that U.S. pieces “per year” isbeing compared with German pieces“per employee.” A year and an em-ployee are incomparable. Probably thewriter intended to compare the numberof mail pieces per U.S. employee per yearwith the number of mail pieces per Ger-man employee per year. But he did notsay so.

When numbers are to be comparedwith one another, it must be made clearthat they are in the same category. Oneshould not assume that the reader or lis-tener will make the proper assumptions.See also AS and LIKE, 2; Comparison, 2;LIKE, 2; UNLIKE, 2.

Anyhow, the 190,000 cannot be com-pared “to” the 50,000. See COM-PARED TO and COMPARED WITH,1.

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8. IncompletenessPercent, or per cent, as it is also writ-

ten, or %, as it is symbolized, meansparts of 100. In any pie chart, or itsequivalent in prose, all 100 parts mustbe accounted for. Someone in an edito-rial office should have performed a littlesimple arithmetic:

Already 76 percent of Bergen’s landis covered by private and public devel-opment. With 15 percent preserved asgolf courses and public parkland, only5.9 percent, or 9,000 acres, remains inprivate hands, still open to either de-velopment or preservation.

Those percentages total 96.9. Nothing issaid about the remaining 3.1.

(The paragraph is otherwise unclear.“. . . Only 5.9 percent . . . remains in pri-vate hands” produces confusion. Part ofthe 76% is land in private hands too.This may be what the writer meant: “. . .Only 5.9 percent, 9,000 acres in privatehands, remains open to either develop-ment or preservation.”)

An editor doubtless did not intend toput a misleading headline on a frontpage: “ ‘Friendly fire’ killed 1 in 5 GIs ingulf war.” It suggests that about 100,000of the approximately half a million U.S.servicemen in the war died at the handsof their comrades. It fails to indicate that“1 in 5” is a fraction of U.S. battledeaths, said to total 148. This is one ofmany possible amendments (taking upno additional space): “U.S. fire hit 1 in 5GIs slain in gulf war.”

The ranking of entities as first, second,ninth, and so on can be too short of ex-planatory facts. See Comparison, 1.

9. In lawsuitsIn filing lawsuits, lawyers routinely in-

flate the damages. They do not seriouslyexpect to win the full amounts re-quested. They know that a judgment forthe plaintiff or a settlement almost al-

ways sharply cuts the amount sought inthe complaint.

News reporters and editors generallydo not know this. They tend to rate theimportance of a suit according to thesum of money requested. So ordinarilythe best way for a lawyer to get a suit inthe news is to ask for absurdly exorbi-tant damages. The amount of the suitwill appear in the opening sentence ofthe story—each of the sample sentencesbelow—and often in the headline aswell.

Dr. Sam Sheppard’s former wife hasfiled a $10 million lawsuit against theNational Broadcasting Co. over thetelevision network’s dramatization ofher husband’s murder trials.

A Marina service station operatorfiled a $20 million damage suitagainst Texaco Inc., accusing the oilcompany of coercing him into sellingonly Texaco products.

Financier J. William Oldenburg hasfiled a $400 million suit against threenewspapers . . . alleging libel. . . .

Real estate investor RichardTraweek, his legislative attempts toconvert 720 apartments to condo-miniums blocked, filed a $800 millionlawsuit against San Francisco yester-day. [See also A and AN.]

The point here is not that any suits areunjustified or justified but that journal-ists are dupes for lawyers.

10. Misinterpretation

A. Percentage of increaseAn editorial said, erroneously:

Carousel expenditures will soon goup 400 percent. . . . The 25-cent ticketwould be eliminated for children, who

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would pay the same dollar fare astheir moms.

When an item costing a quarter doublesin price, it rises another quarter, or onetime, or 100 percent. When it triples inprice, it rises 50 cents, or two times, or200 percent. A 25-cent ticket that in-creases to a dollar goes up 75 cents, orthree times, or 300 percent—not “400.”(Incidentally, the writer seems uncertainwhether it “will” [definitely] or “would”[maybe] go up. See Mood; Subjunctive.See also MOM, MAMA, MA.)

The same erroneous percentage ap-peared in a periodic column:

The current fee for a basic, minimumplumbing permit is now $15.75. Thefee, starting Sept. 4, will be $65.25,and up—a 400 percent increase.

When a fee of $15.75 goes up $49.50,the increase is 314 percent—not “400.”

B. ComparisonHenry earns $500 a week. Wendy

earns $1,500. These are two ways inwhich one may compare the two num-bers:

• Contrast the totals, figuring thenumber of times $500 goes into$1,500. (“Wendy earns three timesas much as Henry earns” or “Hisearnings are a third of hers.”)

• Emphasize the difference, $1,000.(“Wendy earns two times more than what Henry earns” or “Herearnings are 200 percent higher than his.”)

X times more or bigger, higher,greater, etc. (than) is not the same as Xtimes as many or as big, as high, asmuch, etc. (as). Either type of descriptionis valid if used consistently and accu-rately. The defective example below isfrom a newspaper’s main story.

. . . The Bush proposals would re-quire the Warsaw Pact to destroyeight times more planes and fourtimes as many helicopters [as NATO].

The proposals called for the destructionof 4,850 and 577 planes respectively.One bloc would destroy 7.4 times moreplanes than the other, or roughly seventimes—not “eight” times. The helicopterpart was correct.

More means greater in number,amount, etc. Thus X “times moreplanes” deals only with the times thatare greater than one time. In the exampleabove, the 577 NATO planes amount toone time. The first 577 planes of theother side are numerically the same, not“more,” so they should not be counted.

As many implies that the larger num-ber has been divided by the smaller num-ber. A proposed NATO destruction of419 helicopters goes into the other side’sfigure of 1,700 about four times. So thelatter would indeed destroy “four timesas many helicopters” or four times thenumber of helicopters or would bebound to a fourfold destruction of heli-copters compared with NATO’s obliga-tion.

An advertisement for a silver medal-lion said:

The standard American Eagle weighsmerely one troy ounce. . . . “Silver Ea-gle” is an astonishing 16 times heav-ier . . . (16 Oz. Troy . . .).

Correction: 16 times as heavy but 15times heavier.

The moderator of a television forumsaid, and it was simultaneously dis-played on the screen, that Indonesia was“Three times bigger than Texas” in landarea. Correction: Indonesia, with about741,000 square miles, is about 1.8 timesbigger than Texas, with about 267,000square miles. Indonesia is about 2.8times as big as Texas.

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This sentence, from a book of popularastronomy, is inconsistent in its terms(and contains several other errors):

Uranus is 15 times as far from thesun as the Earth; Neptune, 17 times;and Pluto is 50 times farther.

The sentence uses “as far as” twice andthen switches to “farther.” Is there a rea-son for the switch, or is the writer simplyunaware of the distinction? A readercannot tell. (Anyway, all the numbers arewrong. On the average, the three planetsare 19, 30, and 39 times as far from theSun as the Earth is. An is after “Earth” isdesirable to clarify that only distancesfrom the outer planets to the Sun, not tothe Earth, are being compared. An “is”after Pluto is superfluous when no “is”follows Neptune. See also Series errors,9; STAR and SUN.)

C. CHANCES, PROBABILITY,ODDS

Does the retired general who isquoted here approve or disapprove ofthe operation?

I would have rated Desert One’schances of success at a hundred toone. . . .

He seems to be estimating a hundredchances of success to one chance of fail-ure. But the sentence concludes by call-ing the chances

foolhardy odds for a military opera-tion.

He meant to have rated the chances offailure at a hundred to one (chance ofsuccess), or the chance of success atabout one in a hundred.

The context in the following sentence,by a scientist, explains what he had inmind, although literally the sentence saysthe opposite.

The probability of all the gas mole-cules in our first box being found inone half of the box at a later time ismany millions of millions to one, butit can happen.

The probability of winning the state lot-tery is one (chance) in millions. Theprobability that the sun will come outtomorrow somewhere in the world ismany millions of millions (of chances) toone (chance that it will not)—the sameas the probability of gas molecules beingin both halves of the box.

The meaning in the sentence below isharder to discern. First of all, the sen-tence makes no sense grammatically.Changing “were” to at would help thegrammar. But something more is wrong.

He [a state criminalist] also testifiedthat the combined test results put theodds that the blood on socks found inSimpson’s bedrooms [sic] was not thatof his ex-wife were 21 billion to 1, upfrom the 9.7 billion to 1 odds Cottongave last week.

Odds means probability, likelihood, orchances of a given event happening or agiven thing being. If the chances of theblood not being his ex-wife’s were “21billion to 1” (chance of its being his ex-wife’s), it would seem to be almost cer-tain that the blood was someone else’s.Contrasted with previous testimony, itwould mean improved odds for Simp-son. But the source of the figures was tes-timony for the prosecution, and theheadline read “State’s odds against O.J.keep growing.” Here is one way to revisethe sentence:

. . . Test results put the likelihoodthat the blood . . . was not that of hisex-wife at only one chance in 21 bil-lion—less than half of the one chancein 9.7 billion that Cotton estimatedlast week. In other words, the proba-

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bility that the blood came from themurdered woman appeared evengreater now.

The chances, probability, or odds ofone’s misunderstanding numerical infor-mation of this sort are high enough towarrant a cautious treatment by thewriter or speaker.

D. The superlativeIt pays to think twice before describ-

ing a number by a superlative, like thebiggest, the smallest, or the highest.Adding a modifier like “ever” or “of alltime” is especially risky. Too often some-one comes along to point out somethingbigger, smaller, higher, etc.

A main headline described an actionin the House of Representatives: “As-sault Weapons Ban OKd By the Narrow-est of Margins.” The narrowest ofmargins would be one vote. The story re-ported a tally of 216 to 214. Thus thewinning margin was two votes—twice aslarge a margin as the “Narrowest.”

E. AVERAGEAverage in a numerical sense does not

mean typical. Average (noun) is the com-mon term for what is, more precisely, amean (also called an arithmetic mean orarithmetical mean): the result of addingtwo or more quantities and dividing thesum by the number of quantities added.

It does not necessarily resemble anyindividual quantity. If four employeesout of five are paid $25,000 a year eachand the fifth is paid $100,000, the aver-age (adjective) or mean salary is$40,000, an amount unlike the salary ofany employee in the company. That sta-tistical reality is not always grasped bythose interpreting numerical facts.

See also LIFE EXPECTANCY (etc.);MEAN (noun).

11. Spelling outWhen should numbers be represented

by words, when by figures? To answerthat question and others, the press hasstyle rules that aim at consistency, buttheir mindless enforcement can lead toinconsistency. This is from an account ofa baseball game:

Twenty-seven Dodgers came up, 27Dodgers went down. There were 17groundouts, five strikeouts, two foulouts, and only three fair balls hit outof the infield.

It seems that the Dodgers came up aswords but went down as figures. The ex-planation lies in an age-old press rule:Do not start a sentence with a figure. Norationale for that rule is ever advanced.Headlines often start with figures; for ex-ample: “36 hours of work piled on aver-age desk.”

The second “27” and the “17” are ex-pressed in figures, the remaining num-bers in words, because of another stylerule, common among newspapers: It re-quires figures for numbers above nine(except at the start of sentences) andwords for numbers of nine and under.The rule includes both cardinal numbers(nine planets, a family of 10) and ordinalnumbers (the fourth dimension, the 18thhole). Exceptions are made for decimalnumbers (a 3.7 average), sums of money($8), statistical tables, and so on.

Book editors often follow TheChicago Manual of Style, which calls forfigures for 100 or more but also rejectsthem at the start of sentences, giving noreason.

When spelled out, compound num-bers through ninety-nine and fractionscommonly take hyphens: “Three hun-dred forty-seven residents” / “Abouttwo-thirds of all animals.” See alsoHALF.

When a hundred or a thousand servesas an adjective—“a hundred yards” / “athousand clowns”—it should be spelledout. “A 100” or “a 1,000,” as writers

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sometimes put it, is the equivalent of “aone-hundred” or “a one-thousand.”

Apart from the use of numbers, thefirst sentence of the baseball quotation isdefective. It contains the makings of twosentences (two independent clauses) divided by a comma, an inadequatepunctuation. (See Run-on Sentence,2.) Below, we fix the punctuation,strengthen the message by expressing itin parallel sentences, and still observe theinitial-number rule:

Twenty-seven Dodgers came up.Twenty-seven Dodgers went down.

(There is still another inconsistency inthe passage. While “groundouts” and“strikeouts” take one word each, twowords are allotted to “foul outs.” In anadjoining box, tabulating the statistics ofthe game, it is “foulouts.”)

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Object(ive) complement. See Com-plement.

Object, objective case. See Comple-ment; Prepositions, 1; Pronouns, 10;Verbs, 1, 5.

OBSCENE, OBSCENITY. Whilethe courts have labored over the precisemeaning of obscenity and the definitionhas determined whether people are sentto jail, the mass media, some public offi-cials, and others have been stretchingtheir constructions of the word to thepoint of inanity.

A banner headline proclaimed “An‘obscene’ state deficit.” The story under-neath quoted a state treasurer: “The ‘ob-scene surplus’ I spoke of four years agohas turned into an ‘obscene deficit’. . . .”An interviewer asked people on thestreet for “An Example of ObsceneWealth.” A legislator said that revenuesshould not accumulate to “obscene lev-els.” A columnist wrote of “obsceneprofits” from drugs, and another colum-nist wrote that “total compensation oftop execs at some corporations is solarge it borders on the obscene.”

In the examples above, “obscene”was forced to serve as a general pejora-tive for a variety of monetary condi-tions. But money or the lack of it is not“obscene” (even though people mayspeak of “filthy lucre”). Nor is, say,

theft, although it may be bad, wrong,evil, vicious, or vile.

In the pair of examples below, “ob-scene” and “obscenely” are made todeal with people’s ingestion of sub-stances. To a food writer, being “ob-scene” seems to be a good thing: Shecredited an intensified flavor and sweet-ness of homemade jam to “the obsceneamount of sugar that goes into its mak-ing.” In a discussion of vitamins, a radiodoctor asked, “Are we doing any goodby taking obscenely large amounts ofthe chemicals?”

A television exposé of fake going-out-of-business sales included this comment:“What made it a sham was that the saleran an obscene length of time, almosteleven months.”

The o-words have nothing to do withmoney, consumption, or time. Obscen-ity (noun) is that which is obscene (ad-jective): offensive to generally acceptedstandards of modesty or decency; in par-ticular, filthy, disgusting, or indecent inrepresenting sexual or excretory parts orfunctions by word, deed, or illustration.Obscenely (adverb) means in an obsceneway or to the point of obscenity. Exactlywhere the lines are drawn and what isplaced within them and by whom are upto the judiciary.

You can be accused of “obscenity”even if you do nothing. The verbal man-handling took this form in a bookstore’s

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newsletter: “We’re shocked, saddened,and generally PO’ed by the obscenelylow turnout of voters in U.S. elec-tions. . . .” Ironically the quoted sen-tence itself bordered on obscenity: “PO”did not stand for post office.

Two nouns associated with obscenityare vulgarity, meaning coarseness, poortaste, impropriety, or an act or expres-sion with those characteristics; and pro-fanity, strictly speaking, irreverence tothat which is sacred, or an instance ofsuch irreverence, popularly used as asynonym for obscenity.

OBSESS, OBSESSED, OBSES-SION. To obsess someone is to be-siege, beset, dominate, haunt, or troublethe person. Nowadays it always pertainsto the way a persistent feeling, idea,thought, or the like can act on the mind.Often it is in the passive voice:“Gertrude was obsessed with guilt.” /“Edison was obsessed by the vision ofhis lamp.” It may be in the active voicetoo, as in this press example:

. . . The show looks at how the con-cept of stardom can inspire or obsessan artist. . . .

One thing the verb obsess may not beis intransitive, as it was forced to be ontwo national television programs:

[News:] BBC viewers are obsessingabout something else [besides the Bea-tles: Princess Diana].

[Drama:] It’s that dog he’s been ob-sessing about.

Change “obsessing about” to obsessedby or with. The verb is transitive. Some-thing obsesses one, or (more often) oneis obsessed by or with something. Onedoes not “obsess” any more than one“besieges.”

Obsess once meant besiege in a literal

sense. It came from the Latin obsessus,past participle of obsidere, to besiege orbeset.

The noun is obsession: the action ofobsessing (someone) or the state of beingobsessed; or the influence of the persis-tent idea etc.; or the idea etc. itself. “Hisobsession with presidential politics en-dured for decades.” / “Fashion obses-sions afflict many girls.”

OCCUR. See HAPPEN, OCCUR,and TAKE PLACE.

OCTOPUS. See Plurals and singulars,1.

OCULIST, OPHTHALMOLO-GIST, OPTICIAN, and OP-TOMETRIST. All are concernedwith eyes. Oculist is an old term for anophthalmologist, a medical doctor whospecializes in treating eye disorders. Anoptometrist is not a physician but a per-son holding the degree of Doctor of Op-tometry (O.D.) who tests the eyes forvision problems and prescribes eye-glasses. An optician makes or sells opti-cal products. A dispensing optician dealsin prescribed eyeglasses.

The Greek word for eye, ophthalmos,gave rise to numerous technical terms.Medical dictionaries contain more thanfifty of them, including ophthalmia, se-vere inflammation of the eye; oph-thalmic, pertaining to the eye, e.g., theophthalmic nerve; ophthalmology, thescience and medical specialty of the eyeand its diseases; and ophthalmoscope,an instrument for examining the interiorof the eye. Note that all have at least twoh’s. (A few, like the twenty-letter diseaseophthalmoblennorrhea, have three h’s.)The first one was missing from ophthal-mologists in an op-ed article of mine.The editor had knocked the h out of it.

OD. Probably not everyone under-stood him when a newscaster on a na-

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tional radio network mentioned a cer-tain actor’s “OD’ing on cocaine at hishome in Malibu.” The strange-soundingword, the lack of a complete sentence,and the failure to place Malibu in Cali-fornia all detracted from easy compre-hension.

OD (noun or verb, which looks oddbut is pronounced OH-DEE) meansoverdose in police and medical jargon,not in standard English. OD’ing meansoverdosing.

The Random House Dictionary oddlyfails to include any definition underoverdose (which it dates from the seven-teenth century); instead it refers readersto OD (1955 to 1960) and defines that.

OD as an abbreviation (often withdots) can stand for many things, includ-ing doctor of optometry, officer of theday, Old Dutch, ordnance department,outside diameter, overdraft, overdrawn,and the right eye (from the Latin oculusdexter, used on prescriptions).

-ODD. See SOME.

-O ending. See Plurals and singulars,2J.

OF. See COMPRISE; HAVE, HAS,HAD, 2; OFF and “OFF OF”; ON, 3;Prepositions; SUPPORTIVE.

OF ANY, OF ANYONE. See ANY,1, 2.

OF COURSE. 1. Benefit. 2. Draw-back. 3. Other expressions.

1. BenefitSometimes a statement seems obvious

but needs to be stated anyway. The com-mon phrase of course lets us state the ob-vious without sounding pedagogic orpreachy or insulting anyone’s intelli-gence.

What is stated may be a fact or truismthat puts things into perspective or leads

up to one’s main point: “He made hisdiscovery in 1776, which of course wasthe year of our Declaration of Indepen-dence.” / “Of course, you shouldn’t putall your eggs in one basket. Farnsworthdid so and this is what happened tohim.”

Using of course in that way tells thereader or listener, “You’re smart enoughto know this, but it is helpful to the dis-cussion if I mention it anyway.”

2. DrawbackOccasionally, instead of avoiding in-

sult, the use of “of course” produces it.A listener asks a speaker a question; theanswer should be “yes,” but the speakeranswers “of course,” as though to say:“You’re a dummy for asking.” Or awriter attaches an “of course” to an ob-scure fact or arguable proposition,thereby implying to a number of readersthat they are dolts for not knowing whatthe writer knows.

The three quoted statements that fol-low, from three books, are scarcely theepitome of everyday conversation. Nonegives any clue as to why it warrants “ofcourse.” First, a traveler describes an Al-gerian repast of which he partook: “Westarted with dates, of course, and drankmilk.” (Why must a meal start withdates?) A musicologist tells the generalpublic, “. . . Berlioz, of course, made lib-eral use of the instrument,” the harp.(Why is that presumed to be an obviousfact?) Last, a cosmologist writes about atheory of multiple universes:

Only in a small number, with condi-tions and parameters like our ownuniverse, will it be possible for intelli-gent life to develop and ask the ques-tion, “Why is the universe as weobserve it?” The answer, of course, isthat if it were otherwise, there wouldnot be anyone to ask the question.

It is unclear why that answer should beaccepted as a matter of course. Maybe

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the question could be answered in an as-tronomic, rather than philosophic, way.Possibly celestial events could have madethe (or a) universe “otherwise” but stillobservable. This is a deep matter. Mustdiscussion be cut off so soon?

3. Other expressionsThere are some other phrases that are

similar to “of course” in patronizingcharacter but less useful, if indeed theyshould be used at all. One of them ap-pears in a renowned book. (Emphasis isadded to the excerpts below.)

The English, as everyone knows, usu-ally put a comma after the street num-ber of a house, making it, forexample, 34, St. James’s Street.

If everyone knew it, would the authorhave felt it necessary to give the exam-ple? Related phrases are “as everybodyknows” and “as is well known.”

Another expression in a similar vein isfound in a widely used manual for au-thors and editors:

It goes without saying that author-date citations in the text must agreeexactly with the list of references.

If something really “goes without say-ing” or, to use a related expression, is“needless to say,” why say it? What themanual says, however, seems worth say-ing. See Verbal unmentionables.

Two other expressions of a compara-ble, patronizing character are “for thesimple reason that” and “it stands toreason.” See REASON, 3.

OFF and “OFF OF.” A talk showhost objected to giving driver’s licensesto anyone illiterate in English. What ifyou can’t read the signs on the freewayand “don’t know what exit to get offof?” In his comment, he displayed lessthan full proficiency in English himself.The “of” should have been at.

“Off of” is a substandard phrase.“Of” is superfluous; its sense is includedin off. The “of” intrudes often in conver-sations and at times in broadcasting andprint.

A reporter on a TV network said,“Moving people into jobs and off of wel-fare demands that there be jobs to goto.” The “of” was wrong; off welfarewould have been right.

The mistake glared in a front-pageheadline: “Gingrich wants wealthy re-tirees off of Medicare.” Off Medicareneeded no “of.” Nor should “of” haveintruded in this sentence, from a dis-patch by a news agency: “That [infusionwith carbonate grains] would have hap-pened during the impact that knockedthe meteorite off of Mars.” Off Mars.

The four extracts below from newspa-pers all contain the same error: “Mar-tinez’s car hit the rear of one car, glancedoff of it and struck another car.” / “Thatlimits the number of objects off of whichradar energy can bounce.” / “Mr.Courter’s campaign, coming off of atough primary . . . , suffered from poororganization. . . .” / “The Department . . .added staff to help General Assistanceclients get off of local welfare rolls. . . .”In every instance, off is enough:“. . . glanced off it . . .” / “. . . objects offwhich . . .” / “. . . coming off a toughprimary . . .” / “. . . get off local welfarerolls. . . .”

The final example, from a column, is abit different: “Gabbert broadcasts off ofMount San Bruno south of The City. . . .”Change “off of” to from. (And insert acomma after “Bruno.” As for the capitalT in “The,” not the writer but a quirk ofhis newspaper was to blame.)

OFF and ON. See GO OFF and GOON.

“OLDEST PROFESSION.” Thisbromide is liable to be dragged into any

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popular discussion of harlotry and ac-cepted without thought as though itwere established wisdom. It made typi-cal appearances in announcements oftwo television programs to be shownand in an argument by the host of a ra-dio talk show: “plus a new look at theworld’s oldest profession, prostitution” /“a provocative look at the world’s oldestprofession . . .” / “The idea of trying tooutlaw the world’s oldest profession isridiculous.”

Is there any truth in the “oldest pro-fession” cliché? First of all, prostitution,the selling of sexual services, is not a pro-fession in the standard sense: a vocationrequiring much advanced study andtraining, in the practice of which one isrelied on for one’s knowledge and judg-ment. The professions once meant theol-ogy, law, and medicine.

That leaves the question, What is theoldest vocation or occupation? Writingsin anthropology suggest that the earliestbeings that walked upright subsisted byscavenging, gathering, and hunting.Fishing and animal husbandry entered atsome points, tillage later. Prostitutionwas not in the running. Anyway, couldprostitutes have gone into business ifthere were not men who had earned themoney to pay them?

ON. 1. Missing. 2. Superfluous. 3. Uni-diomatic.

1. MissingThe preposition on gets pushed

around: left out when it should be in, putin when it should be out, and over-worked when another prepositionwould do a better job.

To omit on, as newspapers are apt todo, can make a sentence unclear: “Hemet Billy Sunday.” / “He hired his manFriday.” If we are referring to days andnot people’s appellations, precede eachday with on. A press example follows.

State court Judge Lawrence WeissFriday sentenced Mr. B—— to 10years in state prison. . . .

“On Friday” would clarify that “Fri-day” is not the judge’s last name. Thesentence would read still more smoothlyif it began “On Friday. . . .” On wouldsuit the start of the following press sen-tence too.

His first day as principal of SouthBoston High School, Jerome W——received a poetic greeting from whiteresidents opposed to desegregatingtheir neighborhood’s school.

The meaning is clear, but it would bemore idiomatic to say “On his first day. . . .” Without the on, the readercould start out on the wrong track, ex-pecting something like “His first day asprincipal was exciting.”

On does not always need to precede aday or date, but it cannot hurt. “Hecame Thursday” or “He came on Thurs-day.” / “The fiscal year ends June 30” or“The fiscal year ends on June 30.”

A faddish expression at this writing is“Get a grip.” A grip on what (on a prob-lem? on oneself?) is not explained. It isliterally telling someone to obtain a suit-case.

2. SuperfluousThe needless appearance of “on”

plays a part in contemporary slang. Upoften gets “on” added when up wouldbe enough by itself.

A column of letters to the editor washeadlined “U.S. Should Stop Beating Upon Cuba.” And this was said in a tele-vised documentary: “Orson constantlypicked up on those things [reports of hisgenius] and accepted them as true.” Ineach case, on could have been droppedwith no detriment to the meaning. (Seealso PICK UP and PICKUP, 2.)

When a congressman sought a presi-

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dential panel to restudy veterans’ com-plaints of illness, a news item said “morethan 75 House members signed on to hisletter. . . .” They signed his letter. Therewas no need for “on to.”

A witness was quoted: “He was wait-ing on every second for the police to ar-rive. He couldn’t wait to see them.”Dropping on would help the first sen-tence. (But if “he was waiting,” how is itthat “He couldn’t wait”?)

Seeking a home for a cat, a humanesociety ran an ad that began, “Cat loversshould count on their blessings.” Counttheir (our, your, etc.) blessings is the ex-pression. “On” was ill chosen. To counton is to depend on (something or some-one).

3. UnidiomaticOn has become a highly popular tool

of the press, usurping functions thatmost of us would reserve for otherprepositions. In headlines it is nearly anall-purpose preposition. Take this head-line, across a page:

Shelley backs off on Brown’s ballotmeasure

Off and “on” seem contradictory. Amore normal preposition with back off(meaning to retreat) is from.

Here are five more headlines (withpossible replacements in brackets):

U.S. to take Russiato task on [for?] Chechnya

RUSSIA TELLS NATOIT ACCEPTS OFFER

ON [OF?] A FORMAL LINK

Wilson backs floorfight on [over?] abortion

Ruling lets activists pursuewarning on [of?] mercury fillings

Ex-Klansmen to TakeClasses on [in?] Civil Rights

Space limitation only partly explainsthe press’s fondness for on. In print it isslightly longer than of and in, twoprepositions that it sometimes supplants.Reliance on on seems to be habitual withsome copy editors, easier than having toselect the best preposition. Equally unid-iomatic “on” phrases are sometimesfound in other media. This is from ascholarly book:

[E]vans said its [a dictionary’s] pur-pose was to give the reader help onspelling, pronunciation, and themeaning and proper use of words.

Would we not want “help in spelling” etcetera?

To stand or wait on line is a regionalidiom of New York City, seen in writingproduced there. Most of the countryspeaks of standing or waiting in line.

A certain actress “has never beforebeen ‘butt naked’ onscreen,” an articlesaid. On and screen do not requireunion. (And buck [stark] naked is thecolloquial expression.)

See also 2 (end); GO OFF and GOON; ONGOING; ONTO; Prepositions,7; SPEAK TO, TALK TO; WAIT FORand WAIT ON.

ONE ANOTHER. See EACHOTHER.

ONE as pronoun. 1. The indefiniteONE. 2. The I ONE. 3. Some otherONEs.

1. The indefinite ONEOne serves as a pronoun, most often

legitimately, sometimes less so. It is ac-ceptable to let one stand for a person ingeneral or any of us or an average per-son: “One must earn a living.” / “Oneneeds to watch one’s weight.” In this use,

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which we may call the indefinite one, in-consistency is a problem that crops upfairly often. A sentence written for anewspaper by a dietitian will illustrate:

. . . When one is occupied with goodfood, you don’t miss some of thefoods you thought you would.

The “one” that appears early in the sen-tence soon shifts to “you.” Inasmuch as“you” shows up three times, the simplestcorrection would be to change “one is”to you are or you’re. Anyway, keepingthe first “one” would require “one”three more times (“one doesn’t miss”etc.) and the sentence would look stilted.

A sentence from a magazine articlealso shifts from “one” to “you”:

It [Vancouver] is compact and one haslittle need of a car if you are staying inone of the downtown hotels.

It should all be either in the second per-son, “. . . and you have little need of acar if you are staying . . .”; or in the thirdperson, “. . . and one has little need of acar if one is staying. . . .” If the latter ischosen, another improvement would beto change “one of the downtown hotels”to “a downtown hotel.” It is not just amatter of conciseness: When the indefi-nite one is used, it is best to avoid one inanother sense.

An excerpt from an op-ed articleabout telephone solicitors contains aglaring error and two subtle defects.

Such calls were always intrusive, butwhen one receives one or two of themalmost daily (or nightly), I really beginto think, “Their ought to be a law.”

“Their,” of course, should be there. An-other mistake is the shift from third per-son to first person—“one . . . I.” A betterway would be either “when I receive oneor two . . . I really begin to think” (first

person); or “when you receive one ortwo . . . you really begin to think” (sec-ond person). The indefinite one does notsuit this sentence, which uses one in an-other sense (“when one receives one”).See 3 (end).

See also Pronouns, 7.

2. The I ONEA less legitimate use of the pronoun is

what we call here the I one but could aswell call the coy one. Some people treatthe word as a substitute for I, out of coy-ness, modesty, evasiveness, or affecta-tion. Its other forms are “one’s” in placeof my and “oneself” in place of myself.

A few quotations with translations:“His accounts . . . are the best one hasseen”—the best I have seen. “. . . One’sefforts will now be more fully and adequately supported”—my efforts will.“. . . One was almost beside oneself withjoy . . .”—I was almost beside myselfwith joy.

This mannerism is associated mainlywith British writing, although it is notrare among Americans. A “presidentialspokesman” was quoted as saying:

We have not solved problems re-lated to discrimination in the work-place and sometimes one wonderswhether those who advocate abolish-ing affirmative action understand thatclearly.

Which “one” wonders? The forthrightcourse would be to say “I wonder . . .”or “the president wonders.” But to beforthright is not the function of a presi-dential spokesman.

3. Some other ONEsThe pronouns anyone, everyone, and

someone need to be distinguished fromthe phrases any one, every one, andsome one.

The three pronouns refer only topeople and mean any person, every per-

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son, and some person. (“Anyone can en-ter the building.” / “I wish everyone ahappy holiday.” / “Someone is at thedoor.”)

Each of the three phrases is made upof an adjective and the pronoun one, canrefer to either things or people, and em-phasizes a single item or person. (“Anyone of the jurors can thwart a convic-tion.” / “Every one of the envelopes con-tains a bill.” / “The check is in some oneof the drawers.”)

No one does not present such a prob-lem. It is always a two-word phrase.

The common reflexive form of the in-definite one is oneself, with only one sand no apostrophe (“College study is away to advance oneself”), although one’sself is its meaning and its variation.

The pronoun one can represent a per-son or thing of a kind or group men-tioned or understood. “Sing one of thesongs.” / “I’ve seen those machines andplan to buy one.” / “That one should fityou.” / “Give me the blue one.” / “Is thisthe one you want?”

See also ANY, 2; EVERYBODY, EV-ERYONE; EVERY ONE and EVERY-ONE; Pronouns, 2C.

ONE IN EVERY. See ONE OF, 1.

ONE OF. 1. ONE OF EVERY, ONEOUT OF, etc. 2. ONE OF THE, IFNOT THE, etc. 3. ONE OFTHE . . . WHO etc.

1. ONE OF EVERY, ONE OUT OF, etc.“One of every four persons in this

state have been hit hard by the flood-ing,” a governor said on television.Change “have” to has. The essentialsubject is one, which is singular. One re-mains singular even when it representsmillions.

Similarly: “About one out of every sixadults is a college graduate.” / “One inevery forty children displays the symp-

toms.” / “Only one in a thousand wins aprize.”

See also MORE THAN ONE.

2. ONE OF THE, IF NOT THE, etc.The desire to avoid repetition is at the

root of this problem, an example ofwhich goes: “She was one of the best, ifnot the best, teacher I had.” It takesmany forms, such as the form of thisquotation, attributed to a medical inves-tigator: “It is one of the, if not the[,]most egregious case I’ve ever seen.”

If the parenthetical phrase in each ex-ample is removed, neither sentencemakes grammatical sense. The “one ofthe” part does not go with the singularnoun: “one of the best . . . teacher” /“one of the . . . most egregious case.”Making the singular noun plural wouldadd no sense; the pronoun and first verb,both singular, would not go with it: “Shewas . . . the best teachers.” / “It is . . . themost egregious cases.”

This is a solution: Tell what group theindividual or item is “one of,” beforeyou consider that one as a lone superla-tive. And do not worry about a little rep-etition. “She was one of the bestteachers, if not the best teacher, I had.” /“It is one of the most egregious cases, ifnot the most egregious case, I’ve everseen.” Even limiting the parentheticalphrase to “if not the best” or “if not themost egregious” would be preferable tothe original version: It is easier for some-one to mentally extract a part of a wordthat has been mentioned (teacher fromteachers, or case from cases) than toimagine something that is not there.

Another option is rewriting; for in-stance, “This case is as egregious as anyI’ve seen in ten years, perhaps more so.”The rewritten version might be an im-provement. Those “if not” sentences canget repetitious themselves.

3. ONE OF THE . . . WHO etc.The question here is whether singular

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or plural words go with phrases like oneof the, one of a, one of those, and one ofsix (or another number). Such a phrasegives no trouble in a simple sentence:“One of the women wears a hibiscus inher hair.” But when it appears in a sen-tence with a clause, usually a clause con-taining who or that, people often goastray (as a newspaper did):

. . . The son is now a Senator fromConnecticut himself and one of ahandful of Democrats who has notsaid how he will vote. . . .

That senator is one of those Democratswho have not said how they will vote.Who pertains to the people just men-tioned, not to “one.” Ask the questionWhat is he one of? The answer: “a hand-ful of Democrats who have not said howthey will vote. . . .”

Similarly, in each of the three exam-ples below (from a radio feature, a biog-raphy, and a TV documentary) asingular verb is erroneously used in placeof a plural verb: “He’s one of the five[Polish conspirators] who gets away.” /“One of the few Gilbert diaries that sur-vives is of this year.” / (This pride of lionsis) “one of six prides that lives here.”Change “gets” to get, “survives” to sur-vive, and “lives” to live. What is the manone of? “. . . The five who get away.”What is the diary one of? “. . . The fewGilbert diaries that survive. . . .” What isthe pride one of? “. . . Six prides that livehere.”

An obituary opens with a singularnoun that should be a plural noun: “Ju-dith Somogi, one of the first women tobecome a conductor, died . . . Wednes-day morning.” She was not the firstwoman to become a conductor but “oneof the first women to become conduc-tors.”

Here is a similar error, the failure touse a plural pronoun and noun: theirhusbands. The erroneous sentence (from

network TV news) can be interpretedwhimsically.

She [the princess] is one of the fewJapanese women who will have herhusband home for dinner at night.

Does she know about the others?See also Nouns, 3; Verbs, 3 (“is

among senators who”).

ONE OUT OF. See ONE OF, 1.

ONESELF. See ONE as pronoun, 3;Pronouns, 3.

ONGOING. Several dictionaries de-fine ongoing as an adjective that meansprogressing, evolving, or growing. Moreoften it is used as a synonym for continu-ing, as in “the ongoing operation.”

Ongoing or on-going came out of thenineteenth century. It appeals to those ofour contemporaries with taste for bu-reaucratic jargon. Use it if you will (as anadjective before the noun), but not as asubstitute for going on, in the Germanicmanner in which it was used below (as averb following an auxiliary verb).

[A metropolitan mayor:] It [an inves-tigation] is ongoing as we speak.

[A journalist in a TV forum:] There’sa Justice Department investigationongoing.

[A newspaper:] . . . He said negotia-tions with the developer were ongo-ing.

[A news service:] . . . Poindexter sev-eral times misled him by asserting thatthe Iran arms operation had beenclosed down, when in fact it was on-going.

Changing “ongoing” to going on wouldfix all four examples. An alternative in

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the fourth example is continuing; thiswould particularly suit the sentence be-low (from a TV news report):

That sort of construction is going tobe ongoing for a number of years.

An idiomatic replacement for “ongo-ing” in this sentence (from a radio newsreport) is being made:

Attempts are ongoing to identify oth-ers [who stole money]. . . .

Still better: “The police are attemptingto. . . .”

A folder issued by a utility companyon the effects of magnetic fields con-tained the subheading “Research Is On-going.” The text said research studieswere under way, which would have beenan ideal substitute for “Ongoing.”

Related noun forms, all little used, areon-going, the action of going on; on-goings, goings on or doings; and on-goingness, the quality or condition ofgoing on.

See also Backward writing, 3.

ONLY. 1. In general. 2. Misplacement.

1. In generalNormally only affects the word or

phrase that immediately follows. “Onlytime will tell.” / “The only thing we haveto fear. . . .” (When exceptions will arise,“God only knows.”)

The meaning of a sentence can hingeon the location of only. To illustrate, letus put it in different places in four other-wise identical sentences.

A.Only he sells watches in town. (No-body else sells them here.)

B. He only sells watches in town. (Hedoes not make or fix them.)

C.He sells only watches in town. (Theyare his sole merchandise here.)

D.He sells watches only in town. (Hesells them nowhere else.)

Only is classified as (1) an adjective,meaning sole or single one in a category;(2) an adverb, meaning merely, solely, orexclusively; and (3) a conjunction,meaning but or except that. Some dis-parage that third function; 85 percent ofThe American Heritage Dictionary’s us-age panel found this sentence unaccept-able in writing: “They would have come,only the automobile broke down.”

2. MisplacementA sign in a window of a clothing store

announced: “Large Assortment of 100%silk ties only 2 for 14.90.” It seemed tobe emphasizing that customers couldhave “only 2” ties (not three or four) atthat price. Most people probably under-stood the offer, despite the misplacementof “only”; but “2 for only $14.90,”clearly emphasizing the price (with the $)would have presented it better.

A developer planned to turn a historicfarm into a village in Princeton Town-ship, New Jersey, a newspaper reported.

However, Princeton zoning permit-ted only houses on three-acre sites onthe White Farm.

The sentence says zoning allowed nostructures other than houses on thosesites; but was that the intended mean-ing? More likely the writer was referringto the required acreage for each prop-erty. In that case, only belonged else-where: “. . . permitted houses only onthree-acre sites. . . .” The wording couldbe still clearer: “However, on the WhiteFarm, Princeton zoning permittedhouses only on sites of [at least?] threeacres each.”

The writer of an opinion piece toldnewspaper readers that he would haveloved Ronald Reagan if the president

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had kept all of his campaign promises of1980.

During his campaign he promised uslower taxes, limited government andan administration that would onlyspend the money it collected.

To say that the administration would“only spend” the money seems to implythat it would never save any of themoney. Interchange “only” and“spend.” The proper phrase does appearelsewhere in the piece: “If Reagan hadstuck to his promise to spend only whatgovernment collected, we would nothave a $4.1 trillion debt today” (empha-sis added).

The problem in the press example be-low is not ambiguity but absurdity.

New York is only one of two statesin the nation that now rely exclusivelyon the S.A.T. to determine eligibilityfor their state-scholarship programs.

Obviously New York is “only one” state.Make it “one of only two states. . . .”

See also NOT ONLY.

ONLY TO. See TO, 2.

ONTO. 1. ON and ONTO. 2. ONTO and ONTO.

1. ON and ONTOThe relation between these two

prepositions resembles that between inand into.

On indicates position or location.Among its many senses, it means in con-tact with (a surface), e.g., a fly on a wall;or above and supported by (a surface), adish on a table.

Onto signifies motion to a position on(a surface). A frog hops from a tree ontothe grass, then hops along on the grass.

Sometimes on can fill the role of ontowithout confusion (Snow dropped onour heads); at other times, it cannot. If

children throw a ball on the roof, theymay be up there themselves; they are notif they throw the ball onto the roof.Onto is unequivocal.

Among the early uses of onto was thisby Keats, 1819: “Please you walk forthOnto the terrace.” Since the sixteenthcentury, the preposition had been treatedas two words, on to, a use that persistedin Britain into the modern era.

2. ON TO and ONTOWhen on, serving as an adverb, ad-

joins the preposition to, the two wordsshould not be joined. These are correctexamples: “I walked on to the next vil-lage.” / “Take one copy and pass the reston to your neighbor.” / “Hold on to therope.” / “We’ll fight on to victory!” Ineach instance on is an adverb, closely re-lated to the verb.

This is an erroneous use from a con-temporary book of essays: “I’d given thiscompany, a bank, all my money to holdonto for me until I needed it.” Make it“hold on to for me . . .” or simply “holdfor me . . .”

To be on to something like a plot orscheme is an informal term meaning tobe aware of it. The Oxford English Dic-tionary quotes an old editorial commentas an example of an erroneous joining ofon and to: “It is a very pretty game, gov-ernor, but the people are onto it.” Twoother dictionaries present that term as“onto” without identifying it as a mis-spelling.

As separate words, on and to getabout equal stress. Onto stresses the firstsyllable, on-.

OPHTHALMOLOGIST. SeeOCULIST, OPHTHALMOLOGIST(etc.).

OPINE. Once used in serious writing,opine now usually serves journalisticwriters seeking to be mildly funny orfacetious. Opine (verb, transitive and in-transitive) is an economical way to say

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express an opinion. Nowadays it tendsto make light of the opinion expressed.

Thackeray wrote in the 1850s, “Heopined that the rich should pay.” An ar-ticle in a daily paper praises a work ofprint and television even though it

“pours fuel on the smoldering elec-tion-year rage of the middle class,”USA Today opined.

A magazine article says of a performer’ssupposed bodily insecurities:

“I think . . . she looks in the mirrorand sees a girl with big thighs,” opines[the] Striptease director. . . .

On those infrequent occasions whenopine is uttered orally, it is pronouncedoh-PINE.

OPTOMETRIST and OPTICIAN.See OCULIST, OPHTHALMOLOGIST(etc.).

OR. A columnist criticized passiveverbs, remarking:

If your doctor or lawyer write thatway to other doctors or lawyers, fine.

If a writer uses a singular subject with aplural verb in a column on word usage,it is not so fine. Change “write” towrites.

Whenever the subject of a sentence orclause consists of two or more alterna-tives—that is, words or phrases linkedby or or nor—and each alternative is sin-gular, the verb too must be singular.

Example: “Either Mary or Jane hasthe key”—not “have.” It is held by oneperson, either this one or that one. Thesubject expresses oneness, and so mustthe verb express it.

Any related pronoun also is singular:“Abe or Charles, whichever one goes,will have to pay his own way”—not“their.”

Whenever or links plural alternativesin a subject, the verb is plural. It getscomplicated when the alternatives differin number. See EITHER, 1.

Using or, like using nor, shows ussome limitations of English. Which formof the verb goes in the following sen-tence? “Settle your quarrel before you orJoe get[s] hurt.” Both “you . . . gets” and“Joe get” are ungrammatical. A numberof grammarians tolerate whichever verbgoes with the nearer noun or pronoun,in that example “gets.” If the sentence isto be written, one can usually rephraseit, evading the dilemma; e.g., “Settleyour quarrel before you get hurt or Joedoes” / “. . . before someone gets hurt” /“. . . before you two get hurt.” Rephras-ing may be the best option.

Instead of an alternative, or may in-troduce an appositive, an explanatoryword or phrase. When it does, a commaprecedes or: “The bird is a rock dove, orpigeon.”

See also NOR; Series errors, 6.

ORAL. See VERBAL.

ORDINAL NUMBERS. See Num-bers, 11.

ORDINANCE and ORDNANCE.See Confusing pairs.

OSCILLATE and OSCULATE.See Confusing pairs.

OTHER. See ANOTHER; NOTHER.

OURSELVES. See Pronouns, 3, 4, 5.

OUTPUT. The noun output is moreor less technical. It means the quantity ofa product turned out in a given period oftime, or the amount of energy or powerthat a device can produce, or the datathat come out of a computer.

The verb output flowered in the four-teenth to seventeenth centuries with sev-eral general meanings, and it persisted as

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jargon for produce or put out: “to out-put coal” or to “output some 1,200 tonsof flour per day.” Computer technologyassigned output another sense: to giveout, print, or transfer processed data.

No one objects to the technical use of a technical term. Adapting such aterm to general use, however, may not benecessary. A common word or phrasemay bring out the meaning as well orbetter.

A boy doing poorly in school was de-scribed, in a newscast, as handicapped in“his ability to output the information”he was taught. To express it? To recall it?To write it down?

Let that Germanic-sounding verb re-main a technical term in computing andindustry, not replacing common wordsor phrases like put out. If we are lucky,nobody will ever “output” a fire, “out-put” a batter, “output” to sea, or “out-put” the cat.

See also Backward writing, 3.

OUTRAGEOUS, OUTRA-GEOUSLY. The adjective outrageous(and its adverbial relative outrageously)can mean disgraceful(ly), harmful(ly),immoral(ly), indecent(ly), offensive(ly),shocking(ly), or violent(ly). Those mean-ings apply to criminal or other antisocialdeeds. (“We’ve got to curb that druglord’s outrageous activities.”) Does a sin-gle one apply to the event described be-low?

More than 17 million visitors wereattracted to the 1939 Golden GateExposition, held on man-made Trea-sure Island, dredged from the Bay bot-tom to house the outrageouslyspectacular exhibition. . . .

Just why the writer thought he was im-proving on “spectacular” is murky.

The producer of a computer show ad-vertised “OUTRAGEOUS DEALS UN-DER ONE ROOF!!” Was that awarning?

OVAL. Oval (adjective and noun)originates in ovum, Latin for egg. En-glish adopted ovum in the sense of eggcell, female reproductive cell. From theforegoing, one could reasonably assumethat oval has something to do with eggs,and so it has. Oval means (as an adjec-tive) egg-shaped, whether solidly orplanely; or (as a noun) an egg shape.

What is the shape of an egg? Anyonewho has ever seen a common hen’s egg isprobably aware that it is rounded andsomewhat elongated, with one endbroader than the other. The disparity be-tween egg ends is likely to be impressedon the minds of those who have readSwift’s Gulliver’s Travels and recall theviolent ideological conflict in the empireof Liliput: It pitted the Big-Endians, theheretics, who broke their eggs at the bigends, against the Little-Endians, the or-thodox egg-breakers.

Oval may be distinguished from ellip-tical (adjective) and ellipse (noun). An el-lipse is an elongated circle, the shape ofthe numeral 0. (More technically, it is asymmetrical closed curve, the path of apoint that moves in a way that the sumof its distances from two fixed points isconstant.) A planet’s orbit is sometimescalled its ellipse, inasmuch as the plane-tary orbits are approximately elliptical.An American football is an ellipsoid, asolid object whose plane sections are allellipses or circles. The adjective is ellip-soid or ellipsoidal.

More often than not, the public con-fuses an oval and an ellipse. Usually anellipse is called (an) “oval.” Occasionallyit is the other way around. A number ofmodern dictionaries have legitimated themisemployment, thereby contributingfurther to it.

A national TV “magazine” broadcasta portrait of a tycoon in the chicken in-dustry. After visiting the White House,

he redesigned his office to look likethe president’s. But instead of “oval,”he calls it “egg-shaped.”

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That is exactly what oval means. (Ex-actly what the shape of each office is, wedo not know.)

Scientists do not necessarily use theterms with any more precision than lay-men. The quotation is from a book oncosmology and pertains to a theory ofcosmic history.

Other regions, which did not happento pick up a rotation, would becomeoval-shaped objects called ellipticalgalaxies.

It contains a contradiction. If the galax-ies are elliptical, they are not “oval,” atleast in strict usage—and if a scientist isnot strict in his usage, who is? Anyway,“shaped” is redundant; it is part of themeaning of the adjective oval.

OVER and MORE THAN. “Over50 years in business,” says an ad for anauto painting company. Is the phrase“over 50 years” correct?

People who work in the mass mediafrequently avoid over in that sense. Aneditor of mine insisted that over couldonly mean above in a literal, geometricsense: “I see the balloon over the build-ing.” (He expressed no such objection tounder.) Many an editor, despite a pen-chant for conciseness, will omit the wordover in a sentence like “Over 2,000 at-tended” and change it to the two-wordphrase more than. More than is perfectlyproper, but it has been one of the mean-ings of over since the Middle Ages. TheOxford English Dictionary offers eightquotations, from the fourteenth centuryon, to illustrate that over can mean “Inexcess of, above, more than (a statedamount or number).”

What caused the odd aversion tophrases like over a ton, over a million,and over 50 years after all those cen-turies of use? The only visible answer is alittle book from 1909 called Write itRight by Ambrose Bierce. He subtitled it

“A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults,”and one item was “Over for Morethan.” He gave an example, “A sum ofover ten thousand dollars,” but no rea-son for his stricture.

Bierce also damned such uses as“Over for About, In, or Concerning”(e.g., “Don’t cry over spilt milk” and“He rejoiced over his acquittal”) and“Over for On” (“The policeman struckhim over the head”), uses that are gener-ally accepted.

Although Bierce did not say anythingabout over in the sense of across (“Let’swalk over the bridge”), some othershave condemned it. The Oxford, again,supports such use, offering quotationsdating from the ninth century.

For better or worse, over has numer-ous meanings and it has had them forcenturies. The Random House Dictio-nary gives sixty-one definitions of theword, as preposition, adverb, adjective,noun, verb, and interjection (in radiocommunication, as in “Over and out”).

OVERLY and OVER- words. 1. IsOVERLY unnecessary? 2. Misuse ofOVERLY.

1. Is OVERLY unnecessary?Several grammarians have objected to

any use of overly as superfluous, con-tending that the over- words have takenits place. They would, for instance, sayovercautious and reject “overly cau-tious.”

The Random House Dictionary listsabout 1,500 over- words. The OxfordEnglish Dictionary has 83 pages of over-words, many of which it prefers to hy-phenate, over-cautious, for instance.Such a word is a little more concise thanan overly phrase and usually just asgood.

Overly is an “Americanism” toBritons, although the Oxford traces itback to A.D. 10. (It was oferlice in OldEnglish.) Before burying the word, let usconsider two points:

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• The language is full of synonyms.That the same idea may be expressedin two ways is not a strong reason todiscard one of them. Overly meansexcessively (a word preferred inBritish English), yet the critics arenot advocating the latter’selimination.

• On a few occasions overly cancontribute to clarity or grace. Itoutdoes over- in this sentence: “The fight was over money andoverbrutal.” Overly overt beats“overovert,” although too overtmay be the best choice. And abehemoth like overgesticulativeor overindividualistic may not suit a particular sentence, speaker, orwriter. In a poem titled “The SecondVoyage,” Kipling wrote: “Yet caringso, not overly we care / To brace andtrim for every foolish blast.” Was heexpected to force “overcare” into hisiambic pentameter?

2. Misuse of OVERLYOverly is not misused often, but a

columnist did wrongly insert it in anopening sentence:

When an overly weight man cameinto my office wanting a notary I no-ticed his shoe was untied.

The phrase “overly weight” is wrong.Change it to overweight or some otherover- adjective. Alternatively, to keep“overly,” change “weight” to an adjec-tive referring to the man’s avoirdupois:overly heavy, overly stout. (The sentencealso could use a comma after “notary.”)

Overly is an adverb, a word that mod-ifies an adjective, a verb, or another ad-verb. It cannot modify a noun, such as“weight.”

(The anecdote was leading to a histor-ical sketch: The portly one could notbend enough to tie his shoe; he wouldnot have faced such a problem when theregion was a ranch and men wore lace-less boots.)

OWING TO. See DUE TO.

OXYMORON. A panelist in a politi-cal discussion on television probably in-tended this question to be rhetorical: “Ifa ‘paid volunteer’ is not an oxymoron,what is?”

The answer is that an oxymoron is afigure of speech in which contradictorywords or ideas are intentionally com-bined. The striking effect produced bythe juxtaposition of incompatibles is de-signed to make a point. Some popularexamples are agreeing to disagree, deaf-ening silence, and killing with kindness.The oxymoron was a favored device inLatin and Greek literature. The word en-tered English from the Greek oxumoron,literally meaning pointed foolishness.

If the contrariness of the terms is acci-dental or unintentional, other words candescribe it. If a bureaucrat comes upwith a phrase like “paid volunteer”; anovelist writes that “they had found in-creasingly little to talk about”; or adiplomat remarks, “The situation in Iraqis clearly very confused,” there may be acontradiction, an incompatibility, or aparadox. The word oxymoron should bereserved for the figure of speech.

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PACHYDERM. See Synonymic silli-ness, 1.

PADDY. Paddy is rice. It comes fromthe Malay padi, meaning rice in thehusk, and in the strictest sense paddy de-notes such rice, whether it is growing orhas been harvested. By extension, theword can also mean rice in general. Usedloosely, it means rice field.

Describing an Egyptian oasis, a bookexplains that the growing of rice there isforbidden for fear of malaria, because“mosquitoes thrive in paddy fields.”Paddy is used admirably. On the con-trary, these press samples show no un-derstanding of it:

Across the rice paddies, severalhundred men from leftist organiza-tions carried red banners. . . .

The dilapidated brick villages andbright green rice paddies in this cor-ner of southern China sometimesseem as American as chop suey.

Many Cambodian houses are builton stilts near the rice paddies that linethe road.

“Rice paddies” is redundant. Change allthe “paddies” to fields, or at least omit“rice.”

Rice is totally absent in a piece about

Maui, Hawaii, by a travel editor:“White-haired old men and women re-turn from their taro paddies, their legsspackled with mud.” The people workin taro fields. Taro is an edible plant thathas nothing to do with paddy. (More-over speckled is misspelled and “old” issuperfluous editorializing.)

PAIR. Pair (noun), like couple, con-cerns two of the same kind. Pair, how-ever, often stresses their closeassociation, perhaps their mutual depen-dence: a pair of pants, a pair of scissors.Pair, like other collective nouns, may beeither singular or plural. It depends onwhich gets the emphasis: the group as aunit or its individual members.

If you say, “A blue pair of pants doesnot go with a brown pair of shoes,” youare emphasizing the oneness of eachpair. But “A pair of soldiers were guard-ing the entrance to their post.” To say“was guarding . . . its” post would beridiculous. When pair refers to people, itis normally plural.

A nature film depicted two dangerousanimals of Africa, the cape buffalo andthe hippopotamus. The narrator said,“When the pair clashes, the outcome isuncertain.” The two clash. They couldnot do so if they were one. Besides, pairhas special meaning when applied to an-imals: it denotes two that are eithermated or yoked for labor.

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A news story said: “In a rare finding, apair of twins has been shown to have dif-ferent fathers.” Make it either “havebeen shown to have different fathers” or“has been shown to have two fathers.”That which is one unit cannot differfrom itself.

See also Collective nouns; COUPLE.

Pairs of words. See BACK(-) prefixand pairs; Confusing pairs (with lists);Homophones (with lists); Joining ofwords; Twins.

PALPATE and PALPITATE. Onephysician spoke about another on a tele-vision “magazine” program and madewhat may have been a slip of the tongue:“The doctor palpitated a mass, but noth-ing was done to rule it out.” The “it”that the speaker referred to was cancer,but he should have ruled the “-it-” out of“palpitated.” The word he needed waspalpate, to touch a part of someone’sbody for medical diagnosis.

To palpitate, said of the heart, is tobeat unusually fast or intensely or withabnormal flutter.

The two words have a relationship.They come from different forms of theLatin verb palpare, to touch.

PANTS. See PAIR; Plurals and singu-lars, 1; Verbal unmentionables.

PARADISE. See Hawaii.

Paragraph. Almost every piece ofwriting is divided into paragraphs. Theyare orderly collections of sentences. Themain function of a paragraph is to grouprelated points, ideas, or statements.

A new paragraph says in effect, “Herecomes something a bit different.” Theeye recognizes it because each paragraphstarts on a new line and is commonly in-dented (begun a little distance in fromthe margin), except that publishers oftendo not indent the first paragraph of abook chapter, magazine article, etc.

A paragraph may have one sentence,if its message stands alone; or multiplesentences, if they all go together in se-quence. But it should not have too many.A secondary purpose of a paragraph isto give the reader a momentary rest, achance to absorb a particular point be-fore moving on to the next point. Some-times a paragraph, though properlyhomogeneous, is too long. It may thenneed to be divided more or less arbitrar-ily, for the brain can weary of overlongblocks of writing. An extreme example isseen in Webster’s Third Dictionary,where paragraphs reach lengths of somefour thousand words (take and turn).

Newspapers often go to the oppositeextreme. Journalists know that the usualnewspaper column, being narrow, doesnot lend itself to long paragraphs. Manyturn nearly every sentence into its ownparagraph, thinking that they are fur-thering readability. They are hindering it,failing to fully organize the material, anddefeating the main function of a para-graph.

PARAMETER and PERIMETER.See Confusing pairs.

PARANOIA, PARANOID. Para-noia (noun) is a psychosis characterizedby a delusion of persecution or grandeuror both. Usually the delusion centers onone theme that is elaborated with logic,and the person is otherwise rational andintelligent.

Paranoid (adjective) means character-istic of, relating to, or exhibiting the psy-chosis. Often “paranoid” and sometimes“paranoia” are used loosely to refer to afeeling or showing of worry, fear, dis-trust, or suspicion. Who among us hasnever had real cause for such thoughts?

A book says to “trust your agent—don’t get paranoid if you don’t receive aninstant response.” Was distrustful orfearful meant? You are unlikely to loseyour mind from a delayed letter or call.

“You are paranoid,” a physician con-

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ducting a syndicated talk show on radiotold a caller who had expressed the viewthat breast implants were unsafe. Was hediagnosing her as psychotic on the basisof one statement? No, he too was using“paranoid” in the loose way.

Parentheses. See Punctuation, 7.

PAROLE and PROBATION. Awoman had been convicted of murder-ing a well-known singer. Jurors nowwere deliberating on the penalty. “Theycould decide on a penalty ranging fromparole to life in prison,” a radio news re-port said. “Parole” was wrong. Proba-tion would have been right (from thestandpoint of English usage). Thepenalty, by the way, turned out to be lifein prison.

Parole is the conditional release of animprisoned convict. One who is on pa-role must exhibit good behavior and fol-low certain rules during the period ofparole.

Probation is the conditional freedomthat sometimes is allowed a convictedperson instead of imprisonment. Thesentence of someone on probation is sus-pended as long as he behaves well andfulfills any conditions that the court sets.

A parolee or probationer is under thesupervision of his parole officer or pro-bation officer and may be imprisoned forviolation of his conditions for freedom.

Laws governing parole differ fromstate to state. A term of parole may befixed and follow each completed prisonterm; or it may be determined by a pa-role board, vary with each convict, andreduce prison time.

Participle. A participle is a word thatis derived from a verb, has the propertiesof both verb and adjective, and can gowith an auxiliary—has, had, is, was, orthe like—to indicate tense.

Two types are past participle, such asfallen and thrown; and present partici-ple, such as falling and throwing. Some

examples of use: “The city has fallen tothe rebels.” / “He was hit by a thrownball.” / “I see a falling star.” / “They’rethrowing darts.”

General dictionaries customarily list averb’s infinitive, past tense, past partici-ple, and present participle, in that order,e.g.: ring, rang, rung, ringing. If the pasttense and past participle are the same,they parsimoniously allot one word be-tween them: make, made, making.

Occasionally participles are ambigu-ous. An article about gambling on In-dian reservations was headed “CheatingIndians.” Did the present participle de-scribe Indians who were cheating ormean that some people were cheating In-dians? (Probably the latter.)

Combining have with a past participlesometimes creates an ambiguity. A newsreport dealt with “mothers who haveabused children.” Did it mean simplythat the mothers were parents of abusedchildren or was it alleging that the moth-ers themselves have abused children? SeeHAVE, HAS, HAD.

The combination of having and a pastparticiple forms a perfect participle.“Having done the work, I went home.”

Among entries that consider partici-ples are BEGIN, BEGAN, BEGUN;COME and CAME; DO, DID, DONE;Gerund, 1; GONE and WENT; Infini-tive, 3; LAY and LIE; Modifiers, 1A(dangling participles); SLAY, SLAIN,SLEW; TEAR, TORE, TORN; Tense, 5;THINK, past participle; Verbs, 1B.

PASSED and PAST. See Homo-phones.

Passive voice. See Active voice andpassive voice.

Past tense. See Tense.

PAY. An exhibit of ceramics at a collegetells viewers, “These exhibition caseswere . . . payed for with funds donatedby the artist.”

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A friend writes that he is working forthe government and “Though I havenext to nothing to do, I am well payedfor that.”

Paid is the past tense of pay (verb,transitive and intransitive) in the sense ofcompensate for services or goods. Thewriters of the quoted sentences forgotthe irregularity and followed the patternof played and prayed.

Pay has nautical senses (transitive): tolet out (a line) and to coat with a water-proof material. The past tense in thosesenses is payed.

PEACOCK. “Why do peacocks—male peacocks—have such beautifultails?” A radio host asked listeners thatquestion, as part of a short discussion ofnatural selection. “Male peacocks” is aredundant phrase. The peacock is male.It is a male peafowl (plural peafowl orpeafowls), a type of pheasant of either oftwo species, native to southern Asia butwidely domesticated. The female is apeahen, which lacks the peacock’s spec-tacular tail.

A vain person may be called a pea-cock, and sometimes the word is used asa verb (intransitive): to peacock is to dis-play oneself vainly.

PEDAL and PEDDLE. See Homo-phones.

PENCHANT and PENSION. Abook describes a Briton’s sculptures ofthe royal family: Art lovers admired hisrendering of the queen’s expression butfound the figures to be dressed liketramps, for “his pension did not run tothe sort of garb in which Royalty is nor-mally kitted out.” Instead of “pension,”the word should be penchant, a persis-tent liking or a strong inclination. Pen-sion is a retirement benefit or aEuropean boarding house. (We shouldnot be too critical of the book, inasmuchas it is The Incomplete Book of Failures:

The Official Handbook of the Not-Terribly-Good Club of Great Britain.)

PEOPLE and PERSONS. An articleon labor problems in London said,“More than 150 people were injured,mostly police officers, and 67 personswere arrested.” Why were the injuredcalled “people” and the arrested called“persons”? Either one would have beenacceptable, but using both raises thatquestion.

When in doubt, you will probably notgo wrong using people as the plural ofperson. Persons, especially popular withlawyers and journalists, can seem stiltedat times, although it has a proper use.

Persons emphasizes individuals. It ap-plies to a specific but not large number:“The group honored seven persons.”People can be used in that way too; but,of those two words, only people is cor-rect in referring to human beings in gen-eral, or in a large group, or indefinitely.No one should remark that “persons arefunny,” speak for “the American per-sons,” or sing about “persons who likepersons.”

PEOPLE as a suffix. People is aword, a noun. It is not a suffix, though ithas been rudely forced into that role oflate. Some of the outlandish creationsare less informative than the legitimatewords they replace.

Two reviews on one tabloid page re-ferred to “waitpeople” at restaurants,not saying whether they were waiters orwaitresses or both.

A national-parks functionary seekingfunds was quoted as saying, “I hopepeople will write their congresspeople.”There are no such officials. The membersof Congress are senators, in the Senate;and representatives, in the House ofRepresentatives, unofficially known ascongressmen.

See also PERSON.

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PER CAPITA. In English, per capitais a statistical term meaning for each per-son. It came from Latin, in which thesame phrase means by heads. In Englishit expresses an average: a total numberor amount divided by the number ofpeople in the population being consid-ered. For instance, “The state’s incomeper capita last year was about $14,000.”

A radio reporter said that San Fran-cisco’s transit system was transportingsome 700,000 riders a day, “more percapita than any other city. . . .” Substi-tute population for “capita.” Obviouslythe number was not an average but a to-tal.

Percent, per cent. See Numbers, 1, 4,5, 8, 10.

Perfect infinitive. See Infinitive, 3.

Perfect tenses. See Tense, 1, 5.

Period. See Punctuation, 8.

PERPETRATE. “He joined withChief Justice Warren and perpetrated arevolution in the fifties and the sixties.”The intention of a TV moderator wasprobably to honor Justice Brennan, notto condemn him. Yet one could draw theopposite conclusion from “perpetrated.”

To perpetrate (verb, transitive) some-thing is to commit or carry it out; usuallyit is a felony or immoral deed, but it canbe a repugnant action that is not felo-nious or immoral, say a blunder or hoax.Although a descendant of the Latin per-petrare, to accomplish, perpetrate is nota neutral word and no vehicle for praise.

PERQUISITE and PREREQUI-SITE. A perquisite (noun) is a benefitthat goes with a job in addition tomoney, or a privilege expected by virtueof one’s office. “Use of a mansion is aperquisite of the governorship.” A collo-quial short form is perk or perq.

A prerequisite (noun) is a prior condi-tion that must be fulfilled before some-thing that one desires is available. “Ahigh school diploma is a prerequisite ofcollege admission.” Prerequisite (adjec-tive) means required in advance. “Latin1 is prerequisite to Latin 2.” Note that offollows the noun and to the adjective.

A news story described Suharto’s newcabinet, including a tycoon friend with“a lot to lose if Indonesia adopts strin-gent economic reforms to satisfy theperquisites of the IMF’s 50-point, $43billion bailout package.” Prerequisites.

PERSECUTE and PROSECUTE.See Confusing pairs.

PERSON. 1. As a suffix. 2. Meanings.

1. As a suffixArticles told of “a first baseperson for

the Cubs” and “university freshpersons”and said “most of the cost goes to themiddlepersons.” A national column re-ferred to “the clergyperson at the wed-ding festivities,” and a local columnmentioned people who subsisted “fromtheir salespersonship.” Most of uswould hesitate to substitute those cor-rupted forms for the correct nouns firstbaseman, freshmen, middlemen, clergy-man, and salesmanship.

Few words so innocuous have figuredin as much linguistic pollution as person.The harm is done when the word istacked to some other word, usually outof ignorance. Misunderstanding of theorigin and meaning of -man has led tovarious circumlocutions, of which -person is one. See -MAN-, MAN. Sofar, it appears, nobody has sought to re-place the -son in person.

A columnist criticized a candidate for“congressperson from the Fifth Dis-trict,” and a big ad protesting against aforeign leader said to write “Your Con-gressperson.” There is no such official. Amember of Congress is either a senator

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or a representative. Each state has twosenators in the Senate. Each local, con-gressional district has a representative inthe House of Representatives, often un-officially called a congressman.

An editor’s normal drive for concise-ness was not evident in this headline: “AHandyperson’s Guide to Reducing Haz-ards.” A caption described an electrichammer to “GIVE YOUR HANDY-PERSON A BANG,” and a columnistchose to call himself “MR. HANDY-PERSON.” The rest of us can use thecorrect word, handyman.

A news item said two financial estab-lishments were “held up by female gun-persons” and “a male gunman” held upa store. Presumably males did not qual-ify as “-persons.”

A column referred to the “hostessper-son” at a restaurant, in case anyonemight think the hostess was not a per-son.

Among other clumsy and needlesscombinations seen in print have beenthese: “airperson” / “anchorperson” /“draftsperson” / “foreperson” / “for-eignperson” / “newsperson” / “pressper-son” / “salesperson.” Some areperversions of well-established words,such as airman, draftsman, foreman, andpressman. Some might pass as phrases.Foreign person makes sense unjoined.News person or sales person is more un-gainly and no less insipid when joined.Would Arthur Miller have written Deathof a Salesperson?

A classified ad seeking a “WAITER/WAITRESS” was followed by one for a“WAITPERSON.” No normal restau-rant patron is likely to say to his waiter,“Waitperson, we’re ready to order.”

See also CHAIR, 1; PEOPLE as a suf-fix; SPOKESMAN, 1.

2. MeaningsPerson now is a bland synonym for

human being, but its ancestral meaninghad little humanity in it. It comes, via

Old French, from the Latin persona, lit-erally a mask used in Roman drama,also a character or role.

The sense of a mask did not make itinto English, but that of character or roledid. The import of person has variedfrom one of distinction to one of inferi-ority. Person was used contemptuouslyfor some time. It stood for a lower-classman (“a person in the trade”) and for ayoung woman. It has also denoted a liv-ing body or bodily form, appearance, orpresence.

Person has had special meanings in re-ligion, where it is one of the three mani-festations of the Trinity; in philosophy, arational being or human personality; inlaw, an individual or an organization;and in grammar, a classification of pro-nouns and corresponding verb forms.See ONE as pronoun, 1; Pronouns, 7.

In person, meaning physically pre-sent, can be a useful phrase. In “The ac-tor will appear in person,” it emphasizesthat the appearance will be bodily, notpictorial. But it is probably unnecessaryin “The president cannot attend in per-son.” Attendance is in person.

See also PEOPLE and PERSONS;PERSONAL.

PERSONAL. Personal (adjective)means of or pertaining to a certain per-son; private; intimate; bodily; or like aperson.

A book on English usage reproves theuse of personal to qualify words that canbe nothing else: mainly charm, friend,and opinion. Yet elsewhere it says, “Thecomments in this article reflect a per-sonal opinion. . . .” One can assume thatthe writer’s opinion is personal.

A “personal opinion” may occasion-ally be valid in distinguishing it from anofficial opinion. So may “Personally, myview is. . . .” However, the adverb is su-perfluous in “I cannot attend person-ally.” See also PERSON, 2.

Some publications with personal ads

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turn them into “personals.” See Nouns,2.

PERSONALITY. Strictly speaking,personality is an abstract noun that usu-ally pertains to a person’s pattern oftraits or to one’s character: “a dual per-sonality” / “her pleasant personality.”To say “She has personality” without de-scribing it is a colloquial use, not very in-formative except to imply that thespeaker likes her personality. Everyonehas it.

In a news story, the word served as anondescript tag for a television per-former:

. . . The evening’s host, “Entertain-ment Tonight” personality MaryHart, presented 14 distinguished ser-vice awards for Holocaust remem-brance in the performing arts. . . .

Using personality as a job title is quite in-formal and not suitable for a straightnews account of a rather somber ban-quet. If the writer did not know thewoman’s function on the show (co-host),he could have written “Mary Hart of‘Entertainment Tonight.’ ” (It wouldhave improved the awkward form too.See Modifiers, 4; Titles, 1.)

Person (grammatical). See ONE aspronoun, 1; Pronouns, 7.

Personification. In his poems, thepoet Shelley asks questions of Earth,Star, Moon, Wind, Sea, and Skylark.They do not answer, but he does carryon a two-way conversation with Sleep;Dawn instructs her children, the Hours;Indignation answers Pity; and a crowdvows allegiance to Anarchy as it rides by,crowned and sceptered.

To regard nonhuman things as peopleis a time-honored poetic device. Their in-vestment with human attributes but notfull human status is a closely related de-

vice and equally reputable, though dis-paraged by John Ruskin as the “patheticfallacy.” A prose example is the captionof a cartoon by James Thurber: “It’s anaive domestic Burgundy without anybreeding, but I think you’ll be amused byits presumption.”

Those devices are less honored in mat-ter-of-fact writing or speaking. A newsphoto showed private vehicles using alane meant for buses; meanwhile, a cap-tion said, “One bus chose to use an adja-cent lane.” The power of choicebelonged to the driver, not to the bus.News stories telling of the suffering ofvehicles or buildings in mishaps are dis-putable too. See SUFFER; SUSTAIN. Awoman tells what cars think, in LIKE(last quotation). Sympathetic rivers areheadlined in MERCY and PITY.

To apply the pronoun she or her to acountry or ship is a traditional personifi-cation. It or its is an acceptable alterna-tive. What is unacceptable is mixingthose treatments: “Japan . . . accepts re-sponsibilities . . . which it cannot aban-don; her frontier is no longer the sea.”Change either “it” to she or “her” to its.

PERSONNEL. 1. Number. 2. PER-SONAL and PERSONNEL.

1. NumberPersonnel does not pertain to an indi-

vidual or individuals. It is a collectivenoun denoting a body of people whowork in a business or organization.

A law professor used it wrong on theradio when he explained an action bythe judge in a prominent criminal trial:

Probably he was going to have a courtpersonnel go along [with the lawyersto another court for a special proce-dure].

Changing “personnel” to officer wouldrepair the sentence.

One could also object to a fire com-

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missioner’s reference to “our 1,500 per-sonnel.” Whether any number goes withpersonnel is debatable. Better: “our de-partment’s 1,500 members.”

Personnel may be construed (1) as aunit, taking a singular verb (“Our per-sonnel is ready to serve you”), or (2) as acollection of individuals, taking a pluralverb (“Personnel of this company havevaried backgrounds”).

The word may also, as a noun, denotea department or office concerned withemployees (“Mr. Carey is the head ofpersonnel”) or, as an adjective, refer toemployees or the managing of employees(“Please get me these personnel files”).

2. PERSONAL and PERSONNELPersonal (adjective), meaning private

or pertaining to a particular person,should not be confused with personnel(adjective), referring to employees ortheir managing. The first is pronouncedPER-son-null, the second per-son-NELL;and note the second n and second e inpersonnel. Sometimes the two words areindeed confused, even by those whoshould know better, and the fact thatboth come from the Late Latin person-alis, meaning personal, is no excuse.

A woman sought a personnel job witha community college. A student on a hir-ing committee said to her, “Tell meabout your personal experiences.” Sheassumed that he was inquiring about herexperiences in the personnel field, nother religious or sexual experiences, “oth-erwise I could have sued them for ha-rassment.”

PERSONS and PEOPLE. SeePEOPLE and PERSONS.

PERSPECTIVE and PROSPEC-TIVE. See Confusing pairs.

PERSUADE. See CONVINCE andPERSUADE.

PETROL. See GAS.

PHASE. See FAZE and PHASE.

PHENOMENA and PHENOM-ENON. A phenomenon is (1) an ob-servable occurrence or circumstance, (2)a scientifically notable natural event, or(3) an extraordinary, prodigious, or mar-velous thing or occurrence. Phenomenonis singular. Of Greek origin, it has aGreek plural, phenomena. “Earthquakesand tsunamis are related phenomena.”

Two talk show hosts on a radio sta-tion used the wrong form: “I don’t knowif this [fading interest in disasters] isuniquely American or if this is an inter-national phenomena. . . .” / “The Ameri-can Revolution was in large part aminority phenomena.” On television, agerontologist, a journalist, and a news-caster respectively did likewise: “It’s themost complex biological phenomenathat we know.” / “We had this strangephenomena of the president speakingbut his mike turned off.” / “Geologistssay that what they see is a new phenom-ena.” Every “phenomena” should havebeen phenomenon.

Phenomenons is an alternative pluralof phenomenon in the third sense (ex-traordinary thing etc.). The adjectivephenomenal commonly applies to phe-nomenon in that sense.

See also Plurals and singulars, 2E.

PHOBIA. See HOMOPHOBIA.

Phrase. See Sentence fragment.

PHYSICAL and FISCAL. See Con-fusing pairs.

PICK UP and PICKUP. 1. Confu-sion of verb with noun. 2. Unneeded hy-phen and preposition.

1. Confusion of verb with nounTo pick up, as in “Pick up the trash,”

is a compound verb. No one should con-

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fuse it with the noun pickup, as in “Thiscar has good pickup.” That is what thewriter of a promotional pamphlet did.

These mics will not pickup as muchnoise and radio frequency interference(RFI) as high impedance microphoneswill. . . .

Microphones pickup everything, togreater and lesser degrees, within theirdirectivity patterns.

Change each “pickup” to pick up.In the context of recording or broad-

casting, to pick up is to take sound orlight into the system, for conversion intoelectrical energy. Pickup is the process orthe apparatus.

The primary meaning of pick up is liftup. It has several other meanings, amongthem to accelerate, to acquire or learncasually, to improve, and to stop for andtake along.

Pickup has about as many meanings:acceleration, the act of picking up pas-sengers or objects, a phonograph arm, apickup truck, and special senses in thejargons of agriculture, broadcasting,journalism, and music. In slang, it is astranger met casually with the aim oflovemaking.

(Two minor points: The logic ofshortening microphone before spelling itin full is obscure. And the pet name isbetter spelled mike, if it is to rhyme withlike and not tic.)

2. Unneeded hyphen and prepositionSometimes a hyphen is placed be-

tween pick and up. For the noun, it isunnecessary, though not objectionable:“This car has good pick-up.” For theverb, it is erroneous. A sign in a nationalpark tells people to “pick-up” theirdogs’ dirt. They should pick up the stuff.See also Punctuation, 4C (near end).

An article in a Mississippi newspapersaid about high school dress codes:“Some schools are already picking up on

new fashion trends.” Picking up isenough. The “on” serves no purpose, ex-cept perhaps to demonstrate that awriter can pick up new trends in slang.See also ON, 2.

PITY. See MERCY and PITY.

PLACE (verb). See INTO, 1.

PLAIN and PLANE. See Homo-phones.

PLANET. See STAR and SUN.

PLAY DOWN and “DOWN-PLAY.” To play down something is tomake little of it or to minimize its impor-tance. “The press played down theevent.”

A Germanic-sounding inversion of itis “downplay,” which probably origi-nated in telegraphic messages betweencorrespondents and editors. By reversingand combining two words, a journalistsaved the cost of a word. Such jargonwas not intended for use in any newspa-per story: “Hospital officials down-played the investigation.” / “Thecounties also allege the industry fraudu-lently misled the public . . . by down-playing the potential health risks.”

Nor was it meant for a broadcast in-terview: “The Administration haddownplayed any real prospects” (of Rus-sia’s agreeing to an expansion ofNATO). Or a forum: “I don’t want todownplay what they’re doing” (referringto academics’ criticism of the news me-dia). Or an almanac: “Over time . . . fas-cist elements were downplayed” (in theFranco regime).

John Chancellor, the late broadcaster,and Walter R. Mears, journalist, wrotethat “the news business has coined itsshare of dreadful nonwords. Take‘downplay.’ . . . It does not save words,and it ought to be banned.” We need notgo so far as to criminalize nonwords, but

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a case can be made for putting that oneon the most-unwanted list for speakersof English.

The opposite of play down is play up,to emphasize the importance of some-thing, to give it prominence. “The newsmedia played up the scandal.” So far ithas not been Germanized.

See also Backward writing, 3.

PLAY UP. See PLAY DOWN and“DOWNPLAY.”

PLEAD. See ADVOCATE.

PLEONASM. See Tautology.

PLURALITY. See MAJORITY, 1.

Plurals and singulars. 1. Errors. 2.Principles and problems.

1. ErrorsA circus menagerie included lions,

tigers, and “rhinoceri,” a radio reportersaid. And at a zoo “the approach of therhinoceri did give us a start,” a TV hostsaid. Perhaps they deemed an “i” endingfor rhinoceros an elegant Latinism. Theywere wrong. The plural is rhinocerosesor just rhinoceros. The word came fromrhinokeros, Greek for nose-horn.

Some swear that the plural of octopusis octopi, in Latin fashion. But not allLatin -us singulars change to -i plurals,and anyway the word came originallyfrom Greek, in which oktopous meanteight-footed. One is on firmer groundusing octopuses or, to be fancier, oc-topodes (pronounced oc-TOP-a-deez),even though dictionaries condone themisconception.

A common mistake is to use an exoticplural as a singular: e.g., “a criteria” / “amemoranda” / “a stimuli.” Another mis-take is to add s to one of them, produc-ing a double plural: “criterias” /“memorandas” / “stimulis.” In a re-gional idiosyncracy, s or es is added tocommon plurals: “folkses” / “lices” /“oxens” / “sheeps” / “geeses.”

In dealing with plurals and singulars,affixing the wrong ending is one pitfall;another is omitting the right ending.

When “The Ultimate Pant” flashed ontelevision screens, it was not referring tosomeone’s last gasp. It purported to ad-vertise a particular brand and style ofpants. The word has no singular whenapplied to an article of clothing.

People have been known to omit theplural endings of calves, corps, hooves,measles, and summons, thinking that“calv” / “corp” / “hoov” / “measle” /“summon” are singular. Appendix (asingular whose plural is appendices orappendixes) has been turned into “ap-pendic.”

Other nonstandard colloquialisms aresingulars used as plurals (“many bushel”/ “foot” / “mile” / “pair” / “year”) andplurals used as singulars (“a woods” /“grounds” / “stairs” / “ways”).

2. Principles and problems

A. BasicThe principle is simple for most

nouns: To turn a singular into a plural,add s or es. Add the es if the word nor-mally ends in a sibilant (a ch, j, s, sh, x, z,or zh sound).

The s is voiceless after a voicelesssound (cats) but pronounced z after avoiced sound (dogs). The es is pro-nounced iz (as in foxes).

Problems lie in the minority that areirregular nouns.

B. CompoundsWhat to do about hyphenated words,

like mother-in-law, or sets of words, likeconsul general, is a common puzzle. Thetraditional principle, increasingly disre-garded, is to assign the plural ending tothe part that is normally a noun; or, ifthere are two nouns, to the more impor-tant one.

Thus these are plurals: adjutants gen-eral, aides-de-camp, attorneys general,daughters-in-law, men-of-war, mothers-

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in-law, consuls general, courts martial,notaries public, sergeants major, andtugs of war. The noun goes first in eachof those; it goes second in these: judgeadvocates, lieutenant generals, majorgenerals. Many compounds that do notend in nouns get simple s endings, partic-ularly if they are single words: break-throughs, forget-me-nots, knockouts,ne’er-do-wells, takeoffs, and words end-ing in -ful, like cupfuls and spoonfuls.

C. Creatures; peculiaritiesEnglish has a variety of peculiar

changes to perplex newcomers. Louseand mouse change to lice and mice.Blouse and house become blouses andhouses, but the s sound in house changesto a z sound in the plural. You have onegoose or two geese, but mongoose be-comes mongooses, and moose remainsmoose.

Fish remains fish for individual speci-mens but becomes fishes for differenttypes. Many fishes and beasts have sim-ple s plurals, but sometimes the singularis treated as a plural, particularly by fish-ermen and hunters: two flounders orflounder; three pheasants or pheasant.Other creatures are unchanged in theplural, except for different types or vari-eties. John buys two salmon or studiesthe different salmons of North America.I saw two deer and wondered whichdeers inhabit this region. Coffee, fruit,silk, steel, tea, wheat, and wool aretreated as singular except when differenttypes or varieties are considered; then s isaffixed and it becomes plural. An or-chard produces lots of fruit and five dif-ferent fruits.

D. -EN, -RENThe -en and -ren forms are descended

from Old English. They turn brother,child, ox, man, and woman intobrethren (the archaic version of broth-ers), children, oxen, men, and women.

E. Foreign derivationsSome words preserve the forms of the

foreign languages they were derivedfrom. As in Latin, the singular words ad-dendum, alumnus, datum, genus, minu-tia, ovum, stimulus, and stratum changeto the plural addenda, alumni, data, gen-era, minutiae, ova, stimuli, and strata. Asin Greek, analysis, criterion, ellipsis, phe-nomenon, and thesis change to analyses,criteria, ellipses, phenomena, and theses.

Other words adopted from foreignlanguages present a choice between theoriginal plural and an Anglicized plural.Beau may become either beaux (French)or beaus. Cactus: either cacti (Latin) orcactuses. Carcinoma: either carcinomata(Greek) or carcinomas. Cherub: eithercherubim (Hebrew) or cherubs. Curricu-lum: either curricula (Latin) or curricu-lums. Formula: either formulae (Latin)or formulas. Index: either indices (Latin)or indexes. Libretto: either libretti (Ital-ian) or librettos. Matrix: either matrices(Latin) or matrixes. Nucleus: either nu-clei (Latin) or, occasionally, nucleuses.Opus: either opera (a possibly confusingLatinism) or opuses. Radius: either radii(Latin) or radiuses. Virtuoso: either vir-tuosi (Italian) or virtuosos.

F. -F endingWords that end in the f sound in the

singular may have a -ves ending in theplural. Calf, half, knife, leaf, life, thief,self, wife, and wolf become calves,halves, knives, leaves, lives, thieves,selves, wives, and wolves. But wharf maybecome either wharfs or wharves andhoof either hoofs or hooves. Roof be-comes only roofs. And still life becomesonly still lifes.

G. -ICS endingWords that end in -ics may be con-

strued either as singular or as plural. Itdepends on meaning.

Considered as sciences, subjects, oroccupations, acoustics, acrobatics, ath-letics, ethics, mathematics, physics, poli-tics, statistics, tactics, and so on areusually treated as singulars. Considered

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as qualities or activities, they are usuallytreated as plurals. Thus “mathematics isemphasized at that school” but “mymathematics are rusty.” / “Accousticshas become his business,” but “The ac-coustics here impress me.”

H. Mr. and Mrs.Mr. and Mrs. use the French in the

plural: Messieurs and Mesdames respec-tively, abbreviated Messrs. and Mmes.and pronounced MESS-errs and may-DAM or may-DOM. Miss becomesMisses or misses (with no name). Ms.has no plural. (See Titles, 2.)

I. No pluralsMost words that represent abstrac-

tions, generalizations, or qualities, ratherthan concrete items, are singular only.Examples are amazement, courage, eat-ing, fondness, happiness, ignorance,learning, nonsense, and vindication.

J. -O endingAdd s to any word ending in o after a

vowel: patios, radios, stereos, studiosand tattoos.

Most words ending in o after a conso-nant also take s (altos, egos, pianos), butseveral take -es (echoes, heroes, pota-toes, tomatoes). Several others go eitherway: buffaloes or buffalos, cargoes orcargos, dominoes or dominos, zeroes orzeros.

K. -S endingSome nouns that normally end in s

may be considered either plural or singu-lar: alms, barracks, corps, forceps,means, scissors (also pair or pairs of scis-sors). Some other nouns that end in s areplural in form though singular in mean-ing: blues (music), checkers, overalls,measles, pants, remains, tongs, trousers.

Chess, kudos, and news are singularonly. The plural of lens is lenses. Theplural of gallows is either the same or,occasionally, gallowses. Names ending

in s add es: Barnes—the Barneses.Davis—the Davises. Jones—the Joneses.

L. Other entriesAmong entries dealing with plural

and singular matters are these: BACTE-RIA and BACTERIUM; COHORT;CRITERIA and CRITERION; DATA;EMERITUS; GRAFFITI and GRAF-FITO; HEADQUARTERS; KUDOS;MEDIA and MEDIUM; MEMO-RANDA and MEMORANDUM;NONE, 1; Nouns, 3; PHENOMENAand PHENOMENON; Pronouns, 2;Punctuation, 1H (apostrophe); RAVI-OLI; RUIN and RUINS; Verbs, 3; VER-TEBRA and VERTEBRAE; WAY and“A WAYS”; -Y ending, 2.

See also Number (grammatical) witha list of references.

PLUS. Plus is not always a synonymfor and. The sentence “Talent plus luckaccounts for his success” correctly has asingular verb. But “Talent and luck ac-count for his success” correctly has aplural verb. Plus, meaning added to orincreased by, is a preposition, like with.It is not a conjunction, a connectingword, like and.

“Four plus three equals seven” isright. Each number is construed as sin-gular, so the total is singular. In that con-text and is synonymous with plus. “Fourand three equals seven” is idiomatic.

“The potato plus the apple costs fiftycents,” but “The potatoes plus the applecost a dollar.” In the latter sentence, theverb, cost, is plural because potatoes isplural, not because of the plus.

That brings us to an item about a fa-ther’s concern that his son is close todriving age.

The Vice President’s Observatory Hillmansion grounds have private roadson which the teen-ager can learn todrive. “Plus you have a police car infront,” Quayle said, “and a concrete

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wall around the place and an ambu-lance following behind. . . .”

Usually “plus” does not start a sentenceor clause, except in the most casualspeech. Better: in addition, furthermore,or and.

Plus can be also an adjective (“a plussign” / “the plus side of the account” / “agrade of D plus”) and a noun (“This is aplus: +” / “The contract is a plus for ourcompany”).

P.M. See A.M., P.M., NOON, MID-NIGHT.

PODIUM. See LECTERN andPODIUM.

POINT OUT. To point out is to di-rect one’s attention to (certain informa-tion or a particular situation). Thephrase is not impartial. It suggests thatwhat is pointed out is true.

Unless the information is clearly fac-tual (“He pointed out a defective leg ofthat chair”) or you are prepared tovouch for its truth (“Let me point outmy client’s long record of altruism”), usea more neutral word or phrase.

A TV newscaster’s announcementthat a utility company “points out thatProposition 9 is not needed” in effectsupported the company’s position. Re-placing “points out” with says or con-tends would have maintained theimpartiality of the television station.

POOL. See BILLIARDS and POOL.

POPULIST. A minor factual error isfound in the following passage from abook by a chief justice. The same error ismade by an encyclopedia and a dictio-nary.

The Farmers’ Alliances joined to-gether with other splinter factions toput the Populist party on a nationalbasis in 1892. . . .

The Populist party nominatedJames Weaver of Iowa for president in1892. . . . Four years later the Populistparty fused with the Democraticparty. . . .

The party was the People’s Party. A sup-porter of that party, but not the party it-self, was called Populist. Weaver, forinstance, was a Populist. The farmer’smovement of that era was known as thePopulist movement or Populism.

PORE and POUR. See Homo-phones.

Positive degree. See Comparative andsuperlative degrees.

Possessive problems. 1. Can a thingpossess something? 2. Multiple posses-sives. 3. Possessive or not? 4. Possessivepronouns. 5. Various questions.

1. Can a thing possess something?A grammatical tradition has it that

the possessive ending in ’s applies only toanimate beings. An extreme view re-serves the ’s possessive to human beings,with few exceptions. Thus a grammarianholding that view rejects “Florida’s gov-ernor.” It would have to be the governorof Florida. Presumably the governor’ssignature would be acceptable.

But the exceptions that have becomestandard are many and getting more nu-merous. They are in innumerable com-mon expressions: a day’s work; forheaven’s sake; in harm’s way; my mind’seye; my wit’s end; a stone’s throw; to-day’s paper. Literary uses abound: AMidsummer Night’s Dream / “thedawn’s early light . . . the twilight’s lastgleaming” / “the pangs of despised love,the law’s delay” / “the wheel’s kick andthe wind’s song” / “The world’s greatage begins anew.”

The extreme view is not recom-mended here. Nevertheless, the use of ar-

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tificial possessives in the news businesshas long been rampant. Some, like thenation’s capital in place of the nationalcapital, have become familiar. Others areunidiomatic combinations such as“Spain’s King Juan Carlos” instead ofKing Juan Carlos of Spain, designed tosave minute amounts of space. One typi-cal paragraph in a news magazine con-tains phrases like “the group’s newleader . . . the group’s founder . . . Jihad’srepresentative in Tehran warning thatIran’s Ministry of Foreign Intelligencebelieves. . . .”

Let inanimate objects or animals pos-sess things, if they can do so gracefully.Few will complain about “The town’sonly theater” / “The value of Apple’sstocks” / “a dog’s age” / “horses’ hoofs.”But let no one speak of “the century’sturn,” write that “I’m having my life’stime,” or wish anyone the “morning’stop.”

2. Multiple possessives“Your and my boss are friends” and

“My and her children play together”sound strange, because in each instancethe first possessive pronoun is separatedfrom the noun. Placing one possessivepronoun before the noun and the otherafter the noun solves the problem: “Yourboss and mine . . .” / “My children andhers. . . .” If we have something in com-mon, there is no problem: “our build-ing” / “our country.”

How to make two nouns possessivedepends on whether possession is sepa-rate (“The plaintiff’s and the defendant’sattorneys”) or joint (“Laurel andHardy’s films”). See Punctuation, 1E.

3. Possessive or not?Whether a noun is possessive or

merely acting as a modifier can be a sub-tle distinction. One can write about theUnited States’ population and a newUnited States citizen or about GeneralMotors’ plants and the General Motors

Building. Note that it is never “UnitedState’s” or “General Motor’s.”

The names of organizations are highlyvariable in their use or nonuse of theapostrophe. It is the Boys’ Clubs ofAmerica but the Girls Clubs of America;the International Backpackers’ Associa-tion but the National Campers and Hik-ers Association; the Sheet MetalWorkers’ International Association butthe Transport Workers Union of Amer-ica; the National Sheriff’s Associationbut the Music Teachers National Associ-ation.

The apostrophe is necessary in Chil-dren’s Aid Society and Women’s Chris-tian Temperance Union. Without anapostrophe, it makes no sense to add ans to children or women. The same is truefor any other word that is plural withoutan added s.

The apostrophe is traditional inphrases like ten years’ imprisonment andthirty days’ notice. Some critics wouldomit the apostrophe in such phrases. Noone would want possession in such vari-ations as a thirty-day notice or notice ofthirty days. It would be a thousand dol-lars’ worth or, in figures, $1,000 worth.

4. Possessive pronounsLet nobody tamper with a word like

hers, his, our, ours, your, or yours. Ittakes no ’s, no apostrophe. It is alreadypossessive. Sometimes “her’s” and“our’s” and “your’s” are seen, and theyare wrong (although they were deemedcorrect centuries back). So is “his’n” or“hisn,” a dialectal version of his, whichis heard or seen in some regions.

A word like his, hers, etc. may be re-garded as a personal pronoun in the pos-sessive case. There are two types:

• The type that goes before the noun(e.g., “This is her house”). It takes inthe singular words my, your, his, her,and its and the plural words our,your, and their.

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• The type that goes after the noun(“This house is hers”): the singularsmine, yours, his, hers, and its andthe plurals ours, yours, and theirs.

(Words of the first type are knownalso as possessive adjectives. Some gram-marians assign that name to my, yourhis, her, etc. because they go beforenouns, as adjectives do: “This is a fra-grant flower.” But adjectives too follownouns: “This flower is fragrant.”)

The indefinite pronoun is a class ofpronoun that can be made possessive,e.g., anybody’s, anyone’s, either’s, every-body’s, everyone’s, nobody’s, one’s,somebody’s, and someone’s.

5. Various questionsIs this correct? “I have Elisabeth

Schwarzkopf, the soprano’s, records.”What is made possessive when an appos-itive, or an explanatory word or phrase,follows a person’s name? The appositiveis. That example is correct, and so is thisone: “They showed Douglas Fairbanks,Jr.’s, first film.” But “records of ElisabethSchwarzkopf, the soprano” and “thefirst film by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.” aresmoother ways to express the samethoughts.

How is a compound noun like broth-ers-in-law and attorneys general madepossessive when it already has a plural s?Add an apostrophe and another s.“Guess what my brothers-in-law’s occu-pations are.” / “He spoke at the attor-neys general’s meeting.”

Which is right, “They ask for our firstname” or “names”? The latter; we haveseparate names. But “John and Agnesare selling their house,” if they own itjointly. See Nouns, 3.

Is it “the painting of my daughter” or“the painting of my daughter’s”? It is thefirst if the picture shows her; the secondif it was painted by her. Some critics findthe double negative illogical, howeverold and established. Nobody objects to it

when the possessive is a pronoun: “a col-league of mine.” See Double possessive.

What is the genitive case? It is the pos-sessive case, the form of a noun or pro-noun that indicates someone’s orsomething’s possession, characteristic,product, etc. See also Pronouns, 10A.

See Punctuation, 1, the apostrophe,for problems such as the confusion ofpossessive forms and contractions (B),omitted and superfluous apostrophes (Cand D), possessives of possessives (F)and sibilant endings (G).

See also Gerund, 4; Pronouns, 1, 2, 9.

POSSIBLE, POSSIBLY, POSSIBIL-ITY. 1. Meaning of POSSIBLE. 2.Preposition with POSSIBILITY.

1. Meaning of POSSIBLEPossible (adjective) means capable of

being, doing, or happening. It is possiblefor an imprisoned burglar to be electedpresident on a platform of legalizedcrime; not likely, highly improbable, justpossible. Were broadcasters talkingabout the realm of possibility when theymade the following statements?

[Woman:] Public TV stations needyour support.

[Man:] Support that makes pro-grams like Nightly Business Reportpossible.

The Fresh Grocer is made possibleby Lunardi’s Market.

Express Traffic [is] made possibleby the California Lottery.

Monetary contributions finance thepublic TV programs. The radio pro-grams are sponsored by the market andthe lottery. All of those programs werepossible before the stations went seekingcontributions or sponsorship. The con-tributors and sponsors help materializeor make feasible or sustain that which ispossible.

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Journalists often misuse possible inthis way: “He suffered a possible brokenleg.” If it were impossible, no one wouldsuffer it. Better: “He may have suffered a . . .” or “It is possible that he suffereda . . .” or “He possibly [adverb] suffereda. . . .”

A less frequent journalistic misuse ap-pears in crime stories. “Police arrested apossible suspect. . . .” Omit “possible.”They arrested a suspect. A suspect is pos-sibly the culprit.

See also APPARENT, APPARENTLY.

2. Preposition with POSSIBILITYWhen possibility (noun) is followed

by a preposition, it is of. Then comes agerund, an -ing word used as a noun.This sentence was part of a statement tothe voters of a city from its legislativebody:

Every time San Franciscans face thepossibility to enact candidate spend-ing reform, hired gun campaign con-sultants and weak-willed candidatestry to snow the voters.

“The possibility to enact” is not id-iomatic. Make it “the possibility of en-acting. . . .” (And insert a hyphen after“candidate.”) See Gerund, 3.

POUR and PORE. See Homo-phones.

PRACTICABLE and PRACTI-CAL. See Confusing pairs.

PRECEDE and PROCEED. SeeConfusing pairs.

PREDECESSOR and SUCCES-SOR. A magazine publisher, leaving totake another job, wrote to his readers,“I . . . know you will be as kind andthoughtful to my predecessor as youwere to me.” Someone’s predecessor isone who preceded him, one who served

earlier in the same capacity. The oppo-site word was needed: successor, onewho succeeds another. “My successor”is the person who will take my job whenI leave.

Predicate. See Clause; Complement;Nouns, 4; Prepositions, 4; Sentence frag-ment, 1; Verbs, 1D.

Predicate adjective. See Adjectivesand adverbs, 2; Complement.

Predicate noun (predicate nomina-tive). See Complement; Nouns, 1.

Prediction. See EXPECTED; NOTABOUT TO; Reversal of meaning, 1.

PREFER. See THAN, 2D.

Prefix. See BACK(-) prefix and pairs;BI- and SEMI- prefixes; CIRCUM- pre-fix; FACT- words; NANO- prefix; PRE-prefix; Punctuation, 4D (hyphenatedforms); SELF- prefix; Spelling, 3; UP, 3.

PREJUDICE. See WITH PREJU-DICE and WITHOUT PREJUDICE.

Prepositions. 1. The ABC’s of prepo-sitions. 2. Ambiguity. 3. Ending with apreposition. 4. Insufficient prepositions.5. Misplacement. 6. Omission. 7. Selec-tion of a preposition. 8. Superfluouspreposition.

1. The ABC’s of prepositionsThe preposition is a deceptive part of

speech, simple on the surface while trou-bling to learners of English and some-times to native speakers as well. It iseverywhere; it appeared in the last sen-tence five times. It includes some of theshortest words—at, by, in, of, on, to,up—but properly choosing and using itcan be illogical, dictated by idiom.

A preposition shows the relation of aword or phrase in a sentence to a noun

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or pronoun in that sentence. In the sen-tence “She lives in Providence,” thepreposition in relates the verb lives to thenoun Providence. In “The cat came tome,” the preposition to relates the verbcame to the pronoun me.

A preposition may relate an adjectiveto a noun (“young at heart”), one nounto another (“the sound of music”), onepronoun to another (“Are you withhim?”), and so on.

The choice of a preposition can deter-mine the meaning of a sentence. “He raninto the building” and “He ran from thebuilding,” though differing by only oneword, have opposite meanings.

In many cases idiom, not meaning,dictates which preposition to use. “Visi-tors are forbidden to enter” but “prohib-ited from entering.” (See FORBID,PROHIBIT, and BAN; Gerund, 3.)

Depending on how it is used, the sameword may go with different preposi-tions. “Twelve is equivalent [adjective]to a dozen” but “Twelve is the equiva-lent [noun] of a dozen.” / “I agree to thedeal” but “I agree with you.” (The firstagree means to give approval; the secondmeans to concur.) More examples ap-pear in 7.

Prepositions are not all tiny words;they include against, around, between,during, through, toward, without, andsome that comprise more than oneword, such as according to, because of,by means of, in regard to, and on ac-count of.

The noun or pronoun (or other sub-stantive) that the preposition pertains tois called the object of the preposition. Apronoun that serves as the object takesthe objective case. “The town stood be-hind him,” not “he.” (See Pronouns,10.)

The preposition plus the object (andany modifier of it) is a prepositionalphrase, e.g., behind him in the last exam-ple and the following emphasized words:“Violin with guitar makes a pleasant

sound.” / Under that tree is a good placeto rest.” The phrases are acting as ad-verb, adjective, and noun respectively.

2. AmbiguityOne might expect the little preposi-

tions of and for to be clear in meaning,and usually they are. But each has manymeanings and can become cloudy in cer-tain contexts.

“ ‘They have a valid complaint,’ saidDawis of the squatters.” Was Dawis oneof the squatters? “Of” could mean fromor belonging to. However, the context (anews story) indicates that about wasmeant; it would have been a more suit-able preposition.

A book on words mentions“achthronym, a word H. L. Menckenused for an ethnic slur. . . .” Those unfa-miliar with the combining form -onym,used in classifying words and names,could get the idea that the writerMencken used the word as a slur againstan ethnic group. “For” could give thatimpression. To mean or to denote, averb, would be more precise.

An almanac says that Boris Yeltsinurged fast reform and “championed thecause for national reconstruction. . . .”Was “the cause” reform? It was proba-bly “national reconstruction,” but thefor is ambiguous; it could mean in the in-terest of. “. . . The cause of” would beclearer and more idiomatic.

The headline “Guards Use Rifles inQuentin Killing” suggests that prisonguards shot someone to death. Actually,one inmate stabbed another, whereupona guard fired at and wounded the at-tacker. The copy editor evidently had aperipheral role for “in” in mind; instead,it drags the using of rifles smack into the“Killing.” He probably avoided any-thing as straightforward as “SanQuentin Inmate Is Fatally Stabbed” be-cause a competing paper got the newsfirst.

See also 6.

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3. Ending with a prepositionThe word preposition, a relative of

the Latin praepositus, meaning placed infront, should not be taken literally.Sometimes a preposition goes at the endof a sentence.

A newspaper quotes an eyewitness assaying on Israeli radio: “Everybody washysterical, and nobody knew where thebullets would come from.” There isnothing wrong with the quoted sentence(as long as it was quoted and translatedcorrectly).

Anyone who says you cannot end anysentence with a preposition does notknow what he is talking about. Hewould probably change the foregoing to“. . . does not know about what he istalking.”

The notion was called by H. W.Fowler a once “cherished superstition”and by Winston Churchill “an arrantpedantry up with which I will not put.”It originates in the Latin language.

Placing a preposition at the end mayweaken a sentence, strengthen it, or doneither. It depends on the sentence.“. . . Nobody knew from where the bul-lets would come” is a weakened versionof the opening sample.

Many great writers have ended sen-tences with prepositions. Shakespearewrote: “It is an honor that I dream notof” (Romeo and Juliet) and “It would bespoke to” (Hamlet).

Prepositions end various common ex-pressions, such as to have or not have “aleg to stand on” / “to be reckoned with”/ “that’s what ——— are for” / “where Icome from.”

4. Insufficient prepositionsOne preposition may or may not be

enough for a compound predicate; thatis, a predicate with more than one verb.(The predicate is the part of a sentencethat expresses the action.) One preposi-tion is enough in this compound sen-tence: “He ranted and raved about his

wife’s alleged unfaithfulness.” The nextone, from a telecast, has one correctpreposition but lacks a second:

He was treated and released from anearby hospital.

Released goes with from but “treated”does not. A person is treated at or in ahospital, not “from” a hospital. This isone possible correction: “He was treatedat and released from a nearby hospital.”Better: “He was treated at a nearby hos-pital and released.”

Two similar sentences, from newspa-pers, are likewise inadequate:

Another victim was transported to St.Francis Memorial Hospital, where hewas treated and released for minor in-juries.

Mike K——, 38, was treated andreleased from Marin General Hospitalfor smoke inhalation and first- andsecond-degree burns on his head. . . .

The first sentence of that pair says thevictim was “released for” injuries, an ab-surd juxtaposition. Here is a correction:“Another victim was transported to St.Francis Memorial Hospital, treated therefor minor injuries, and released.”

In the second of the pair, “treated”does not go with “from” and, again, “re-leased” does not go with “for.” Try this:“Mike . . . suffered from smoke inhala-tion [etc.]. . . . He was treated at MarinGeneral Hospital and released.”

H. W. Fowler called attention to whathe labeled “CANNIBALISM,” a sadpractice in which “words devour theirown kind.” For instance:

The most vital problem in the etymo-logical study of English place-names isthe question as to what extent per-sonal names occur in place-names.

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“As to” and “to what” need separateto’s, but one to is missing—swallowedby the other one, as Fowler would say.

A sentence by Fowler himself evi-dences a swallowed preposition:

. . . It means, beyond a doubt, a cus-tom that one deserves more honourfor breaking than for keeping. . . .

A for has been swallowed, so to speak,immediately after honour (the Britishspelling of honor). If for for is not toone’s liking, an alternative correction isto change “that” to for which. (See alsoHONORABLE [etc.] 3.)

More examples appear in TO, 1.

5. MisplacementAn adjective and a preposition that

commonly go together, like similar to ordifferent from, should not be split apart.This sentence, from a computer book,splits them apart:

. . . The Toolbox has its own titlebar and System menu, with similarproperties to the publication title barand System menu.

A correction is “properties similar to thepublication. . . .” (The sentence needsmore fixing, for it compares unlikethings. Make it “properties similar tothose of the publication. . . .”)

Prepositions are liable to be misplacedin sentences containing correlative con-junctions like both . . . and and ei-ther . . . or. “The bill has been passedboth by the Senate and the House ofRepresentatives.” Make it by both. “Hehas no faith either in the Democrats orthe Republicans.” Make it in either.Now in each sentence the preposition(by or in) affects both nouns, not just thefirst; and we uphold the rule of correla-tive conjunctions: The same grammati-cal form that follows the firstconjunction of the pair must follow the

second, somewhat in the manner of amathematical equation. See also BOTH,1; EITHER, 1; NEITHER, 1; NOTONLY.

6. OmissionThe casual speaker or writer some-

times omits on and of when they areneeded and sticks them in when they arenot needed. “On the first day” and “acouple of kids” are typical phrases inwhich prepositions are subject to omis-sion, contrary to idiom. See ON, 1;COUPLE, 4.

This sentence, from a book of traveladventure, omits another idiomaticpreposition:

Mid-afternoon we passed a ruinedhamlet of stone and shortly after itreached an ancient and reveredmosque.

It would improve the sentence to start itwith In. Adverbs representing times ofday do not usually open sentences. (An-other improvement would be to drop“it,” which tends to fuse with“reached.”)

A similar omission impairs a sentenceby a food critic:

Multiply your weight times 13 to get arough idea of how many calories youcan consume a day. Divide the totalby 4, and that’s how many fat caloriesyou can handle.

You can “consume a day” repairingyour house or operating your computer.As for the sample sentence, it would beimproved either by “how many caloriesyou can consume in a day” or by “howmany calories a day you can consume.”An a or an may be enough when sand-wiched between the nouns denotingunits and time. But the preposition inshould precede a when units and timeare further apart. The statistical preposi-

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tion per fits either context: “calories perday” or “calories you can consume perday.”

Prepositions, especially of, are oftenomitted in efforts to be concise. The re-sult can be ambiguity. “A small sculpturecollection” could mean either “a collec-tion of small sculptures” or “a small col-lection of sculptures.” A morecomplicated example: “The curbing ofpublic meetings and the publication ofnewspapers eliminated most oppositionto the regime.” As it stands, “the curbingof public meetings” and “the publicationof newspapers” may appear to be paral-lel factors. But if “curbing” controls thelatter phrase (a more likely assumption),precede the phrase by of: “The curbingof public meetings and of the publicationof newspapers . . .”

If the meaning is clear, omission ofprepositions is tolerable in headlines,such as the following, which appeared inone newspaper edition: “Police seek Ne-tanyahu indictment” / “Oil industryfights gas additive ban” / “Group urgestough rules for hydrofluoric acid use” /“Panel OKs flood aid package.” In texts,clarity and grace call for “. . . indictmentof Netanyahu / “. . . ban on gas addi-tives” (or, better, “gasoline additives”) /“. . . use of hydrofluoric acid” /“. . . package of flood aid.”

7. Selection of a prepositionLearning which preposition goes with

each verb, adjective, noun, or pronoun isa daunting task for the foreign student ofEnglish, sometimes for the nativespeaker too. The choice of prepositionoften depends on idiom, rather thanlogic. The same word may go with twoprepositions, depending on meaning:

Agree to means to consent to or ap-prove something; agree with means to beof the same opinion as, or to be suitablefor. Belong to means to be a member of;belong with means to deserve being clas-sified among. Capacity for means apti-

tude for; capacity of means the most thatcan be contained in. Compare to meansto liken to; compare with means to con-trast with. (See COMPARED TO andCOMPARED WITH, 1.) Concur inmeans to express approval of (an opin-ion or joint action); concur with meansto agree with (someone). Correspond tomeans to match; correspond with meansto exchange letters with. Differ frommeans to be unlike; differ with means todisagree with. In behalf of means in theinterest of; on behalf of means as theagent of. Liable for means responsiblefor; liable to means apt to. (In) sympathywith means in agreement with; sympa-thy for means compassion for. Wait for isto be inactive and in anticipation of; waiton is to serve (someone food or drink).(See WAIT FOR and WAIT ON.)

Even when the meaning does notchange much, the preposition may varywith context. A conversation betweentwo people is a conversation amongthree. (See BETWEEN, 1.) A patient iscured of a disease but cured by a treat-ment. One is grateful for a benefit butgrateful to a person. One may intervenein a dispute but intervene between thosedisputing. A buyer is in the market for aproduct; a product is on the market.Someone gains mastery of a skill or sub-ject; a ruler or regime gains mastery overa country or people. A report of an acci-dent appears in the paper; the govern-ment submits a report on the economy.One may speak on a subject but speak toa person. (See SPEAK TO, TALK TO.)

In the press on often assumes func-tions that would be better served byother prepositions. (See ON, 3.) In newsitems about arrests, for can be prejudi-cial. (See Guilt and Innocence, 5.)

An occasional error in the choice ofprepositions goes like this (numbersadded): “He will be in the best possibleposition for [1] getting the most out ofthe land and of [2] using it to the bestpossible advantage.” Although for

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would apply to both 1 and 2, the writerchose to precede the second phrase withan extra preposition to be clearer; but in-stead of repeating for, which wouldmake sense, he carelessly copied “of,”the last preposition he saw.

See also 1, 2; DIFFERENT, 1;Gerund, 3B; INTO, 1; RALLY; WITHPREJUDICE (etc.).

8. Superfluous prepositionA newspaper ran the headline “Regu-

lators’ beef with selling milk for cheap.”The “for” was unnecessary and unid-iomatic. “. . . Selling milk cheap” (orcheaply) is enough. You do not say“moving for quick” or “coming forsoon.”

That is an example of a superfluouspreposition, one that is used unnecessar-ily with a particular word. Some promi-nent examples include “for” before free,“of” after off, and “from” beforewhence.

A series may be marred by an extrapreposition, as in this extract from anews story:

Its history has been reconstructedfrom ticket stubs found on the floor,dressing room graffiti and from inter-views with older black residents ofAthens. . . .

The first “from” covers all the threeitems enumerated. The other “from” issuperfluous, inasmuch as no prepositionprecedes the second item, “dressingroom graffiti.” See also Series errors, 9.

In numerical ranges, prepositions areliable to pile up: “A high temperature offrom 70 to 75 degrees is forecast.” Omitfrom. “The gadget is priced at between$40 and $50.” Omit at.

This example is similar in its causes tothe one at the end of 7: “It could be donewithout unduly raising the price of coalor of jeopardizing new trade.” Omit thesecond of; no preposition belongs thereat all.

See also ADVOCATE; FREE, 1; OFFand “OFF OF”; ON, 2; WHENCE and“FROM WHENCE”; WISH; WITH.

PRE- prefix. The prefix pre- meansbefore, beforehand, early, in advance of,or in front of. An example appears in thenoun prefix itself (originating in theLatin prae-, before, and figere, to fix).Other examples are adjectives, such aspreadolescent (youngsters), precancer-ous (lesions), prefabricated (houses);verbs, to predominate, to prejudge; andmore nouns, prescription, preview.

If such a meaning is obvious withoutit, pre- is probably unnecessary. Thesesentences are redundant: “Advance pay-ment of the initiation fee and the firstyear’s dues is a precondition of member-ship.” / “We won’t begin operationswithout careful preplanning.” / “OnJanuary 2 all students must preregisterfor courses.” / “Before buying the car,have a mechanic pretest it.”

Radio commercials for two respectedautomotive brands have offered “pre-owned models” and “certified preownedautomobiles.” The merchandise is whatmost Americans call used cars. A sign ata bookstore: “PREVIOUSLY READBOOKS & MAGAZINES.”

When the prefix pre- is followed by e,many publications separate the two e’swith a hyphen. It indicates that the longvowel sound in pre- (PREE) is followedby a short vowel sound: pre-eminent,pre-emption, pre-existing. (Pre- has ashort vowel in some words, includingpreliminary and preserve.) A hyphen isnecessary when the second elementstarts with a capital letter: pre-Columbian. The Associated Press hy-phenates pre-convention, pre-dawn, andany combinations that are not in a cer-tain dictionary.

PREREQUISITE and PERQUI-SITE. See PERQUISITE and PRE-REQUISITE.

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PRESCRIBE and PROSCRIBE.An article says a federal law “proscribedthat the tax on capital gains be the sameas the top rate on incomes.” The sen-tence says the opposite of what its writerintended. “Proscribed” should be pre-scribed. To prescribe something is to es-tablish it as a rule. To proscribesomething is to outlaw it. The law estab-lished that tax rule; it did not outlaw it.

PRESENTLY. The meaning ofpresently seemed to slow down over thecenturies. It used to mean now until thatmeaning became obsolete, except for di-alects, some three hundred years ago.Later it came to mean immediately; stilllater, soon. “The queen is expected to ar-rive presently.” / “The small gatheringpresently grew into a huge crowd.”

The original meaning, now, has beenrevived. But several authorities prefer torestrict presently to the meaning of soon,before long, or in a short time, so as toavoid any confusion from a secondmeaning. They would not look with fa-vor on these press uses: “[His] yearlysalary is . . . presently the highest in thecountry. . . .” / “. . . The group ispresently about $30,000 in debt.” /“Presently, a few Montereypines . . . grow on the block-long site.”In those sentences “presently” plainlymeans now, but the meaning can beblurred: “I believe presently the venturewill be profitable.” Does “presently” re-fer to the speaker’s belief or to the fu-ture?

One can sidestep the issue, saving twosyllables at the same time, by replacing“presently” with now when that is themeaning. Those who scorn now becausea little monosyllable does not seem im-portant enough can draw upon cur-rently, at present, or at this time. Forthose wishing to drag it out still further,a phrase associated with Watergate isavailable: See “AT THIS POINT INTIME.”

Even now or a synonym is often un-necessary in sentences that are in the pre-sent tense. Delete “presently” from thethree press quotations and it remains ob-vious that the time is the present.

Now or a synonym is useful for em-phasis or for contrasting the presentwith the past or the future. “Now shetells me!” / “He’s sorry now, but what ofthe future?” / “I used to be married, butI’m not at present.”

Present tense. See Tense.

PRESS (verb). See ADVOCATE.

PRESUMPTIVE and PRESUMP-TUOUS. See Confusing pairs.

Preterit, preterite (past tense). SeeTense.

PREVENT. To prevent (verb, transi-tive) is to avert or thwart; to keep (some-one or something) from doingsomething; or to keep (something) fromhappening.

All of these constructions are id-iomatic: (1) “Run the water slowly toprevent overflowing”; (2) “. . . prevent itfrom overflowing”; (3) “. . . prevent itsoverflowing.”

What is unidiomatic is “to prevent itoverflowing.” From or a possessive form(see Gerund, 4) should precede the -ingword. Neither of them does in this presssentence:

The challenge facing the two sidesin South Africa is to find a formulawhich incorporates some of these ele-ments into a constitution which willprevent South Africa going the sameway as the rest of Africa.

It should be “prevent South Africa fromgoing . . .” or “prevent South Africa’sgoing. . . .” (For more clarity, the first“which” should be that; it is used restric-

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tively. Whether the reporter meant to usethe second “which” in the same way isuncertain. See THAT and WHICH.)

PRIMATES. A caption under a pho-tograph of two chimpanzees says, “Pri-mates are much more vegetarian in theirdiet than humans,” which is somethinglike saying that rodents run faster thanmice.

Humans are primates. Primates is anorder of animals, the most highly devel-oped order. It comprises man, ape, mon-key, lemur, loris, and tarsier. As ataxonomic order, Primates is capitalized,singular though ending in s, and pro-nounced pry-MAY-tease. A member ofthe order is a primate, pronounced PRY-mate.

An item deals with a “toddler who fellinto a Chicago zoo’s gorilla pit and wasrescued by a 160-pound primate. . . .”The last word is neither wrong nor pre-cise (I have been a 160-pound primatemyself) but a synonym obviously chosento avoid repeating gorilla.

See also APE and MONKEY.

PRINCIPAL and PRINCIPLE. Apolitical consultant was quoted as say-ing, “It was a credible message, based onvery broad philosophical principal.” Thelast word amounted to a misquotation.A newspaper reporter had heard it rightbut spelled it wrong.

One speaks of a philosophical princi-ple (except in some rare instance of aschool principal who is a philosopher).This noun denotes a law of nature, a ba-sic truth or postulate, a cause to whichone is dedicated, an essential element orquality, or a rule of conduct. (It mightaid one’s memory to note the -le endingin both rule and principle.)

The noun principal denotes the headof a school, or a main participant, or theamount of a debt or investment withoutthe interest. As an adjective, principalmeans first in rank or importance, pri-

mary, primal. (Note the -al ending inboth primal and principal.)

PRIORITIZE. See -IZE ending.

PRIOR, PRIOR TO. Using “priorto” as a genteel synonym for before, inthe manner of this press example, servesno useful purpose: “Officer MalcomM—— said prior to last month, the lastvehicle to go over the cliff was in1978. . . .”

In formal writing, prior to (adverb)may be used to emphasize that one eventis a prerequisite to the other: “Citizensmust register prior to voting.”

Prior (adjective) without the to ismore useful. It can mean preceding inimportance, in order, or in time: “a priorconsideration” / “his prior choice” / “myprior appointment.”

(As for the press sentence: “said that”would be clearer, unless the officer said it“prior to last month.” See THAT, 2. Themonth should have been stated; the storyappeared on the first.)

PRISTINE. A television screen de-picted a suburban park. Now it is “pris-tine” wilderness, but it used to be the siteof explosives manufacturing, the narra-tor said. He was nearly contradictinghimself. If it was an industrial site, it isno longer “pristine,” although it couldhave returned to a state of wilderness.

Pristine (adjective) describes an earlyperiod, predating the touch of man; oran original, unspoiled condition. Itcomes from the Latin pristinus, former.

On a radio talk show, a commentatoron popular culture spoke of television’s“very pristine image” of the police and“pristine image of doctors.” Perhaps hethought it meant pure. A TV newscastermay have had that idea too; he said thestudy of Lake Tahoe began four decadesago when the water was “relatively pris-tine.” To qualify pristine with “very” or“relatively” is dubious; something either

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is pristine or it is not. In each instance itwas not.

Probability. See Numbers, 10C.

PROBABLE, PROBABLY. See AP-PARENT, APPARENTLY.

PROBATION. See PAROLE andPROBATION.

PROBE. A probe is an instrumentused by physicians in examiningwounds, cavities, or sinuses. Often madeof silver, usually thin and flexible with ablunt end, it serves to determine thedepth and direction of those depressions.To probe (verb, transitive and intransi-tive) is literally to examine with a probe.

Originating in the Latin probare, totest (the origin of prove), the Englishnoun dates at least to the sixteenth cen-tury; the verb, to the seventeenth. A figu-rative meaning of the verb, to search intowith the aim of exploring or discovering,developed almost at the same time as theliteral. The sense of interrogating closelycame out of the nineteenth century.

In the mid-twentieth, probe becameassociated with congressional hearings.Headlines used it freely, as both verb andnoun; the thirteen letters of investigationcould not compete with the five letters ofprobe. Though inquiry was not muchlonger, it never caught on. Writers andspeakers too adopted that headline wordfor general use.

Within several days, the national TVaudience heard on a newscast that theSenate planned “to launch a widespreadprobe of voter fraud” in Louisiana; on anews feature program that a “task forceconducted a lengthy probe” into cus-toms corruption; on one discussion pro-gram that the Louisiana election was“now being probed” and an indepen-dent counsel was needed “to probe theWhite House scandal”; and on anotherdiscussion program that “Hillary wasthe central figure in a probe. . . .”

At The New York Times, a creditablestanding rule has been “Do not use[probe] for inquiry, investigation or in-vestigate.” The rule does not preventspecialized use, as in space probe.

PROCEED and PRECEDE. SeeConfusing pairs.

PROFANITY. See OBSCENE, OB-SCENITY.

PROFESSION. See “OLDEST PRO-FESSION.”

PROGNOSIS. See CONDITION.

Progressive tenses. See Tense, 1.

PROHIBIT. See FORBID, PRO-HIBIT, and BAN.

PROLIXITY, PROLIX. See Ver-bosity.

Pronouns. 1. Ambiguity. 2. Disagree-ment in number. 3. Lack of reflexive. 4.Needless use of -SELF. 5. Nonstandard -SELF or -SELVES words. 6. Omission.7. Shift in person. 8. Superfluous apos-trophe. 9. Superfluous pronoun. 10.Wrong case.

1. AmbiguityA pronoun is a word used in place of

a noun. For instance, “Stand beside herand guide her” substitutes for “Stand be-side America and guide America” in afamous song. Pronouns are handy de-vices, enabling us to avoid having to re-peat names, words, or whole phrases allthe time. (See also Pronouns’ classifica-tion.)

Usually, if a pronoun is not to domore harm than good, it must be clearjust what it is replacing. Because of de-fective phrasing or organization, it canbe unclear which noun a given pronounrepresents (i.e., which is its antecedent)

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or the pronoun can literally apply to thewrong noun. Sometimes it is better touse no pronoun and repeat the noun.

The first sample statement is by awell-known reporter on a TV “maga-zine” program. It is not clear which per-son was “he.”

When P—— was hired by H——, hehad a criminal record.

The following sentence, a paragraphin itself, is from a news agency’s dis-patch.

Another witness, Drazen E——,testified that he had participated inthe slaughter of up to 1,200 Sre-brenica Muslims in one day.

It seems to say that the witness admittedparticipating in the crime. But the con-text indicates that “he” was meant toapply to someone else, an army generalidentified earlier in the story. Read in iso-lation, the sentence defames the witness.Its only subjects are the proper noun andthe personal pronoun. Hence it is rea-sonable for a reader to assume that thepronoun represents the noun. Instead of“he,” the general or the general’s nameshould have been used.

The succeeding illustrations comefrom newspapers in five cities.

Rules were changed to open up thenominating process after the 1968convention, in which Chicago MayorRichard Daley and other bosses deliv-ered the nomination to HubertHumphrey while his police beat headsoutside the convention.

In “his police,” to whom does “his” re-fer? The meaning suggests that it refersto Daley, but the “his” tends to cling to“Humphrey” because they are so close.The sentence would be improved bychanging “his” to the mayor’s.

A report on the origin of Arabian aidfor the Nicaraguan Contras quoted thepresident, described a congressional in-vestigation into the matter, and followedwith excerpts from the testimony ofRobert C. McFarlane. Emphasis isadded to the questionable pronoun, atthe end.

Sen. William S. Cohen (R-Me.) saidhe was troubled by “the definition ofsolicitation” of funds.

Although he has talked of Reagan’smeeting with Fahd, McFarlane onWednesday refused to term any dis-cussion of the contras’ needs a solici-tation of aid.

“It seems to me that we have beenengaged in this exercise of trying todefine how many foreign leaders canbe made to dance on the head of thePresident’s contra program withoutcalling it a solicitation,” he said.

Who said? Since McFarlane was the lastname mentioned, a reader can reason-ably assume that McFarlane is the mannow being quoted. But the essence of themessage has changed. Actually “he” isSenator Cohen. (I wrote to him and heconfirmed that he made the statement.)It would have avoided confusion to in-terchange the first and second para-graphs. The existing order presents aconfusing “he” in the second paragraphtoo: A reader may at first take it to beSenator Cohen, the person last men-tioned, but that “he” is McFarlane.

Here is an excerpt from a news storyabout speeches made by Jesse Jacksonduring his second campaign for theDemocratic presidential nomination:

He termed Mr. Dukakis’s proposals“very conservative, very cautious,very inadequate.”

Today Mr. Jackson said, in refer-ence to Mr. Dukakis, “a cautious ap-proach without commitment will not

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satisfy our basic needs.” About hisproposals, he added, “Democrats inAtlanta will rejoice at this budget.”

Whose proposals are “his” proposals?Since “Mr. Dukakis’s proposals” werementioned just two sentences ago andsince the story says Mr. Jackson is speak-ing “in reference to Mr. Dukakis,” it isplausible to assume that “his” refers toMr. Dukakis. Yet it would not makesense for a candidate to predict rejoicingover a rival’s proposals, unless the candi-date is speaking ironically. The contextindicates that “his” probably means Mr. Jackson’s. If so, the confusion couldhave been avoided by the insertion of athree-letter word: “About his own pro-posals. . . .”

This is from an article on the prosecu-tion of parents who depend on faithhealing for their children:

Over the years, Christian Sciencelobbyists have succeeded in eitherdrafting or playing a significant role inthe wording of religious exemptionstatutes in the child welfare codes of47 states.

And while they insist that thestatutes were designed to protect themfrom exactly the legal nightmare theynow face, prosecutors argue that thelaws do not cover manslaughter orother serious crimes.

Who are “them” and “they”? If the sec-ond paragraph is considered alone, thosepronouns seem to stand for “prosecu-tors,” but such an interpretation wouldnot be reasonable. The first “they” couldreasonably apply to the “lobbyists”mentioned in the previous paragraph,but “them” and the second “they” couldnot; the lobbyists would not be likely toargue that the statutes were designed toprotect the lobbyists. “Them” and thesecond “they” probably apply to no-body mentioned in either paragraph.

The writer should have discarded thefirst two pronouns and used nouns, per-haps in this manner: “And while the lob-byists insist that the statutes weredesigned to protect Christian Scientistsfrom. . . .”

The W——s are the Long Islandcouple cited by Eugene police lastmonth after they offered University ofOregon students money to engage insex with Nancy W——, 44.

Because “they” soon follows “police,” areader may think that “they” represents“police,” although further reading of thearticle will correct such an interpreta-tion. Instead of a muddy pronoun, thecouple’s surname should have been re-peated.

Meeting reporters later after chang-ing out of her prison clothes, Morgansaid her daughter was better off thanshe was when her mother started thejail term.

Was “Morgan” imprisoned along withher mother? The parallel phrasing of“her daughter” and “her mother” seemsto suggest that. However, the full storysays nothing about a grandmother beinglocked up. Probably “her mother”means “Morgan,” but another “Mor-gan” would be awkward. The best solu-tion is to rephrase part of the sentence: “. . . better off than she had been whenthe jail term began.”

By noon, Rosie—surrounded byher mom and dad . . . —had her mare.And this morning when she wakes up,she can run out to her own corral andwatch her own horse in her newhome.

In “her new home,” who or what is“her,” Rosie or the horse? “Her” evi-dently is Rosie the first four times, so no

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reader can be blamed for assuming thatit is Rosie the fifth time. Nothing is saidin the article about Rosie’s moving, how-ever, so the fifth “her” seems to be thehorse. It would have forestalled the con-fusion to put the horse in the neuter gen-der: “its new home.”

Ambiguity in the use of relative pro-nouns comes up in THAT and WHICH;WHICH, 1; WHO, 1. How misunder-standing can occur when such a pronoun(that) is not placed immediately after itsantecedent is illustrated in Modifiers, 3B(end).

2. Disagreement in number

A. An individual gets a singularpronoun

This is all about grammar. Aspokesman for a group supporting whatit called a woman’s right to choose(abortion) was quoted in the press assaying, “This is all about an individual’sright to make a choice about their indi-vidual lives.” Plainly “an individual” issingular. What can be more singular? Itdoes not agree with “their . . . lives,”which is plural. It would, however, agreewith her . . . life, which is singular. Hav-ing erroneously associated “individual”with “their,” the speaker proceeded togive that individual a number of “lives.”

Disagreement between a noun (suchas “individual”) and a pronoun pertain-ing to it (such as “their”) is a commonmistake in grammar. Usually the mis-taker tries to represent a singular nounby means of a plural pronoun. A book ofpopular psychology says:

It’s as if we’re waiting for permis-sion to start living fully. But the onlyperson who can give us that permis-sion is ourselves.

A “person” is not “ourselves.” One issingular, the other plural. “But the onlyperson who can give you that permission

is you” would be grammatically correct.Yet the excerpt is part of a paragraphthat uses we, us, or our twenty-onetimes; a version consistent with all theplurality is this: “But the only persons[or “the only ones”] who can give usthat permission are ourselves.” (Stillmore proper: “are we.” See 10D.)

Further examples are taken from abook about English words, a state’s taxform, and two news articles:

For the dedicated dictionarybrowser a new edition is a great joy,but sometimes their pleasure in dis-covering new words is tempered bythe loss of the old.

Did you live with any other personwho claimed you as a dependent ontheir income tax return?

The study . . . found that the oldera person is, the faster their infectionprogresses to AIDS diseases.

. . . if a suggestion is made to ananesthetized patient to make a specificgesture in an interview days later, theywill probably make the gesture, al-though they will not be aware whatthey have done or why they have doneit.

Changing “their” to his would correctthe first three examples. In the fourth,change “they” to he four times and“have” to has twice. Singulars will thenmatch singulars.

A browser, a person, or a patient issingular, as is an aviator, the dentist,Aunt Fifi, an infant, the president, Cap-tain John Smith, a thespian, a zookeeper, or anyone else.

Their is plural. So is they or them.Each of those th words pertains to morethan one person or thing.

It is a long-standing rule of grammarthat a pronoun referring to a singular

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noun must be singular; a pronoun refer-ring to a plural noun must be plural.

Personal pronouns referring to oneperson, aside from you and me, are heand she (in the subjective case); him andher (in the objective case); and his, her,and hers (in the possessive case). It andits are considered in B. See also ONE aspronoun.

What if we do not know if the personis male or female, or what if the sex doesnot matter? He, him, or his then repre-sents a person of either sex.

The editor and grammarian PatriciaT. O’Conner writes in Woe Is I that shecringes when she hears a sentence like“Somebody forgot to pay their bill” in-stead of “pay his bill.” She perceivesgood intentions but bad grammar. “Thepronouns he and his have been usedsince time immemorial to refer to peoplein general.”

That a pronoun in the masculine gen-der can represent any person when sex isimmaterial or unknown has been longestablished in law as well as grammar.Black’s Law Dictionary says he is “usu-ally used . . . to include both sexes aswell as corporations” and his too “mayrefer to a person of either sex.” Oxford’sA Dictionary of Modern Legal Usagesays:

. . . The traditional view, still to be ob-served in the most formal contexts, isthat the masculine pronouns aregeneric, comprehending both maleand female. Thus cumbersome pairssuch as he or she and his or her areusually unnecessary.

Such a pair can be unwieldy in a sen-tence with several pronouns (like the oneabout the anesthetized patient). And itcan be conspicuous unless the matter ofsex is pertinent or, as in the example be-low, both male and female are men-tioned. A college advertised:

The alternative to night school: Week-end College. The least disruptive wayfor a working man or woman to re-turn for their degree.

A “man or woman” is singular. (SeeOR.) Thus “their” should be his or heror simply a. (We will overlook the lackof a complete sentence.)

While English has riches, it has someshortcomings; it lacks, for instance, amultipurpose possessive pronoun likethe Spanish su. (In Britain, as Shake-speare indicates, some used an unac-cented a or a’ in lieu of he, she, they, it,or I.) Nevertheless, for anyone who in-sists on reading sexual significance intohis pronouns, there is always the optionof rephrasing a thought, e.g.: for dedi-cated dictionary browsers / on an in-come tax return / the faster an infectionprogresses / the patient will probablymake the gesture, without being awareof it / pay the bill. It is a better answer tothe limitations of our language thanchildish barbarism.

The errors can be droll. A book onfirst aid warns of danger from the blackwidow spider, brown recluse spider, andscorpion, and it says:

If a person is bitten by any of thethree, have them lie down and notwalk.

But what if the creatures don’t want tolie down?

B. IT, ITS: pronoun in the neutergender

A book of travel adventure says:

If one has never seen a grand Africanriver their beauty comes as a wonder-ful surprise.

River is singular. “Their” is plural; itshould be its (preceded by a comma).

As a rule, an inanimate, nonliving, or

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abstract thing takes the singular, neuterpronoun it or its. Traditionally she andher have been applied to a ship or coun-try—“Aye, tear her tattered ensigndown”—but it and its will do for either.

In an article, quoted below, a com-pany is regarded, correctly, as singular.Five paragraphs later, it becomes pluraland then turns singular again. (Emphasisis added.)

Procter & Gamble Co., the Cincin-nati-based consumer products con-cern, has begun shipping diamondswith its soap powder. . . .

The promotion is unusual forP&G, although the company mayhave put pearls in their bottles of Prellshampoo once. . . . The company ex-pects this promotion to do very well.

In American usage, company is singular.Do not speak of “their” bottles insteadof its bottles—if you are not prepared tosay “The company expect. . . .”

Here is an example of the singular in-correctly used instead of the plural: a canlabeled “PINEAPPLE CHUNKS IN ITSOWN JUICE.” The chunks have theirown juice. (The possessive cannot applyto “PINEAPPLE,” which is serving as anadjective. If the label said “CHUNKSOF PINEAPPLE,” then “PINEAPPLE”as a noun could possess “ITS OWNJUICE.”)

It or its may be used for a baby, par-ticularly if it represents babies in general:“A newborn needs its mother.”

An article about children’s learning oflanguage quotes a linguist:

Dr. C—— concludes that “a 11⁄2-year-old knows a lot about containersand surfaces, but they don’t know thewords ‘on’ or ‘in.’ ”

“A 11⁄2-year-old” is singular and conflictswith “they,” which is plural. The finalclause may be corrected this way:“. . . but it doesn’t know the words. . . .”

An alternative correction would start outplural: “11⁄2-year-olds know a lot. . . .”(In either case, change “or” to and; thatwill produce a plural to agree withwords. See OR.)

It or its applies also to an animal, un-less its sex is known and material.

A radio physician advised a caller,“Take the dog to the doctor and givethem the penicillin.” The dog has nochoice, but what if the doctor resists?

C. (-)ONE words and phrases; -BODYwords; EACH; EVERY

A school principal might be expectedto know the grammatical rules that aretaught to children. One principal said, ina speech acknowledging his winning ofthe title of “educator of the year,” it isthe job of educators to insure “that everyone of those children know more thanthey knew the year before.” This educa-tor may not be up to the job, unless heknows more than he knew at the time ofthat speech.

Obviously one is singular. So is anyphrase ending in one, including any one,each one, every one, and no one. So isany word ending in -one, including any-one, everyone, and someone. So are the -body pronouns: anybody, everybody,nobody, and somebody. We say “Every-body knows,” not “know”; and “Every-one is here,” not “are.” Each also issingular, particularly as a subject. (SeeEACH, EACH OF.) A possessive thatrefers to any of the pronouns just men-tioned should be singular, just as the re-lated verb should be singular. Similarlythe adjective every makes what it modi-fies singular.

Examples: “Is anyone missing hiskeys?” / “Everyone must buy her owndress.” / “I see everybody brought his orher spouse.” / “Somebody sends her re-gards.” / “Every man for himself.” / “Toeach his own.” (Nobody sings “To eachtheir own.”)

Two news stories and a book about

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English (quoted earlier) display the samekind of mistake:

The state Elections Code requiresanyone who raises more than $500 todisclose their finances.

Everybody had their moment. . . .

To quiz someone was to make funof them. . . .

Change “their” to his in the first twosentences. Change “them” to him in thethird.

A congressman being interviewed ontelevision was partly right and partlywrong:

Each candidate has to make his or herown decision on how they play this[the issue of impeachment].

He recognized the singularness of “eachcandidate” by correctly saying “his orher own decision” but failed to followthrough: “on how he or she plays this.”If he wanted to express the same mes-sage more concisely, he could have said“his own decision on how he plays this.”

Sometimes there is disagreement innumber even when the subject is plainlyfemale or male. In an editorial column, asentence appeared that should have beendeemed unfit to print. A new publisherhad just taken over the newspaper, andhere was his first statement. Referring tohis predecessors—his grandfather, uncle,and father—he wrote:

Each of these men, in their messageupon being named Publisher, quotedthe pledge Mr. Ochs made when hetook the helm of the Times: To givethe news impartially, without fear orfavor, regardless of any party, sect orinterest involved.

Had the copy gone unedited? If it hadbeen edited, did the copy editor miss the

offending “their” in place of his or washe afraid to correct the boss? (The pub-lisher added a pledge that the paperwould continue to adhere to its tradi-tional “high standards of journalism andbusiness.” Its standards of grammarused to be high too.)

See also EVERYBODY, EVERYONE,4; EVERY ONE and EVERYONE; ONEas pronoun.

3. Lack of reflexiveA pronoun misses the mark in each of

these passages (by a lawyer, an anchorman, and two journalists respectively):

“I ultimately refused to go, therebydepriving me of the ability to partici-pate. . . .”

What did one man do to land him incourt?

Mr. McCain, for example, must standfor re-election . . . giving him less timeto recover.

A . . . motorist . . . lost control of hercar and slammed into two oncomingcars, killing her instantly. . . .

Change “me” to myself, each “him” tohimself, and the second “her” to herself.Each of the emphasized words is a re-flexive pronoun. The action that the sub-ject performs is done to the subject; itreflects back onto him or her. The suffix -self or -selves indicates reflexiveness.

Other pronouns of that type are thesingular words itself, oneself, and your-self and the plural words ourselves,themselves, and yourselves.

Often a -self pronoun is used when itshould not be. “Myself,” in place of me,is the most common one. See 4. Some-times a nonstandard form, like “their-selves,” is used. See 5. (In the thirdexample, “stand” is dubious. See RUNand STAND.)

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4. Needless use of -SELFMany people are reluctant to use the

simple word me, possibly fearing thatthey will be considered ungrammaticalor immodest. Their concern may harkback to school days and a confusionabout “I” versus “me.” So they use “my-self,” thinking wrongly that it is a safeword. Two books furnish our first pairof examples:

In late 1965, the Chicago Zoologi-cal Park . . . sent an expedition toMexico consisting of myself and pho-tographer Alan ———.

Special tools were cut by myself [tobind a book].

“Myself” should be me in both excerpts:“consisting of me” and “cut by me.” Inthe latter instance, “I cut special tools”would be still better.

The suffix -self or -selves in a pronounserves either of these two functions:

1. It makes the pronoun reflexive. A re-flexive pronoun turns the action backupon the subject (the performer of theaction). Examples: “She talks to herself.” / “The boy doesn’t knowwhat to do with himself.” / “We gaveourselves raises.” / “The cat is wash-ing itself.” / “I cut myself.” / “Theyblame themselves.” / “Do yourself afavor.”

2. It gives emphasis to the subject. “In-stead of calling the plumber, Agnesfixed the sink herself.” / “He calledfor law and order when he himselfwas a crook.” / “Jack himself says he’sunqualified for the job.” / “No onehelped, so I did it all myself.”

The “-self” in the following sampleserves neither function.

Dr. Lowery said plans for theclasses were not finished but they . . .would probably include two one-hour

sessions with himself and other blackleaders.

Change “himself” to him. There is noreason for the “-self”: it has no effect onthe subject of the clause in which it ap-pears. That subject is “they,” referring toplans for the classes.

A TV news correspondent in Moscowwas reporting on a violent revolutionand an author was describing an Africantrip:

Myself and other members of thepress were pinned down. . . .

Henry, Ann, myself and Josephwere in the little Renault 12 stationwagon.

If no one else had been present, neithernarrator would say “Myself was pinneddown” or “Myself was in the little Re-nault.” Each would say “I was.” Bring-ing in others as part of the subject makesno difference in the use of the pronoun.Change each “myself” to I.

5. Nonstandard -SELF or -SELVESwords

In California a man and a womanwere injured by explosives and then ar-rested on suspicion of illegal possessionof (the same) explosives. A TV news-caster reported the happening andnamed names. “Police said ——— and——— built the bombs theirselves,” sheannounced. Later the two were releasedfor lack of evidence, notwithstandingwhat “police said.” Aside from othermisfortune, they had been subjected tothe indignity of being defamed withatrocious English.

“Theirselves” is not a legitimateword. The proper pronoun is them-selves. It is the plural of himself or her-self.

Some illegitimate relatives that occa-sionally pop up are “hisself” / “theirself”

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/ “themself” / “ourself.” They are not ac-cepted as English words. The plural ofmyself is properly ourselves.

6. Omission

A. Isolation of verbIn a complicated sentence it may not

be clear who is performing some of theaction. A verb seems to lack a subject.The forty-five-word sentence below of-fers a good illustration. Grasping all ofits meaning calls for more than the usualeffort by the reader.

A party spokeswoman, BrigitteZimmerman, told reporters that an-gry citizens recently tried to storm thesecret police offices in the city of Er-furt to keep documents from beingtaken away, and warned of “anarchyand chaos” from “people taking thelaw into their own hands.”

Who “warned”? That verb lacks an ob-vious subject. We need to figure it out.The previous action in the sentence wasby the “angry citizens,” so they seem tobe the subject. But it would be out ofcharacter for them to issue a warning of“anarchy and chaos.” We skip back-ward. “A party spokeswoman, BrigitteZimmerman,” evidently was intended tobe the subject of “warned.”

Inserting one little pronoun wouldhave forestalled all that effort. Make it “. . . and she warned. . . .” Better yet, start a new sentence with “Shewarned . . .” (after changing the thirdcomma to a period and omitting the“and”).

It needs to be obvious who or what isthe subject of a verb; that is, who orwhat is performing the action. That sub-ject may not be obvious when a clauseintervenes between it and the verb andwhen the clause’s subject (“angry citi-zens”) threatens to take over the verb(“warned”). In such a case, the verb re-

quires its own subject, either noun orpronoun. The comma does not help; itjust sets up another barrier. In the nexttwo samples, the meaning may be easierto figure out, but why stint pronouns?

In 1983 he sued The Review for libelafter it published an article criticizinghim, but dropped the suit two yearslater.

He was foreclosed from the Bushticket because both men have a Texasvoter registration, and probablyhoped that Bush would clear thedecks for the next GOP generation bychoosing an older running mate.

Better: “. . . but he dropped . . .” /“. . . but he probably had hoped. . . .”(See BUT, 1; Tense, 5B.)

See also Nouns, 4; Punctuation, 3E.

B. Synonym instead of pronounIt is a journalistic mannerism to use a

synonym for the subject instead of a per-sonal pronoun; for instance: “Mr. Gore’sopponents had criticized the Tennesseesenator about the secrecy surroundingthe loans. . . .” Although readers whodid not know that Mr. Gore was “theTennessee senator” could probably guessit, him would be clearer and more natu-ral. See also JURIST; Synonymic silli-ness; THE, 2B.

The avoidance of pronouns in thatmanner can produce outright confusion.See Synonymic silliness, 2, for examples.

7. Shift in personMuch as a ball player must have a

particular position, a writer or speakerneeds to express a sentence from a par-ticular standpoint—the first person, thesecond person, or the third person.Straying could mean bungling a play, ora thought.

A rather common error is the mixingof the indefinite one with “you” or an-

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other personal pronoun. This is typical:“One loses track of the time when you’rehaving fun.” One errs when one tries tohave it both ways. Either change “Oneloses” to You lose (second person) orchange “you’re” to one is (third person).See also ONE as pronoun, 1.

A radio psychologist said, in reply to amother who had caught her smalldaughter drinking beer, “I would justkeep your eyes open.” The psychologistdid not mean that she would literallykeep someone’s eyes open; the troublewas her switch from first person to sec-ond person. The pronouns are consis-tently in the first person in this sentence:“I would just keep my eyes open” (if Iwere you). Alternatively, the second per-son could be chosen: (You should) “Justkeep your eyes open.”

Within a single paragraph, a book’spoint of view shifts wildly from “we” to“one” to “you” and to “my.” (Emphasisis added to the pronouns:)

To look more intimately at sand asa substance, we may seek the aid of amagnifier. . . . Under the lens one cansee black grains, pink grains, andclear, whitish grains. Here and thereyou can notice even at a distance thatwaves and wind have somewhatsorted the diverse grains of sand bymotion on a larger scale than in myhand.

Although the meaning is understand-able, the vacillating style can be unset-tling.

A book deals with the future of theuniverse:

. . . The present density is veryclose to the critical density that separates recollapse from indefiniteexpansion. . . . So I am in the well-established tradition of oracles andprophets of hedging my bets by pre-dicting both ways.

The tradition of oracles and prophets isthat of hedging their bets, not “my”bets.

A syndicated radio host said to acaller, “Jeff, you are somebody whodoesn’t like to pay your taxes.” Some-body—third person—doesn’t like to payhis taxes. Why would somebody want topay Jeff’s taxes?

A news story about a senator’s ousterfrom a committee contained the sentencebelow. It swings from third person tofirst person and back again as the quota-tion marks come and go.

“Life goes on,” he said drily,adding, “I have a fair amount ofthings I’ve been following for 1,000years” to keep him busy.

A sentence must hold together grammat-ically, even if part of it is a quotation. “ ‘Ihave . . . things’ . . . to keep him busy”literally means that I will keep someoneelse busy. If the second quotation wasobscure enough to require an explana-tion, the writer would have done well toparaphrase it all. (A paraphrase mighthave avoided “amount of things” in-stead of “number of things.” SeeAMOUNT and NUMBER. By the way,drily is a variation of dryly. Just how illu-minating was its use?)

8. Superfluous apostropheIts, the possessive (“Our team did its

best”), should not be confused with it’s,the contraction of it is or it has (“It’sonly a penny” / “It’s been fun”). Andyour, the possessive (“Is that yourhouse?”), should not be confused withyou’re, the contraction of you are(“You’re looking well”). People continu-ally mix up each homophonic pair, ofteninserting apostrophes in the possessivewords, incorrectly.

The pronouns hers, ours, theirs, andyours have no apostrophes. (“Themoney is hers.” / “It’s ours.” / “It’s

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theirs.” / “It’s yours.”) Often someonesticks an apostrophe in.

See also Possessive problems, 4; Punc-tuation, 1; ITS and IT’S; WHOSE, 2;YOUR and YOU’RE.

9. Superfluous pronounOccasionally a sentence contains a su-

perfluous pronoun, a word that con-tributes as much to meaning as a benigntumor to bodily functioning. The firstexample is from the press.

. . . No one foresaw the firestormof . . . criticism . . . that would descendon Oakland—the last school districtleft in California where a majority ofits students are black.

Better: “. . . the last school district . . .where a majority of students are black.”The unneeded word is “its.” It is plainfrom “the last school district . . . where”that the “students” are its.

The chairman of a political party said,when queried about allegedly illegal do-nations:

If you’ve done something you can’tdo that, I don’t want you part of myresponsibility.

“That” serves no purpose. (Anotherfault of the sentence is its apparent il-logic: How can you do something youcan’t do? Either change “can’t” toshouldn’t or insert legally before “do.”)

10. Wrong case

A. “Me and them”—right or wrong?A teacher competing in a TV quiz

contest said, “Me and my kids live in adormitory. . . .” Can “me and my kids”or “me and them” or “me and him,” orthe like, ever be right? The answer is yes,although it was wrong in the example.The contestant chose the wrong case forthe pronoun representing himself. Itshould have been I.

Case is the form of a pronoun or nounthat expresses the word’s relation toother words in a sentence; mainly itmarks the word as a subject or object.

The pronoun I in the sentence “I andmy kids live in a dormitory” is correct be-cause it is part of the subject; that is, thedoer(s) of the action. Hence it is in thesubjective case (also called the nominativecase). I is strictly subjective, and so are thepronouns we, he, she, they, and who.

In the sentence “They evicted me andmy kids,” me is correct because it is anobject; it (along with my kids) is the re-ceiver of the action of the verb, evicted.Hence it is in the objective case (alsocalled the accusative case). Me is strictlyobjective, and so are the pronouns us,him, her, them, and whom.

You can be either subjective or objec-tive.

(If you think the rules are fussy now,hark back to about 1150–1500.Whereas we have only you for the sec-ond person, speakers of Middle Englishhad the subjective forms thou, singular,and ye, plural; and the objective formsthee, singular, and you, plural. Making itmore complicated, during that periodthe use of the plural ye or you as a politesingular developed; thou or thee becamethe familiar singular.)

Another case is the genitive (or pos-sessive) expressing the ideas of posses-sion, origin, characteristic, measure, etc.;e.g., George’s shirt, their novels, thevoice of the turtledove, a friend of hers.(See 1, 2, 9; Double possessive; Gerund,4; Possessive problems; Punctuation, 1.)

Case is used in a wholly differentsense in upper case, meaning capital let-ters, and lower case, small letters. Theterms come from the cases in which theold-time printers kept their type.

B. “And I” or “and ME”?At some time in the dim past, many of

us said something like this: “Jimmy andme are going to the park.” A correctionfollowed: “No, no. You should say

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‘Jimmy and I are going.’ ” The lessonmust have been incomplete or indi-gested. Its upshot is sentences like these:

[From a magazine article:] Beingforced to operate “differently” hasgiven Judy and I the privilege of pub-lishing whatever we enjoy reading.

[From a situation comedy:] I justknow things got better for Jill and I.

[By a TV weather man:] This weathercomes as a surprise to you and I.

In every instance, “I” should be me. Noone would have erred if “Judy” / “Jill” /or “you” had been excluded. No onewould have said “. . . has given I theprivilege . . .” / “. . . things got better forI” / or “. . . comes as a surprise to I.” Itwould have sounded too bad. The extraperson in each sentence seemed to steereach speaker or writer off course. Per-haps the phrase “and I” acted as a falsebeacon, although the linking of the pro-nouns by or instead of and did not pre-vent a similar error, by the hostess of aradio talk show:

There are only about five minutes leftfor you or I, Robert.

Again “I” should be me. Her competitor,a host on another radio station, erred theother way:

We have revised the plan, just you andme.

It should be “you and I,” merelyrephrasing the subject, “We.” A similarmistake, though a more obvious one,was made on TV by a prominent critic:

Halfway into this screenplay even youand me had questions.

The objective case includes not only adirect object of a verb, but also:

• An indirect object (which tells forwhom [or for what] or to whom [orto what] the action is done), forinstance, “has given Judy and me theprivilege.” (Some consider theseforms a separate case, the dative.)

• An object, or goal, of a preposition:“for Jill and me” / “to you and me” /“for you or me.”

• An object of a verbal: “Jack lovesvisiting her.” / “The court trying himhas adjourned.” / “The doctors wantto test me.” (Gerunds, participles,and infinitives are verbals. SeeVERBAL, 3.)

C. “Between HE and . . .” or “betweenHIM and . . .”?

Just as an unmastered grammar lessonof long ago could have led to the “and I”error shown above, it could explainovergrammatical efforts of the “he” or“she” kind.

Nobody would be likely to say “Igave he the key” or “They elected she,”instead of him or her respectively. Con-fusion arises with more complicated sen-tences, particularly when the pronoun islinked with someone or something else.Let us quote a television newscast and anewspaper caption.

Rose said he was glad that all legal ac-tion between he and the league wasover.

The legal action was between “him andthe league.” They are objects of thepreposition between.

The Princess of Wales, with Henry A.Kissinger and Gen. Colin L. Powell,was undeniably the center of attentionlast night at a reception following anawards dinner honoring she and theretired general.

The awards dinner honored “her and theretired general.” They are objects of theparticiple honoring.

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The newscaster and writer would say,“It’s just between us,” not “we” / “Stopharassing her,” not “she” / “Helenworks for him,” not “he” / “Pay them,”not “they.” The pronoun would have tobe in the objective case. That the objecthas an extra component should notmake any difference in the choice ofcase: “It’s just between us and theleague.” / “Crowds kept surroundingher and her family.” / “John gave thepackages to him and his wife.” / We pho-tographed them and the neighbors.”

D. “It’s I” or “It’s ME”? / “HE” or“HIM”?

A traditional rule of grammar decreesthat the subject of a linking verb and anypronoun linked with that verb be in thesame case. The linking verb (called also acopula) most often is a form of the verbbe, and the problem usually boils downto something like this: Which is right,“The winner was he” or “The winnerwas him”? The traditional answerwould be he, on the grounds that thepronoun represents the same entity asthe subject. Actually it depends onwhether the statement is to be written orspoken.

When your friend or relation re-sponds to your knock with “Who’sthere?” you will probably not reply, “Itis I.” You are more likely to respond,“It’s me”—and so you should. Gram-marians are on your side.

A phrase like It wasn’t me being collo-quial, “such a lapse is of no impor-tance,” H. W. Fowler wrote. Sir ErnestGowers, his reviser, went further: In col-loquialisms like that and It’s me, the useof me is “perhaps the only successful at-tack made by me on I”; moreover, That’shim has won “the status of idiomaticspoken English.” Wilson Follett wrotethat writers and others devoted to soundgrammar were “firm in believing that thecolloquial It’s me is acceptable in speechand in writing when the tone is not ele-vated.”

Such usage is far from new. A ten-dency in popular speech to use the objective case for a pronoun that com-plements a linking verb “has persistedsince the sixteenth century,” George O.Curme wrote. He found examples evenamong “good authors of serious style.”He quoted Churchill: “It is not me hemisjudges.” Jonson: “Here be them hauebeene amongst souldiers.” Shakespeare:“And damn’d be him that first cries,‘Hold, enough!’ ” Marlowe was quoted(elsewhere): “Is it him you seek?” and“ ’Tis her I esteem.”

Despite literary examples to the con-trary, most authorities advocate follow-ing the rule in formal writing. But RoyH. Copperud says flatly: “The nomina-tive (‘It’s I’) is stilted and thus avoided.”

E. “Than I” or “than ME”?A pair of reviewers rejected a movie,

although, one of them said on television,“Roger liked it a little more than me.”Literally the remark was tantamount tosaying, “Roger liked the movie a littlemore than he liked me.” That may havebeen Roger’s sentiment, but more likelythe other reviewer was comparing theirattitudes toward the movie. Thus heshould have said “more than I.” Itwould be an elliptical, or shortened, ver-sion of “more than I liked it,” in which Iwould be the subject of the clause “Iliked it.” He would never say “morethan me liked it.” Understandably, new-comers to the language sometimes makethe mistake of using the objective case asa subject, e.g., “Me Tarzan.” Nativespeakers of English lack their excuse.

The context may have made themeaning clear to all the television watch-ers, but in some similar constructions thewrong choice of case can change themeaning or render it ambiguous. “Doyou see Jack more often than I?” askswhether you see him more often than Ido. “Do you see Jack more often thanme?” asks whether you see him more of-ten than you see me.

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The principle is the same in this exam-ple: “Helen loves chocolate as much ashe” means they are equally fond of it.“Helen loves chocolate as much as him”means her affection is divided.

F. “WE people” or “US people”?The preamble to the Constitution

starts out, “We the people of the UnitedStates. . . .” Perhaps with that phrase inher mind, the wife of a presidential can-didate told a gathering in New Hamp-shire that her husband stood for “morefreedom for we the people.” Change“we” to us. An object of the prepositionfor, the pronoun should be in the objec-tive case. “We the people” is not an im-mutable phrase. In the Constitution weessentially is the subject. The phrase thepeople of the United States is in apposi-tion to it (that is, explains it). A commaoften precedes appositive phrases (“Mr.Wilson, the chairman . . .”) but not nec-essarily.

Similarly “we” should have been uswhen a radio announcer said, advertis-ing a wine, “This name is not too diffi-cult for we Americans to say.”

A teacher in North Carolina publiclyobjected to “pay that is not encouragingto we people who have decided to stay ineducation.” Again change “we” to us. Itis an object of the preposition to. Shecould have got by with we as the subjectof a sentence, like this one: “We peoplewho have decided to stay in educationneed the encouragement of better pay.”

The reverse error used to appear inads showing a man supposedly saying,“Us ——— smokers would rather fightthan switch.” As the subject of the sen-tence, we, not “us,” would be grammati-cal. The advertising agent who wrote theslogan probably knew that.

See also WHO and WHOM.

Pronouns’ classification. Pronounsare customarily classified in eight cate-gories. (See Pronouns for an enumera-tion of problems.)

1. Demonstrative pronouns point out.They include this and that, these andthose. “This is the forest primeval.” /“These are the times that try men’ssouls.” (See THIS; THESE andTHOSE.)

2. Indefinite pronouns represent no par-ticular person or thing. “Everybodyloves a baby.” / “Take it easy.” / “Onenever knows.” Among them are all,another, any, anybody, anyone, any-thing, each, everything, everyone, few,many, most, nobody, no one, none,several, some, somebody, someone,and something. (See ANY; EACH,EACH OF; EVERY ONE and EV-ERYONE; ONE as pronoun; Pro-nouns, 2C.)

3. Intensive pronouns end in -self or -selves and give emphasis to personalpronouns. “I built it all myself.” / “Hehimself has said it.” (See Pronouns, 4,5.)

4. Interrogative pronouns ask questions.“What did the president know?” /“Whose undergarments are these?”Which, who, and whom are others.(See WHO and WHOM; WHOSE.)

5. Personal pronouns represent particu-lar persons, sometimes things. “I nowpronounce you husband and wife.” /“You don’t scare me.”

Personal pronouns change formdepending on case (subjective, objec-tive, or possessive); gender (mascu-line, feminine, or neuter); number(singular or plural); and person (first,second, or third).

Personal pronouns in the subjective(or nominative) case are I, you, he,she, and it, singular; and we, you, andthey, plural. Pronouns in the objectivecase are me, you, him, her, and it, sin-gular; and us, you, and them, plural.

(See Possessive problems, 4, on thepossessive case. See Pronouns, 2, onnumber; 7 on person; and 10, mainlyon the subjective and objective cases.)

6. Reciprocal pronouns show ex-changes. “The three brothers joshed

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one another.” / “Romeo andJosephine despise each other.” (SeeEACH OTHER.)

7. Reflexive pronouns bounce the ac-tions taken by subjects back on thesubjects. Like intensive pronouns,they end in -self or -selves. “Hortensiahurt herself.” / “Make yourselves athome.” (See Pronouns, 3, 4, 5.)

8. Relative pronouns commonly includethat, which, who, whom, and whose.“The creature that lives there is abandicoot.” / “This cheese, whichcomes from Belgium, smells delight-ful.”

Generally a relative pronoun (a)stands for a particular noun (creatureor cheese); (b) connects the noun to adependent clause that modifies it(“that lives there” or “which comesfrom Belgium”); and (c) introducesthat dependent clause, serving as thesubject of its verb (lives or comes).

(See THAT and WHICH; WHO,THAT, and WHICH.)

PROOF and EVIDENCE. See EVI-DENCE and PROOF.

PROOF OF THE PUDDING. Theproverb about proof and pudding per-plexes people. Some, it seems, wouldsearch through the pudding for theproof, however messy it would be to doso. A senator, contrasting the president’spromises and performance, said, “Theproof’s in the pudding.” A TV reporter,summarizing a city official’s remarksabout proposed transit improvements,said, “The proof will be in the pudding.”

No, the proof is not in the pudding.Nor is it in anything as complicated asthe following. A chief justice was writingabout the problems in drafting aSupreme Court opinion:

Here again, we do the best we can,recognizing that the proof of the pud-ding will be the reaction of those who

voted with the majority at conferencewhen they see the draft Court opin-ion.

“The proof of the pudding is in the eat-ing.” That is all there is to the proverb.

Proof means test in that context. Agood cook tastes and hence tests hisfood. See also “EXCEPTION PROVESTHE RULE.”

“PROOF POSITIVE.” English syn-tax calls for the adjective first, noun sec-ond, as in positive proof. Nevertheless, anetwork anchor man said the Nixontapes offered “proof positive that heknew there was a widespread criminalconspiracy.” And an article in a healthmagazine contained this sentence:

The fact that Asian populations eat agreat deal of soy foods and have lowerrates of breast cancer is not proof pos-itive that soy is protective. . . .

The reversal may stem from a series ofcigarette ads and commercials in thedays when they were broadcast. A com-pany claimed to offer “proof positive”of the salutary benefit of its product,thus turning truth as well as syntaxtopsy-turvy.

See also Adjectives and adverbs, 2.

PROOFREAD, PROOFREAD-ING. The fact that proofread andproofreading are each spelled in two dif-ferent ways in the excerpts below (froma book that purports to instruct writersin self-publishing) is not the main prob-lem. The author evidently did not knowwhat the terms meant.

. . . Rough grammar or duplicationof information . . . can be correctedlater during the proof reading session.. . .

. . . Allow someone else to proofread it. This someone should not beoverly familiar with his subject and

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who will not be affraid to be biased intheir opinion. . . .

Once you have finished all theproof-reading of this draft copy andmade any changes you wish to make,you should retype your draft copy. . . .

Now, finish writing your book andproofread it. . . .

A proof is a test print of material thathas been set in type and is to be pub-lished. It permits one to correct typo-graphical errors before the material goesto press. To proofread is to check theproof against the manuscript, that is, thepages from the writer and editor, and tomake any corrections on the proof. Onewho works at proofreading is a proof-reader. It is not necessarily wrong to spelleach term as a hyphenated word or astwo words, provided that the chosenstyle is used consistently.

Proofreading differs from copy-editing (also spelled copy editing andcopyediting), which is done before typeis set. To copy-edit (sometimes spelledcopyedit) is to edit copy, that is, anymanuscript to be published, making cor-rections or otherwise preparing the copyfor typesetting. One who does such edit-ing as a livelihood is a copy editor (some-times spelled as one word). In newspaperoffices the task is often called copyread-ing and the editors copyreaders. Thosewho read copy there also write head-lines.

(The sample could have stood somecopy-editing. The second paragraphalone has six defects: Change “proofread” to copy-edit or edit; omit “who”;change “will” to should; omit the extra“f” in “affraid”; change “biased” to un-biased; and change “their” to his.)

Proper nouns (names). See Nouns,1.

PROPHECY and PROPHESY.The noun, meaning prediction, isprophecy, pronounced PROF-ih-see. The

verb (transitive and intransitive), mean-ing to predict, is prophesy, pronouncedPROF-ih-sy.

Sometimes the spellings are erro-neously reversed. Webster’s Third Dic-tionary accepts the misspellings aslegitimate alternatives.

PROSCRIBE. See PRESCRIBE andPROSCRIBE.

PROSECUTE and PERSECUTE.See Confusing pairs.

PROSPECTIVE and PERSPEC-TIVE. See Confusing pairs.

PROSTATE and PROSTRATE.See Confusing pairs.

PROVE. See “EXCEPTION PROVESTHE RULE”; PROOF OF THE PUD-DING.

PRY. See -Y endings.

PUDDING. See PROOF OF THEPUDDING.

Punctuation. 1. Apostrophe. 2.Colon. 3. Comma. 4. Dash and hyphen.5. Ellipsis. 6. Exclamation point. 7.Parentheses and brackets. 8. Period. 9.Question mark. 10. Quotation marks.11. Semicolon. 12. Virgule.

1. Apostrophe

A. Apostrophe’s purposeThe apostrophe (’) is a widespread

source of confusion. Many people havelittle or no idea of what it is for. We seeevidence of that fact constantly in home-made signs, notes, and other writingsthroughout the country. Even profes-sional writers sometimes misuse thismark, sticking it in where it does not be-long and leaving it out where it does be-long.

Notwithstanding all the misuse, the

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proper use of the apostrophe is not usu-ally very difficult. The mark has twomain purposes:

• It indicates possession—for nounsmostly. Usually an apostrophe and sare added to a singular noun or toan irregular plural, e.g., girl’s, Jack’s,men’s. Only an apostrophe, no s, isadded to a plural noun that ends ins, e.g., birds’, friends’. (See alsoPossessive problems.)

• It takes the place of a missing letteror letters when a word or phrase isshortened in a contraction, e.g.,can’t for cannot and that’s for thatis. (See also Contractions.)

B. Common types of confusionIt’s, the contraction of it is as in “It’s a

boy,” is often mixed up with the posses-sive its as in “The bird has spread itswings.” There tend to be similar mix-upsof who’s, the contraction of who is as inWho’s Who, with whose as in “Whosecar is this?”; and you’re, the contractionof you are, as in “You’re welcome,” withyour, as in “Bring your lunch.” (See alsoITS and IT’S; Possessive problems, 4;Pronouns, 8; WHOSE, 2; YOUR andYOU’RE.)

Many who understand the possessivefunction of the apostrophe are uncertainwhether to put it before or after the s.This is the procedure:

• When a singular noun that does notend in s is made possessive, theapostrophe always goes before the s,never after. An ad for “One of thecitys’ 10 best restaurants” misplacedthe apostrophe. City’s is the rightway. A plural that does not end in salso gets an apostrophe followed bys: “the children’s hour” / “the geese’swings.”

• When a plural noun with an sending is made possessive, it isfollowed by an apostrophe and no

extra s: “the Twin Cities’ finances” /“the doctors’ offices.” See G forwords ending in s, a complicatedtopic.

C. Forgotten apostrophesA national newspaper promised to

run, among other information, “Eachteams first pick. . . .” Team’s, possessive,needs an apostrophe.

Another prominent newspaper lateromitted a needed apostrophe from a plu-ral noun in a main headline:

CANDIDATES CLASHOVER TRADE ISSUES

HEADING INTO VOTE

The first word should have been CAN-DIDATES’. Without the apostrophe,“CLASH” is read as a verb—“CANDI-DATES CLASH / OVER TRADE IS-SUES”—and the third line does notmake sense. With the apostrophe,“CLASH” would be read as a noun andthe third line would be comprehensible.

The same publication described thecoconut industry of the Philippines as“one of the countries largest.” This time,a plural, “countries,” erroneously re-placed the possessive, country’s. (Seealso Ellipsis.)

An apostrophe is omitted also in abook about marketing problems:

The firm encountered additionalproblems in Italy when it tried to in-troduce the ladies electric shaver.

Logically it should be “the ladies’ electricshaver.” The masculine equivalentwould be the gentlemen’s or men’s (not“gentlemen” or “men”) electric shaver.And one would speak of children’s (not“children”) toys.

D. Intrusive apostrophesSome people seem to think that any

word ending in s gets an apostrophe.

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Even press professionals, who know bet-ter, sometimes put apostrophes in simpleplurals.

A headline over a man-in-the-streetcolumn asked, “Tell About Parent’s ByTheir Kids?” and one answer began,“Kid’s are usually a lot different thantheir parents.” Let “Parent’s” be Parentsand let “kid’s” be kids. One could justifyleaving a mistake intact in a quotation(“different than” instead of “differentfrom”) but not adding a mistake. On thenext day, an article in the same newspa-per said, “As a matter of public policy,attorney’s have a higher duty to theclient’s cause. . . .” A possessive formwas erroneously used instead of the plu-ral. Make it attorneys or, better yet, theattorney has.

E. Multiple possessivesIn making two or more words posses-

sive, here is a rule of thumb: If there isjoint possession, use an apostrophe and sonly after the final word: “Black &Decker’s factory” / “Tom and Jerry’s an-tics” / “Peter, Paul, and Mary’s music.”If possession is separate, however, use anapostrophe and s after each word: “Rus-sia’s and China’s representatives” /“men’s and boys’ clothing” / “Carson’sand Leno’s comedy.”

F. Possessives of possessivesTo have consecutive words with the

possessive s can be awkward and usuallyis avoidable. “Jack’s mother’s friend” isbetter rephrased “a friend of Jack’smother.” This was in a news story:

But Francis ———, president andchief operating officer . . . , filed a re-port with the network’s affiliate’sboard president. . . .

Either “the network affiliate’s” or “theboard president of the network’s affili-ate” would be an improvement.

G. Sibilant endingsMost words or names ending in s are

made possessive by adding an apostro-phe and s: boss’s, James’s, duchess’s,Gladys’s. An older practice was to addonly an apostrophe. Some publisherscontinue that practice, particularly forpoetry and multisyllabic words:duchess’, Gladys’. Either way, when theword is read aloud, the s sound is pro-nounced twice. If a final s is silent, mostpublishers will add s: Arkansas’s, Illi-nois’s.

Those who prefer to add s will notusually do so when two s or z soundsprecede the apostrophe: princess’,Moses’, Jesus’. Similarly, plural wordsending in two s or z sounds get an apos-trophe only: misses’ and dresses’. Excep-tions are made also for some expressionsin which the word following the apos-trophe begins with s: for goodness’ sake,for appearance’ sake. When pro-nounced, such an expression usually getsonly one hiss.

By any standard, an s belonged afterthe apostrophe here:

• 23 percent believed Marx’ phrase,“From each according to his ability, toeach according to his need.”

It is Marx’s phrase. Although Marxsounds like Mark’s, an x does not replacean s.

An apostrophe without an S made nomore sense in a leading tabloid’s mainheadline that screamed about “LIZ’HUBBY’S DRUG BUST.” LIZ’S wouldbe right. A Z does not replace an S.(From the standpoint of the tabloid,maybe the only S that counts has twolines through it.)

H. Special usesThe apostrophe is used with s to make

plurals of letters, numbers, and symbols:The Oakland A’s; two SOS’s; three B-2’s.Omitting the apostrophe and using just s

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in such cases is now preferred by many.When the meaning is unmistakable, as inthe 1700s or in her 50s, it is acceptable.But in some cases it can be confusing toomit the apostrophe. For instance, anapostrophe is needed in A’s to keep itfrom turning into the word As.

The plural of a word cited for itsgrammar, typography, or the like, takesapostrophe-s. For example, “Some writ-ers stint in their and’s.” If, however, themeaning of the word is important, useonly s and no apostrophe: “The policyhas too many buts.”

I. The other APOSTROPHEThe word apostrophe is used in an-

other sense: words addressed poeticallyto a person, thing, or deity as a digres-sion in a speech or literary piece. See 6.

2. Colon

A. Functions: mechanical and optionalEssentially, the colon (:) gives notice

to the reader to expect something. It hasboth cut-and-dried uses and optionaluses.

In the first category, it follows a for-mal salutation in a letter (Dear Sir:); itpunctuates clock times and racing speeds(8:30 p.m. and 3:59); it divides a main ti-tle and a subtitle in a reference to a bookor other work (Words: The New Dictio-nary); and it introduces quotations, espe-cially those that are relatively long (asshown throughout this book), and lists(as illustrated below).

Combine in a skillet:1⁄4 cup olive oil1 tablespoon curry powder1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce1⁄8 teaspoon cayenne

If the victim is conscious while youwait for help to arrive:a. Keep the victim warm . . . and ly-ing down.b. Give the victim nothing to drink oreat. . . .

In the second category, the colon canput the reader on notice that an elabora-tion or explanation is coming (as in sub-heading A); or it can separate a set ofone-two punches: When a statementconsists of two parts, and the first leadsto the second, a colon may well separatethe two. In that function it substitutesfor e.g., i.e., or viz. or the equivalent, forexample, that is, or namely respectively.(Incidentally, the letters stand for theLatin words exempli gratia, for the sakeof example; id est, that is [to say]; andvidelicet, to see is permitted.)

The two examples below, bothproper, come from a book on economics.(In the first, the colon separates an inde-pendent clause and a phrase. In the second, the colon separates two indepen-dent clauses.)

In addition, our economy providesa much more powerful antidote to therule of the rich: the economies ofscale.

Here we have a dilemma: we mustchoose between pleasure at some sac-rifice of comfort and more completecomfort at the sacrifice of pleasure.

In the latter example, the two clausescould be two wholly separate sentences,but the colon clearly relates the first tothe second. Views differ on whether ornot the second statement should startwith a capital letter if it amounts to acomplete sentence. It is a matter of style.The lower-case “we” is valid, though thebook you are reading would use We. (Sowould The Associated Press and TheNew York Times. The Chicago Manualof Style would allow the “we.” But it fol-lows a colon with a capital letter whenthe colon introduces more than one sen-tence, a formal statement, a quotation,or a speech in dialogue.)

B. Interrupted sentencesUnless a sentence is meant to be inter-

rupted, a colon should not separate a

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verb from its object or complement. Anewsletter and a newspaper do interrupttheir sentences:

We’re pleased to welcome: LynnB . . . Margaret H . . . Vivian K[etc.]. . . .

The nine inductees are: DonaldB . . . Maurice C . . . Dick M [etc.]. . . .

A writer probably would not insert thecolon if only one name followed. “We’repleased to welcome: Mary Richards.” /“The inductee is: John Tyler.” / “Theycall me: Mimi.” The additional namesshould not matter.

An interruption may be appropriate ifthe ensuing enumeration or quotation islong or formal; if it goes in a separateparagraph or paragraphs; or if the intro-duction heralds the approach of the ma-terial. “The president’s four main pointsare the following:” / “The text of the an-them goes as follows:” / “The ten lead-ing companies in the field are these:” /“The pope’s full statement said:”

C. Verbless writingThe use of sentence fragments in

which colons take the places of verbs is atechnique associated with journalism,particularly news magazines. One ofthem ran this paragraph:

Year Edison and his aide invented theKinetoscope: 1889; reason Edisonwas slow to develop the technology:He thought interest in movies wouldquickly fade; year he began marketinghis own projector: 1896

It takes the same number of words toconvey the same message in completesentences:

Edison and his aide invented the Kine-toscope in 1889. Edison was slow todevelop the technology because he

thought interest in movies wouldquickly fade. He began marketing hisown projector in 1896.

Using colons instead of verbs is notnecessarily wrong, but it can be over-done. The device appears in three succes-sive paragraphs of a Sunday magazinesection. Are and is are the words thathave been replaced by colons.

The villains: The out-of-towners, aNewport Beach suburban office devel-oper. . . .

The victim: Robert D . . . sailor andidea man who three years ago. . . .

And the mystery man: ArthurC . . . physician and swing vote on thisquestion. . . .

Some 110 words go by with three sub-jects and no predicates. The style is ques-tionable. (So is the capitalized “T” in thesecond “The,” inasmuch as only a frag-ment of a sentence follows the colon.)

3. Comma

A. Department of commasThe comma (,) provides a bit of sepa-

ration or a brief pause. Some uses aremechanical: “New York, NY” / “July 4,1776” / “$4,507,000.” Many uses arediscretionary, helping to make sentencesclear.

The modern trend is to use fewercommas. In 1789 this was high style; thecommas would not have been used to-day: “The enumeration in the Constitu-tion, of certain rights, shall not beconstrued to deny or disparage others re-tained by the people.” But in moderntimes an abundance of writing withoutneeded commas suggests that the trendmay be going too far.

Commas can be indispensable forclarity. Take this sentence: “Jack, saidSam, took the money.” Removing thecommas changes the meaning com-

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pletely: “Jack said Sam took the money.”And “Fruit, trees, and flowers” are notthe same as “fruit trees and flowers.”And it might be confusing to read thisone without commas: “According to mybrother, George, Washington apples arebest.”

Commas have many functions. Theyset off attributions, definitions, explana-tions, elaborations, and identifications.They divide three or more items in a se-ries. (See Series errors, 7.) Often theyseparate phrases. And they indicatepauses in thought.

Their function of setting off part of asentence resembles that of dashes andparentheses. (See 4, 7.) In general, com-mas least interrupt the flow of the sen-tence.

When the set-off matter comes amid asentence, as in this very sentence, a pairof commas is needed. “They moved toCharleston, West Virginia, last month.” /“At last, men felt, the ranks of diplo-macy were broken. . . .” The secondcomma of such a pair should not beoverlooked. Sometimes it is overlooked,particularly in attributions: “Soon aftermidnight, police said the blast tookplace.” If that was when it happened,not when they said it, commas areneeded both before and after “policesaid.”

A comma or pair of commas sets off awhich clause or a nonrestrictive whoclause. “Sam’s Restaurant, which wasmy favorite, has gone out of business.” /“Do you know Edith Bunker, who usedto work here?” (See THAT andWHICH, 1; WHO, THAT, andWHICH, 2.) A comma or pair of com-mas can indicate whether a category hasonly one member or more than onemember: “I’m taking my daughter,Matilda” implies that I have just onedaughter; the name is incidental to themain message. “I’m taking my daughterMatilda” implies that I have more thanone daughter; the name is an integralpart of the message.

When a subordinate clause opens asentence, a comma normally follows: “Ifyou have a loss, check the box that de-scribes your investment.” Many phrasesare treated similarly: “Having deliveredthis blow, he departed on the pacific cru-sade. . . .” Commas separate many otherclauses or other parts of sentences, par-ticularly when they diverge in meaning:“He has eyes, yet he cannot see.” /“Make love, not war.”

When a series of adjectives modify thesame noun, commas may or may not fol-low them. They do if each adjective hasan equal effect on the noun, as in “thedark, threatening sky” or “a soft, sweet,juicy fruit.” The test is whether and cansensibly go between each adjective; if so,a comma can. One can say, for instance,“the dark and threatening sky.” But in“a gray alley cat” or “a pleasant mas-querade party” the adjectives are un-equal; and or a comma would not gobetween them. The first adjective(“gray”) modifies the second adjectivecombined with the noun (“alley cat”),two words that function together as anoun.

When used in place of a colon ordash, a comma can be misunderstood:“He received a dollar, a half and twoquarters.” The total he received couldhave been either $1 or $2. If “dollar” is atotal and not just an item in a series, acomma is not the right mark to set it off.Commas in place of semicolons can bemisunderstood too: “We met Harris, thechairman, the treasurer, and the secre-tary.” How many did we meet? If three,change the second and third commas tosemicolons.

A comma does not belong betweentwo independent clauses; that is, whatcould be two complete sentences: “Ihaven’t heard any objections, nobodyhere has complained.” The comma doesnot do an adequate job of either separat-ing the clauses or uniting them in thatpublished example of what is called acomma fault or a comma splice. A pe-

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riod (followed by a capital N) wouldseparate them into two sentences. Asemicolon or a colon would properlyunite them. (So would a conjunction,and, but the passage is quoting some-one.)

See also 2, 8, 11; Run-on sentence, 2.

B. Missing commas: ambiguityThe lack of a comma sometimes dis-

torts the meaning of a sentence. Whenthe comma’s job of separation is not per-formed, separate thoughts may appearto be one thought.

An epilogue is summing up the mainthemes of a book: “In the third essay onmapping the world, another theme en-ters.” It seems to imply that three essayson mapping the world have been pre-sented. Actually the third essay is theonly one on that subject. There needs tobe a comma after “In the third essay,”indicating that “on mapping the world”is separate information and not part ofthe first phrase.

In each of the two press quotationsbelow, the absence of a comma restrictsthe meaning. The result probably wasnot intended by the writer.

House Democrats who’ve pushedthrough $93.6 billion in income taxhikes vowed to fight for some of thoseprovisions over the weekend.

Did only those House Democrats whodid the pushing do the vowing? That iswhat the sentence suggests now. If thewriter regards all the House Democratsas a unit, the sentence needs a pair ofcommas: “House Democrats, who’vepushed through $93.6 billion in incometax hikes, vowed to fight. . . .” (The“who’ve” instead of who have is ques-tionable too. See Contractions.)

Some plasma cells join to cancer cellsforming hybrid cells able to reproduceindefinitely.

If the plasma cells and not just the cancercells are “forming hybrid cells,” insert acomma after “cancer cells.”

The lack of a comma can result in am-biguity when words meant to be sepa-rate form unexpected units.

Four days into the hearing the realestate agent and co-defendantsreached an out-of-court settlementwith buyers paying an undisclosedsum and taking back the house.

Who paid the sum and took back thehouse? “. . . Buyers paying” suggeststhat it was they. But if the writer ne-glected to put a comma after “buyers,” it was the other parties that acted. From the context, the latter seems to beso. The defendants reached a “settle-ment with buyers, paying an undisclosedsum. . . .”

C. Missing commas: pauses skippedHundreds of uses of the comma can

be summarized this way: It indicates aslight pause. It tells the reader, whetherreading silently or aloud, to hesitate orslow down a trifle. Thus it helps commu-nicate the writer’s meaning. Let us list afew of the normal points of pause. Theillustrative sentences, from books andnewspapers, lack commas and are fol-lowed by corrections.

• After an initial phrase that isabsolute or contrasting:

. . . Neither of us being expert wewere well splattered.

Somewhat cruel and ambitious hewas nevertheless a strong leader. . . .

Commas after “expert” and “ambi-tious” would be desirable.

• Where the main thought meets aparticipial phrase:

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[A critic] reproached Beethoven . . .for the absence of a great vocal fugueconsidered traditional. . . .

. . . The Postal Service still turns aslight profit making daily deliveries. . . .

. . . I hauled on my paddle and the in-fant did his part back paddling with abroken blade.

Put a comma after “fugue,” after“profit,” and after “part” (and hyphen-ate “back paddling”). A comma in thesecond sentence would have avoided thefalse phrase “profit making.”

• Before a phrase of negation orcontradiction:

. . . Scarce resources . . . are rationednot by price . . . but by [corrupt] offi-cials. . . .

. . . This is only bad prose not badpollution.

Insert commas after “rationed” and“prose.”

• After a phrase ending in a negative.

Adding to the new government’sproblems is the confusion about whatis state property and what is not fol-lowing 10 years of secretive Sandin-ista rule.

A comma after “not” would keep itfrom fusing with the next word.

• Where the scene abruptly shifts,often just before then:

He was suspended for 30 days with-out pay then dismissed after he re-quested a transfer.

A comma should follow “pay.” Andnote this pair of sentences:

Some researchers believe a baby formsconcepts about the world and thenmatches the words it hears to thoseconcepts. Others think a baby hearsthe words first then matches conceptsto those words.

The latter sentence needs a comma be-fore “then”; the former does not, be-cause a conjunction, “and,” bridges thegap.

• Before and often after aparenthetical identification,explanation, or appellation.

“Don’t be scared baby.”

. . . Payne, a legal consultant forRisk Management said . . . the statecould reduce the need to pay for judg-ments. . . .

Put a comma after “scared,” just as youwould put one in “Won’t you comehome, Bill Bailey?” One comma isenough when the set-off matter ends asentence; otherwise a pair of commas isnecessary, just as a pair of parentheses is.The latter sentence lacks the secondcomma of the pair, after “Manage-ment.”

D. Needless commasUnnecessary commas occasionally

produce as much confusion as the ab-sence of necessary commas can. Thecommas do so by isolating words orphrases that should not be isolated. Thisexample is from a column:

Although they produced solid evi-dence that some Temple members,and others who lived outside the city,had voted, it was never proved thattheir votes made a difference in theoutcome.

Two commas set aside “and others wholived outside the city,” tending to distin-

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guish that group from the Temple mem-bers. If both groups were outsiders, clar-ity requires removing those commas. (Abetter treatment would be rewriting.“Although they produced solid evidencethat people who lived outside the city,both Temple members and others, hadvoted. . . .”)

Unnecessary commas can make a por-tion of a sentence appear to be unessen-tial when it is really essential. A notedbook on language says:

Two years earlier the Scottish physi-cian, Alexander Hamilton, travelingalong the Hudson, found an immensenumber of colonels.

The comma after “the Scottish physi-cian” makes the ensuing name seem justan elaboration, unessential to the previ-ous phrase. The implication is that Scot-land had only one physician. Removingthe comma distinguishes the Scottishphysician Alexander Hamilton from allthe other Scottish physicians. (But seeTHE, 2A, end.)

A comma generally should not beplaced between a subject and its verb.Delete the commas in the two press sen-tences:

. . . The seller’s only obligation with-out a written warranty, is to sell you acar that is capable of providing basictransportation. . . .

. . . The established way to prove astatistically significant improved sur-vival rate in the patients who havetaken the drug, is for a certain numberin the control group to die.

To place a comma immediately after is ineither of those sentences (and therebyseparate the auxiliary verb from the restof the verb phrase) would also be a mis-take, yet some make such a mistake. SeeVerbosity (artist) for an example.

Nor should a comma follow the sub-ject of an absolute construction. “Man-goes, being cheap, I bought a bunch ofthem.” Delete the first comma. See Mod-ifiers, 1D.

Normally two items in a series of twoin a simple sentence need not be sepa-rated by a comma. (See Series errors, 8,for the rules in longer series.) Delete thecommas in these two samples, fromnews stories:

Police said the dead were four con-struction workers, and the driver ofthe school van.

Hungarians were denied jobs, and ar-rested in inordinate numbers.

Those commas are just unnecessary,slightly impeding communication. Occa-sionally such a use can mislead. A memosays, “Joe: Tell Fred to draw up the con-tract, and see me in my office.” If Fred isthe one to visit the office, the comma isunwanted; it seems to herald an indepen-dent clause, in which “see me” is an or-der to Joe. A more complicated versionof that problem comes from a magazinearticle, which advises parents:

. . . Insist that your child never giveout personal information—home ad-dress, phone number, school name—on-line without first asking yourpermission, and never agree to meetsomeone in person without a parentbeing present.

At first, the comma may seem to dividethe sentence into two independentclauses, in which you, the parent, aretold to (1) “insist that . . .” and (2)“never agree to. . . .” Actually, “neveragree” is not an imperative but a presentsubjunctive; it is subordinate to “insistthat your child,” just as “never give out”is. Readers can figure out the meaning,but the comma is momentarily mislead-ing. (For emphasis and clarity, the main

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points could be numbered or even giventheir own paragraphs.)

E. Too few and too manyMissing and needless commas are not

mutually exclusive. Each of the follow-ing passages (from three newspapers anda book) calls for a comma or two whilecontaining an uncalled-for comma.

Sometimes, the snow swirls lowacross the road drifting in from theforests. The world is pine and whiteprairie, entirely.

A comma is lacking after “road,” if it isthe snow that drifts in and not the road.The commas after “Sometimes” and“prairie” are unnecessary.

The Senate passed the bill, but laterpassed another version requiring thatfewer palladium coins be minted.

That one lacks a comma after “version,”preceding a separate thought. Thecomma after “bill” tends to isolate thesubject, “The Senate,” from the secondverb, “passed.” (See also Pronouns, 6.)

The former self-proclaimed em-peror, who ruled this landlocked dia-mond-rich black African state from1966–79, returned home unexpect-edly, in October 1986. . . .

In stringing together a series of four ad-jectives without a comma, did the writerintend to restrict the sentence so much(distinguishing this state only from non-landlocked diamond-rich black Africanstates)? If not, commas are lacking. Areasonable punctuation gives us“. . . landlocked, diamond-rich, blackAfrican state . . .” (treating three adjec-tives equally but “African state” as aunit). While withholding commas fromthe adjectives, the writer used an unnec-essary comma after “unexpectedly.”

(And “from 1966–79” is a faulty mix-ture. See 4C.)

I have almost total recall, every face isthere, every hill and tree and color,and sound of speech and small scenesready to replay themselves in mymemory.

A comma fault follows “recall.” (See 3A,end.) The third comma would be betterafter “scenes.” (And scene and itself [inlieu of “themselves”] would agree with“every . . . is . . . every.”)

4. Dash and hyphen

A. The differenceThe public often confuses the dash

(—) and the hyphen (-). Occasionally thepress mixes them up too. Both punctua-tion marks are horizontal lines, but a hy-phen is very short; a dash is longer.When a typewriter or word processor isused, one stroke of the key to the right ofthe zero (unshifted) makes a hyphen.Two strokes of that key make what rep-resents a dash.

They have largely opposite functions.A dash separates words. A hyphen uniteswords, although it may separate sylla-bles of a word.

In the sentence below, from the press,dashes would have been appropriate. In-stead, hyphens were used by mistake.

The Egyptian army has been tryinghard-albeit unsuccessfully-to preventPLO terror squads from crossing theSinai into Israel.

Hyphens are found in words like hard-boiled and lean-to. The hyphens in thesample sentence unite words that shouldhave been separated and create the mon-strosities “hard-albeit” and “unsuccess-fully-to.” It makes more sense this way:

The Egyptian army has been tryinghard—albeit unsuccessfully—to pre-

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vent PLO terror squads from crossingthe Sinai into Israel.

The phrase “albeit unsuccessfully” is athought within a thought. The twodashes set off that phrase.

Dashes resemble commas (,) andparentheses ( ) insofar as they all set offwords and phrases. Dashes tend to givethem prominence, however, whereascommas often play them down andparentheses play them down further.Parentheses always come in pairs,whereas a comma or dash may be usedsingly when the set-off material ends asentence.

A dash or a pair of dashes may set offan explanation or expansion of the pre-ceding thought: “. . . Tchaikovsky omit-ted the bass instruments—cellos, doublebasses, trombones, tuba—as well astrumpets.” / “The Gothic—early, mid-dle, and late—extended over cen-turies. . . .” Or it may set off a contrastor contradiction: “People wanted tolaugh, and weep—and could do nei-ther.” Or a summary of a series: “Rare,medium, or well done—these are suchpersonal preferences. . . .” And dashesmay serve mechanically in lists:

Originally, the four main castes seemto have been:

The Brahmins—the priests andteachers;

The Kshatriyas—the warriors;The Vaisyas—herdsmen, money-

lenders. . . .

Hyphens, besides uniting certainwords (e.g., left-handed, five-and-ten,Spanish-American War), mark the divi-sion of words between lines (see E), indi-cate combining forms (-ing, anti-),simulate stuttering or halting (“K-K-K-Katie”), and suggest the spelling ofwords letter by letter (“M-i-c-k-e-y”).When two hyphenated compounds areused together, a hyphen suspends part of

the first compound (“one- and five-dollar bills”).

B. Problems with dashesSometimes a writer squeezes too

much stuff between a pair of dashes, andit may not even be pertinent to the rest ofthe sentence. Writers at times treatdashes as handy devices to dispose offacts that they don’t otherwise knowwhat to do with.

In the following sentence, from anewspaper, the use of dashes is notwrong per se, but the twenty-nine-wordclause flanked by the two dashes awk-wardly separates the subject (“dinner”)from its verb (“was described”).

Dinner—where they were joined byMr. Marvelashvili; Georgi Gordodze,who heads the board of the Ministryof Trade in the Georgian capital ofTbilisi; an interpreter and two Ameri-cans—was described to the visitors asa “typical Russian dinner,” completewith folk music and dancing.

It would be better to dispense with thedashes and place the information nowjammed between them in a second sen-tence: “They were joined by. . . .”

In the excerpt below, from a lawbook, the material sandwiched betweenthe dashes below is even longer, fifty-four words. It adds a confusing element:separate sentences within a sentence.

There have been at least five otherperplexing constitutional questions—Who can start a war? When is a war“over,” and who is to end it? Whatare the war powers of Congress, andto what extent may they be delegatedto the President? How independent ofthe Supreme Court are courts-martialand presidential military commis-sions? What are the President’s pow-ers in conquered areas?—that theCourt has been begged to answer withsome show of finality.

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The first ten words, “There have been atleast five other perplexing constitutionalquestions,” appear to complete athought. So after five complete sentencesgo by, the reader is utterly unpreparedfor the tail end: “that the Court has beenbegged to answer.” The divided sentenceshould first be connected, then the fivequestions introduced. You cannot keep asentence going if another sentence stopsit.

To avoid confusion, no more than onesingle dash or one pair of dashes shouldbe used in a sentence (except for specialpurposes; see C). Dashes, like otherforms of punctuation, should help tobring out meaning; the four dashes in thepassage below do more to obscure it.

The Republican Party was createdout of the remnants of the old WhigParty and the dissenters from theDemocratic Party who called them-selves Independent Democrats.

It was the first party which, for halfa century, proclaimed—and cam-paigned on—a body of “principles,”and its victory in 1860 marked it asthe first—and the last—new partywhich has won a presidential election.

The second sentence would benefit by(among other things) a slicing into twoor more sentences and an isolation ofeach main point; specifically, the firstsshould not be confused with the laterhistory. A possible revision:

The Republican Party was the firstparty to proclaim and campaign on abody of “principles”—which it didfor half a century. Its victory in 1860marked it also as the first new party towin a presidential election—and it hasbeen the last new party to do so.

“The dash,” as a professor of mineused to say, “is a dashing form of punc-tuation.” Overused, as it is by some

writers, it is like too much of any goodthing.

A dash may adjoin the words it sepa-rates—in this manner. But some publica-tions, especially newspapers, willsandwich a dash between two smallspaces — thus.

A hyphen never needs space around it.Often someone will type a hyphen withspace to the left and right, in the mis-taken notion that to do so makes the hy-phen a dash. Such an error was made ina newspaper and a magazine:

The couple got $17,000 for thebungalow - $20,000 more than theasking price.

. . . Hassam began . . . among hismost important late works - a uniqueseries of powerful, patriotic images.. . . Hassam created around 30 flagpaintings in prints, oils, and watercol-ors - all set in mid Manhattan. . . .

Corrections: “. . . bungalow—$20,000 . . .” /“ . . . late works—a unique series . . .” /“. . . watercolors—all set. . . .”

Elsewhere a peculiar headline lookedlike this:

Rosh Hashana- the JewishNew Year is a time for new

beginnings

The hyphen (peculiarly adjoining a wordto the left and a space to the right) needsto be a dash. But one dash is not enoughto set off a thought amid a sentence. Itshould be Rosh Hashana—the JewishNew Year—is. . . .

The usual computer keyboard has ev-ery important punctuation mark excepta dash. Some programs enable the userto evoke a dash by means of a specialcode. Otherwise it is necessary to typetwo successive hyphens to simulate adash, the way one does it on a type-writer.

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C. Types of dashesCompositors and printers have tradi-

tionally had a variety of dashes besidesthe ordinary dash, or em dash (—), dis-cussed above.

The two-em dash is used to indicatemissing or omitted letters: “She blurtedout, ‘Oh s——!’ ” It may also suggestunfinished sentences or conspicuouspauses:

Mr. Dawson: You’re referring there tothe backgrounders that Poindexterand Regan have in advance of theNovember 18——Mr. McFarlane: I believe that’s right.

“Does——the one——that wins——get the crown?” she asked, aswell as she could, for the run wasputting her quite out of breath.

The three-em dash indicates absentwords: “Police said ——— and ———built the bombs. . . .” In a bibliographyit means the author is the same as in thepreceding paragraph.

The shortest dash, shorter than the emdash, is the en dash, used between dates,times, and page numbers. For example,“1914–17” stands for “from 1914 to1917 (inclusive).” The shortened form ismainly suitable for lists, tables, notes,and parenthetical mentions. A mistakeassociated with it is illustrated by thesetwo excerpts from articles:

In six decades, Horowitz had fourperiods when he gave up public con-certs: from 1935-38, 1953-65, 1969-72 and 1983-85.

Wyman and the former presidentwere married from 1940-48.

The mistake of both sentences is not theuse of the hyphen, a common substitutewhen the en dash is not available. It isthat “from” does not go with the short-

ened form, in which “from . . . to . . .” isimplied. Anyway, the latter sentence isbetter expressed fully: “from 1940 to1948.”

The en dash has another, subtle func-tion. It is used in a compound adjective(that is, an adjective made up of multiplewords) in which at least one elementconsists of two or more words or a hy-phenated word. Examples: “He grew upin the post–World War I era.” / “She de-scribed her half-Hawaiian–half-Caucasian background.”

Contemporary writers do not usuallyfollow a dash with a comma. This showsan exception: “ ‘But——,’ he started tosay. . . .” (To follow a dash with what-ever punctuation would be there in theabsence of a dash is an older style, fa-vored by H. W. Fowler. An example: “IfI have caused a problem—and I mayhave—, I am sorry.”)

D. Problems with hyphensHyphenation has some rules, al-

though many exceptions exist. In case ofdoubt, consult a general dictionary. Bet-ter yet, consult two; dictionaries do notalways agree. One says vice-presidentand co-worker while another says vicepresident and coworker. When that hap-pens, you take your choice.

“. . . A German-born immigrant . . .built the 14-room mansion.” The sen-tence illustrates a correct use of the hy-phen: to join the components of acompound adjective. It appeared in aNew Mexico newspaper. Note that thephrase New Mexico does not get a hy-phen, because it is an established unit astwo words. Some compound expressionsare established in hyphenated form. Ex-amples are cold-blooded, law-abiding,one-horse (town), and ten-gallon (hat).Such expressions may have multiple hy-phens: out-and-out, dyed-in-the-wool,will-o’-the-wisp.

A phrase may or not be hyphenated,depending on its position in a sentence.

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“It was a head-on collision” but “Thecollision was head on.” / “I like small-town life” but “I like life in a smalltown.” / “The state set a 55-mile-an-hour limit” but “The state set a limit of55 miles an hour.” / “Why is an upside-down car in the street?” but “Why is acar upside down in the street?” Hyphen-ated before the noun, the same phrasegets no hyphen after the noun.

Hyphens are never affixed to adverbsending in -ly, regardless of position. Thus“The happily married couple possessed aclosely guarded secret.” Adjectives com-bined with participles are hyphenated—“a funny-faced comedian” / “theshy-looking girl.” That is so even for ad-jectives that end in -ly: “that heavenly-sounding music” / “a costly-lookingcar.” While -ly adverbs derive from ad-jectives (happy, close), -ly adjectives de-rive from nouns (heaven, cost).

Certain prefixes normally adjoin hy-phens, in compounds such as all-powerful, ex-mayor, great-grandson,no-fault, post-bellum, and self-made.Suffixes that adjoin hyphens appear, forexample, in president-elect, mother-in-law, thirty-odd, and show-off.

A hyphen is essential in re-form,meaning to form again, to distinguish itfrom reform, meaning to correct defects.Similarly, a hyphen distinguishes re-creation, to create again, from recreation, playing.

While not essential, a hyphen is usefulin a word like co-operate or de-emphasize or anti-intellectual and is pre-ferred by a number of publications andwriters. It keeps the two like vowels fromappearing to fuse into oo or ee or ii.

Typically a publication nowadayscloses up a word like antiterrorist orprogovernment but hyphenates, say,anti-European or pro-American to sepa-rate the lower-case prefix and the capi-talized name. Some writers prefer tohyphenate both forms. They are notwrong, just using an older style.

A person who is a secretary-treasurer

performs two roles, united by a hyphen;but secretary general, which amounts togeneral secretary, is a single role. A con-struction such as “vice president-generalmanager” is confusing; replace the hy-phen with and.

In the phrase “Japanese American sol-diers of the 442nd and the 100th” (froman article) a hyphen is missing: it isJapanese-American. A combination ofethnic labels, used as either an adjectiveor a noun, normally calls for a hyphen(although sometimes an exception ismade for French Canadian as a noun).

Meaning can depend on a hyphen. Achance to make a sizable profit may be abig business opportunity, whereas achance to deal with large corporationsmay be a big-business opportunity. Abeneficial activity by the federal govern-ment may be a good government pro-gram, whereas an organization’s plan toreform official abuses may be a good-government program.

The hyphens in many compound ad-jectives, such as man-eating, are neces-sary to prevent ambiguity or, at least,absurdity. A newspaper that resisted theuse of hyphens ran a headline that said,“Man eating piranha sold as pet fish.” Itprompted The New Yorker to ask, “Didhe look like a fish?”

Similarly, two words need to be joinedby a hyphen in each of the two examplesthat follow, from a newspaper and anencyclopedia.

David was born without any infectionfighting blood cells and is sufferingfrom Severe Combined Immunity De-ficiency.

To avoid suggesting that an infectionshould be fighting blood cells, hyphenate“infection” and “fighting.” The sentencewill read: “David was born without anyinfection-fighting blood cells. . . .”

The order contains two families; thesmall rodent like pikas . . . ; and therabbits and hares.

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Is “the small rodent” one of the familiesand “pikas” an example of that family?No, “pikas” is the family, but someoneneglected to make that fact clear by plac-ing a hyphen between “rodent” and“like.” A correction: “the small, rodent-like pikas. . . .” (The comma clarifiesthat small and rodent-like equally mod-ify pikas. See 3A.)

Half a loaf may be worse than nonewhen it comes to hyphens. A newspaperreported that the secretary of state, visit-ing Bolivia, had condemned what he re-garded as “anti-civilized society.” Thetarget of his rebuke was not a societythat was anti-civilized but an action thatdefied civilized society: a bombing.Therefore the phrase needed a secondhyphen: “anti-civilized-society.”

Using a hyphen or hyphens is not theway to join phrases. A news story re-ferred, twice, to “the Christian Demo-cratic-Free Democratic” coalitionrunning West Berlin. The writer did notintend to suggest that the coalition wasfree of democracy, but the hyphentended to do so by joining the words“Democratic” and “Free.” Extra hy-phens would not help here. An en dashin place of the hyphen would clarify thenames of the two parties, although a bet-ter solution would be to recast thephrase, perhaps in this manner: “thecoalition of the Christian Democrats andthe Free Democrats.”

The press sometimes is inconsistent inits use or nonuse of hyphens, as in thisexample:

The Travelodge, near the DallasMarket Center, began its 24-hourflexible check-in and checkout at thebeginning of the year after a three-month test.

Inasmuch as check-in has a hyphen, it ishard to justify the omission of the hy-phen in its parallel, check-out. (See alsoCHECK OUT and CHECK-OUT.)

So much for the omission of necessary

hyphens. Writers are known to insertthem unnecessarily too.

In an article about educational de-cline, two writers decried “a seeming re-luctance by educators to tackle theproblems head-on.” It should be head on(an adverb, modifying the verb tackle).Compare it with “The cars were in ahead-on collision.” (Here head-on is anadjective, modifying the noun collision.)Hyphens are unnecessarily stuck intotwo-word verbs in the two press exam-ples that follow.

They almost never picked-up thephone to tell a supervisor’s office whatthey thought about a law. . . .

The writer of that sentence had neverpicked up the correct verb. The relatednoun is pickup. Neither has a hyphen.(See also PICK UP and PICKUP.)

Voters . . . turned-down the idea ofdemolishing the freeway. . . .

It should be turned down, with no hy-phen.

A book describes someone as a

soft-spoken man who did not mincehis words and could put them on pa-per in a literate, easy-to-read-and-digest style.

Soft-spoken is correct. The problem liesin the five-word compound, which isproperly punctuated but awkward. Allthat information does not have to pre-cede style; an alternative: “a literate stylethat was easy to read and digest.”

E. Use of hyphens to divide wordsThe most common use of the hyphen

is to indicate the division of a word be-tween two lines in printed material.

A word of two or more syllables thatis too long to fit on a line is apt to be di-vided. The line ends with a syllable andhyphen together (sam-). The line below

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begins with the next syllable (ple). SeeDivision of words.

5. Ellipsis

A. Its legitimate useThe function of the three dots known

as an ellipsis or ellipsis points ( . . . ) is toshow that a writer has left something outof a quotation.

As an example, here is an unabridgedquotation from a governmental report:“Despite disagreement—both within theAdministration and with the Congress—the policy continued apace.” Now hereis an abridged version: “Despite dis-agreement . . . the policy continuedapace.” The three dots indicate an omis-sion of words from the original sentence.

What if your sentence ends with suchan omission? It is a common procedure(followed by this book) to add a fourthdot, a period, to mark the end of the sen-tence. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are createdequal. . . .” The dot following the lastword is the period.

An alternative, when an ellipsis comesat the end of your sentence, is to use justthe three dots and no period: “We holdthese truths to be self-evident, that allmen are created equal . . .”

Several authorities in the four-pointschool present optional refinements.They call for just the three dots if yoursentence ends with a quotation that isgrammatically incomplete.

Amendment IV: “The right of thepeople to be secure in their persons,houses, papers, and effects, againstunreasonable searches andseizures . . .”

A further refinement prescribes a periodif your own words blend with the quotedfragment to make a grammatically com-plete sentence.

The Fourth Amendment protects“The right of the people to be securein their persons, houses, papers, andeffects, against unreasonable searchesand seizures. . . .”

It can be perplexing at times to pursuethose distinctions. Whether it is worththe effort is up to you.

Other authorities call for a period atthe end of your sentence, full sentence or not. “The only thing we have to fear. . . .”

If you are quoting multiple sentences,the ellipsis can mark an omission of anyintervening matter, whether phrases, sen-tences, or paragraphs. Each of the firsttwo ellipses below represents the omis-sion of whole sentences (from a passagein Hamlet); the third ellipsis representsthe omission of the latter part of a sen-tence.

Be thou familiar, but by no means vul-gar. . . . Give every man thy ear, butfew thy voice. . . . Neither a borrowernor a lender be. . . .

An ellipsis may open a sentence, indi-cating that some preceding matter ap-peared in the original sentence:

“. . . Government of the people, bythe people, and for the people shallnot perish from the earth,” said Lin-coln.

Here is that quotation preceded by an at-tribution. Some authorities would omitthe ellipsis. (A colon may be used insteadof a comma for more formality.)

Lincoln said, “. . . Government of thepeople” [etc.].

What precedes the quotation, notablythat, may make the ellipsis unnecessaryby blending with the quotation:

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Lincoln said that “government of thepeople” [etc.].

Any other punctuation found in theoriginal quotation may be placed beforeor after the ellipsis. “Was this theface . . . ?” A period would be excessivein addition to the question mark. An-other example is the following verbatimexcerpt from an official report; the colonand dash are unnecessary, though notwrong. (The ellipsis is in the report.)

“At this meeting, Mr. McFarlane, asinstructed by the President, statedthat: . . . —the U.S. could under nocircumstances transfer arms to Iran inexchange for hostages.”

Any number of dots other than threeor four, such as . . (used by the OxfordEnglish Dictionary) or . . . . . , is non-standard, except that in poetry the omis-sion of any lines of verse is indicated by aline of dots, about the length of a printedline of verse.

An ellipsis should not be broken at theend of a line of type, although an ellipsismay be separated from a period. Someprinting fonts and computer fonts haveellipses as units.

In printing, small spaces may separatethe dots, or asterisks, from the words orany adjoining punctuation or each other.

Occasionally three asterisks are used,rather than three dots. Again from thereport (ellipses unchanged): “I think itwas * * * the 18th * * * ” Asterisks goabove the line, dots on the line.

A very short quotation that is obvi-ously incomplete needs no ellipsis:

Washington warned his countrymenagainst “permanent alliances.”

The word ellipsis is also used in a gen-eral sense to mean the omission of wordsthat would be part of a fully expressedsentence but that are not essential to un-

derstanding. An example is if necessaryinstead of if it is necessary. That topic iscovered under Ellipsis.

B. Varieties of abuseEllipses are abused in a variety of

ways. The examples presented here ap-peared in print with the ellipses that areshown.

A feature article quotes a foreign offi-cial. He was asked to provide a pictureof his flag so that it could be copied anddisplayed:

“Well . . . I’m not sure I can do that,but we bring Byelorussian constitu-tion. Flag described there!”

Seeing the ellipsis in that quotation, weassume that something has been omit-ted. Has it? Later in the article, a sen-tence that is not a quotation starts outthe same way:

Well . . . it was just a thought.

Too many writers use the ellipsisthoughtlessly as all-purpose punctua-tion. In the two sample sentences above,it replaces what should be a comma (,).In the one below, it replaces what shouldbe a comma or dash (—).

Decisively, Mr. Bush said he sup-ported it . . . with reservations.

Here the ellipsis usurps the functionof a dash (—):

Binoculars, camera, compass andmap, field guides to flora and fauna,pedometer, walking stick, telescopingfishing rod, portable games . . . allthese things can make your outingmore enjoyable.

One writer seems to think that thepurpose of an ellipsis is emphasis. Thedots bog down his sentence.

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But here in a glass-fronted grottooff Columbus Avenue, the damned ig-nored nature to find exhilarationin . . . coffee.

Using italic or boldface type would be awiser means of emphasis than separatinga preposition from its object with a mis-applied punctuation mark.

Some newspaper columnists use el-lipses to separate unrelated items placedin a common paragraph instead of indi-vidual paragraphs. “Three-dot journal-ism” is what one of them called it.

The purpose of the ellipsis in the pas-sage below is obscure. A simple periodor a new paragraph would do.

Mr. Wagner, the former Pentagonofficial, said another reason for theAdministration’s inaction was a ten-dency to focus on what turned out tobe a much lesser problem, assuringsupplies of plutonium for newbombs . . . Plutonium, a radioactivemetal, decays very slowly; tritium de-cays at a rate of 5.5 percent a year.

Merely eliminating the ellipsis wouldmake the next sentence smoother:

Few low[-]budget publications inthe history of American journalismhave approached its effective-ness . . . or its popularity.

The article in which it appears uses el-lipses three times more, in quotationslike this one (set off, as explained in 10):

You know when you start writing abook at 78. . . .

At first, the ellipsis suggests that the quo-tation was cut short. But the contextsuggests another interpretation: that thespeaker did not finish the sentence. Thewriter should have used a long dash, in-stead of an ellipsis (and a comma after“You know”).

A manual for authors and editors con-dones the use of ellipses, even in quota-tions, to indicate “faltering speech” with“confusion or indecisiveness.” Such ad-vice invites indecisiveness by writers andconfusion by readers, who may be un-able to tell whether a quotation is com-plete or not. Commas and dashes canhandle the task without creating the am-biguity.

Some writers omit parts of direct quo-tations without inserting the necessaryellipses. They seem to think that it isenough to insert their own words inparentheses or brackets. It is not. See 7B.

6. Exclamation pointThe exclamation point (!) exclaims. It

screams. It symbolizes emotion, excite-ment. It may climax a cry of pain orshock, a fervent demand, or an uproari-ous laugh.

An exclamation point can change thecharacter of a word or phrase. “No”may just be providing information,whereas “No!” may be expressing shockor vehement refusal. “Oh” may just beacknowledging information; “Oh!” maybe indicating surprise. “How big?”merely asks a question; “How big!” ex-presses surprise or awe, and it wouldmake no sense to end such a phrase witha period.

We use a play by Shakespeare to illus-trate some defensible uses of the excla-mation point: in an apostrophe, ahailing, a dictate, an alarm, an excitedannouncement, an expression of grief,an outcry, and an urgent entreaty.

O valiant cousin! worthy gentle-man! . . . All hail, Macbeth! hail tothee, thane of Glamis! . . . MethoughtI heard a voice cry ‘Sleep no more! . . .’Awake, awake! . . . Murder and trea-son! Banquo and Donalbain! Mal-colm! awake! . . . Our royal master’smurder’d! . . . Woe, alas! . . . Fie, mylord, Fie! . . . Lay on, Macduff, and

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damn’d be him that first cries, ‘Hold,enough!’

H. W. Fowler sought to restrict the ex-clamation point to “what grammar rec-ognizes as exclamations”: interjections(“Golly!”), sentences with the exclama-tory what or how (“What a difference itmakes!”), wishes (“God forbid!”), emo-tional ellipses and inversions (“If only Icould!” and “A fine friend you havebeen!”), and apostrophes (“You littledear!”). He would not permit the markin statements (“You surprise me”), ques-tions (“How dare you?”), and com-mands (“Don’t tell such lies”).

Most authorities today do not setsuch strict limits but leave the use of ex-clamation points to the writer’s judg-ment. Nevertheless, they wouldprobably agree that writings of the im-mature or inexperienced are likely tooveruse the mark. The writer imposes iton an unexciting sentence in the beliefthat it adds excitement, or he appends itto a joke (with or without the “ha ha”)lest the reader fail to recognize it as such.He does not realize that understatementcan be a stronger device than overstate-ment.

A presidential candidate tried to makehimself seem more exciting by putting anexclamation point after his name, but“Lamar!” failed to excite the voters. Themusical show Oklahoma! did excite thepublic, but it probably would have doneso without the punctuation.

Some have the notion that using mul-tiple exclamation points, side by side,multiplies the excitement. A real estatead advertises “RICHMOND DESIR-ABLE DEVELOPMENT SITE!!” A signin the window of a restaurant says,“TRY OUR IRISH BREAKFAST!!!”Electric signs at train stations flash, “ATTENTION SAN FRANCISCO-BOUND PASSENGERS!!!! NO DI-RECT SERVICE . . . ON SUNDAY.”Appending those extra points is like la-

beling the notice “unprofessional.” It issloshing gold paint over the lily.

Authors vary markedly in their readi-ness to resort to the exclamation point.F. Scott Fitzgerald was quoted as tellinghis ladylove, “Cut out all those exclama-tion points,” as he deleted them from aradio script that the public would neversee. “An exclamation point is like laugh-ing at your own joke.” At the other ex-treme, a theoretical scientist employed itfifty times in a 198-page book. Some ex-cerpts follow:

To their great surprise, they foundthey were exactly the same! . . . Oursun, for comparison, is a mere eightlight-minutes away! . . . The farther agalaxy is, the faster it is movingaway! . . . Things always tend to gowrong! . . . We have had false dawnsbefore! . . . Four years later, a possiblesolution, called “supergravity,” wassuggested! . . . Presumably, he knewwhat he intended when he set itup! . . . We shall not bridge that gapwith particle accelerators in the fore-seeable future!

Sometimes we find parentheses, whichtone down a statement, combined withan exclamation point, which amplifies it.

(It is very difficult to make a mark inexperimental physics these days un-less you are already at the top!) . . . (A lot of prizes have been awarded for showing that the universe is not as simple as we might have thought!) . . . (Of course there would be no oneleft to observe it!) . . . (One has only tostop making repairs around the houseto see that!) . . . (We are, in any case,unlikely to be able to build a largerdetector!) . . . (I know, because I havebeen around the world!)

The exclamation inflation did not harmthe book’s popularity any. It was a best

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seller. For those of lesser prominence, re-straint is advisable, to afford the markfull value in the relatively few cases inwhich it is needed. Overuse can amountto a frivolous cry of “wolf!”

See also 9D.

7. Parentheses and brackets

A. Functions of these marksParentheses ( ) are dropped into a sen-

tence to set off an explanatory or inci-dental word, phrase, notation, figure, orabbreviation.

Dashes or commas may be used in-stead for that purpose. Dashes, though,tend to give prominence to the insertedword etc. whereas parentheses play itdown. Commas are intermediate inprominence.

Brackets [ ] serve the same function asparentheses but are used inside directquotations. The use of brackets indicatesthat the person doing the quoting, notthe one who is quoted, has inserted theword or phrase.

The first example indicates the correctuse of parentheses and brackets. Thisand the examples in the next section areall quoted precisely; nothing has beenadded.

Sen. David Pryor (D-Ark.), chair-man of the Senate Aging Committee,said in a letter to King that “a lengthydelay [in halting collection of the pre-miums] will create a firestorm ofprotest.”

“D-Ark.” (Democrat from Arkansas) isin parentheses. The writer’s explanationof what is meant by “delay” is enclosedby brackets because it is inside a quota-tion.

A pair of parentheses or brackets isused to append something to a sentence.Being an appendage, the enclosed matterdoes not replace any part of the sen-tence. The sentence must be completewithout it and in no way depend on it.

The use of brackets cannot substitutefor any part of a direct quotation. Ifsomething is left out, an ellipsis ( . . . )must be put in its place. A quotationmust always be accurate apart from anymatter in brackets.

Parentheses do not go inside paren-theses, and brackets do not go insidebrackets. When you need a parentheticalword etc. within a pair of parentheses,place it in brackets. For example: “(ThePittsburgh [Pa.] Press).” When you needthe parenthetical matter within a pair ofbrackets, place it in parentheses: “[ThePittsburgh (Pa.) Press].”

The British have different terminol-ogy. Sir Ernest Gowers used the termparenthesis to include any of the four de-vices for inserting extra matter into asentence: commas, dashes, “roundbrackets” ( ), and “square brackets” [ ].

B. Mishandling of quotationsFour pairs of brackets appear in the

press quotation below. All but the sec-ond pair are obviously misused.

“The public is so panicked that[government] is trying to take awaytheir means of defense that they arebuying nationwide in record num-bers,” Kohn said. “I’ll probably lose aconsiderable percentage of business[because of the ordinance], but that’snot involved here. [The city] is tram-pling on the rights of law-abiding citi-zens for emotional appeal andpolitical mileage.”

Alan C——, an NRA member whorepairs guns at a Van Nuys shop, saidhe will defy the new law because “Ithink what [the city] did was illegal.”

Using four sets of brackets in four suc-cessive sentences may be overdoing it.More important, the writer has obvi-ously tampered with the speakers’words, discarding some and substitutinghis own words three times. When weomit what he has appended, someone is

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quoted nonsensically as saying, “Thepublic is so panicked that is trying totake away their means of defense”; asentence begins “is trampling on therights”; and another reads, “I thinkwhat did was illegal.” If the speakers didnot say “government” and “the city,”what did they say and why are theirwords omitted? And why are there no el-lipses at the points of omission? (See 5.)

Some newspapers go a step further inthe mishandling of quotations by avoid-ing brackets entirely.

“At no time did the consulate-general approach the (Foreign Min-istry) with a request to send anenvoy,” said Iaan Basson, a spokes-man for the consulate-general.

If he did not say “Foreign Ministry,”what did he say and why was it left out?And, again, why is there no ellipsis at thepoint of omission?

The quotations below do not havewords missing. They may have wordsadded.

“I must acknowledge that when Ilook at those figures (tax increases), Isee that some of those businesses aregoing to have to restructure,” saidGlenn Davis, district director inKansas City for the Small BusinessAdministration. . . .

“The small businessman is in a vi-cious Catch-22,” Jameson said. “Ifyou eat it (the tax increase), the busi-ness has a very slow and painfuldeath.”

Using parentheses instead of bracketswithin quotations raises uncertaintywhether the parenthetical words belongto the speaker or the writer.

C. Other errorsA New York publisher, in listing a se-

ries of art booklets, indicates that thereader will find “Volume numbers in

brackets.” What follows are forty-fourpairs of parentheses: “(14) . . . (36) . . .(13)” and so on. It is obscure whetherthe editor who put the list into print wasBritish and neglected to make the correc-tion for American readers or was Ameri-can and just did not know any better.

The main part of a sentence must begrammatically independent of any par-enthetical matter. A general dictionaryerred in this definition of vivisect:

To dissect (an animal) while living,with a view to exposing its physiolog-ical processes.

“Its” lacks an antecedent in the mainpart of the sentence; instead it refers to“an animal,” which is a mere parentheti-cal phrase. (The sentence is additionallydefective in containing a dangler: It isonly “while living” that one does any-thing. “. . . While an animal is living”would fix both defects. See Modifiers, 1,about danglers.)

The parenthetical material should bein a particular sentence for a good rea-son. In the next sample, the statement inparentheses is irrelevant. The writer evi-dently did not know where else to put it.

Napoleon’s conversations withBertrand and Moncholon (it is unfor-tunate that there are several misprintsin the book) are a skillful blending ofrecord and pastiche.

A parenthetical insert may fitsmoothly into the rest of the sentence orbe a virtual sentence itself. If it is the lat-ter and the insert is too long or too far-fetched, it may tear the message asunderand make readers backtrack. Below, thenarrative is interrupted by the abruptquotation in parentheses in addition tothe parenthetical matter between thecommas.

It is now an accepted fact that Taney,old and worn as he was, or perhaps

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because he was old and worn and hadlittle to fear (“I was ever a fighter,so—one fight more, the best and thelast!”), went from Washington to Bal-timore for the specific purpose of en-tertaining Merryman’s application.

Three messages intervene between“Taney” and “went.” Putting them intoanother sentence or two might have im-proved them all.

Parentheses and brackets should al-ways come in pairs. The use of oneparenthesis is not standard, except at theInternal Revenue Service:

You must include in your income dif-ficulty-of-care payments received formore than:

1) 10 children under age 19, and2) 5 individuals age 19 or older.

A comma or semicolon that coincideswith a parenthetical or bracketed pas-sage follows the closing parenthesis orbracket: “Although Mercury’s year isonly one-fourth the length of ours (88earth days), its day is 59 times as long asours.” See also 8.

8. PeriodThe single dot called a period (.) goes

at the end of nearly every sentence thatdoes not end with a question mark (?) oran exclamation point (!); those twomarks have built-in periods. (Infre-quently a sentence ends with a dash, in-dicating an unfinished sentence. See 4C.)

Periods go only at the end of sentences(or sentence fragments), except in abbre-viations or initialisms. Within a sen-tence, even a complete thought gets noperiod: “I think perhaps—it’s just specu-lation—he was advised that maybe someof the money was being diverted.”

If four dots follow a sentence, the firstdot is a period; the next three make upan ellipsis. See 5A.

In the United States, a period goes be-

fore a closing quotation mark: “Let ourdrums strike.” In Britain, a period—orfull stop, as it is known there—goes aftera closing quotation mark: ‘Let ourdrums strike’. See 10.

Periods are not used in isolated titles,headlines, and subheads, except in themanner of the 8 at the head of this sec-tion.

No additional period is needed whenone used in an abbreviation or initialismends a sentence. Two dots do not nor-mally go together.

Periods are customarily used in someinitialisms, particularly when they spellwords without the periods (U.S., A.D.,A.M.). The trend, however, is away fromthem (NY, AMA, YMCA). They areused in abbreviations (Dr., Mr., Lt. Gen.,Rt. Rev.) but not in acronyms (AIDS,DOS, NATO). (See Abbreviation, 2.)

When part of a sentence appears inparentheses or brackets and it ends thesentence, the period goes after the clos-ing parenthesis or bracket, not before.The period is misplaced here: “Peanutoil . . . often can be used for flavoring (Iprefer it for stir frying.)” Reverse the or-der of parenthesis and period: “. . . stirfrying).”

The period goes before the closingparenthesis or bracket when the paren-thetical or bracketed passage forms anindependent sentence: “Peanut oil . . . of-ten can be used for flavoring. (I prefer itfor stir frying.)”

9. Question mark

A. MissingWhat is missing in the following sen-

tence (from a New York newspaper)?

The artist had a show in the spring at Farleigh-Dickinson University inMadison, and 20 of the Empire StateBuildings are on display in, where else,the lobby of the Empire State Buildingat Fifth Avenue and 34th Street.

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The answer is—what else?—a questionmark after “where else.” The phrase is aquestion, so the mark (?) must follow.(However, the question would be set offbetter by dashes or parentheses than bycommas.)

Although the question mark com-monly goes at the end of a sentence, itmay be more appropriate elsewhere.When a question ends before the end ofits sentence, the mark can go at the endof the question; it should not be left out,as it was in the excerpt below from abook of criticism.

How are computers going to makecraniums smaller—unless, of course,they turn the brain into a recessive or-gan.

Insert a question mark after “smaller.”(See also OF COURSE, 1.)

A rhetorical question is still a ques-tion, albeit meant to emphasize a point,not to obtain information. The two quo-tations above and the one following il-lustrate that type of question. A columnon an editorial page quotes an official ona goal of U.S. foreign policy and says:“What’s wrong with a goal like that.”What’s wrong with the sentence is thelack of a question mark instead of theperiod.

“But the sentences can be under-stood,” someone will say, and it is so.But unsweetened lemonade can bedrunk; it is about as complete and satis-fying as sentences like those.

Sometimes meaning hinges on thepresence or absence of a question mark.“Throw it away” gives instruction.“Throw it away?” seeks instruction.“This is a comedy” gives information.“This is a comedy?” expresses doubt.“What?” asks for information. “What!”expresses surprise.

Question mark is sometimes called in-terrogation mark or interrogation point.

B. NeedlessWhen a direct question is affixed to a

statement, the question gets the mark:“ ‘What is in the box?’ she asked thespirit.” Or “She had to know—What isin the box?” But a statement that pre-sents a question indirectly does not get aquestion mark: “She had to know whatwas in the box.”

Thus the song title “I Wonder Who’sKissing Her Now?” should not have thequestion mark it was given (although the title phrase got no question mark inthe text of the song). It is making a state-ment, not asking a question. A questionwould be “Who’s kissing her now?”

The noun question has several mean-ings besides a query or interrogation,which is a sentence or phrase that tendsto call for a reply. Question can denotean issue, a point under consideration, aproblem, a proposal to vote on, a queryexpressed indirectly, a subject for debate,or uncertainty. Calling an expression ofany of these other meanings a questiondoes not make it one in the sense of aninterrogation. A book relates a historicalepisode:

During the court-martial, Flipper’sattorney had put the questionsquarely: “Whether it is possible for acolored man to secure and hold a po-sition as an officer of the Army?”

The clause in quotation marks is a sum-mary of a question in the sense of aproblem or an issue. It should get noquestion mark, inasmuch as it is adeclarative statement, not an interroga-tion. It would be an interrogation if itbegan Is it instead of “Whether it is.”

To use more than one question mark,side by side, does not make a phrase orsentence any more of an interrogation. Itdoes make it amateurish. A magazine adfor a computer company bore this head-line:

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?????? Should - Should Not . . . . . .Invest in a Computer ??????

All twelve question marks could not turnthat phrase into a proper question, suchas “Should I, or should I not, invest in acomputer?” (Nor could the spacious hy-phen or the sextet of dots contributeanything, neither being bona fide punc-tuation.)

C. Two opposing viewsDoes a request or statement in the

form of a question call for a questionmark? Grammarians differ.

H. W. Fowler argued the affirmative.Among his examples: “Will you pleasestand back?” and “Will it be believedthat . . . ?”—presenting an incredible factof sizable length. Because each is in thegrammatical form of a direct question,each should end with a question mark,even though it is equivalent in sense to arequest or statement.

Theodore M. Bernstein took essen-tially the opposite view, that no questionmark should be used when an answer isnot expected or when the writer ismerely making a request. He gave as re-spective examples: “May we have thepleasure of hearing from you soon” and“Would you please send us a duplicatecopy of your invoice.”

Fowler would stick question marks atthe end of those two. So would I. Theylook incomplete, and a writer of eachwould want a response, though not a yesor no answer. The Chicago Manual ofStyle wants no question mark at the endof any “request courteously disguised asa question.” But why give up the dis-guise—and the courtesy—prematurely?

D. With other punctuationWhen a question mark does not end a

sentence, may a comma follow? Mostauthorities think not. They approve ofthis form:

“Do you choose to run?” they asked.

A few others approve of this form:

“Do you choose to run?,” they asked.

Some sentences may be followed ei-ther by question marks or by exclama-tion points, depending on the meaningto be conveyed. If an answer is sought:“How common is that mistake?” If thesentence is exclamatory or rhetorical:“How common is that mistake!”

The writer of a music textbook madea choice between the two marks, in de-scribing Beethoven’s attitude towardNapoleon:

A conqueror himself—did he not oncedeclare, “I too am a king!”—he un-derstood the Corsican.

The author chose the exclamation point.He attributed it to Beethoven, for it lieswithin the quotation marks. Thus theauthor’s question is left without punctu-ation. It would have been preferable toomit the exclamation point and add aquestion mark:

. . . Did he not once declare, “I too ama king”? . . .

If the author knew that the exclamationpoint was part of the quotation anddeemed it important, both marks couldhave appeared:

. . . Did he not once declare, “I too ama king!”? . . .

Note that the question mark follows theclosing quotation mark when the ques-tion is that of the writer.

10. Quotation marksQuotation marks are primarily used

to quote what people say or write.“Well, I’m not a crook.” / “Hail to thee,

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blithe Spirit!” The words enclosed in the marks are expected to reproduce theoriginal words exactly; otherwise themarks should be omitted. Anything leftout is replaced by an ellipsis ( . . . ). See 5.Anything inserted goes in brackets [ ],not parentheses ( ). See 7.

A magazine is interviewing a painter.Amid a long paragraph devoted entirelyto a direct quotation of his, this sentenceappears:

She read me Malory’s “Le Morted’Arthur” and made it understand-able.

The entire passage is enclosed, correctly,by double quotation marks (“ ”). There-fore the marks around Le Morted’Arthur should be single quotationmarks (‘ ’). If the magazine were pub-lished in London, instead of New York,the procedure would need to be re-versed: single quotation marks would goon the outside, double quotation markson the inside. It is wrong to put doublemarks within double marks, or singlemarks within single marks.

Customarily the names of long liter-ary, dramatic, or artistic works go in ital-ics, also called italic type. This is it.When that type is unavailable or not de-sired for some reason, it is not wrong toput the names in quotation marks in-stead. (See Italic[s].)

In quoting someone who is quotingsomeone else, use double quotationmarks for the main quotation and singlequotation marks for the interior quota-tion. (In Britain reverse the procedure.) Ifthe interior quotation marks are left out,the meaning may be unclear, as in thefollowing press passage. “He” refers tothe vice president.

“He said Dave Keene called me alap dog,” said Mr. Dole, referring toone of his campaign aides.

A reader’s first impression is that “me”refers to Mr. Dole. That interpretationwould not fit the context, however. Inte-rior quotation marks should have beeninserted as follows:

“He said ‘Dave Keene called me a lapdog,’ ” said Mr. Dole. . . .

When a comma or period is needed atthe end of a direct quotation, the con-ventional American practice is to put itinside the quotation marks. (“But,” hesaid——) This is done for an aestheticreason, whether or not the comma or pe-riod is part of the quotation. Somechoose, on logical grounds, to put it out-side the quotation marks unless it is partof the quotation. (“But”, he said——)That practice is common in Britain.When a colon or semicolon is needed atthe end of a direct quotation, placing itafter the closing quotation mark is gen-erally favored by both nations (“. . . myland”; it is——), although a few publica-tions have rules to the contrary.

A quotation that goes into more thanone paragraph gets an opening quota-tion mark at the beginning of each para-graph; a closing quotation mark goesonly at the end of the entire quotation.These are typical mistakes: On an edito-rial page, an isolated quotation is twoparagraphs long and the second para-graph lacks an opening quotation mark.Elsewhere, an article begins by quotingthree lines of a song in three paragraphs,of which the second and third lack open-ing quotation marks.

We do not add quotation marks to theexamples that are set off typographicallyin this book and so are obviously quota-tions (often the longer ones). We do addthe marks to quotations that run in themain text, to words and phrases takenfrom those quotations, and to typicalsentences that illustrate usage. In addi-tion, quotation marks go around certainwords or phrases to indicate that the en-

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closures, though used, are nonstandardor questionable. Examples are the entrytitles “AIN’T” and “LET’S DON’T.”

Newspaper copy editors in the UnitedStates follow the British tradition in onerespect: using single quotation marks forquotations in headlines.

(What Americans call quotationmarks, the British call inverted commas,a term that is not precise. In a traditionaltype style, with curved quotation marks,only the opening mark of a pair of singlequotation marks looks like an invertedcomma [‘]. The closing mark looks likean apostrophe, which can be describedas an elevated comma [’]. Typewritershave straight, vertical quotation marks;in this respect, most computers are noimprovement.)

See also Quotation problems;QUOTE and QUOTATION; Tense, 3;THAT, 4.

11. Semicolon

A. Weak periodDo not take the name literally. The

semicolon (;) is not half of the colon (:),nor does it have anything to do with thecolon. At different times, the semicolonacts as a weak period and a strongcomma.

Just as a period does, the semicoloncan end a complete thought. However, itlinks that complete thought—an inde-pendent clause—with another, closely re-lated in meaning or form. “Three menwent to bat; three men went downswinging.” / “Money itself is not a rootof evil; the love of money is.” / “Hecame; he saw; he conquered.”

In that way, the semicolon performsthe linking function of a conjunction,like and or but. A writer might choose touse no semicolon and instead insert aconjunction (“He came, he saw, and heconquered”) or to use neither and makeeach independent clause a separate sen-tence. (“He came. He saw. He con-quered.”)

B. Strong commaOffering a stronger division than a

comma, the semicolon is particularlyuseful in dividing a sentence into cate-gories when the sentence already hascommas.

Even when a conjunction connects in-dependent clauses, a writer may chooseto put a semicolon between them toshow the division clearly. It is particu-larly desirable to do so when a clausecontains a comma or is lengthy. This is acorrect example from a book on worldhistory:

To many authorities it appeared atfirst incredible that a sub-man with abrain no larger than that of an apecould manufacture tools, crude in-deed but made to a fairly standardand recognizable pattern; but thenewest evidence leaves little room fordoubt.

In that sentence, what follows thecomma is parenthetical; what followsthe semicolon is a main thought, and thesemicolon so indicates.

Not only clauses benefit from thesemicolon. It is needed to separate itemsin a series when any item is subdividedby a comma. “The club elected GeorgeWatkins, president; John Anthony, vice-president; and Theresa Jennings, secre-tary-treasurer.”

The lack of semicolons jumbles the se-ries below, from an autobiography.Readers could have trouble associatingthe names with the descriptions.

John Major greeted me, my executiveassistant, Colonel Dick Chilcoat, theBritish secretary of state for defense,Tom King, and my counterpart,British chief of defense staff, Marshalof the Royal Air Force Sir DavidCraig, in a sitting room at 10 Down-ing Street.

Replacing the first, third, and fifth com-mas with semicolons (and inserting the

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after the sixth) would have made thesentence more readily understandable.

C. InconsistencyNewspapers are liable to be inconsis-

tent in their use of semicolons in a series,and this is an example:

Among the Americans at theMoscow forum were Norman Mailer,Gore Vidal and Bel Kaufman, thewriters; John Kenneth Galbraith, theeconomist; Gregory Peck and KrisKristofferson, the actors; several sci-entists, including Frank von Hippel, aPrinceton physicist, and more than adozen businessmen.

After the third semicolon, the systemends, permitting two chances for misun-derstanding. Literally the message con-veyed is that “several scientists” includeall those mentioned thereafter. Dismiss-ing businessmen from the scientificranks, the reader could plausibly place“a Princeton physicist” in a separate cat-egory. If patient, the reader might suc-ceed in deciphering the confused list,maybe even in diagnosing the problem: amissing semicolon after “physicist.”

The writer is not to blame; an inexpli-cable rule of his newspaper (shared byvarious other papers) has instructed himto use a comma where the final semi-colon belongs. But a comma does notperform the function of a semicolon. Ifthe writer, economist, actor, and scientistcategories need to be separated from oneanother by semicolons, does not the sci-entist category need to be separatedfrom the businessman category by asemicolon?

12. VirguleThis / is a virgule (pronounced VUR-

gyool). It is also known as a slash orsolidus (SOL-uh-duss). Sometimes it iscalled a slant, diagonal, bar, or shilling.

The mark has specialized uses, partic-ularly in technical, legal, and business

writing. It is less suited to general prosethan the marks of punctuation discussedin preceding sections.

The virgule is an alternative to a hori-zontal line in separating the two parts ofa fraction, such as 13/16. It replaces perin such terms as miles/hour and feet/sec-ond. In science and medicine, mg/km,for instance, is an economical way to ex-press milligrams of dosage per kilogramof body weight. When lines of poetry arewritten in regular text, the virgule indi-cates each new line: “On a battle-trumpet’s blast / I fled hither, fast, fast,fast, / ’Mid the darkness upward cast.”This book uses virgules to separate quo-tations when they are run successively inregular text.

The mark often represents or, notablyin the term and/or, meaning either and oror as the case may be. Lawyers make useof it. A typical contract uses the term thisway:

Company and/or its insurer shall havethe right to select counsel and to settleany claim upon the terms and condi-tions it and/or its insurer deems satis-factory.

A computer manual contains suchheadings as “Paper Size/Type” and“Short/Long Document Names,” inwhich the virgule presumably means ei-ther and or or.

A computer program has an optioncalled “Move/Rename File,” in whichthe virgule substitutes for or. The pro-gram also has a table explaining that ifthe user presses “Up/Down Arrow”(meaning either the up arrow or thedown arrow), the curser will move to“The top/bottom of the screen” (mean-ing the top or bottom of the screen re-spectively).

This \ is a back slash, or backslash; itis used for certain computer commands,and so is the regular slash.

In business, the mark in a combina-tion like vice president/labor relations

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can replace in charge of. For the generalpublic, the full term is more widely un-derstandable.

Virgules have been increasingly used of late instead of traditional punc-tuation and even instead of words. Thesubstitution may be no improvement:Take “secretary/treasurer” instead ofsecretary-treasurer or “bacon/tomatosandwich” instead of bacon-tomatosandwich. An original use of a virgule inlieu of a verbal description can even beambiguous: Diners cannot be surewhether the virgule means and or or in amenu’s “steak/lobster plate.”

Some general writers seem to find the virgule stylish. One dispenses withcommas and conjunctions to describesomeone as a “writer/painter/photogra-pher” and later writes, “She has thisphobia/quirk/fatal flaw. . . .”

PUPIL and STUDENT. An elemen-tary-school child is a pupil. Anyone whotakes personal instruction from a teacheralso may be called a pupil. “Beethovenwas Haydn’s pupil.”

One who attends an institution oflearning above elementary school is astudent. A student is also anyone whostudies or investigates a particular sub-ject, perhaps “a student of prehistory”or “a student of the drug problem.”

A news story said:

The alleged victims [of abuse] weretwo boys, ages 3 and 4, both studentsat the S—— . . . Pre- & ElementarySchool. . . .

Three- and four-year-old “students”? Itwas not explained just what they wouldor could be studying. Elsewhere a photodepicted a cluster of diminutive moppetsfor whom the designation of “Studentsat the primary school in Portalesa,Brazil” hardly seemed fitting. And an ar-ticle about an Indiana elementary schoolused the unsuitable noun a dozen times:

Students [range] from kindergartnersto fifth graders. . . . The school . . .[encourages] students to think acrosssubject lines. . . . Students play withboard games and puzzles [and so on].

“Students” should have been pupils ineach instance.

A child attending school used to becalled a scholar. Now a scholar usually isan advanced academic specialist or aperson who is learned in the humanities.Sometimes a school child is described as“a good scholar” or “a bad scholar.”Schoolboy and schoolgirl are sometimesused, less often than they used to be.

PURPORT, PURPORTED. 1. Anodd verb. 2. Other uses.

1. An odd verbPurport is a strange verb, for two rea-

sons:

• Although it has the form of an activeverb, it has the meaning of a passiveverb. It means is—or are or was orwere—supposed (to be) orrepresented (to be). The sense of isetc. is built into purported, andtherefore is etc. should not be usedwith it. It is wrong to say, “Thesignature on the letter is purportedto be genuine.” Change “ispurported” to purports.

• Its subject normally is not a person.A sentence like “He purported to tellinvestigators the whole story” iswrong. Changing “purported” toprofessed, or another appropriateverb, corrects the sentence. (Onemay say, “Miranda purports toprotect a constitutional right.”Although a subject may not be aperson considered as such, thesubject here really is a thing, a legalrule named after a person.)

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The three excerpts below fall short onboth scores. Each uses “is” or “was”with “purport” and makes a person thesubject. The first two are from books.

. . . Jackson is purported to have said,“John Marshall has made his deci-sion; now let him enforce it.”

Wellington is purported to have writ-ten to the British Foreign Office inLondon: “We have enumerated oursaddles, bridles, tents and tent poles.”

A replacement for each “purported”could be supposed or believed. In thesentence below, from a news story, “pur-ported” could be changed to professingor pretending.

Mr. Brucan said also that he hadlearned for the first time this after-noon that Mr. Munteanu was pur-porting to speak for the council onMonday mornings. . . .

2. Other usesPurport is also a noun. It denotes the

supposed significance or meaning ofsomething: “the purport of his speechwas that. . . .” Purported may be used asan adjective, meaning supposed.

Purport and purported—verb, noun,and adjective—do not confirm or denythe authenticity of anything (for exam-ple, a document or antique) but mildlyquestion it. Without this element ofmodest doubt, purport (ed) is not theword to use.

Some people use “purport” (noun) instead of purpose or purview. They doso either mistakenly, thinking that thesimilarity of sound carries over to themeaning; or intentionally, seeking afancy synonym. That some dictionariessupport the confusion should be no sur-prise.

PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. Mil-lions listening on radio and televisionheard a prosecutor in a murder case tellthe jury that he had read the Constitu-tion the previous night and it said thetwo victims had the right to liberty andlife and more: “It said they had a right tothe pursuit of happiness.” Not so.

Earlier, an anchor man wrongly statedon a television network: “The Constitu-tion guarantees us life, liberty, and thepursuit of happiness.” Had he substi-tuted property for “the pursuit of happi-ness,” he would have been right. Thetrue word would have been irrelevantfor the prosecutor.

The Fifth Amendment to the UnitedStates Constitution says that no personshall be deprived of “life, liberty, orproperty” without due process of law.The Fourteenth Amendment echoes thatprinciple, prohibiting any state from de-priving any person of “life, liberty, orproperty” without due process of law.The Constitution says nothing abouthappiness or its pursuit.

The document that does mention it isthe Declaration of Independence, whosesecond sentence reads:

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are createdequal, that they are endowed by theirCreator with certain unalienableRights, that among these are Life, Lib-erty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

While of historical, philosophical, andliterary interest, the Declaration of Inde-pendence has no legal significance.

PUSH. See ADVOCATE.

PUT. See INTO, 1.

PUTSCH. See REVOLT and REVO-LUTION.

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Q-TIPS. See VASELINE.

Quantities, measures. See AMOUNTand NUMBER; Collective nouns,3; FEWER and LESS; MANY andMUCH; Numbers; Verbs, 3.

QUESTION. See Punctuation, 9B.

Question mark. See Punctuation, 9.

QUIP, QUIPPED. An impromptu,witty remark may be called a quip(noun). To make it is to quip (verb, in-transitive).

It is probably rare that real wit or hu-mor needs to be labeled as such, but thepress seems to disagree. In typical fash-ion, a reporter added “he quipped” to ajudge’s remark, about how people mis-pronounced his name; and a columnistquoting a talk by a mayor explained thatone remark was made “jokingly” andanother was “quipped.” None of thequotations displayed recognizable wit orhumor, and the labels failed to rescuethem. Crack(ed), gag(ged), jest(ed), andjoke(d) are among the terms that havebeen so used.

QUITE. This adverb can be ambigu-ous: “He was quite truthful.” Was hescrupulously truthful or just generallyso? “The place is quite big.” Is it im-mense or just sizable? Does “quite

good” describe a superb show or a fairlyenjoyable one?

Used strictly, quite means completely,extremely, or really. Used informally orcasually, it means somewhat, rather, orconsiderably. In the casual vein, quitefollowed by a or an can suggest an indef-inite number or amount (“quite a few”)or something notable (“quite an array”).

If quite is interpreted in the strict way,“quite complete” is redundant and“quite similar” is contradictory. Fewcritics insist on strictness under informalcircumstances. In a more formal con-text, a vague quite can be deadwood.

A book uses it strictly at first:

The viola is not an outsize violin. Itsproportions are quite different and itstone is quite distinctive.

Then casually. See whether “quite”makes any useful contribution here:

There are quite a number of falla-cies regarding musical design whichneed to be exploded.

Quotation marks. See Punctuation,10; Quotation problems.

Quotation problems. 1. Accuracyand inaccuracy. 2. Inconsistency in per-son and tense. 3. Unnecessary quotationmarks. 4. When is the quotation over?

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1. Accuracy and inaccuracyQuotations, particularly direct quota-

tions—those in quotation marks—aresupposed to present what people havesaid or written. But not all writers andeditors are scrupulous about quotations.

A linguistics professor in Arizonacompared twenty-four newspaper arti-cles with tape recordings of interviews,meetings, and speeches. Only 8 percentof 132 quoted sentences came out com-pletely right. Most were compatible withthe original, but some were dead wrong:“People from Spain” turned into “Mexi-cans” and “He has so impressed all fiveof us” became “He has so impressed usas interim county manager.” Storieswritten by reporters who used taperecorders were not more accurate thanthose by reporters who just took notes.Few American journalists know short-hand.

Inaccurate quotations may representunintentional error, inadequate skill ormemory, lack of respect for quotationmarks, doctoring of statements suppos-edly to improve them, or outright fabri-cation. The Columbia JournalismReview quoted three New York re-porters who admitted making up quota-tions. Instead of interviewing parentswhose children had died, “I made thequotes up,” one said. Another put wordsin the mouth of a baseball manager. Athird pretended to quote a bystander at aparade. Six others knew of imaginaryquotations in newspapers and maga-zines.

A writer or editor is not obligated toquote anyone directly. A quotation thatis important enough to use but improper,too long, poorly worded, or otherwiseunsuitable as it is may be reworded, inwhole or part, without quotation marks.Editors have been known to put such in-direct quotations in quotation marks. Itis a hazardous practice.

Deliberately altering a quotation cannot only be unethical: the Supreme

Court has said that it can be libelous—that is, false and defamatory—if it “re-sults in a material change in the meaningconveyed by the statement” (1991).

For the misquoting of sayings, seeClichés; THAT and WHICH, 4. See alsoLIBEL and SLANDER.

2. Inconsistency in person and tenseQuotation marks are presumed to en-

close the exact words that someone hasused. The exact words quoted in thispassage from a historical book are un-likely to have been uttered:

A Senator . . . was so overwhelmed bythe implications of the crisis that he“feels that the Executive has not goneso far as to justify” the attack on Pen-sacola.

Delivering a speech in the Senate, heprobably did not say “I feels.” He ismore likely to have said “I feel.” Evenso, the sentence shifts awkwardly frompast tense to present tense. The non-quoted and quoted parts need to fit to-gether:

[Example:] A Senator was so over-whelmed by the implications of thecrisis that he said, “I feel that the Ex-ecutive has not. . . .”

If the exact words of the speaker are un-certain (perhaps the author is quoting acontemporary account of the speech inthe third person), it is best to omit thequotation marks:

[Example:] A Senator was so over-whelmed by the implications of thecrisis that he said he felt that the Exec-utive had not. . . .

See also Pronouns, 7 (end); Subjunc-tive, 3 (teen-age lingo); Tense, 3; THAT,4.

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3. Unnecessary quotation marksQuotation marks are often used un-

necessarily. When nobody is beingquoted, the marks can cast doubt upon aword or phrase. Four examples follow.

[Magazine:] First we’ll separate thevolunteers into two groups: a treat-ment group and a “control” group.

[Newsletter:] Our goal at any giventime is to strive continually to be “thebest”.

[Notice at a bank:] . . . we will closeour “teller counter service” at 5 p.m.

[Picture captions in an ad for a cos-metic surgeon:] “NOSE” BEFORE . . .“NOSE” AFTER

Control is a legitimate word, and thebest is a legitimate phrase; neitherneeded quotation marks. The marks didnot express confidence in the bank ser-vice. And there was no doubt that awoman pictured in the surgeon’s ad hada nose. (The second example follows aclosing quotation mark with a period, inBritish style, although the publication isAmerican. See Punctuation, 10. See alsoCONTINUAL[LY] and CONTINU-OUS[LY].)

4. When is the quotation over?A congressman made a speech in

which he read a quotation. As heard onthe radio, the quotation seemed to go onand on. Finally it became plain that hehad finished his quoting but failed to say“end of quotation” or “so said ———”or “the words of ———” or even thedubious “unquote.” (See QUOTE andQUOTATION.)

Whichever term is chosen, a speakerwho quotes someone or somethingshould indicate when the quotation hasended, unless it is well known and short.Otherwise listeners may not know when

the speaker’s own words have resumed,especially if they cannot see him. Even toa viewing audience, the transition maynot be obvious if the speech is read froma paper or a prompting screen.

QUOTE and QUOTATION. Quoteis properly a verb (transitive and intran-sitive). To quote is to repeat someone’swords, usually acknowledging that theyare another’s words. You might quote asentence, quote (a passage from) a book,quote (words of) Shakespeare or thepope, or quote from a magazine or aspeech, saying “I quote.”

Although it may pass in informalspeech, using the verb as a noun is notappropriate in more formal media: “Afrontispiece quote set the tone: ‘Allwholesome food is caught without a netor a trap.’ ” / “Drexel liked the quote somuch that one of its investment bankersframed it.” / “Reporters simply go outand lazily round up quotes to fit the pollresults. . . .”

The newspaper, news service, andnews magazine quoted above shouldhave used the noun quotation or quota-tions. Use of “quote” to mean quota-tion, or “quotes” to mean quotations orquotation marks, is part of the jargon ofeditors, reporters, and writers.

The jargon includes “unquote,” oftenused by speakers in lieu of end of quota-tion. It was created as an economicalform in telegrams from news correspon-dents, not as a bona fide word.

A book publisher protested on na-tional television that a magazine hadpublished a derogatory “misquote” andthat to do so was sloppy. A neater wordis misquotation.

Occasionally a quotation is accompa-nied by an incomplete phrase, in thismanner: “ ‘It’s not true,’ the Governorwas quoted.” It should be “was quotedas saying.”

See also Punctuation, 10; Quotationproblems.

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RACE and NATIONALITY. 1.The difference. 2. Races of the U.S.A. 3.Who is colored?

1. The differenceRace (noun) has often been mixed up

with other terms, including nationality.Race is a category of mankind distin-guished by physical characteristics thatare genetically transmitted, such as skincolor, shape of head, type of hair, and fa-cial features. Nationality concerns thenation one belongs to and is based onpolitics, geography, or culture. Racialand national (adjectives) mean pertain-ing to, or based on differences in, race ornationality. A newspaper confused theterms:

All along the border the populationis a strange mix of people andtongues: Polish, German, Czech,Hungarian, Romanian, Ukrainianand Russian—typical of the racialmix that Russia has throughout itsfar-flung country.

“Polish, German, Czech,” etc. do referto “people and tongues,” that is, nation-alities and languages. None of them areracial groups, so they are not “typical ofthe racial mix” in Russia, which extendsto the Orient and does contain differentraces.

2. Races of the U.S.A.Citizens of the United States share a

common nationality while comprisingmany national origins and several races.Three leading racial divisions of theworld are represented in this country:the Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mon-goloid. Members of the first two groupsare commonly known as white or black,respectively (nouns or adjectives), al-though nobody has skin that is reallywhite or black. They are informal termsand need not be capitalized.

A somewhat more scientific alterna-tive to white is Caucasian, though tech-nically there are brown-skinned Cauca-sians. The corresponding term for blackis Negro, which fell out of popularity inthe late sixties but survives in the UnitedNegro College Fund. (The word shouldalways be capitalized and pronouncedlike KNEE-grow, even though Webster’sThird Dictionary enters “negro” andcondones the rather derogatory NIG-ruh. Eighteen of its entries use “nigger.”Insulting terms of that sort appear withthe qualification “usu. taken to be offen-sive.”) Black, which had been consid-ered derogatory, became the acceptedword. In the eighties African-Americancaught on as a formal term. It has lessutility, covering only Americans; itwould not include, say, a black Con-golese. Nor would it include a natural-ized American who was one of the

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nearly 200 million nonblack natives ofAfrica.

Mongoloid or Mongolian to denote aracial division that includes Chinese,Japanese, Koreans, Mongolians, Ti-betans, and others is usually restricted toscientific writing. Yellow used to be thepopular adjective, even though no one isreally yellow. It was supplanted by Ori-ental. Then Asian took over (its syn-onym, Asiatic, is offensive to some), eventhough the Indian subcontinent and theMiddle East are part of the Asian conti-nent and Japan is not.

Indian has long been used to refer toany aboriginal group of the Americas. Itsuse is said to date back to Columbus,who mistook San Salvador Island for In-dia. Those in the United States are Amer-ican Indians. In recent years that termhas come to trouble some people (mainlynon-Indians—many American Indiangroups call themselves that), who foster“Native American” as a synonym. Usersof that term exclude most native-bornAmericans and several indigenous peo-ples under the American flag: Aleuts, Es-kimos, Hawaiians (see Hawaii),Samoans, and aboriginal inhabitants ofother U.S. island possessions. AmericanIndians used to be commonly consideredthe red race, although of brown skin, notred.

In summary, styles in racial designa-tion come and go, and few of them maketotal sense. See also 3.

It suffices to use a term that manymembers of a group prefer. Not all mem-bers agree on any given term.

3. Who is colored?The term “colored” is nearly obsolete,

though it survives in the National Asso-ciation for the Advancement of ColoredPeople. It is odd that some who wouldconsider it backward to call someone a“colored” person now have no qualmsabout calling him a person “of color.” Itcan be a euphemism for nonwhite or for

black. A large headline over a newspaperstory about suburban minorities an-nounced “Greener Pastures for People ofColor.” An article in another paperabout a tribute to Jackie Robinson re-ferred to the “obvious presence of suchpeople of color. . . . ” Users of that termshould explain why they do not regardany tint of pinkish tan as a color.

Here is a paradox, brought up by aphysics professor and later by the host ofa radio talk show: From the standpointof physics, black is colorless, being theabsence of light, while white contains allfrequencies of light. Therefore, if anypeople were literally black, they wouldbe devoid of color; and if any peoplewere literally white, they would be ascolored as anyone could get.

RACK and WRACK. In writing that“the Palestinian uprising . . . hadwracked the occupied lands since 1987,”did a writer mean to say that it had ru-ined them? Probably the right wordwould have been racked, without the w.

To rack (verb, transitive) is literally totorture (someone) on the rack; morebroadly to torture or torment with phys-ical or mental pain, or to strain, espe-cially by violence or oppression. Therack was a medieval instrument for tor-turing people by stretching their bodies.Two expressions are racked with pain(or illness etc.) and rack one’s brains (ormemory etc.).

To wrack (verb, transitive) is to de-stroy, ruin, or wreck (something). It isarchaic and poetic. Wrack (noun) is vio-lently caused damage or destruction, orwreckage of a ship cast ashore. The mainuse of the noun nowadays is in the ex-pression (to bring to) wrack and ruin.Think of wreck, which also has a w.

Rack and wrack are pronounced thesame. They come from separate MiddleEnglish words, which in turn may betraced to separate Middle Dutch words.

See also WREAK and WRECK.

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RAGAMUFFIN. An obituary of arather prosperous “bag lady” quoted anacquaintance: “She looked like a littlerag muffin, like she didn’t have a dime toher name.”

Ragamuffin is the term, and it hasnothing to do with muffins. It does havesomething to do with rags. The wordcomes from Ragamoffyn, the name of ademon in a fourteenth-century religiousplay, Piers Plowman, attributed toWilliam Langland. Demons often weredescribed as ragged, in the sense ofshaggy.

At first ragamuffin referred to a manwho was disreputable as well as ragged.It came to describe any poorly clothedand dirty person. Now it is usually re-served for an ill-clothed, unkempt, ordirty child.

RAIN, REIGN, and REIN. See Ho-mophones.

RALLY. Was a TV panelist’s use of ral-lies right? “When he sees one of hisfriends is in trouble, he rallies aroundthat person.”

The verb was right. The prepositionwas wrong. Make it “he rallies to thatperson.” Two meanings of the verb rally(intransitive) were mixed up. It canmean to come to help, the meaning thepanelist intended; or it can mean to gettogether for a common purpose, some-thing one person cannot do: “Let’s rallyround the flag, boys.”

The same verb can also mean to re-cover from a setback (“The patient ral-lied” or “Stocks rallied on Wall Street”)or, in tennis, to exchange several strokes.Rally (transitive) means to call togetherfor a common purpose (“He rallied histroops”) or to bring back to activity(“She rallied her strength”).

RAN and RUN. See Tense, 5A, B.

R AND R. A U.S. Army general “saidhe was trying to arrange ‘R and R,’ rest

and relaxation tours, inside and outsidethe kingdom.” Reporting from Arabia, anewspaper got the expression R and Rright but its meaning wrong. It is not“rest and relaxation.” Neither is it “restand recreation,” a popular interpreta-tion.

By U.S. Army regulations, it standsfor rest and recuperation. That is the def-inition of R & R in all the U.S. armedservices, the Dictionary of Military Ab-breviations says.

Another general writes in an autobi-ography:

Soon after I joined the headquar-ters staff, I flew to Hong Kong for restand recreation. For some GIs, R andR in this indulgent city meant wall-to-wall sex. For others, Hong Kongmeant a shopping spree.

An enumeration of his purchases fol-lows.

Range, true and false. 1. As a noun,numerical and other senses. 2. As a verb,numerical sense; RANGE or RANG-ING used. 3. RANGING implied. 4.Stale expression: “EVERYTHINGFROM.”

1. As a noun: numerical and othersenses

The numerical sense is what mainlyconcerns us first. In statistics a range isthe difference between the highest andlowest in a set of figures. If the highest is15 and the lowest is 5, the range is 10.

In ordinary use, it is the extent towhich a series of numbers vary: “Theprice range is $10 to $20.” / “The rangein their ages is 13 to 17.”

An appraiser said of an antique chair,“We would value it to be in the $3,000range.” As he used it, “range” had nomeaning. No other figure was given.Range would be meaningful if he hadplaced the value, for instance, “in the

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$2,000-to-$4,000 range.” The value of asingle figure can be expressed in manyways; for instance, “We would value itat about $3,000.”

A range (noun) can also be an extentor scope of activity or existence (“therange of our weapons” / “the range ofpossibilities”), a region in which an ani-mal or plant lives (“the range of thisspecies”), an open area for livestock(“home on the range”), a place for thetest firing or flying of weapons or rockets(a rifle range, a missile range); or thevariation in pitch of a musical instru-ment or voice (“She has a range of threeoctaves”).

2. As a verb, numerical sense; RANGEor RANGING used

In a numerical sense, the verb range(used intransitively) is strictly expressedin the following pair of examples:

Women’s cycles also tend to be less ex-pensive than men’s, ranging from$1,000 to $4,000. . . .

The Communities’ list of languagesto foster ranges from Ladin, a neo-Latin spoken by about 30,000 moun-tain Italians, to Catalan, which hasaround 7 million speakers.

Used in that manner, to range means tovary within specified limits, or extremes.The limits may be, for example, prices of$1,000 and $4,000; about 30,000 and 7million speakers; 147 and 160 pounds;first and sixth grades; Maine andFlorida; adagio and vivace—or moresubjective ones:

Chicken dishes range from satisfy-ing—morsels sautéed with garlic andwine—to dreadful, such as the specialchicken with sausage and peppers in agelatinous sauce. . . .

The limits in that sentence are “satisfy-ing” and “dreadful.” There is a top and

a bottom. It is clear how they vary. Butwhat is the nature of the limits in the ex-ample below, and in what way do itemsvary within them?

They [items auctioned] ranged fromunpublished pinup-style photographsof Marilyn Monroe, taken in 1945,before she became a movie star, to agold record awarded the Beatles in1964 for the million-selling single “IWant to Hold Your Hand.”

From the context, we cannot say that theitems “ranged” in age or “ranged” invalue between the photographs and therecord. Then what was the essence of thelimits and how did the items rangewithin them? We can only guess.

To complicate the guessing game,writers will often add a third supposedlimit, or more.

. . . For months the company had con-sidered more than 200 new names,ranging from U.S.S.A. and Amcor toMaxus.

Do U.S.S.A. and Amcor together consti-tute some limit? Or is Amcor some no-table landmark on the way to Maxus? Ifthe names extended, say, from “Amcorto Zilch,” the range would be clear. Nowit is muddy.

Extra limits may appear on the “to”side:

These [problems] have ranged fromhigh costs to traffic problems, a lackof police cooperation, antiquatedequipment and a dearth of studiospace.

Or the limits may be equally divided be-tween the “from” and “to” sides:

The company began a program toteach workers English—a step alsotaken by many other employers rang-ing from nursing homes and resort

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hotels to insurance companies andmanufacturers.

Or any extra one may get its own “to”:

Taking part . . . are prominentchurch figures from many countries,ranging from top Vatican officers toevangelist Billy Graham to the Arch-bishop of Canterbury.

If things or people “range,” ask how?The last five preceding examples, frompress articles, leave us wondering. Themonstrous sentence below, from a book,seems to give the reader five pairs of lim-its to puzzle over. What makes any ofthem a “range”?

As one examined the impressive rangeof Nixon’s initiatives—from his ap-propriation of the war-making powerto his interpretation of the appointingpower, from his unilateral determina-tion of social priorities to his unilat-eral abolition of statutory programs,from his attack on legislative privilegeto his enlargement of executive privi-lege, from his theory of impoundmentto his theory of the pocket veto, fromhis calculated disparagement of thecabinet and his calculated discreditingof the press to his carefully organizedconcentration of federal managementin the White House—from all this alarger design ineluctably emerged.

What if one could not examine that“range,” because its limits were hope-lessly obscure? Then, I guess, the largerdesign would not ineluctably (inevitably)emerge.

If what follow “from” and “to” arearbitrary, if it is not obvious how thingsor people “range” within them, the de-vice has no reason for being. Often it caneasily be replaced by a term like such asor including or among them and a seriesof examples. Such usage would havesuited the second sentence of the news-paper passage below.

Since East Germany’s founding, ad-vancing in the party hierarchy hasmeant access to a variety of privilegesdenied average citizens.

At this point, a phrase like These haveincluded or Among these have beenwould be useful. Instead, the old “rangefrom” device is trotted out (in the wrongtense and with other peculiarities).

These ranged from special housing,special stores where higher qualitygoods and foodstuffs were sold atlower prices to party members andWestern goods could be ordered bymail, freedom to travel abroad, aswell as use of Western luxury cars.

By the end of the sentence, the beginningof the sentence is forgotten. We are nevertold what anything ranges to.

3. RANGING impliedThe word “range” or “ranging” often

is left out but implied by “from . . . to . . . ,” as in this sentence from a schol-arly book:

The eighteenth century was an age ofdictionaries—dictionaries of all kinds,from horsemanship to mathematics.

How do “all kinds” of dictionaries go“from horsemanship to mathematics”?Dictionaries normally go from A to Z.

He used references from MichaelJackson to the Sundance Kid. . . .

Why those two? Or does it mean that he(the president) quoted Michael Jacksonreferring to the Sundance Kid?

Vice Mayor Han Boping told anews conference that prices of 1,800non-staple foods from canned goodsto steamed dumplings will rise.

If any government decreed that “foodsfrom canned goods to steamed

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dumplings shall rise in price,” therewould be chaos in the land.

Three variations follow.

His commercial work . . . has ap-peared in reproduction in just aboutevery graphic form imaginable, frombillboards and calendars to albumcovers and playing cards.

He [Aristotle] wrote on almost allsubjects, from physics to literature,from politics to biology.

Would it make any less sense if the firstsaid “billboards and album covers tocalendars and playing cards” and thesecond said “from physics to politics,from literature to biology”?

Almost all seeds of economic impor-tance to man—from corn to cabbageto cowpeas—sit frozen in the Na-tional Seed Storage Laboratory’sroom-sized freezer vaults.

The function of the third “to” andwhether only those seeds beginning withc are deemed of economic importance toman are among the questions raised bythat journalistic aberration.

4. Stale expression: “EVERYTHINGFROM”

Once upon a time, a writer wrote asentence like this:

They dined on everything from cru-dites to cream puffs.

It did not make sense—could you list“everything” between them?—but it wascute. “Everything from . . . to . . .” got tobe a cliché, no longer cute and still sense-less. A variation might appear; accordingto a dictionary of English usage, jazz“used attributively . . . may be applied toanything from language to stockings”(but not to words from a to k and t to z?).

Within a twelve-day period, six writ-ers (three on one newspaper) wrote:

. . . A long list of speakers criticizedeverything from the party leadershipto the organization of the conference.

. . . Correspondents prepare stories oneverything from Soviet tank battal-ions to the roots of the Russian Or-thodox church.

They are factories producing every-thing from industrial ceramics to toys.. . .

. . . Contracts . . . have been put onhold temporarily, as have purchases ofeverything from magazine and news-paper subscriptions to television sets,recreation equipment, lawn mowersand furniture.

New age . . . [is] a catchall categoryencompassing everything from alter-native life styles and alternative thera-pies to tarot cards and books aboutabductions by aliens in flying saucers.

The special airlift aboard the C-5Asalso brought equipment and sup-plies—everything from photocopiersto desks, from crockery to light bulbs.. . .

Meanwhile a U.S. president said in anaddress:

These microcomputers today aid thedesign of everything from houses tocars to spacecraft.

That should cover everything.

RAPE. See Crimes, 1.

“RARELY EVER.” See (-)EVER, 6.

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RASSLE, RASSLING. See WRES-TLE, WRESTLING and RASSLE,RASSLING.

RATHER. See KIND OF, 4; THAN,2D.

RAVIOLI. Ravioli are stuffed, cookedcasings of noodle dough, usually square.Upon consuming some for dessert (notcustomarily the course in which they areserved), a restaurant reviewer wrote thatthe “exquisite apricot raviolis andpoppy-seed ice cream invariably hookyou for a revisit.” Drop the s in “ravio-lis.” The noun ravioli already is plural. Itcomes from an Italian dialect in whichravioli is the plural of raviolo, meaninglittle turnip.

Inasmuch as people do not commonlybuy, cook, or even eat just one of them,the singular is not needed often. If it isneeded, a piece of ravioli is preferable to“a ravioli.” Spaghetti, a plural word,should be treated similarly.

RAZE. See DEMOLISH.

REALLY. The adverb really deservesrespect. It has a real meaning: actually, infact, in reality, in truth. Instead, it wastreated as an empty locution in a Sundaytravel article about a place in Thailand.

It’s another world really—a misty,mountainous and mysterious land ofhill tribes, rice paddies, superb arti-sans, opium, flowers and beautifulwomen even Thais find remote andenchanting.

Adding “really” to an obviously untruestatement ruined what would have beena passable metaphor. Another worldreally is a quarter-million miles away atthe closest and not yet a topic for travelwriters. Besides, is any of the enumer-ated features too exotic for the world weall know? (See also PADDY.)

Informally, really can substitute for in-

deed, serving as an intensive: “It hasreally been a pleasure.” Advertisingmakes liberal use of it. A pants makerhas a farmer say: “They fit really good,feel really comfortable, and work reallyhard.” It does not use really wrong, justpuffily. (What is bad is “good.” SeeGOOD and WELL.)

Those with modest vocabularies findthe word useful, sometimes in tandem.In a radio program, a restaurant re-viewer said about a cheese cake: “It’sreally really light. It’s really really good.”

The phrase not really can be meaning-ful, contrasting reality with semblance:“It’s not really a lake that you see. It’s amirage.” It can also be misleading ver-biage: Jack asks, “Has the package ar-rived?” Jill replies, “Not really.” All shemay mean is no, but the response cansound equivocal.

See also FACT, 4 (reality, in reality,etc.).

REALTOR, REALTY. Realtor ispronounced REE-ul-tur. Realty is pro-nounced REE-ul-tee. In the three quota-tions, from television and telephone,those words are transcribed as heard:“We lobbied the Board of REAL-a-turs.” / “Today REAL-a-tur Bill Adamshas more business than he can handle.” /“Hello, this is Carl ——— of ———REAL-a-tee.”

A Realtor is a particular type of realestate broker, one who is an active mem-ber of a real estate board affiliated withthe National Association of Real EstateBoards.

As a trademark, Realtor ought to becapitalized, although some dictionariesand newspapers give it in lower case. Of-ten we do not know whether a writer orspeaker is using the designation the strictway or loosely as a synonym for real es-tate broker. The difference can be signifi-cant, inasmuch as an objective of theassociation is the protection of the publicfrom dishonest practices.

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Taken from the noun realty, meaningreal estate, or landed property, Realtorwas coined by C. D. Chadbourn, ofMinneapolis, and adopted by the associ-ation in 1916.

REASON. 1. Adding “BECAUSE.” 2.Other redundancies. 3. “SIMPLE . . .”;“IT STANDS TO. . . . ” 4. Superfluous“REASONS”?

1. Adding “BECAUSE”Because means for the reason that.

“The reason is [or “was”] because . . .”says, in effect, “The reason is [or “was”]for the reason that. . . . ” Four newspa-pers provide six examples.

The third reason for doubting re-ports of successes is because changesin the way cancers are recorded maybe exaggerating the apparent gains insurvival rates.

She said one reason that Sonrisewanted to list her as the general man-ager was because she is a woman.

In that pair, change each “because” tothat: “The third reason . . . is thatchanges . . .” / “. . . One reason . . . wasthat she. . . . ”

The reason she no longer smokes it,she said, is because as a lawyer in thepublic eye the penalties against herwould be complicated by politicalconsiderations.

Either change “because” to that or leaveout “the reason . . . is.” The latter correc-tion begins, “She no longer smokes it,she said, because. . . . ”

. . . They have been taught: that thereason so few Germans intervened tostop the Holocaust is because the vastmajority of Germany [sic] knew noth-ing about it.

Omitting “the reason . . . is” from thatsentence (rather than inserting anotherthat) is best. “. . . They have been taughtthat so few Germans intervened . . . be-cause. . . . ” (The colon is unnecessary.)

The reason the prominent land-uselawyer withdrew . . . was because ofhis potential conflict of interest.

Leave out either “because of” or “Thereason . . . was.” The latter correctionbegins, “The prominent land-use lawyerwithdrew . . . because of. . . . ”

The main reason the tabloids nolonger deal with . . . disturbing sub-jects is because 90 percent of thosebuying the tabloids are women. . . .

“The main reason . . . is that . . .” or“The tabloids no longer deal with . . .disturbing subjects mainly because. . . . ”

President Bush said during his cam-paign for reelection:

The reason we’re going to win isbecause the American people have aclear choice. . . .

He was wrong—in the way he said itand also, as it turned out, in what hesaid.

See also BECAUSE.

2. Other redundanciesWhy primarily means for what reason

or the reason for which. Therefore a casecan be made against pairing “reason”with why. It is like saying “the reason forthe reason for which.” An examplecomes from a television forum.

That’s one of the reasons why Dolemight have plateaued out a bit.

“Why” can be replaced with that: “That’sone of the reasons that Dole. . . . ”

Often there is a choice. If you prefer

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to use the reason, it can be accompaniedby that. “What is the reason that yousent me a new bill?” (not “the reasonwhy”). / “Tell me the reason that she leftso soon” (not “the reason why”). If youprefer to use why, “the reason” has noplace: “Why did you send me a newbill?” / “Tell me why she left so soon.”

Dictionaries differ on this point, and sodo grammarians. While some consider“the reason why” redundant, some oth-ers call it an accepted colloquialism witha long history. But inasmuch as the phraseis not essential to the expression of anythought, it can easily be discarded (exceptin quoting those who have used it).

In his poem “The Charge of the LightBrigade,” Alfred Lord Tennyson mayhave unwittingly encouraged the use ofthe phrase by writing: “Theirs not tomake reply, / Theirs not to reason why, /Theirs but to do and die.” Note that heused reason as a verb, meaning to thinkthrough logically; not in the question-able way, as a noun, meaning explana-tion or justification.

“The reason why . . . is because” com-pounds the redundancy. Example: “Thereason why I can’t go to work today isbecause of my back injury.” Omit “Thereason why” and “is.”

Other redundant “reason” phrasesare “the reason is due to” and “the rea-son is on account of.” Examples: “Thereason for the price increase is due tohigher costs” (omit either “The reasonfor” or “due to”) and “The reason thatthe game was called was on account ofrain” (omit either “The reason that . . .was” or “on account of”).

3. “SIMPLE . . .”; “IT STANDS TO . . . ”“For the simple reason that” is a ques-

tionable phrase. It may be unnecessaryfor those who find the reason obviouslysimple. Yet the “simple” can offendsomeone who did not know the reason,implying “You’re a dope for not know-ing this.” A book on language says:

Nor can we read any Indo-European writings, for the simple rea-son that not a scrap exists.

Although the explanation is “simple” inits brevity, the fact presented may not beobvious to the reader. Later the booksays:

English grammar is so complex andconfusing for the one very simple rea-son that its rules and terminology arebased on Latin—a language withwhich it has precious little in com-mon.

This time the reason, though twice aslong as the last one, is “very simple”; butthe information is no more obvious.

Another dubious expression is “Itstands to reason.” With “that” added, itintroduces the writer’s or the speaker’sopinion. It will sit well with the readerswho agree with the opinion. To others, itcan appear arrogant.

See also OF COURSE, 3.

4. Superfluous “REASONS”?“I am resigning for personal reasons”

is a satisfactory sentence.“The staff is being reduced for econ-

omy reasons” is less satisfactory. Unlikepersonal, an adjective, economy is anoun; and although a noun can serve asan adjective if it has to, “for reasons ofeconomy” would be a more normal ex-pression. Moreover, reasons is not essen-tial; the sentence makes sense without it.

A comparable example: “We arekeeping this information confidential fornational security reasons.” Better:“. . . for reasons of national security.”Still better: “. . . for national security.”(Our concern here is only style, not sub-stance.)

REBUT and REFUTE. To rebut isto oppose a statement or argument withcontrary evidence or argument. “The

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chair will allow the lady five minutes torebut the gentleman’s statement.” Usingrebut (verb, transitive and intransitive;pronounced rih-BUT) does not imply ajudgment of who is right or wrong.

To refute something is to prove itwrong or false. “The Ptolemaic theory ofEarth as the stationary center of the uni-verse was refuted by Copernicus andGalileo.” Using refute (verb, transitive;pronounced rih-FYOOT) declares in ef-fect that the original statement, belief, orallegation has been proven wrong orfalse. An almanac misused the word:

The “character issue” stemmed fromallegations of infidelity, which Clintonultimately refuted in a television inter-view in which he and Hillary avowedtheir relationship was solid.

It may reasonably be said that he rebut-ted the allegations but not that he “re-futed” them. In that interview, he denieda woman’s statement that they had en-gaged in an affair. Six years later, insworn testimony, he admitted havinghad an affair with the woman.

RECOMMIT. See COMMIT.

RECORD. “You’re well on your waytoday to setting new records,” a televi-sion quizmaster told three contestants,who had amassed substantial scores.

If records will be set, we can assumethey will be “new” records. One mightspeak of a new record when comparingit with an old record.

“All-time record” is often redundant,although it might be apt in contrastwith, say, “a modern-day record” or “arecord for the century.”

RE-CREATION and RECRE-ATION. See Punctuation, 4D.

REDUNDANCY, REDUNDANT.See Tautology.

Reflexive pronouns. See Pronouns,3, 4, 5.

REFLEX, REFLEXIVELY. See IN-STINCT.

RE-FORM and REFORM. See Punc-tuation, 4D.

REFUTE. See REBUT and REFUTE.

REGARDLESS. When we considerthat generations of teachers have beeninstructing youngsters that regardless iscorrect and “irregardless” is incorrect,even illiterate, it is somewhat surprisingto find an occasional educated personusing the substandard word.

A physician said on a television newsprogram, “We’re obligated to do thatbiopsy irregardless of the physical find-ings.” Of course regardless was the wordto use.

A minister said on a radio talk show,about a sectarian movement in the news,“We have to voice our opinion, irregard-less of some of the positive things thatare going on.” Regardless.

“Irregardless” should be shunned forgood reason. It has two negatives. Theprefix, “ir-,” tends to cancel out the suf-fix, “-less.” See Double negative.

Nowadays regardless is commonlyused as an adverb. Often, with of follow-ing, it means without regard for or inspite of. This sentence is typical: “I willhave it regardless of the high cost.” Itwould not be wrong to end that sentencewith regardless if the high cost was un-derstood from the context.

Regardless as an adjective is found inold literature. It might mean showing noregard, heedless, or careless; for exam-ple, “With a book he was regardless oftime” (Pride and Prejudice by JaneAusten). It might also mean paid no re-gard, that is, no notice or attention; orshown no regard in the sense of consid-eration or respect.

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REGULATION, STATUTE, andLAW. Although a governmental regu-lation and a statute both have the forceof law, they should not be confused, asthey were in an article:

. . . A Federal CommunicationsCommission regulation . . . says any-one in a region where an area codeoverlay exists is required to dial thearea code for all local calls. . . . It isnot surprising that Nynex is itselfseeking relief from an onerous statute.

If it is an FCC regulation, it is not astatute. The first is a rule issued by apublic administrative agency. The sec-ond is a law enacted by Congress or astate legislature and approved by thepresident or a governor. A statute maypresent the basic principles of a law andleave the fine details—regulations—to aparticular agency.

The Food and Drug Administrationadopted a regulation (to be enforced bystates) that required identification for to-bacco purchasers looking younger thantwenty-seven. A newspaper reported thenews without telling of a new regulation.The text called it an FDA “crackdown.”The headline said, “Teen Smokers StrikeOut Under New Law.” Neither waswrong in essence, but neither was pre-cise.

To speak of a law is customarily tospeak of a statute, rather than a regula-tion. There are both federal and statelaws; a municipal law is called an ordi-nance.

Law or the law may be used in a gen-eral sense to mean the official rules thatgovern people. The law of the UnitedStates consists of the Constitution, actsof Congress, treaties, and court rulings.The law of each state is its constitution,legislative acts, and court rulings.

Regulation may be used in a generalsense to mean governmental direction orcontrol (e.g., “regulation of utilities”).

RELATE. To relate, as a transitiveverb, is to tell (“She related an anec-dote”) or to bring into a reasonable as-sociation (“He related ancient history tocurrent events”).

As an intransitive verb meaning tohave a connection or relationship (tosomething), relate goes back about fourcenturies. (“The critic eye . . . examinesbit by bit: How parts relate to parts, orthey to whole”—Pope.) What is rathernew, and questionable, is the popularadoption of a jargonistic use of the in-transitive relate. To psychologists andsocial workers, it has meant to get along,interact, have similar ideas, and so on.(“Alice does not relate well with herclassmates.”)

A newspaper column described an er-roneous change made in an author’swork and commented, “Not pointingany fingers, but your columnist can re-late.” To end there, without indicatingthe relationship, is to be parsimoniouswith information.

REMAP. To map an area, feature, orjourney is to represent it or chart it on amap. To remap it is to map it again. It isa word that the general public has littleneed for. Headline writers need it as asynonym for reapportion or reappor-tionment.

It has slopped over into the bodies ofarticles. A political report said state sen-ators of one party wanted “to keep thelegislative primary in June, when thenew remap plan would be ready” (ratherthan switch to March and run in old dis-tricts, favoring the other party).

Except for headlines, there is no ex-cuse for remap instead of reappor-tion(ment). The two are not the same; asany cartographer knows, changing amap need have nothing to do withchanging the distribution of legislativeseats.

REMUNERATION and RENU-MERATION. During an investiga-

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tion of political favoritism in a federaldepartment, a congressman asked a for-mer subordinate of the secretary ofhousing and urban development: “Areyou saying or are you not saying thatyou think he received renumeration inany way, financial?” (Answer: not say-ing.) It was the wrong noun.

Remuneration, pronounced re-myoon-uh-RAY-shun, is compensation,reward, or pay for work, service, loss,etc. A related adjective, remunerative,means providing remuneration, prof-itable. Think of money.

Renumeration, re-new-muh-RAY-shun, a word that is seldom used exceptby mistake, means a new numeration. Anumeration is a numbering, counting, orcalculation, or a system of numbering.Think of numbers.

Repetition and its avoidance. SeeEllipsis; FORMER; IS IS; LATTER;Numbers, 1; ONE OF, 2; Pronouns, 1;SAID; Series errors, 1, 6; Synonymic silli-ness; Tautology; THAT and WHICH, 3;Twins, 2; Verbs, 4, 5; WHICH, 2; WHO,2; WITH, 1.

REPORT, REPORTED, REPORT-EDLY. See ACCUSED, ALLEGED(etc.).

RESPECTABLE and RESPECT-FUL. In a network telecast from NewHampshire, a news reporter said, “TheCuomo campaign has got to break intothe double digits to be respectful.” Thelast word should have been the adjectiverespectable meaning worthy of respector having a good reputation.

The other adjective, respectful, meansshowing or characterized by respect ordeference. “The boy was respectful tohis elders.”

RESPECTIVE, RESPECTIVELY.Respectively is useful in this sentence:“Mr. Graham and Miss Harrison teachboys and girls respectively.” It tells us

that Mr. Graham teaches boys and MissHarrison teaches girls. Without respec-tively one could suppose that eachteacher teaches both boys and girls. Re-spectively indicates that each one in a se-ries pertains, in the same order, to aparticular one in another series.

In a column on presidential politics,two series that are supposed to jibe “re-spectively” do not:

Earlier, senators Estes Kefauver andEugene McCarthy and Robert Ken-nedy helped retire Harry Truman andLyndon Johnson, respectively, withprimary fights.

The first series contains three names. Thesecond series contains only two. Thosewho are not versed in the appropriatepolitical history cannot know how tomatch them. The sentence should havebeen reworded, without “respectively,”perhaps like this:

Earlier, Senator Estes Kefauver helpedretire Harry Truman with a primaryfight, and Senators Eugene McCarthyand Robert Kennedy did the same toLyndon Johnson.

The sentence below would makesense without respectively. It makes nosense with it.

The first quarter and third quarter re-spectively are the best seasons for tele-vision response, just as they are forprint and mail.

What the author (of a book on market-ing) meant to convey is obscure. Thequarters seem to be equated.

Nor does respective serve any clearfunction in the next sentence, uttered bya mayor.

This is a private-public partnership,benefits to flow to each one of the re-spective parties.

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Writers sometimes use respectively(adverb) or respective (adjective) whenthe respectiveness is obvious: “Michaeland Alice will play the parts of Romeoand Juliet respectively.” / “The ambas-sadors from Britain and France returnedto their respective countries.”

Examples of more informative use:“Mr. and Mrs. Palmer serve as the chair-man and treasurer respectively.” / “Thetwo defense attorneys are conferringwith their respective clients” (not collec-tively).

RESTAURATEUR. A restaurant re-viewer on the radio described two menas “a wonderful restauranteur” and “alegendary restauranteur”; a column anda news story each told of misfortune be-falling a “restauranteur”; a national quizshow flashed a query about a “RESTAU-RANTEUR” on the video screen; and aradio announcer invited listeners to callin questions on “restaurants and restau-ranteers.” All slipped.

A person who owns or manages arestaurant is not a “restauranteur” or“restauranteer” but a restaurateur, with-out n. Some dictionaries condone thefirst misspelling as a variant, but the stylemanuals of The Associated Press andThe New York Times permit no n.Restaurateur comes unchanged fromFrench. It originated in the Latin for re-store.

Restrictive clause. See THAT andWHICH.

REVENGE and AVENGE. SeeConfusing pairs.

REVEREND. Mister is a title, anoun. Reverend is a description, an ad-jective meaning worthy of reverence. Ofcourse, not all clerics are so worthy, butwe traditionally give them the benefit ofthe doubt.

Reverend is comparable to the Hon-orable (or Hon.) that is often affixed to

the names of public officials. Neitherword is properly a noun. Just as a publicofficial is not an “honorable,” a clergy-man is not a “reverend.” (See alsoHONORABLE, HONORARY, HON-ORED, 1.) A magazine and a newspaperwere wrong:

The reverend spoke only for a mo-ment. . . . But the reverend himself in-sists the young candidate . . . is nowon his own.

The only person who offered him anyhelp was a big-bellied reverend. . . .The New York Post ran a front-pagephotograph of the roly-poly reverendunder a hair dryer.

Call him a churchman, a clergyman, acleric, an ecclesiastic, a minister, a pastor,a preacher, a priest (if he is Catholic orEpiscopal), or any of several other desig-nations, depending on his faith, but donot call him a “reverend” if you want tobe proper.

In referring to him, use Reverend or,better, the Reverend, only with a fullname or title; for example, the ReverendJoseph Cole, not “the Reverend Cole.”We would not speak of a senator as “theHonorable Adams,” nor would we ad-dress him as “Honorable Adams.” Inwriting, the Rev. may be used as an ab-breviation.

After the first mention, it is correct touse the Reverend (or the Rev.) Mr. Coleor the Reverend Dr. Jones (if he is a doc-tor of divinity) or simply Mr. Cole or Dr.Jones, for instance. He may be addressedas Mr. or Dr. Some clergymen may be re-ferred to and addressed as, e.g., FatherWilliams or Pastor Robinson.

It was improper to say that “the Rev-erend Jackson has been able to broadenhis base” or to write that “he disputedthe time frame recalled by the ReverendSparks. . . . ” Correction: “the ReverendMr. Jackson” and “the Reverend Mr.Sparks.” Another correct way is exem-

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plified by a New York Times article thatreferred to “The Rev. Jesse Jackson” thefirst time and “Mr. Jackson” the nextseven times.

The television interviewers and mod-erators addressing “Reverend Jackson”know not what they do. What is wrongwith “Mr. Jackson”? The minister whotells us, “I’m Reverend Brown,” insteadof, “I’m Mr. Brown, the minister,” or“I’m Pastor Brown,” lacks both humilityand (worse yet) verbal propriety.

It distressed a pastor’s wife thatpeople addressed him too informally intheir correspondence. She wrote to asyndicated etiquette columnist, who ad-vised using note cards printed with theheading “The Reverend and Mrs.William Smith.” But that would bewrong, for Mr. Smith’s title would thenbe left out. “The Reverend Mr. and Mrs.William Smith” or “Pastor and Mrs.William Smith” would suit a letterhead.

Being an adjective, Reverend properlyhas no plural, unlike the noun Mister orMr., whose plural is Messrs. Disregard“Revs. Brown and Smith.”

Reversal of meaning. 1. Negatives.2. Other examples. 3. Reasons.

1. NegativesSometimes a writer, speaker, or editor

does not say what he intended to say. Hemay say the very opposite.

Negatives—too many or too few—areamong the sources of danger.

A news agency’s dispatch from Cleve-land, about an indictment of guardsmenin an infamous case, appeared this wayin print:

The grand jury charged the eightdefendants willfully assaulted and in-timidated the student demonstratorsby firing weapons in their direction,violating their constitutional right tobe deprived of liberty without dueprocess of law.

The sentence affirms a “right to be de-prived of liberty.” To invoke the Fifthand Fourteenth Amendments, insert notbefore “to be deprived.”

A court of appeals reversed a decisionin a civil case, and then a newspaper re-versed the appellate decision by leavingout one word:

In finding that The Post did commitlibel, the court rejected a number ofarguments raised by Mr. Tavoular-eas’s lawyers.

“Did commit” should be “did not com-mit. . . . ” (The mistake was not crucial,inasmuch as the headline and lead para-graph summarized the decision. See alsoNOT, 1F.)

In a statement attributed to an Egyp-tian official, a positive form is mistakenfor a negative form. He promotes popu-lation control, but some citizens are une-ducated:

“So what I propagate falls on deafears. . . . We have a problem with theliterate and semi-literate.”

The quotation has him saying in effectthat those who read and write pose aproblem. No doubt “literate” should beilliterate. The speaker may have had dif-ficulty expressing himself in English. Thereporter could well have paraphrasedthe statement and corrected it, unless theerror escaped him too.

That a reporter quoted someone accu-rately is no excuse for the publication ofa topsy-turvy statement. Regardless oforigin, it reflects on both the quoter andthe quoted.

If one is not careful, something andnothing can be confused. A radio physi-cian said that anyone with back troubleshould have a physician diagnose it be-fore seeking “alternative” treatment, be-cause infrequently the back reflects

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serious disease, like cancer. He askedrhetorically:

Isn’t that why you go to a doctor, tomake sure that small chance that it’snothing awful?

The simplest correction would replace“small” with large or good. Better:“. . . to exclude that small chance thatit’s something awful?”

The next sentence was part of a stockmarket report on the radio:

No one appeared panicky, predictingthis is just a small glitch in a bull mar-ket.

No one is the subject of both appeared(verb) and predicting (present partici-ple). The speaker literally reported “Noone . . . predicting. . . . ” Better: “No oneappeared panicky. The prevailing viewwas that. . . . ” (Aside from the problemof the negative subject, “predicting thisis” is dubious. To predict is to foresee thefuture, not to describe the present.)

The final example in this section is arhetorical blunder by Mayor RichardDaley of Chicago. After a riot near theDemocratic national convention, he helda press conference to defend the policeagainst allegations of brutality towardprotesters.

The confrontation was not created bythe police. The confrontation was cre-ated by the people who charged thepolice. Gentlemen, get the thingstraight, once and for all. The police-man isn’t there to create disorder. Thepoliceman is there to preserve disor-der.

He probably wanted to say “preserve or-der.” Instead he emphasized the wrongword and repeated the negative “dis-.”

The possibility of reversing one’smeaning inadvertently by using two or

more negatives in a sentence is treated inDouble negative, 2. These are someother hazards:

• “And” instead of but following anegative. See BUT, 1.

• As with a negative. See AS, 4.• But with “that” or with a negative.

See BUT, 2, 3.• Not with another negative, e.g., not

or un-. See NOT, 1G; PROOF-READ, PROOFREADING.

• Which used vaguely following anegative. See WHICH, 1.

2. Other examplesA congressman is indirectly quoted

here on the subject of drugs in publichousing projects.

However, Representative CharlesB. Rangel . . . said many drug dealerswere known to the tenants but wereintimidated by them.

As published, the statement says thedrug dealers were intimidated by the ten-ants. Changing the end of the sentenceyields a more plausible message:“. . . but intimidated them” or “. . . butthe tenants were intimidated by them.”

A newspaper headline said, “Assem-bly barely defeats bill easing water pollu-tion.” In announcing that a majority ofstate assemblymen had declined to alle-viate water pollution, the headline re-versed the meaning of the news storyunderneath it. The defeated bill wouldhave relaxed a statute against pollutersof state waterways. “Assembly barelydefeats bill to ease pollution law” wouldhave been accurate (and fit the spaceavailable for the headline).

This sentence was part of a reportfrom Jerusalem credited to a newsagency:

Arafat was also angered by Ne-tanyahu’s refusal so far to meet him

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and to place Israeli troops in Hebron,the only West Bank Town still underoccupation.

If the Israeli prime minister had refusedto place troops in Hebron, would thePalestinian leader object? Following“and” with decision would make thestatement true.

To write a headline saying “CuomoCan Blame America’s New Slavery Onthe Republicans’ Neglect of the Poor,”an editor probably had to be (1) igno-rant of who William F. Buckley was and(2) unable to grasp irony and mockery.(Let us charitably discount the possibil-ity of bias.) In answering a pro-Democratic speech delivered atGettysburg, Buckley asked rhetoricallyin a column:

Whose fault is the new slavery?You guessed it: It is the fault of the Re-publican Party. From which it follows,does it not, that if Abe Lincoln werealive today, he would be a Democrat?

After stating the neglect-of-the-poorcharges, most of the column presentedstatistics meant to show the poor im-proving economically. Changing “Can”to Can’t and putting quotation marksaround “New Slavery” would havepatched up the headline. But proper por-trayal of the columnist’s views required arewrite, such as this: “Poor People AreFaring Better, Despite Cuomo’s ‘NewSlavery’ Talk.”

Television showed a demonstrationagainst Senator Dole during his presi-dential election campaign. A newscastersaid the protesters objected to “Dole’sbacking of a ban on assault rifles.” Afactually correct version would havebeen “Dole’s backing of a bill to repealthe ban on assault rifles.”

3. ReasonsTo offer a general explanation for

such reversals would be guessing. Arethey caused by absent-mindedness, care-

lessness, haste, inattention, lack ofthought, misunderstanding, or a mis-chievous goblin?

The first section deals with trouble-some negatives. The second displaysthree patterns. First, a passive verb isconfused with an active verb. Then acrucial noun is left out: law or decision.Last, ignorance of the views of a person-age, Buckley or Dole, is displayed.

Some comparable sources of troubleand the titles of entries that deal withthem are listed below.

• Expressions open to oppositeinterpretations. Ellipsis; FORWARDand BACK (time); GO OFF and GOON; GREAT; SCAN.

• Pairs with opposite meanings. SeeConfusing pairs (energize andenervate, hyper- and hypo-, andsanction and sanctions);DISINGENUOUS andINGENUOUS; EMIGRATE andIMMIGRATE; PRESCRIBE andPROSCRIBE.

• Misunderstood terms. SeeCREDITOR and DEBTOR; WILLY-NILLY; WITH PREJUDICE andWITHOUT PREJUDICE.

• Misused tense. See Tense, 5E.• Special cases. See Series errors, 2

(end); ZERO IN.

Ambiguity and misunderstanding aretreated in many other entries. Consultthe cross-reference Ambiguity.

REVERSE. See Verbs, 1C.

REVERT. This verb (intransitive)means to turn backward, figuratively. Itsgrandfather was the Latin revertere, aproduct of re-, back, and vertere, turn.Back is implied in revert. To revert to oldways, a former belief, a past situation, ora topic that came up before is to go backto it. In law, revert applies to property ormoney; it means to go back to a formerowner.

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In television programs, a member of apanel and an interviewer had these ques-tions: “What’s going to happen whenHong Kong reverts back to China?”And when youths go home to hostilelands after camping together, “Don’tthey simply revert back to who theywere?” Revert(s) without “back” wouldhave been enough each time.

REVOLT and REVOLUTION.When Boris Yeltsin ordered the Russianparliament disbanded, some membersand sympathizers rebelled and werecrushed by forces loyal to Yeltsin. Anewspaper’s main headline read,“Bloody end to latest revolution in Rus-sia.”

“Revolution” was the wrong word. Arevolution is an overthrow of a politicalsystem, or a forcible replacement of aruler or ruling group, or the seizure ofpower by a militant group, in each caseby forces within the country involved.(In a broader sense, any great socialchange may be called a revolution; forexample, the industrial revolution.) TheFrench Revolution, the American Revo-lution, the Russian Revolution (in1917)—those were indeed revolutions.Power was seized; the old regimes wereoverthrown; new governments were setup.

In Russia in 1993, rebels failed intheir attempt to overthrow Yelsin’s rule,therefore no “revolution” took place. Tobe sure, there was a revolt, a rebellion,an insurrection, an uprising. Each noundenotes a violent attempt to overthrow a government. (Those terms, most commonly revolt, are used at times todescribe nonviolent opposition move-ments. “California’s Proposition 13 rep-resented a revolt by taxpayers.”) Ofcourse, any such violent attempt at anoverthrow may succeed; at that point therevolt, rebellion, etc. may be called a rev-olution.

Two related words are coup d’état(pronounced coo-day-TAH), a violent

overthrow that is sudden, unexpected,and brought about by a small militarygroup; and putsch (pronounced some-thing like push but with a t in the mid-dle), an attempted coup d’état.

RHETORICAL QUESTION. SeePunctuation, 9.

RH FACTOR. See FACTOR.

RHINOCEROS. See Plurals and sin-gulars, 1; Series errors, 5.

“RICE PADDY.” See PADDY.

RIGHT confused with WRITE.See Homophones.

“RINGING OFF THE HOOK.”These press excerpts all raise the samequestion: “. . . His phone was ringing offthe hook.” / “. . . Bugakov’s telephonewas ringing off the hook with congratu-lations.” / “Businesses have been ringingthe phone off the hook to inquire. . . . ” /“Her telephone was ringing off the hookyesterday with inquiries from journal-ists. . . . ” / “And the phones rang off thehook at CBS.”

How can a phone ring when it is offthe hook?

RIVET. See Spelling, 1; UNIQUE.

ROBBERY. See Crimes, 3.

ROLE and ROLL. See Homo-phones.

ROMANCE LANGUAGE. Thehost of a television program of inter-views dealing with romantic encounterswas talking about the French language.“It’s a very romantic language, French,Spanish, and all those romantic lan-guages,” he said, confused. French andSpanish—along with Italian, Portuguese,Rumanian, and several regional tongues—are known as Romance languages.

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Romance language has nothing to dowith romance or any romantic quality ofthese languages. It has to do with theirRoman origin. They all came mainlyfrom Latin. English adopted its adjectiveRomance from the French romance,meaning the Roman language.

ROUND UP and ROUNDUP.When cowboys round up cattle, theybring the animals together in a herd.Round up in two words is a verb.

The process or act of herding the cat-tle is a roundup. (In ranching, the herdedcattle also are called a roundup, and soare the cowboys and horses used in theprocess.) Roundup in one word is anoun.

The terms are not limited to ranch ac-tivity. The police may round up suspects.Legislators may be rounded up for vot-ing. Any act of rounding up animals orpeople could be called a roundup.

In writing a headline saying “Israelisflatten guerrilla base; roundup Shiitemales in Tyre,” a copy editor wronglychose the noun, “roundup,” instead ofthe verb, round up.

RUIN and RUINS. Ruins can usu-ally be seen. They are the remains ofsomething that was built but now is de-stroyed or decayed. “They discoveredthe ruins of an ancient temple.” / “Thetemple is in ruins.”

The singular, ruin, may describe thesame thing as ruins, that which is de-stroyed or decayed. “The town is now aruin.” / “The mansion has gone to ruin.”Often, though, it is used in a more ab-stract sense. Ruin can refer to the cause(“Fire was its ruin”) or to the action,condition, or process (“They witnessedthe ruin of the economy”).

The singular would have been moreidiomatic in a column: “. . . Both [sena-tors] had good reputations[,] now on theverge of ruins.” Make it ruin. If the de-struction were complete, “now in ruins”

would be an acceptable metaphor. An al-ternative to ruin in the more abstractsense is ruination.

Ruin is pronounced either ROO-in orROO-n.

See also DEMOLISH.

RULE, RULING. In a legal sense, torule is to decide judicially, and a ruling isan official decision by a court or judge oran authorized body. The words are usedinappropriately in the excerpts below.This is from a daily newspaper:

The city attorney ruled that thecouncil could not be bound in the fu-ture by its current intent to put char-ter reform on the . . . ballot.

A weekly in another city asked whetherthe city attorney there would

receive a vote of confidence despite hisrecent high-handed . . . rulings?. . . .[He] has ruled in seemingly contradic-tory ways at various times. [And soon. “Ruled” or “ruling(s)” appearssix more times.]

Unlike a judge, an attorney for either apublic or private entity does not “rule”or make “rulings.” He gives opinions. Acourt may rule otherwise.

Some commissions rule too, but theirstaffs do not. A dispatch by a newsagency began loosely:

The staff of the Federal Communi-cations Commission ruled in favor ofCBS yesterday on a complaint by fivemajor Protestant churches. . . .

The next paragraph summarized whatwas fitly termed a “staff opinion.”

Rule (verb, transitive and intransitive)can also mean to decree, govern, ordominate.

RUN and RAN. See Tense, 5A, B.

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RUN and STAND. One who seeksto be elected to any governmental officein the United States runs for election. Inthe United Kingdom, one who seekselection to office stands for election. Yeta story in American newspapers saidabout Democrats in the Senate:

. . . Several of their members who willstand for re-election next year wereelected with the support of traditionalblack liberals.

It would suit a British paper. The Ameri-can verb is run, not “stand.” Unless thewriter was new to the United States andunfamiliar with its idiom, her motivationfor a usage so strange to American eyesand ears is obscure.

See also Pronouns, 3.

RUN AWAY and RUNAWAY. Anewspaper’s TV guide listed, amongscheduled programs, “Runaway Withthe Rich and Famous.” If the programhad dealt with a child fleeing from home,runaway (noun) might be right. How-ever, inasmuch as the program urgedwatchers to run away (verb), the twowords should have been kept separate.

RUN-OFF. See MAJORITY, 1.

Run-on sentence. 1. Classical run-ons. 2. Comma faults.

1. Classical run-onsA computer company climaxed a

magazine ad in this way: “They buildmore than computers they build rela-tionships.”

Signs throughout vehicles of a city’stransit system say, “PLEASE HOLD ONSUDDEN STOPS NECESSARY.”

Those are run-on sentences. A run-onsentence is like two (or more) sentencesglued together, end to end. Each is an in-dependent clause; that is, it has a subjectand verb and could stand alone as an in-dependent sentence. Right now the two

are illegitimately paired, neither separatenor properly joined. They should be ei-ther granted full independence as twosovereign sentences or united by meansof due punctuation. A semicolon (;) or adash (—) would unite them properly.

Separated: “They build more thancomputers. They build relationships.” /“PLEASE HOLD ON. SUDDENSTOPS NECESSARY.” (Better: “SUD-DEN STOPS ARE NECESSARY.”)

Joined: “They build more than com-puters; they build relationships.” Or“They build more than computers—theybuild relationships.” A colon (:) could beused for punctuation instead. Any ofthose marks would fit the transit notice.

2. Comma faultsA common form of run-on (which

some classify as a separate defect) is thecomma fault, also known as the commasplice. It purports to make a comma thepunctuation between two independentclauses. A comma cannot handle the job.It neither separates nor joins the twoclauses adequately. The first example isfrom a main news story:

In 1949 Gov. Alfred E. Driscoll, aRepublican, offered him a seat on theNew Jersey Superior Court, he grate-fully accepted.

One way to correct the example is tochange the third comma to a period andmake the last three words a separate sen-tence. A second way is to change thatcomma to a semicolon. A third way is tosubstitute a conjunction, namely and.

Similarly, the comma is inadequate inthis snippet from a magazine article:

Catholics didn’t sing, everyone knewthat.

Split it into two three-word sentences orswap the comma for a semicolon ordash.

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The failure to stop a sentence properlycan produce ambiguity:

“I just can’t stand the noise, fromseven in the morning until quittingtime it’s driving me crazy,” said Dee. . . .

Start a new sentence (or insert a semi-colon or dash) either after “noise” or af-ter “time.” It depends on which meaningthe speaker intended to express.

Anyone sensitive to English might ob-ject to being quoted faultily. A book edi-tor had the mixed fortune to be helped inpublicizing one of her books but to besaddled with two comma faults in onearticle.

. . . The news about astrology “is certainly the most titillating of thisamazing account, that’s what whetted the public appetite. . . . The Reagansare noted for their skill in handlingthe media, now their tactics are some-how being turned on them in the media.”

A school principal could be displeasedby the comma fault (and the omission ofa second in?):

“I deal with kids in trouble, thesekids were not trouble.”

An extract from a book of essays isnext. (Six other quotations are from asingle, prominent newspaper.)

This time, though, it is not the sin-gle insect that is the Wonder, it is thecollectivity.

Because the first thought leads into thesecond, a colon would be an additionaloption here. “. . . It is not the single in-sect that is the Wonder: it is the collectiv-ity.”

The following excerpt is abridged, butthe full sentence has fifty-two words andfive clauses, with four separable ideas.Why would the writer want to make itany more complex than it has to be?

. . . She could not comment on anyspecific cases, “but we have beenworking together for 14 months withthe subcommittee, clearly we are con-cerned any time there is a allegation ofserious wrongdoing. . . . ”

It should be “. . . with the subcommittee.Clearly we are concerned” etc. (And “aallegation” should be “an allegation.”But whose error was it? See A and AN.)The final quotation is a translation of aspeech by a foreign leader:

So let us develop democracy andglastnost, let us be attentive to theneeds of every nation and people, mi-norities included, let us find the waysof resolving their problems. . . .

Let us change the first and third commasto semicolons.

See also FOREVER; Punctuation, 2A,3A, 11A.

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SAFE-DEPOSIT BOX. Deposits inthis box are safe. So it is a safe-depositbox, a metal box for storing valuables ina vault. These press excerpts are wrong:

Barlow would keep the certificates ina safety deposit box and turn themover to the county for renewal. . . .

Police accidentally discovered thatsafety deposit boxes in a Lithuanianbank were stuffed with four tons ofradioactive material. . . .

Make it safe-, not “safety.” Safe (adjec-tive) describes the deposit, not the box.The writers may have been thinking ofsafety pin or safety belt, in which“safety” (a noun serving as an adjective)directly describes the hardware.

SAHARA. “When I awoke we wereabove the Sahara Desert,” an authorwrote. Another wrote, “. . . Imagineyourself engaged in an amateur archaeo-logical dig somewhere in the SaharaDesert.” That is the popular name thatspeakers of English give to the largestdesert on earth, comprising 3.5 millionsquare miles in northern Africa. It is nota serious lapse to use the phrase, thoughsome find it redundant.

Sahara is not a typical geographicalname, like Bering (Sea) or Falkland (Is-

lands), imposed on a particular featureto distinguish it from others of its kind.It never had a special name. Saharameans desert in Arabic. (Arabs stress thesa or ra, depending on regional dialect.We stress the ha.)

Inasmuch as most of us Englishspeakers consider it just a name and fewof us know Arabic, “Sahara Desert”should not offend many ears or eyes. Noone seems to object to “Gobi Desert,”though gobi is a Mongolian term for adesert. But those who wish to be scrupu-lous in referring to the Sahara—or theGobi—may omit “Desert.” Similarly,“River” and “Mountains” may be omit-ted from mentions of the Rio Grandeand the Sierra Nevada in recognition ofthe Spanish terms. (Río: river. Sierra:rocky mountain range.) And “Mount”need not preface Fujiyama, in Japan,though Mount Fuji will do.

Sometimes sahara, in lower case,means a desert in general: “If the soil isnot cared for, fertile farm land can turninto a sahara.” Used in that way, saharais certainly enough.

See also DESERT and DESSERT.

SAID. As an adjective, meaning men-tioned or named before (“said property”or “said witness”), it is legal jargon andshould be restricted to legal or businessdocuments. Synonyms are aforemen-tioned and aforesaid, formal words that

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are a shade more usable in nonlegal con-texts.

Nonlawyers use said as an adjective inthe belief that they are being jocose. Acolumnist wrote, after quoting a literarypassage: “This is a joke. However, saidjoke did not survive the ministrations ofthe proofreaders. . . . ” The adjectivalsaid had been classified as “WORN-OUT HUMOUR” by H. W. Fowlersome seventy years earlier. It can usuallybe replaced by the: “However, thejoke. . . . ”

As a verb, said, or say or says, is nor-mally a good, unbiased word, an indis-pensable tool of celebrated writers. Somewriters, especially journalists, strive un-necessarily to avoid he said or she said orthe like by substituting such verbs as an-nounce(d), assert(ed), aver(red), de-clare(d), disclose(d), maintain(ed),note(d), observe(d), report(ed), andstate(d). Each is a proper word whenchosen to express its particular meaning,not arbitrarily as a synonym. Some sub-stituted phrases may even suggest bias.See ACCORDING TO; FACT; POINTOUT.

SANCTION and SANCTIONS.See Confusing pairs.

SARCASM, SATIRE. See IRONY(etc.).

SAVING and SAVINGS. See Con-fusing pairs.

SAW and SEEN. See Tense, 5A.

SAY, SAYS. See SAID.

SCALD and SCOLD. In a televisionprogram on rescues, a policeman told of“a child who had been scolded by hotwater.” Sorry, Officer; you got it wrong.The child was scalded.

To scald (verb), rhyming with called,is to burn someone with hot water orsteam (transitive) or to be burned by it

(intransitive). To scold (verb, transitiveand intransitive), rhyming with told, isto criticize adversely and angrily.

A scald (noun) is an injury caused byscalding. A scold (noun) is one whoscolds often.

SCAN. Using and interpreting scan(verb, transitive) requires caution, for ithas two contradictory meanings. Itsstrict meaning is to examine closely,carefully, and systematically; to scruti-nize. This is correct:

Astronomers scanning the skythrough the Hubble Space Telescopehave detected and photographed anobject far beyond our solar systemthat appears to be a runaway giantplanet. . . .

A modern, popular meaning of scan isto look at or read quickly and superfi-cially: “I bought the paper, but I’ve onlyhad time to scan the headlines.” That isone meaning of skim (verb, transitiveand intransitive). Perhaps whoeverstarted using scan in that way was con-fusing the two words.

Trouble can arise when the contextdoes not indicate which meaning of scanis intended: “Harris, scan this report andtell me what you think of it.” Whetherthe boss wants his employee to study thereport or glance at it is not clear.

The strict meaning of scan harmo-nizes with a technical sense: to beamelectrons, light, or sound in a systematicpattern for transmission, reproduction,or reflection. Scan also means to analyzethe meter and rhythm of verse. That isthe oldest sense of the word; pertinentquotations in The Oxford English Dic-tionary begin with one from 1398 usingscanne. (In those last two senses, theverb can be transitive or intransitive.)

The Oxford does not recognize thenewer, popular use. Webster’s Thirddoes. Its two illustrations are “read sev-eral and scan the rest” / “scanned the

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film advertisements.” But could one notscrutinize film advertisements?

SCARCELY. See THAN, 2E.

Scientific writing. See Active voiceand passive voice.

SCRIP and SCRIPT. See Confusingpairs.

SEARCH AND SEIZURE. SeeWarrant.

SEASONABLE and SEASONAL.See Confusing pairs.

SECOND. A second of time is a 60thof a minute or a 3,600th part of an hour,strictly speaking. One learns not to takethat noun literally all the time, perhapsafter someone on the telephone has is-sued an order to “hold on a second.”

Using the word for a moment, a shortwhile, minutes, or hours can be absurd,particularly when a more exact unit oftime is specified. In a TV discussion, thiswas said: “Apparently at the last second,hours before the [scheduled] announce-ment, the president changed his mind”(about giving needles to drug addicts).The panelist would have done well with-out “at the last second.”

SEEING EYE. Seeing Eye is a trade-mark and therefore should be capital-ized. Often it is not; a syndicated columnrefers vaguely to “an outfit that trainedseeing-eye dogs. . . . ”

The only outfit that has ever trainedSeeing Eye dogs is The Seeing Eye, Inc.,of Morristown, New Jersey. That institu-tion is the best-known trainer of dogs tolead blind people.

If a dog has been trained elsewhere forthe job or if you do not know whethersuch a dog is a Seeing Eye, then call it aguide dog or a dog guide or any doggonething that describes it except “seeing-eyedog.”

SEEN and SAW. See Tense, 5A.

“SELDOM EVER.” See (-)EVER, 6.

SELECTION. See Verbs, 2.

SELF- prefix. Hundreds of hyphen-ated words are formed with self-, a com-bining form that has to do with the self, oneself, or itself. A few legitimateexamples are the nouns self-control, self-defense, self-government, self-preservation, and self-service; and theadjectives self-confident, self-conscious,self-employed, self-reliant, and self-taught. When pertaining to inanimateobjects, as in self-cleaning, self-closing,self-locking, self-loading, and self-sealing, the combining form means auto-matic or by itself.

Self- is sometimes superfluous,notwithstanding dictionary definitions.It contributes nothing to the meaningwhen a man is described as “a self-confessed war criminal.” Omit “self-”and see if anything is lost in self-collected, self-conceited, self-poise,and many other combinations, some ofthem absurd: “His clan elders [in Soma-lia] . . . selected the same 33-year-oldson . . . to become the new president ofMr. Aidid’s self-proclaimed republic.” Ifit was proclaimed by Mr. Aidid, it wasnot “self-proclaimed,” i.e., proclaimedby itself.

-SELF, -SELVES endings. See Pro-nouns, 3, 4, 5.

SEMI- and BI- prefixes. See BI- andSEMI- prefixes.

Semicolon. See Punctuation, 11.

-S ending. See Plurals and singulars,2A, K; Punctuation, 1G.

SENILE, SENILITY. A history booksays of Samuel Adams, among the sign-ers of the Declaration of Independence,

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“He was fifty-four, an advanced age inthis group, near senility.” Whether thewriting is cutely archaic or benightedlyout of date is hard to say, but the use of“senility” calls for discussion.

Senior and seniority stem from theLatin senex, old. So do senile and senil-ity, and in past centuries they merelymeant aged and old age; moreover, theycould be used approvingly: Writers re-ferred to “senile Maturity of Judge-ment” (1661) and “vigorous senility”(1822).

In the mid-nineteenth century, dis-eases of lung, heart, and head began be-ing prefixed with senile: for instance,senile dementia. Eventually senile (adjec-tive) and senility (noun) took on a pejo-rative cast, pertaining to the infirmitiesthought to inevitably accompany oldage, particularly mental incompetence.

Today it is known that different indi-viduals age differently, that senility in thesense of mental deterioration is not aninevitable concomitant of aging, thatsome so-called senile behaviors are re-versible, and that some younger peoplesuffer symptoms associated with agingthat some extremely aged individuals donot. George Bernard Shaw and P. G.Wodehouse were writing plays and nov-els respectively in their nineties. The co-median George Burns lived to 100 andwas entertaining the country nearly tothe end.

Sentence fragment. 1. In writing. 2.Verbless newscasts.

1. In writingIsolated phrases can be effective at

times, particularly in belles-lettres anddrama. This is from Romeo and Juliet:

O lamentable day! . . . O wofultime! . . . Accursed, unhappy,wretched, hateful day! . . . O woe! Owoful, woful, woful day!

Turning those phrases into complete sen-tences (e.g., “It is a lamentable day”)would weaken, not strengthen, them.But most of Shakespeare’s writings ad-here to the norms of English sentencestructure; and that is usually the bestcourse for a writer, particularly in infor-mative prose.

In general, nonfiction writers shouldstrive to be clear, not to be literary. Theinformation must flow smoothly fromauthor to reader. An aborted sentencecuts off the flow.

Sometimes newspapers and more of-ten newscasters use pieces of sentences,either through slovenliness or intention-ally for some kind of effect. The effectusually is to hinder, not help, the readeror listener. This is from a daily:

About a half-hour had passedwhen police finally noticed that thepaddy wagon was empty. Except for afifth guy who just sat there staring atthe hole.

First we read that the wagon wasempty—period. Then comes a sentencefragment telling us, in effect, that theprevious message was untrue. The twopieces sorely need unification: “. . . thepaddy wagon was empty, except for. . . . ”

Normally a complete sentence has a subject (the doer of the action) and apredicate (what the subject does). But asubject and predicate may not be enoughto make sense. A pair of authors wrotein an instruction manual for a computerprogram:

Whereas the Exactly as typed optionwill save the word exactly as you in-put it. Selecting Remove takes the dis-played word out of the dictionary.

Again two pieces cry for union. Theopening fragment makes no sense alone;the conjunction “whereas” indicatesthat a more or less contrasting passage

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will follow later in the sentence. Changethe first period to a comma and continuewith “selecting. . . . ”

A sentence fragment is also known asa phrase (particularly when it lacks asubject or a predicate), an incompletesentence, and a cut-short sentence. It isroughly the opposite of a run-on sen-tence. Whereas the writer of the run-ondoes not know when to stop, it seemsthat the writer of the fragment does notknow enough to go. (See Run-on sen-tence.)

2. Verbless newscastsEach of these four excerpts from radio

newscasts has the same fault: “On WallStreet the Dow Jones up. . . . ” / “An un-manned rocket set to lift off at the CapeCanaveral Air Force station thisevening.” / “A Fairfield police officerclinging to life after five hours ofsurgery.” / “A hostage situation continu-ing in the San Bernardino area.”

Each lacks a verb, at least an auxil-iary. (See Verbs.) The thoughts as broad-cast are incomplete; listeners may bethrown off track, prepared for suchcompleted sentences as these: “An un-manned rocket set to lift off at the CapeCanaveral Air Force station this eveninghas burned up”; or “A Fairfield policeofficer clinging to life after five hours ofsurgery has lost his fight.” Numerousadditional examples of sloppy, verblessnewscasting could be cited.

A simple is would rescue each of thefour samples from fragmentation:“. . . The Dow Jones is up. . . . ” / “Anunmanned rocket is set. . . . ” / “A Fair-field police officer is clinging. . . . ” / “Ahostage situation is continuing. . . . ”

Other verbs could strengthen thosesentences: “the Dow Jones rose . . .”; the“rocket lifts off . . .”; the “officer clingsto life . . .”; the “hostage situation con-tinues. . . . ”

A newscaster announced on a radionetwork: “Jeffrey Dahmer, convicted of

murder three years ago, murdered him-self in a Wisconsin prison.” The an-nouncement was momentarily puzzling,raising the question of how someonecould murder himself. The newscaster(or writer) had left out was or has beenbefore “murdered”; it took over as anactive verb, creating an absurdity.

See also Punctuation, 2C (colons andverbless writing).

SENTIMENT and SENTIMEN-TALITY. See Confusing pairs.

Sequence of events. See Tense, 5B.

Series errors. 1. AND shortage. 2.Confusion and distortion. 3. Inconsis-tency, unrelated to conjunctions. 4. La-beling. 5. Multiple paragraphs. 6. ORshortage. 7. Punctuation. 8. Repeatedconjunctions. 9. Superfluous word.

1. AND shortage

A. Illogical shiftWhat is out of place in this series? A,

B, C, 4. Finding such a question on anintelligence test, most writers and editorswould have no problem with it. Yet weconstantly read or hear series just as il-logical as that one. Take this sentence,from a syndicated column:

She studied English, Yiddish, He-brew, and married a man who hadmoney.

That is typical. The writer enumerates aseries of nouns (such as languages thatsomeone studied) and then—withoutproperly concluding the series—switchesabruptly to a verb (an action of hers).Sometimes a series of adjectives shifts toa verb, or a series of verbs shifts to aclause, or a series is inconsistent in someother way.

Let us define a series as an enumera-tion, a list, or a set of grammatically

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equal words or phrases. (The pluralform of the word is the same: many se-ries.) Within a sentence, a conjunction,like and, commonly appears before thefinal item in a series. When we read orlisten to an enumeration of items, andleads us to expect one more item.

Thus, the sample sentence is correctedin this way: “She studied English, Yid-dish, and Hebrew and married. . . . ”The added and ties the languages to-gether. They make up a series of nouns.More precisely, the nouns may be con-sidered a subseries; the main series con-sists of the verbs “studied” and“married,” linked together by the sec-ond “and.” (The marriage part remainsirrelevant, but at least the sentence nowis grammatical. The third comma be-comes superfluous.)

This is a warning on cigarette pack-ages:

Smoking Causes Lung Cancer, HeartDisease, Emphysema, And May

Complicate Pregnancy.

The notice enumerates three maladies(nouns) that smoking causes. Seeing“And,” we expect a fourth and last mal-ady, e.g., “Complications of Pregnancy.”Instead, the verb “May Complicate” ap-pears. It can stay if we end the series ofnouns right: “. . . Heart Disease, AndEmphysema. . . . ” (Why All The Capi-tals?)

This is from a prominent newspaper:

State court Judge Lawrence WeissFriday sentenced Mr. B—— to 10years in state prison, 18 months incounty jail and fined him more than$46,000. . . .

The “and” leads us to expect that onemore comparable item will follow:“. . . 10 years in state prison, 18 monthsin county jail, and a fine of more than$46,000. . . . ” The writer started out

enumerating punishments (nouns), thenswitched to what a judge did (verb). Tokeep the final part of the original sen-tence, the series of nouns must be dulyconcluded: “. . . 10 years in state prisonand 18 months in county jail. . . . ” (Seealso ON, 1.)

The derailment of a series ranks highamong the most common errors foundin print. The main cause of it is the fearof repetition, even the repetition of so in-offensive a word as and. The little con-junction intimidates many writers. Theyseem to think they are rationed to oneand per sentence. Just what cataclysmicevents do they think would ensue if theytransgressed that limit?

Repetition in the pursuit of clarity isno vice. The detriment from avoiding theand far outweighs any conceivable ad-vantage. A disorderly series is as discom-forting as an ill-fitting garment. What isworse: it can be confusing, as we will seein 2.

B. More shifts of nounsFour more examples of a nouns-to-

verb switch (from another prominentnewspaper) follow below. The simplestway to repair the sentences is to replaceeach comma with and.

. . . He has brought shame to himself,scandal to his industry and shatteredthe legend of a man whose financialskills seemed invincible.

Mr. Itsuki . . . has sold 20 millionsingles, 4 million LP’s and has a15,000-member fan club. . . .

. . . One must do 20 pull-ups with thefeet never touching the ground, 80 sit-ups in two minutes with the feet helddown and run three miles in 18 min-utes.

Below we have a shift from one cate-gory of nouns to another. “And” already

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appears twice. The thought of a thirdmay be too much for an and-fearingwriter.

. . . The report was based on informa-tion from archives in the UnitedStates, Yugoslavia and “submissionsand documents provided by Mr.Waldheim.”

The main series consists of “informationfrom archives . . . and ‘submissions anddocuments. . . . ’ ” Neither “and” hasanything to do with the and needed inthe subseries ensuing from “archives in.”The subseries is “the United States andYugoslavia.”

Amid the 1,550 largely impeccablepages of a general dictionary, under pastparticiple, we find the sentence below, inwhich a series of nouns shifts to a prepo-sitional phrase. The meaning is clear, butthe lapse stands out in a dictionary thatnormally is strong in matters of grammar.

It is used as a verbal adjective inphrases such as finished work, bakedbeans, and with auxiliaries to formthe passive voice or perfect and plu-perfect tenses in constructions such asThe work was finished and She hadbaked the beans.

Replace the first comma with and. Thesecond comma may then be deleted.

C. Shift of adjectives to verb

He’s capable, honest, intelligent, dulland tries too hard.

That press example and the four belowdisplay the same, incorrect form. Thereis a series of two verbs: an auxiliary verb(“is” or “was”) and an active verb (e.g.,“tries”). They are connected by “and.”The first verb goes with a subseries ofadjectives (“capable” etc.), whichabruptly shifts to the second verb.

To correctly complete the enumera-tion of things that the subject is or was,insert and before “dull” in the exampleabove; in the four below, replace eachcomma with and. The and needed toconnect the adjectives has nothing to dowith the existing “and” that connectsthe verbs.

He was jobless, strapped for cash andowed $12,000 to friends and rela-tives.

. . . Ameche is charming, gracious andstill sports the pencil-thin moustache.. . .

. . . It was modern, very well con-structed and enjoyed a panoramic Bayview. . . .

The weapon is six inches long, bat-tery-powered and can deliver a chargeof up to 40,000 volts.

D. Skewed verb seriesOne phrase is out of place in this sen-

tence (from a New York newspaper):

The House provisions would re-strict American nuclear tests,weapons production, ban anti-satellite tests in space and curb moneyfor the President’s ‘Star Wars’ researchprogram. . . .

The three verbs, “restrict . . . ban . . .curb,” all pertaining to “would,” are in-consistent with the noun “weapons pro-duction.” The noun hangs theresenselessly, although it was meant to per-tain to “restrict.” Either insert a verb—e.g., “hold back weapons production”—or insert an and to complete the sub-series “nuclear tests and weapons pro-duction.” In addition, “American” isillogically applied to only one item; any-way it is unnecessary in a story aboutbills in the American Congress. (The

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quotation marks around “Star Wars”should be double. Single marks would beright in a British publication. See Punctu-ation, 10.)

In each of the examples below (fromthe same newspaper and two books), anenumeration of verbs abruptly shifts toan independent clause (that is, a part of asentence that could be a sentence itself).Place and in front of “pays” and “bank”and the first “put.”

The job of mayor carries little inthe way of patronage, pays only$5,000 a year and the incumbent . . .is always under political pressure.

To stay alive, you have to be able tohold out against equilibrium, main-tain imbalance, bank against entropy,and you can only transact this busi-ness with membranes in our kind ofworld.

He [Johnson] read these [books], un-derlined words, put initials in themargins as cues, and his copyists putthe words and the sentences in whichthey occurred on slips of papers.

Again, the single “and” is not enough.Its only function is to connect the inde-pendent clause (beginning “the incum-bent is” or “you can only transact” or“and his copyists put”) to the rest of thesentence. Another and is still needed tocomplete the series of things that “thejob of mayor” does or that “you have tobe able to” do or that Johnson did.

The next sentence begins enumeratingverbs and suddenly shifts to nouns:

. . . The metal can damage the centralnervous system, cause hearing loss,lowered intelligence, and irritabil-ity. . . .

The main series comprises “damage . . .and cause. . . . ”

The final example in this section fails

to separate passive verbs from an activeverb.

He will make “Biko” . . . about thecontroversial black leader (StevenBiko) who was arrested, imprisonedand subsequently died in jail.

“Was” applies only to “arrested and im-prisoned.” The and needed to join thatsubseries of two passive verbs has noth-ing to do with the “and” linking it to theactive verb, “died.”

Verbs, 5, deals with a shortage of ob-jects, which may be accompanied by ashortage of conjunctions, in a verb se-ries.

2. Confusion and distortion

It [epinephrine] is employed therapeu-tically as a vasoconstrictor, cardiacstimulant, and to relax bronchioles.

If a lay reader of that excerpt from amedical dictionary concludes that twopurposes for the drug have been enumer-ated, it is understandable. The writershould have replaced the first commawith and, omitting the second comma.Using a comma instead of a needed con-junction can make it appear that the sec-ond item is part of or explaining the firstwhen it is really separate from the first.

In the next quotation, the lack of anand in the right place distorts the mean-ing. The phrases in question are allnouns.

Without mentioning Democratic pres-idential nominee Michael Dukakis byname, Bush attacked his opponent’slack of foreign policy experience, op-position to a missile defense programand U.S. aid for anti-communist in-surgencies, such as the NicaraguanContras.

By logic and grammar, the sentenceseems to be saying that Bush attacked

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Dukakis’s aid for insurgencies. One whohad not been following the issues couldhave so concluded with good reason. Af-ter all, a conjunction heralds the end of aseries, and here is an and just before thelast of three grammatically equal items,all apparently coming under “his oppo-nent’s.” Actually, there are only twomain items: (1) “Lack of foreign policyexperience” and (2) “opposition to amissile defense program and U.S. aid. . . . ”Place and between those two main itemsto rescue the sentence. For extra clarity,you could elaborate: e.g., “andDukakis’s opposition both to a missiledefense program and to U.S. aid. . . . ”

The next example is inconsistent inmore than one way. In attempting toavoid repetition at all costs, the writerbecame mired in confusion.

Between 1983 and 1985, the townfined Ocean Spray $7,800, $6,600 in1986 and will receive a a bill for$10,000 for 1987.

A correct sentence could say: “The townfined Ocean Spray $7,800 between 1983and 1985 and $6,600 in 1986 and willgive the company a bill of $10,000 for1987.” Presumably that is the meaning.The context provides no reason for thetown’s giving the company money. Fur-thermore, starting the sentence with thephrase “Between 1983 and 1985” leadsone to expect that it will carry over toother parts of the sentence. “The town,”the sentence’s subject, is what ought tocarry over to other parts, specifically to aseries of two verbs: one telling what thetown did—“fined”—and the other tellingwhat it “will” do. Under “fined” comes asubseries: “7,800 . . . and $6,600.”

3. Inconsistency, unrelated to conjunc-tions

In the example below from a quar-terly journal, the trouble does not lie in aconjunction. An enumeration of nouns ismarred by the introduction of an adjec-tive.

Terminology may vary slightly, butthe news dimensions/attributes aregenerally agreed to be timeliness,proximity, prominence, impact, con-flict, magnitude, oddity and visual.

Following seven nouns, from timelinessto oddity, the adjective “visual” is out ofplace. Instead, a noun, such as color orpictorialness (or whatever the writer hadin mind) would have been appropriate.

See also 5.

4. LabelingIt should be unnecessary to point out

that when a series is numbered (1, 2, 3,etc.) or lettered (A, B, C, etc.), the samesystem must be followed throughout.Yet here is what a TV network newsman said on a radio talk show; he wasstating his objections to Republican ef-forts in Congress to balance the federalbudget:

A, they’re moving too fast; and sec-ond, they’re meddling in social issues.

5. Multiple paragraphsSometimes the items in a series are

listed in separate paragraphs. When theyare, no conjunction is needed. A markprecedes each paragraph, unless a num-ber or letter precedes it; the mark usuallyis a bullet, a black circle or square. Theexample below, from an article, is defec-tive.

The film features more than 12minutes of computer effects fromILM . . . including:

• A stampede of three-dimensionalelephants, rhinos and zebras. . . .

• A playful band of monkeys messingup the kitchen of a . . . mansion. . . .

• The mansion is also invaded by asnarling lion and a thundering herdof rhinos.

The three bullets indicate three items inthe series. As in any series, all of its itemsmust be grammatically alike. The writer

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has set out to list various computer ef-fects included in a film; the word “in-cluding” needs to fit each item. It does fitthe first two items, which are nounphrases, but not the third item, which isa complete sentence. “Including” wouldfit the third too if it said, for instance:“An invasion by a snarling lion and athundering herd of rhinos.” To make thesecond item more compatible, begin itwith a noun representing the action,comparable to “A stampede,” for in-stance: “A messing of the kitchen ofa . . . mansion by a playful band of mon-keys.”

6. OR shortageWhat applies to the conjunction and

in earlier discussions can apply to theconjunction or. This is from a bookabout the book business:

. . . Not all authors are promotable,well spoken, or have books that lendthemselves to promotion.

After “promotable” insert or. (And omitthe commas.) The “or” that joins theverbs, “are . . .” and “have . . . ,” hasnothing to do with the or needed to jointhe adjectives, “promotable” and “wellspoken.”

The following sentence is more com-plicated. It is from a government circularexplaining that names, titles, and shortphrases may not be copyrighted.

This is true even if the name, title,phrase, or expression is novel, distinc-tive, or lends itself to a play on words.

The sentence has three series. The first,consisting of four nouns, is perfectlyproper. There is also a series of verbs,consisting of the second “is . . .” and“lends. . . . ” Under the second “is,” asubseries of two adjectives needs to bejoined by a conjunction: “novel or dis-tinctive.”

7. PunctuationIn a series of two, the items are not or-

dinarily separated by a comma. In alonger series, you will find the last twoitems sometimes separated by a comma,sometimes not. It depends on what youare reading. The Chicago Manual ofStyle, used by book editors, favors thecomma and so does this book. The styleof nearly all newspapers is to leave outthe comma, on the grounds that a con-junction takes its place. The book stylegoes “blood, toil, tears, and sweat.” Thenewspaper style goes “blood, toil, tearsand sweat.”

The argument for omitting the commais disputable, for both theoretical andpractical reasons. A comma and a con-junction have different functions. Acomma separates items; a conjunctionjoins them. If it is important to separateblood and toil and tears from one another,it should be just as important to separatetears and sweat from each other. Thecomma does so. The conjunction doesnot; it links all the four items into a series.

A related practice of many newspa-pers is odder yet: After using one ormore semicolons to separate some itemsin a series, a writer turns to a comma toseparate the last two items. Just as acomma does not have the function of aconjunction, it does not have the func-tion of a semicolon.

Both practices can lead to confusion.Consistent punctuation is indispensablein a complicated series. It enables readersto mentally separate the different cate-gories and place everything in the rightcategory.

An article deals with “spies in theCIA, the NSA, the Navy’s antisubmarinewarfare program and Navy communica-tions and Middle East intelligence opera-tions.” After “NSA” the boundaries getmurky. To clarify them, follow “pro-gram” and “communications” withcommas and delete the first “and” (as-suming that five items are listed).

See also Punctuation, 3, 11.

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8. Repeated conjunctionsFor emphasis or extra clarity, a con-

junction may follow each item of a se-ries. Excerpts from the Magna Carta(with emphasis added) will illustrate.

No freeman shall be taken, or im-prisoned, or disseized, or outlawed, orexiled, or in any way harmed . . . saveby the lawful judgment of his peers orby the law of the land. . . .

. . . For the sake of God, and forthe bettering of our realm, and for themore ready healing of the discordwhich has arisen between us and ourbarons, we have made all these afore-said concessions. . . .

9. Superfluous wordThe problem with the sentence below,

from a computer book, is not that itneeds an extra conjunction but that itcontains an extra article.

Given the indicators in the status bar,you can tell the document number,page number, line number, and the po-sition of the cursor.

The “the” just before “document num-ber” covers all the four items enumer-ated. Omit the “the” just before“position of the cursor.”

An unneeded pronoun, the second“she,” appears in the next sentence, by anews agency. The first she is the subjectfor all the verbs.

She stood alone in backing the1986 U.S. bombing raid on Libya; fol-lowed Washington out of UNESCO in1985; was the first to deploy U.S.cruise missiles in Europe in 1983; andlast year, when the superpowersagreed to remove the missiles, she putaside her reservations and gave thedeal a ringing endorsement.

See also IN A WORD; Numbers, 10B(end); Prepositions, 8. They contain ex-

amples of verbs and a preposition thatare superfluous in series.

SERVE and SERVICE. See Confus-ing pairs.

SET and SIT. The sun, cement, andsetters set. People, courts, and most ob-jects sit.

“Set” in place of sit is dialectal andnonstandard—with some exceptions:clothing and setting hens set or sit. Thereis no exception in the sentence below,from an article:

Are your mirrors secured to thewall, or are they setting on a bureauleaning against the wall ready to comedown in a shower of glass?

Change “setting” to sitting. (And insertcommas after “bureau” and “wall” tomake it clear that the bureau is not lean-ing against the wall and the wall is notready to come down.)

SET UP and SETUP. Set up is a verb(transitive) meaning to establish, begin,create, assemble, or place (something orsomeone) in a high or upright position.“He set up the business ten years ago.” /“Can you set up the tent?” Informally itmeans to make (someone) appear guilty.“The police set him up.”

Setup is a noun designating a plan, ar-rangement, or organization or the wayin which something is set up. “The dia-gram describes the setup of our agency.”Informally it denotes a supposed contestin which the outcome is known in ad-vance. “This fight is a setup.”

A note printed on software envelopessays, “You may setup your software onyour new computer if you delete it fromyour old computer.” Change “setup” toset up.

SEWAGE and SEWERAGE. SeeConfusing pairs.

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SEX and GENDER. See GENDERand SEX.

SEXY. Sexy is a colloquial adjectivethat means arousing sexual desire or in-tended to arouse it. So when a networknews program announced that theDemocrats had found “an issue moresexy than deficits,” many viewers musthave been disappointed to learn that theissue was ethics and corruption. If thestory had any sexual angle, it was notmade clear.

The word has commercial value. Adspromoted “The Sexy European,” not ahuman being but an automobile. An-other car drew praise on the cover of anautomotive magazine for being“Smooth, Strong, Silky, Sexy.” The whysand hows of the supposed auto eroticismwere not explained, nor was it specifiedwhether the machines were male or fe-male.

Shakespeare. See AS and LIKE, 1;BORE, BORNE, and BORN; Clichés;DISCOMFIT and DISCOMFORT;HONORABLE, HONORARY, HON-ORED, 3; KIND OF, 1, 3; LITERALLY;Possessive problems, 1; Prepositions, 3;Pronouns, 2A; Punctuation, 5A, 6; Sen-tence fragment, 1; SHAMBLES; THAT,4; THIS, 1; VITAL; WEIRD; WHERE-FORE and WHEREOF; WHO andWHOM, 2; WILLY-NILLY.

SHALL. See Tense, 4.

SHAMBLES. At one time a shamblewas a table for the sale of meat. The OldEnglish scamel had originated in theLatin scamellum, small bench.

The word took on the meaning of aslaughterhouse. Usually s would beadded at the end, but the word might beconstrued as either singular or plural.

By extension, shambles became ascene of carnage or extensive bloodshed.In Shakespeare’s King Henry VI, Part III,

the king says: “Far be the thought of thisfrom Henry’s heart, / To make a sham-bles of the parliament-house!” It wasprobably a fresh metaphor in Eliza-bethan times.

The meaning of a literal slaughter-house is obsolete. If you wish to useshambles in its purest extant form, youcan still use it to describe a scene ofwidespread bloodshed. For instance,“Tribal enmity has made Rwanda ashambles.” Whether you will be under-stood is uncertain, for casual use has wa-tered down the word’s common functionto the point of triviality. The element ofbloodshed is rarely present anymore.Sometimes the word is applied to exten-sive destruction. More often it is used todescribe mere disarray or confusion, inthe manner of the following examples.

[From a news agency:] The apartmentwas a shambles, with drawers open,clothes strewn around, “all the flat-ware on the floor, all the silverwareout. . . .”

[A music review:] The second move-ment in “Jupiter” is outlandishly fast,while the finale is reduced to a manicshambles as the players audibly strug-gle to get in all the notes.

[A form letter:] . . . The EnforcementDivision—perhaps EPA’s most impor-tant arm—is a shambles.

[A headline:] His life a shambles, DeLorean faces a maze of legal troubles

There is no bloodshed, no destruction.Applied to those scenes, even ruin wouldbe an extravagance. They might displaychaos, confusion, disarray, or disorder,but is there “a shambles” anywhere?

To Sir Ernest Gowers, using “sham-bles” to describe a “mere muddle anddisorder that is wholly bloodless is aSLIPSHOD EXTENSION emasculating

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the word.” More grammatical authori-ties condone the looser uses than con-demn them. But you may choose.

SHE and HER. See Pronouns, 10.

SHEAR. 1. SHEAR and SHEER. 2.SHEAR OFF.

1. SHEAR and SHEERIn reporting that a bank “has sheered

its permanent employee roster by achunky 11,000,” a weekly paper showedthat it was just as capable of mixing upwords as a daily was. The verb thatshould have appeared was sheared.

To shear is to cut (something) withshears or as if with shears, to cut from,or to remove by cutting. To sheer is toswerve, to deviate, to turn away from acourse (“The ship sheered off its courseto rescue the survivors”), or to cause toswerve or deviate.

The two verbs (each transitive and in-transitive) are pronounced the same; andsheer may have begun as a form of shear,which goes back to Old English. Nowa-days, however, you do not sheer andshear alike.

See also Homophones.

2. SHEAR OFFIt is an aging cliché of the news busi-

ness. A reporter is apt to choose “shearoff” before cut off, detach, sever, tear off,or fall off. And it is seldom a sheep thatis sheared or shorn.

A television reporter said, twice, thatbranches were “sheared off” in aLouisiana hurricane. Another reportedthat an aviation mishap in New Yorkhad “sheared off one of the aircraft’s en-gines.”

Using the verb in an odd, intransitiveway, an article dealt with the inability ofan airliner’s pilots to know—until theplane landed, safely, in Florida—thatone of the three engines “had sheared offand plummeted 35,000 feet.” Evidence

indicated that frozen water from a leakylavatory might be the reason that the en-gine had fallen off or severed. But “shearoff” can perhaps be misleading in a storyabout an air accident, suggesting windshear, a sudden change in wind, as thecause.

SHIMMER and SHIMMY. Toshimmer is to shine with a quivering orflickering light. It evolved from the OldEnglish scimrian (spelling varied), whichprobably originated in Greek.

To shimmy is to wobble or shake ab-normally or to do the shimmy, a dancepopular in the 1920s. Also called theshimmy shake, the dance featured rapidshaking. Shimmy is a corruption ofchemise, a woman’s undergarment.

A travel writer, telling about a volcano, wrote: “Heat rays wavered,making the distant trees shimmy incan-descently.” The wavering heat rays andthe adverb “incandescently” imply thatshe had seen the trees shimmer, not wob-ble or dance.

SHOULD HAVE and“SHOULDA.” See HAVE, HAS,HAD, 2.

Sibilant endings. See Plurals and sin-gulars, 2A, K; Punctuation, 1G.

SIGHT confused with SITE. SeeHomophones.

SILICON and SILICONE. A scenein a situation comedy portrayed a steambath and the thoughts of a female bather.Spying another who seemed to possessunnaturally gigantean breasts, the for-mer thought, “Look who’s here: SiliconValley.” The joke was on those who puton the program. Bodily implants havebeen made of silicone, not of silicon.

A talk show host made the oppositeerror when referring, seriously, to “Sili-cone Valley.” It is Silicon Valley, which is

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not a real geographic name but a nick-name given to a region at the southeast-ern end of San Francisco Bay, California,where many electronic and computercompanies burgeoned in the 1970s and1980s.

Silicon is the basic material in semi-conductor devices used in computer cir-cuits and various electronic products.Pronounced SILL-lick-con and symbol-ized by Si, it is an element: that is, a basicsubstance, not dividable into any othersubstance by normal means. It is the sec-ond most plentiful element on earth, al-though not found in pure form. The onlyelement more plentiful is oxygen, whichis combined with silicon as silica (SiO2)in sand, rocks, and quartz.

A silicone, pronounced SILL-lick-cone, is a compound: that is, a substancecomposed of elements that are chemi-cally combined and so lack individualidentities. Silicones make up a largegroup of synthetic, polymeric com-pounds of silicon, oxygen, and hydro-gen. (A polymer is a huge compoundcharacterized by numerous duplicates ofan ordinary compound, linked together.)They are used to manufacture adhesives,electrical insulators, liquids for hydraulicsystems, lubricants, paints and var-nishes, prostheses, and synthetic rubber.Forms of silicone that can be injectedinto the body have been used for breastaugmentation.

SIMPLE and SIMPLISTIC. SeeConfusing pairs.

SIMPLE and SIMPLY. See Adjec-tives and adverbs.

Singulars and plurals. See Pluralsand singulars.

SIRE. Promoting a forthcoming pro-gram about Queen Elizabeth II, awoman announced on television, “Shesired children who have shaken thecrown of England to its very core.”

Put aside any doubts about themetaphor and the image it conjures ofsomeone shaking the jewels and gildingoff a royal crown. The main problem liesin the choice of the word “sired.” Any ofthese would have been a better choice:gave birth to, bore, bred, brought forth,produced.

To sire is to father. It usually applies tofour-legged animals. A stallion or bull isa sire; the opposite parent is a dam; andapplying any such word to the queen ofEngland is a dam shame.

See also BEGET.

SIT and SET. See SET and SIT.

SITE confused with SIGHT. SeeHomophones.

SITUATION. The noun situation isnot always necessary when used in thesense of a state of affairs or a set of cir-cumstances. For example, a booklet de-scribes six crises:

In this they were similar to numerousinstances over the years in which Pres-idents have sent U.S. armed forcesoverseas without congressional au-thorization, in crisis situations.

The sentence could end in crises. It doesnot need “situations.” Similarly, the useof “situation” (twice) seems superfluousin the excerpt below from a study in aquarterly journal.

In this study of college student mo-tivation, the author investigated theinfluence of a mastery goal situationversus a competitive goal situation.

See if the first four words are neededin this sentence from a book for prospec-tive teachers:

In a play situation, a student is manip-ulating various toys and objects in aroom.

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Consider “A student is playing with var-ious toys. . . . ”

Situation is more useful in this con-text: “What is the political situation inIran these days?” The word can implytrouble or crisis: “The Cuban situationwas grave.” It can mean location: “Thetown’s situation amid the peaks permit-ted spectacular views.” It can also meanjob: “I seek a promising situation in thecomputer industry.”

SKIM. See SCAN.

SLANDER. See LIBEL and SLAN-DER.

SLASH. See Punctuation, 12.

SLAY, SLAIN, SLEW. A book al-ludes to the shooting of a duck for din-ner: “The shell was fetched, the duckslayed.” To slay, meaning to kill, usuallyviolently, is an acceptable verb in thecontext. No “slayed” exists, however.The past participle of slay is slain:“. . . the duck [was] slain.”

The past tense of slay is slew: “LittleDavid was a shepherd boy / Who slewGoliath and jumped for joy.” The verbcomes from Old English.

From Irish Gaelic we get slew, alsoslue, a colloquial noun meaning a largenumber or amount. Slue, also slew,means (verb, transitive and intransitive)to rotate and (noun) rotating. Its originis uncertain; it has a nautical history.Both spellings are pronounced SLOO.

SLEW, SLUE. See SLAY, SLAIN,SLEW.

SMELL. See AROMA.

SNEAKED and “SNUCK.” FromTV accounts of an attempted coup inMoscow and rescues from the Polishghetto: “Gorbachev and his son-in-lawsnuck into a closed room . . .” / “a friendsnuck him in to see the children.”

Sneaked should have been used in eachinstance. It is the proper past tense andpast participle of sneak (verb, transitiveand intransitive), meaning to move quietly and stealthily so as not to be ob-served, or to act in a secret or under-handed manner.

One dictionary describes “snuck” aschiefly dialectal, another as nonstan-dard. If chosen at all, it should be re-stricted to a frivolous context.

SOCIALIST, SOCIALISM. Thepresident was quoted in support of eco-nomic reforms in noncapitalist coun-tries:

“Even the Socialist world is beginningto see that Socialism isn’t just anothereconomic system—it’s the death ofeconomics. . . . ”

Mr. Bush went further in his speechtoday, saying that reform efforts in theSoviet Union, China and other Social-ist countries were part of “an excitingtrend. . . . ”

A capital S does not belong in “Social-ist” or “Socialism” unless it is part of thename of a party or movement (e.g., theSocialist Party) or is in a title. The capi-talized term needs to be distinguishedfrom general references to an economyor a political idea: socialist or socialism,with a lower-case s (a socialist economy).

The Soviet Union was run by Com-munists, with a capital C, who consid-ered their economic system to besocialism or a socialist system. It is a sys-tem in which the means of productionand distribution are owned and con-trolled by the state. In their theory (andit was theory in the most hypotheticalsense) socialism would ultimately de-velop into communism (adjective com-munist), an ideal system of economicequality in which the state became un-necessary.

Under any theory, the regime could bedescribed as Communist, with a capital

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C, in the sense that it was led by Com-munists: members of the CommunistParty. The type of regime actually in ef-fect under Communists could be calledCommunism, with a capital C.

SO FAR AS. See FAR.

SOFT-BOILED. See BOIL.

SOLE and SOUL. See Homophones.

SOME. 1. Before a number. 2. SOMEPLACE and SOMEPLACE. 3. SOMETIME and SOMETIME.

1. Before a numberSome in front of a round number

means approximately or about. Thus“some 5,000 people” implies a roughcount, above or below the exact total.“Some” does not go with a number thatis or appears precise, as in this sentence:

. . . The company, in a newspaper ad-vertisement, promoted a supposed$149 fare to London from New Yorkin type size some 136 times largerthan the note, which indicated thatthe fare was “each way” of a requiredround-trip purchase.

Omit “some.” A phrase like “some 100times” would be a normal place for it.But the number 136 is or appears to beexact.

Odd is a similar term, when con-nected to a round number, except that itindicates only an excess, never a short-age. “I estimate that 500-odd peoplewere present.” Remember the hyphen,unless you are describing “odd people.”

Some and -odd should not go together(“some 40-odd executives”). Neither isnecessary if a figure is described in someother way as an approximation or an es-timate. Finally, some or -odd goes with asizable number, not with a small digit.

2. SOME PLACE and SOMEPLACESomeplace (adverb) means at, in, or to

some place. It is more informal thansomewhere, which has the same mean-ing. Some critics scorn someplace inwriting even when it is used correctly. Aneditor used it incorrectly:

Is it possible for someplace peacefuland nice and affordable . . . to be pre-served from greed and specula-tion . . . ?

Correction: “for some place that ispeaceful and nice and affordable” or“for some peaceful and nice and afford-able place.”

If someplace is acceptable at all, it isinterchangeable with somewhere, as in“Let’s go out someplace.” Somewhere isno substitute for “someplace” in thepress quotation.

The American Heritage Dictionarytermed someplace informal, and 83 per-cent of its usage panel rejected as a writ-ing sample “an unspecified targetsomeplace between Inchon and Seoul.”

3. SOME TIME and SOMETIMEDistinguishing some time, an adjec-

tive and noun, from sometime, an ad-verb, can be confusing.

• Some time usually means anindefinite period of time: “They planto spend some time in Nepal.”

• Sometime means at an indefinitepoint in time: “Come up and see mesometime.” / “He lived sometimeduring the Tang Dynasty.”

However, some time can have the sec-ond meaning when next to certainwords: “I’ll come back at some time inthe future.” / “The troupe appeared heresome time ago.”

As a test, omit some time or some-time: If the sentence makes no sense, usethe phrase. If it still makes sense, use the

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single word (or a synonym, such as atsome time or other).

As an adjective, meaning occasional,sometime or sometimes is uncommonand disparaged by a number of critics:“his sometime[s] occupation.”

Sometimes means occasionally ornow and then. “Sometimes I’m happy.”It may modify an adjective: “this some-times deadly ailment.”

SOMEBODY. See Pronouns, 2C.

SOME ONE and SOMEONE. SeeONE as pronoun, 3; Pronouns, 2C.

SOME PLACE and SOMEPLACE.See SOME, 2.

SOMETHING OF. See KIND OF, 3.

SOME TIME, SOMETIME, andSOMETIMES. See SOME, 3.

SOMEWHAT. See KIND OF, 4;IDENTICAL.

SOONER. See THAN, 2E.

SORT OF. See KIND OF; TYPE.

SOUR GRAPES. After spending $28million of his own money in an unsuc-cessful campaign for a Senate seat, a can-didate futilely tried to undo the electionon grounds of electoral fraud and irregu-larities. A newspaper editorial attackedhis claims as “an expensive case of sourgrapes.”

Something that a person would like tohave but pretends to dislike because hecannot have it is sour grapes. The termcan also apply to the disparagement ofthe prize. Inasmuch as the losing candi-date had nothing ill to say about the of-fice of senator, “sour grapes” was notrelevant. A rewrite: “the last resort of asore loser.”

The Aesop fable of the fox and the

grapes gave rise to the expression. A foxdesired some high-hanging grapes butfailed to reach them in several leaps. Hewalked away, remarking, “They aresour!” Translations from ancient Greekdisagree on whether the fox spoke in jestor in seriousness, and they disagree onwhat the moral was.

SPANISH AMERICA and LATINAMERICA. See LATIN(-)AMER-ICAN.

SPAT and SPATE. “A spat of wetweather is causing problems. . . . ” It wassaid on a TV news program.

The noun spat has several meanings: aminor quarrel, a partial shoe covering, asound like that made by rain, and an im-mature oyster. None fits the quotation.Spate is the noun that was needed. It is asudden, heavy rain; or an unusuallylarge rush or outpouring of something;or, in Britain, a flash flood.

Conceivably a couple frustrated by in-ability to play golf or tend a gardencould engage in “a spat of wet weather,”but that was not the televised story.

SPEAK, SPOKE, and SPOKEN.See Tense, 5A.

SPEAK TO, TALK TO. To “speakto” a motion, meaning to comment onit, is part of the jargon of parliamentaryprocedure.

To adapt it to general use introducesan element of ambiguity to the language.It makes a good deal of differencewhether “The president will speak aboutCongress” or “to Congress.” Besides,the little preposition to is overworkedenough as it is.

Nevertheless, an anchor man said,“House members stayed open all nightto speak to this issue,” the flag. A coun-terpart of his found a presidential debate“talking to issues the people wanted tohear about.” A flowery newspaper story

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about a tribute to a late baseball playersaid, “And Ralph Branca and Joe Blackcould speak to the vulnerable yet un-bending man who lived a career so com-pelling” (etc.). Could they really “speakto” him? He was dead.

Generally, you speak or talk to a per-son or to a group. You speak or talkabout issues or matters, sometimes of oron them: “The House members spokeabout flag burning.” / “We talked aboutthe weather.” / “Speak of the devil.” /“ ‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said,‘to talk of many things. . . . ’ ” / “Theprofessor will speak on the importanceof good English.”

SPECIE and SPECIES. See Confus-ing pairs.

Spelling. 1. Errors. 2. Irregularity andtradition. 3. Principles.

1. ErrorsVice President J. Danforth Quayle

was responsible for the most prominentmisspelling of an English word in recenthistory when he miscorrected a schoolchild’s spelling of potato by placing an“e” at the end. The plural, potatoes, hasthe e, not the singular. Similarly a tomatobecomes tomatoes in the plural.

Spelling in English is hazardous. Er-rors appear in books, periodicals, andthe best newspapers.

One newspaper in that category hap-pened to misspell expel in its main storyon the front page: “Keep the foreigneraway from your holy shrines so we will all stand as one to expell the dark-ness. . . . ” (Saddam Hussein of Iraq wasbeing quoted. Americans have often con-sidered him a villain, but making himout a bad speller as well may be goingtoo far.)

The same paper has also printed mis-spellings of such words as advisory (mis-spelling it “advisery”), interference(“interferance”), minuscule (“minis-

cule”), mobile (“mobil”), prerogative(“perogatives”—several times), and war-rant (“warrentless”).

Headlines in several other newspapershave contained these misspellings:achieve (“acheives”), catastrophic (“cat-astropic”), indecisiveness (“indecicive-ness”), minuscule (“miniscule” again),optometrist (“optomitrists”), psychiatric(“psyciatric”), scrapping (“scraping”),and sufferers (“suffers”). A banner reads“Protestors want officers fired,” using anold “-or” variant instead of the custom-ary protester(s). See WHOSE, 2, for aworse mistake.

Apologize (“apoligize”), delegate(“delagate”), ingenious (“ingenius”),and prosthesis (“prothesis”) have beenmisspelled in books dealing with the mu-sic industry, famous people, English us-age, and medicine, respectively. Acookbook misspells four words: cayenne(“cayene”), coarsely (“coarsley”), fore-word (“foreward”), and pomegranate(“pomegranite”). See also FOREWORDand FORWARD. A book instructingwould-be book publishers misspells fourother words: afraid (“affraid”), bulge(“buldge” twice), rivet (“rivit”), andsimplest (“simplist”); and it disconnectsa fifth: whatever (“what ever”). It alsoconfuses lose with “loose.”

A lexicographer misspells resistible(“resistable”) in a book dealing with theEnglish language. Some copies of twogeneral dictionaries misspell millennium(“millenium”) and vichyssoise (“vichy-soisse”).

Webster’s Third Dictionary gives sev-eral misspellings as variants, therebytending to encourage the errors. It con-dones spelling harebrained as “hair-brained,” marshal as “marshall,” nickelas “nickle,” prophecy and prophesy aseach other, restaurateur as “restauran-teur,” and therefore as “therefor.”

Writers are not always responsible forthe misspellings that appear under theirnames. Editing and typographical mis-

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spellings occur, especially the latter. Ty-pographical misspelling may reflect thepressing of wrong keys or the transposi-tion or omission of letters. Some out-landish combinations are obviouslyerrors and the easiest to notice beforepublication. (At first I typed “thekr” in-stead of their in the first sentence of thisparagraph.) Mistakes by writers or edi-tors tend to be more plausible; often themisspelling can be pronounced the sameas the correct word. Someone simplyspelled it wrong.

On many occasions, words that Ispelled correctly in my copy turned up inprint misspelled, usually by a typesetter,sometimes by an editor. For instance,framers (of the Constitution) came out“farmers” and pastime was changed to“pasttime.” See also OCULIST (etc.).

Here is an alphabetical list of otherwords that I have found to be publiclymisspelled, mostly in newspapers butalso on the television screen and in cor-porate and governmental printings. Thestyle of the examples above is repeated;first the correct spelling appears, then inparentheses the misspelling:

academy (“accademy”)accommodations (“acomodations”)acquiescent (“acquiscent”)alley (“alee”)bawdy (“baudy”)benefiting (“benefitting”)cabaret (“caberet”)commitment (“committment”)competitive (“competative”)deceit (“deceipt”)depositor(s) (“depositers”)entirety (“entirity”)ideology (“idealogy”)irreverent (“irreverant”)nonsense (“nonsence”)observer(s) (“observors”)phonetically (“phoneticly”)repetition (“repitition”)stretched (“streched”)supersede(s) (“supercedes”)

transmogrify (“transmorgrify”)vegetarian (“vegeterian”)wait (“wate”)weird (“wierd”)

In the collection for this book, themost common spelling mistakes are the substitution of letters (e.g., an “i” forthe first u in minuscule) and the omissionof letters (a c and an m in accommoda-tion). Less common mistakes are the ad-dition of letters (a “t” in pastime) andthe transposition of letters (the e and l incoarsely). Those four kinds of error arefurther illustrated respectively in the en-tries SHEAR; LEAP, LEAPED, LEAPT;MARSHAL; NICKEL.

Misunderstanding of words and useof deviant forms come up in the entriesALL RIGHT; BEGET; COMPLAIN-ANT; DETERIORATE; DUM-DUMBULLET; GRIEVOUS, GRIEVOUSLY;HAREBRAINED; IMMEMORIAL;KUDOS; MISCHIEVOUS, MISCHIEV-OUSNESS; RAGAMUFFIN; RESTAU-RATEUR.

The main problem in the pairs ofwords listed in Confusing pairs, such asadverse and averse, is not misspelling assuch but the mixing up of words, whichcan amount to misspelling.

Likeness of sound in a pair such asright and write or accept and except ac-counts for some lapses. See Homo-phones.

A few contractions are confused withpossessives and vice versa. See ITS andIT’S; WHOSE, 2 (confused with who’s);YOUR and YOU’RE. See TILL and“’TIL” for a word that is mistaken for acontraction.

A is wrongly attached to a few words.See A WHILE and AWHILE; HOLD;LOT, 2.

The tendency to unite phrases and hy-phenated terms is considered in Joiningof words. See (-)EVER, 1, for an exam-ple of the breaking up of words, a rarerphenomenon.

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See also FLAMMABLE (etc.); -IZE,2; PAY; Plurals and singulars; -Y ending.

2. Irregularity and traditionCritics of English spelling complain

about its irregularity, its many ways ofrepresenting a sound. For instance, the asound in day appears also in aim,cabaret, exposé, gauge, great, lake, mat-ing, nee, obey, veil, and weigh. The shsound in ash is also in appreciate,crescendo, machine, motion, ocean, pas-sion, schnauzer, and sure.

Approaching it from a language likeSpanish, with almost entirely regular,phonetic spelling and one basic soundper vowel, English may seem totallychaotic. But compared with written Chi-nese, which has no alphabet and thou-sands of characters to learn, writtenEnglish is tolerably phonetic. Its twenty-six letters do represent sounds, at least incombination. It has its rules for spelling,and most spellings follow regular pat-terns. Unfortunately, the rules all haveexceptions, and many of the irregularwords are frequently used. Good spellerskeenly sense how words sound and (tohandle irregularity) how they look.

Spelling in English reflects a multicul-tural history and includes patterns ofOld English, French, Greek, Latin, andother languages, mainly the Romance.To begin with, English had fewer charac-ters than sounds, requiring combina-tions of letters to represent many sounds.The written language failed to keep upwith sound changes, such as the silenc-ing of the k and e in knave. Significantepisodes included respelling by Frenchscribes after the Norman conquest;changes by early printers, many of themforeign, who often justified (evened)lines by adding or subtracting letters;and a sixteenth-century fashion of imi-tating Latin and Greek forms—even, forinstance, putting the s in i(s)land, a wordof Old English origin, in the misbeliefthat it came from the Latin insula. En-

glish in North America reflects to someextent the aboriginal, immigrant, andLatin-American traditions.

Since the nineteenth century, move-ments have arisen to reform spelling andthereby make learning easier for childrenand improve the spelling of the generalpublic. They won the support of such lu-minaries as Charles Darwin and AlfredTennyson. Andrew Carnegie financed asimplified-spelling board, which fadedaway. George Bernard Shaw’s will cre-ated a new alphabet, of forty letters,which never caught on. The Chicago Tri-bune once attempted innovations like“telegraf” and “frate” but then returnedto customary spellings. Readers mayhave thought the phonetic spellings weremistakes.

“Words should be spelled as theysound,” many people have said, un-aware of hazards. A rapid and radicalchange to a wholly phonetic systemmight quickly render obsolete centuriesof literature and considerable knowl-edge. Some books would be revised, butthe mean techniques of much modernbook manufacturing might not permitthem to endure. It could be confusing if,say, the homophones sew and sow werespelled the same as so. And if speech de-termined spelling, speakers of Englishfrom different places might have troublereading one another’s writings.

In England, a request of mine for di-rections to Bath was met with a stare un-til I thought to pronounce it BAHTH.Much earlier, an old record on which abaritone sang of a place where flyingfishes PLY and the dawn comes up likethunder out of China ’cross the BY gaveme my first lesson in Australian English.American pronunciations too vary by re-gion. Take the word court, which a NewYorker or Bostonian is apt to pronounceCAUT and a Southerner COAT whilemany to the west say CORT.

Minor reforms are feasible. Ameri-cans accepted those by the lexicographer

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Noah Webster (1758–1843), whochanged the British -our and -re endings(as in honour and centre) to -or and -er(honor and center).

3. Principles

A. The best ruleThe rules of spelling and their excep-

tions are so extensive that we can onlyhint at them here.

Many spellings have to be learned,one by one. Rules will not help in distin-guishing the words ending in -able suchas peaceable from those ending in -iblesuch as feasible. Nor will rules help insegregating -ant words (defendant) from-ent words (dependent); -or words (in-spector) from -er words (invader); orwords with -seed sounds from one an-other (precede, proceed, supersede).

When in doubt, look it up. That is thebest rule.

B. Doubling; suffixes; prefixesThe last letter of a word is often dou-

bled when a suffix is added: for example,fit becomes fitting and begin becomes be-ginner. (A suffix is a word part affixed tothe end of a basic word to alter themeaning.) At the end of a one-syllableword or a word accented on the last syl-lable, a single consonant is apt to bedoubled before a suffix starting with avowel. In the two examples above, thesuffixes added are -ing and -er. Other ex-amples are bag, baggage / deter, deter-rent / remit, remittance / ship, shipped.

The last letter of the basic word, orroot word, is not doubled if adding thesuffix shifts the accent to a previous syl-lable: con-FER, CON-fer-ence and pre-FER, PREF-er-ence (but con-FERRED,pre-FER-ring, etc.).

At the end of a word accented on asyllable besides the last, a single conso-nant is usually not doubled before a suf-fix starting with a vowel. Examples aredevelop, developing and happen, hap-

pening, but an exception is handicap,handicapped, handicapping.

A final l is retained before a suffix be-ginning with l: cruel, cruelly / formal,formally / national, nationally. Other-wise, suffixes do not usually double lendings in America (dial becomes dialed,dialing and marvel becomes marveled,marveling) but do in Britain (dialled, di-alling and marvelled, marvelling). Al-most conversely, -ll endings stay doublein America when prefixes are added(roll, enroll) but are made single inBritain (enrol). And double letters incombat(t)ing, worship(p)ing, and otherwords are more common in Britain.

In America, affixing a prefix does notusually vary the spelling of the parts,even when the last letter of the prefixand the first letter of the root word arethe same: Mis- plus state gives misstate.Over- plus run gives overrun. (A prefix isa word part affixed to the beginning of abasic word to alter the meaning.)

A word ending in c requires the addi-tion of k before an e, i, or y suffix if ahard pronunciation of c remains: mimic,mimicked / panic, panicky / traffic, traf-ficking. In music, musician and toxic,toxicity the pronunciation of c becomessoft.

C. I before E?The misspeller of achieve seems to

have forgotten the old pedagogicmnemonic, or memory aid, “I before E, /Except after C.” Unfortunately, the mis-speller of weird seems to have remem-bered it.

Scores of words use ei, including caf-feine, counterfeit, either, foreign, forfeit,height, heir, leisure, neither, plebeian,protein, seize, stein, and veil; various -ing words like being and seeing; andwords with the prefix re-, like reinstateand reiterate. Even the exception in therhyme has exceptions: Conscience, fi-nancier, omniscient, prescient, science,and species are all cie words.

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Some have been taught an extra verseto the mnemonic, “Or when soundedlike a / As in neighbor or weigh,” whichmay be more useful than the main verse.

D. Silent EThe silent e generally makes a short

vowel sound long; for example, turningcan into cane, rot into rote, and sit intosite.

The silent e is usually omitted before asuffix starting with a vowel: adore, ador-ing; debate, debatable; mate, mating;quote, quotation; write, writing. Amongthe exceptions are some words thatwould be transformed if the e were re-moved: dye, dyeing / hoe, hoeing / shoe,shoeing / singe, singeing. Many wordsthat end in -ce or -ge are exceptions toowhen the e preserves the soft sound:change, changeable / encourage, encour-agement / grace, graceful; but i suffixesare an exception to the exception and dodrop the e: changing, encouraging.

The e is usually retained before a suf-fix starting with a consonant: careless,lately, statement. But some words endingin -le do drop the e before the suffix -ly(gentle, gently and simple, simply).

E. Spelling checkersMost word-processing programs for

computers have features to help usersverify and correct the spelling of wordsin their documents. They are calledspelling checkers, spell checkers, spellers,or the like. Useful devices, they oftensave the users from mistakes in spellingor slips of the keyboard by highlightingwords considered wrong and suggestingalternatives.

They will not rescue slips in grammaror word selection as long as every wordtyped is a recognized word. They willfind nothing wrong if you type bake in-stead of brake, complement instead ofcompliment, loathe instead of loath,phrase instead of phase, or them insteadof theme (a mistake I made). And having

been devised by human beings, they arenot infallible even within their province.One popular program disapproved ofads, em, exposé, and wracked; approvedof checkouts but not checkout andcoworkers but not coworker; and sug-gested that afterword be “afterward,”temblor be “tumbler,” backdoor be“bookstore,” and obvious be “obi” (aJapanese sash or a type of sorcery).

SPINSTER. See BACHELOR andSPINSTER.

Split infinitive. See Infinitive, 4.

SPOKE and SPOKEN. See Tense,5A.

SPOKESMAN. 1. “-PERSON.” 2. “-WOMAN.”

1. “-PERSON”Those who are squeamish are well ad-

vised to avert their eyes. We are about toquote the s-word.

In the course of a day’s work, acolumnist for a metropolitan newspapertapped out the following sentences onhis computer keyboard:

A spokesperson for the Dallas Police Department acknowledged that the matter is “under investiga-tion.” . . .

A spokesperson for Cruise toldPage 2 that the idea of Spielberg di-recting “Rainman” was always pre-sented to Tom as a possibility. . . .

According to a Jovan spokesper-son, the fragrance company was put“through a hoop” over Lyne’s work.

“They cut out a shot of a lady in awet slip and toned down a showerscene,” said the spokesperson. . . .

“They cropped that to an above-the-waist shot,” said the spokesper-son.

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Although most writers do not displaysuch voracity for bad language, thatclumsy barbarism, “s——,” is pollutingthe English tongue.

A radical weekly uses it regularlyalong with a grotesque plural version:

Spokespeople for most of thegroups he attacks agree that his fac-tual research is often . . . accurate.

The correct word, of course, isspokesman, plural: spokesmen. Aspokesman, i.e., one who speaks for an-other or others, may be either male or fe-male. See -MAN-, MAN.

The three sample sentences below alluse the correct word. The first (referringto Mrs. Clinton) is from a television fo-rum on PBS. The other two are from TheNew York Times.

She’s no longer a national spokesmanfor him [President Clinton].

Kathy Pherson, a spokesman forthe C.I.A., refused in a telephone in-terview to confirm or deny the C.I.A.’sinvolvement in training or advisingthe Honduran police and army.

Justice Brennan, 82 years old, hit hishead and received stitches to close thewound, said Kathy Arberg, aspokesman for the court.

The Times and Associated Press stylemanuals instruct staff members not touse “spokesperson.”

The two passages below, from otherpapers, are embodiments of illogic:

At its Tuesday/22 general meeting, the club will host White Pantherspokesman Tom ——— and aspokesperson for the mayor.

. . . Only $400,000 worth of that ad-vertising was aired before the end of

the reporting period on Sept. 30, saidSteven M. ———, spokesman for the Committee to Conserve theCourts. . . .

But Janet ———, spokesperson forCrime Victims for Court Reform andCalifornians to Defeat Rose Bird, saidmomentum is on the side of the anti-Bird campaign.

One of each pair is a “-man” and theother is a “-person”? Nonsense. Each isa spokesman.

2. “-WOMAN”Some journalists and broadcasters

who cannot abide the gracelessness andignorance represented by that illegiti-mate word are drawn to another three-syllable word:

In Washington, the State Depart-ment’s spokeswoman, MargaretTutwiler, said Kohl was “respondingto the deepest aspirations of hispeople for German unity.”

“The Sandinistas . . . realize theirbrand of communism is bankrupt andobsolete,” said the State Departmentspokeswoman, Margaret Tutwiler.

If you consider it necessary to describethe Brontë sisters as “authoresses” and“poetesses,” you will probably want touse “spokeswoman.”

Modified in the manner of the finalexample however, it could be mislead-ing:

. . . Some outsiders have also said thatas the chief spokeswoman, she rein-forced the image of the White Houseas a preserve of the young and inexpe-rienced.

“Chief spokeswoman” could suggestthat she was the chief only of the WhiteHouse’s female spokesmen. The in-

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tended meaning probably was that sheserved as the chief spokesman for theWhite House; that is, the person incharge of speaking for the president.

The Associated Press manual con-dones “spokeswoman.” The Times man-ual says to use spokesman for both menand women.

STAFF. A recording tells callers to acity library, “All of our staff are helpingothers.” It is not wrong, though it has aBritish flavor. Staff is would be the morecustomary way in the United States.

Staff is a collective noun meaning theemployees, assistants, or officers whocarry out the work of a particular enter-prise or organization. The plural in thatsense is staffs.

A staff is also a flagpole, walkingstick, or rod; or the set of five parallellines that music is written on. In thosesenses, the plural is either staffs orstaves. A musical staff is sometimescalled a stave.

An informal term for a member of astaff is a staffer. Regarding that word,The New York Times tells its own staff,“Do not use for staff member(s) or mem-ber(s) of the staff.”

See also Collective nouns, 1; WHOand WHOM, 1.

STAND and RUN. See RUN andSTAND; Pronouns, 3.

STANDARD. See CLASSIC.

STANDARD-BEARER. See Joiningof words.

STAR and SUN. The discovery of adistant galaxy prompted a news agencyto issue this dubious statement: “Thecore apparently contains at least 30,000closely packed suns. . . . ”

No more precision characterizes a dis-cussion of galaxy clusters in a book ofpopular astronomy: “But not even our

galaxy, with its 100 billion suns, is inde-pendent and self-sufficient. . . . ”

In both instances, stars would bepreferable to “suns.” A star is a celestialbody that emits its own light. A sun is astar that is the center of a system of plan-ets, the way the Sun, the star closest tous, heads our solar system. (The Sun isoften spelled with a lower-case s: “Thesun suddenly emerged from the clouds.”In an astronomical context, a capital Smay be appropriate.)

A planet is a large celestial body thatis illuminated by reflected light from astar and revolves around it.

STATEMENT. See FACT.

STATIONARY and STATION-ERY. See Homophones.

Statistics. See Comparison, 1; FRAC-TION; LIFE EXPECTANCY and LIFESPAN; MEAN (noun); Numbers; Range,true and false, 1, 2.

STATUTE, LAW, and REGULA-TION. See REGULATION, STAT-UTE, and LAW.

STATUTE MILE. See KNOT.

STAVE(S). See STAFF.

Stealing. See CRIME, MISDE-MEANOR, and FELONY; Crimes, 3.

STEREOTYPE. See Clichés.

STICK UP, STICKUP, STICK-UP.See Crimes, 3.

STEVEDORE and LONGSHORE-MAN. The awkwardness of the sen-tence to be quoted here, from a book onlanguage, is not the main point. Oneword particularly interests us.

Clipped forms [such as ad andgym] . . . have much common use,

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from stevedores to executives, in ourspoken language and informal writtenlanguage.

The intended meaning is that thoseforms are often used by people of allclasses, including laborers and execu-tives. That is not the literal meaning. Astevedore is a type of executive. Manypeople, lexicographers among them,misconceive him to be a laborer wholoads and unloads ships. That is not theway a stevedore is likely to use the word.He sees himself as a contractor who ar-ranges the loading and unloading ofships. He does not do the actual labor-ing; he hires men to do it. The working-men call themselves longshoremen.

Note the difference between thenames of the companies, such as Steve-doring Service of America andMetropolitan California Stevedore Co.,and the names of the labor unions: theInternational Longshoremen’s Associa-tion (in the East) and the InternationalLongshoremen’s and Warehousemen’sUnion (in the West).

STINT. “Quayle says he’s healthynow despite two recent stints in the hos-pital,” a newscaster announced over aradio network. The former vice presi-dent did not become a hospital worker;he was a hospital patient. The broad-caster wrongly used “stints” when stayswould have been a better choice ofwords.

A stint (noun) is usually an allotmentof work or piece of work. For instance,“He finished his daily stint at the fac-tory.” A stint can be also a limitation, of-ten an undue limitation.

To stint can mean to limit or restrictone (verb, transitive) or to limit or re-strict oneself, to get along on a trifling al-lowance (verb, intransitive).

STOMACH. The host of a radio talkshow spoke of a woman’s “carrying thatbaby in her stomach.” And a movie re-

viewer wrote that a character resentedthat he had to “share his woman withthat baby in her stomach.”

The stomach is an organ of digestion.Unless each woman had been emulatingthe dining behavior of a mythologicalmonster, the anatomical reference ineach instance was misplaced. If neitherthe radio man nor the movie reviewerhad the stomach for womb or uterus,each could have got by with abdomen,belly, or middle. Of those three nouns,abdomen, the part of the trunk betweenthe chest and the pelvis, is the most sci-entific; middle is the vaguest. Belly is astandard word, but much of the publicfeels that it is unrefined. Tummy is babytalk for stomach.

As a synonym for the abdomen,“stomach” is suitable only for casualconversation, if that. It is best to avoidusing one organ as a synonym for an-other organ, particularly when talking toone’s physician.

An old saw has it that “the way to aman’s heart is through his stomach.” Ifyou believe it, don’t think of being a sur-geon.

STRAIGHTFORWARD. See Ad-jectives and adverbs.

STUDENT. See PUPIL and STU-DENT.

Subject. See Clauses; Complement;Nouns, 4; Pronouns, 4, 6, 10; Sentencefragment, 1; Verbs, 1A, 3.

Subjective case. See Pronouns, 10;Pronouns’ classification.

Subject(ive) complement. See Com-plement; Verbs, 1F.

Subject-verb agreement. See Verbs,3.

Subjunctive. 1. Among the moods. 2.Forms of the subjunctive. 3. Mistakes.

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1. Among the moodsOf the three moods, the subjunctive

mood is used least frequently. For gener-ations, writers on language have beendeclaring the subjunctive “moribund” /“almost disappeared” / “just aboutdead.” As long ago as 1860, a writerfound “good reason to suppose that itwill soon become obsolete altogether.”While the subjunctive has declined overthe centuries, it stubbornly refuses to ex-pire.

Most English-speakers handle thesubjunctive at some time or other. Every-one does who has scrawled “Wish youwere here” on a postcard; sung “If IWere a Rich Man” or used a variety ofother sentences containing if; uttered orunderstood such idioms as be that as itmay, come what may, heaven forbid, andperish the thought; or attended formalmeetings, which commonly make use ofexpressions like “I move that membersbe notified. . . . ”

Whereas the indicative mood dealswith facts or supposed facts and the im-perative mood directly commands a sec-ond person, the subjunctive moodessentially concerns ideas. It presents anaction or state of being as a mental con-ception, not as a fact. More specifically,it expresses contingencies, desires, ex-hortations, hypotheses, impossibilities,orders (indirectly), prospects, requests,suppositions, and wishes.

The subjunctive (from the Late Latinsubjunctivus) was so named because itwas considered suitable for subjoinedclauses; that is, subordinate clauses. Tosubjoin is literally to append.

See also Mood.

2. Forms of the subjunctiveThe subjunctive mood may be compli-

cated in some respects, but its conjuga-tion of verbs is simple: A verb does notchange with the person, whether first,second, or third, singular or plural.Verbs have three forms in the subjunc-

tive. (They resemble and therefore arenamed after tenses in the indicativemood, but the term tense would be mis-leading in the subjunctive, which lacksclear time distinctions.) We list the threeverb forms (A, B, and C) followed by anumber of common auxiliary verbs thatalso express the subjunctive mood (D).

A. The so-called present subjunctiveuses the root, or basic version, of a verb.

It appears in clauses following theverbs advise, ask, beg, demand, insist,order, recommend, request, require, sug-gest, urge, warn, and so on. Often such aclause contains the word that. “The bossordered that she work late tomorrow.” /“The committee recommended that thebill pass.” / “Is it necessary that the officebe closed?” / “We request that the audi-ence remain standing.” / “I suggest hethink twice about it.”

Clauses containing lest use that form.“We must strengthen the levee, lest theriver flood us again.”

The same form is found in many Bib-lical passages, like the following. (Sub-junctive verbs are emphasized.) “. . . I fearhim, lest he come and slay us all. . . .” /“For there is hope for a tree, if it be cutdown, that it will sprout again. . . .Though its root grow old in the earth,and its stump die in the ground, yet atthe scent of water it will bud. . . . ”

B. The so-called past subjunctive useswhat in the indicative mood would bethe past tense. But the verb be takes werefor all persons. Often would appears inthe sentence.

The past subjunctive appears inclauses that follow the verb wish. “Iwish I had a million dollars.” / “Shewishes she lived in Paris.” It is also foundin poetic sentences expressing the mean-ing of wish in other ways: “Would God Iwere the tender apple blossom.” / “O,that I were a glove upon that hand. . . . ”

It appears also in many conditionalsentences: those sentences in which oneaction depends on another. Such sen-

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tences may contain if and would. The if-clause may be contrary to fact, hypothet-ical, impossible, or unlikely: “If GeorgeWashington returned today, he would beshocked.” / “I wouldn’t do that if I wereyou.”

A conditional sentence in which the if-clause expresses a possibility may usethat pattern (although it does not haveto): “If an emergency arose tomorrow,we would be ready.” / “Would you keepit confidential if I told you a secret?” Asan option, such a sentence may be cast inthe simple future tense of the indicativemood. “If an emergency arises tomor-row, we will be ready.” / “Will you keepit confidential if I tell you a secret?”

C. The past perfect subjunctive is theonly one of the three forms to pertain totime. The time is the past. Resemblingthe past perfect tense of the indicativemood, it uses had and a past participle.

Its use implies that what is said abouta past action or condition is contrary tofact. “If he had run just a bit faster, hewould have escaped.” / “I wish thatWintergreen had won the election.” /“Had we bought the land then, wewould be rich today.”

D. Various auxiliary verbs can alsoexpress the subjunctive mood. Amongthem are could, ought, may, might,must, should, and would.

The action or condition that one ofthose auxiliary verbs pertain to may beeither contrary to fact or possible. “Icould have danced all night.” / “Sheought to have said no.” / “The dog maybe a biter.” / “It seemed for a while asthough the argument might get violent.”/ “You must have been a beautifulbaby.” / “If you should get lost, give mea call.” / “We would need to pay more.”

See also MAY and MIGHT; WAS andWERE.

3. MistakesThe Stephen Foster song “Dixie” and

the folk song “Cindy”—which say “I

wish I was in Dixie” and “I wish I wasan apple”—demonstrate a common de-viation from subjunctive form. We willnot try to revise those famous old songs.Just be aware that to say “I wish it wasbetter news” or “I wish I was in his posi-tion”—instead of “it were” and “Iwere”—may be judged at best colloquialand at worst illiterate.

Furthermore, the meaning can hingeon the choice of mood. The consequenceof choosing the wrong one can be misun-derstanding. Let us illustrate throughtwo similar sentences.

A. “She suggested that he attendmeetings regularly.” Using the subjunc-tive, the sentence means that she sug-gested (proposed) his presence at themeetings.

B. “She suggested that he attendsmeetings regularly.” Using the indicative,the sentence implies that he goes to themeetings already, a fact disclosed by hersuggestion (hint).

The following two examples comefrom a book of travel reminiscences.(They are taken out of context deliber-ately to demonstrate the grammatical er-rors in both.) Both use the past tensewhen they should use the present sub-junctive.

I suggested we flew along. . . .

But he had insisted they tried again. . . .

Each sentence seems to say that the sub-ject made a factual statement aboutsomething that had already happened:that we had flown along and that theyhad tried again. The context shows themeaning that was intended; in each casethe subject was making a proposal forfuture action: “I suggested [proposedthat] we fly along. . . . ” / “But he insisted[urged that] they try again. . . . ” (The“had” was unwarranted.)

The sentence below, from an autobi-

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ography, contains a similar error in thechoice of verb form, although the mean-ing is not compromised.

. . . I got a call from Senator SamNunn’s secretary telling me to makesure that on the next afternoon Iwatched C-Span, the cable TV chan-nel. . . .

It should be “to make sure that . . . Iwatch C-Span. . . . ” The secretary wasrecommending future action, not bring-ing up past action.

Each of the following three samplesentences, from news reports, seems tobe part subjunctive and part indicative.Such switching of moods within athought will not do.

OTS Director Ryan imposed mildrestrictions that would apply to Bushif he again becomes a director of abank or savings and loan.

President Clinton made his opposi-tion clear and the measure would facealmost certain veto if it passes the Sen-ate in its present form.

Newly elected Prime Minister So-suke Uno said today that he wasdeeply concerned that China could beisolated internationally if it does notmove to end the violence.

In the first sentence, change “becomes”to became. In the second sentence,change “passes” to passed. (As an alter-native, make each sentence wholly in-dicative: “restrictions that will apply toBush if he again becomes . . .” and “themeasure will face almost certain veto if itpasses. . . . ”) In the third sentence,change “does” to did.

The following sentence contains es-sentially the same error: disagreement inmood. The fact that part of it is a quota-tion makes no difference.

If an adult picks up their lingo, “teen-agers would consider it contaminatedand stop using it,” Chapman says.

Change “picks” to picked. (An alterna-tive is to change “would” to will but ex-clude it from the direct quotation: “If anadult picks up their lingo, teen-agers will‘consider it contaminated. . . . ’ ”) Theappended attribution, “Chapman says,”does not affect the main thought.

The error in the following example isa superfluous word.

It’s recommended that the elderly andthose having trouble should stay in-doors.

Omit “should.” Alternatively, keep“should” but omit “It’s recommendedthat.”

Using the subjunctive in place of theindicative is a relatively uncommon er-ror, one that is found in a book on wordusage.

It’s in the very nature of oral com-munication between human beingsthat much of it be tentative, inexact,finding its way.

The statement is presented as a fact. Ithas none of the elements that call for thesubjunctive. Change “be” to is, therebyrecasting the sentence in the indicativemood.

After the auxiliary verb could, may,might, must, should, or would, some-times the have is erroneously replaced by“of.” See HAVE, HAS, HAD, 2.

See also Tense, 4C.

SUBSEQUENT TO. See AFTER.

Substantive. See Nouns, 1 (end).

SUCCESSOR. See PREDECESSORand SUCCESSOR.

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SUCH. 1. Adjective, adverb; SUCH A.2. Pronoun; AS SUCH. 3. SUCH AS.

1. Adjective, adverb; SUCH AThis sentence is correct: “There is no

such thing as a ghost.” After no such, thearticle “a” or “an” is not needed.

Such is usually an adjective, as in thepreceding example. It has acquired anadverbial use too. “I never before sawsuch tall peaks” and “saw peaks so tall”are now equally idiomatic.

Some people use such adverbially insentences like this one, which to othersmay seem incomplete: “I had such agood meal at that restaurant.” It be-comes complete when we add, for in-stance, “that I intend to go there againtomorrow.”

2. Pronoun; AS SUCHThe use of such as a pronoun is re-

sisted by grammarians, though it goesback centuries. Among Biblical uses:“and of such [livestock] shall be my hire[wages]” and “Now Moses in the lawcommanded us, that such [any adulter-ess] should be stoned. . . . ”

The critics are vague in scorning“Such is life” or “They serve pizza,spaghetti, ravioli, and such.” One finds ittoo casual, another too formal. Thestrongest objection is to such in place ofordinary pronouns, particularly personalpronouns. Accordingly in “I have all-spice and often use such in cooking,”change “such” to it. In “We have a catand a dog and love such,” change“such” to them, or perhaps just add ani-mals, depending on meaning.

This is one of two uses of as such:“The situation is a hot potato and weshould treat it as such.” Some criticswould replace “as such” with one orthat. Others would accept it as id-iomatic. As such is unquestionably an id-iomatic phrase when it means in itself, asin “He craves power as such.”

3. SUCH ASThe phrase such as precedes an exam-

ple. It is superfluous to add “for exam-ple” / “for instance” / “and the like” /“and so on.” A book says, “The powerbases in the music business aren’t con-centrated in any one group (such as, forexample, the major agencies . . .).”Delete “for example” and the two com-mas.

Such as normally introduces a noun,not a preposition: “They have per-formed in leading cities of Europe, suchas in Paris and Rome.” Delete the secondin.

Another faulty use goes this way: “Ibrought only such tools that I needed forthe job.” Make it such . . . as or change“such” to the. Modern idiom rejects thepairing of such with “that” (or “which”or “who” or “where”) in that type ofconstruction. But such that is properhere: “The rigors were such that mostcontestants failed to finish.” In the firstinstance, such precedes the noun; in thesecond, such follows the noun and alinking verb.

SUFFER. That which lacks feelingcannot suffer. Only a living person orcreature can suffer. Despite that truism,we hear on the news:

A nuclear submarine has sufferedsome kind of accident in the Norwe-gian Sea.

A vessel, even when moving and called“she,” is not animate. Find a substitutefor “suffered” (such as been in or had)or restructure the sentence. (“Some kindof accident has happened to . . .” or“has befallen. . . . ”)

From the North Atlantic theater, wemove to northern California, where avictim of earth movement “showed cityengineers the damage his house has suf-fered” and a temblor struck two play-houses:

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. . . [The] Geary Theater sufferedearthquake damage when plaster fellfrom its proscenium and a lightinggrid collapsed. . . . The Golden GateTheatre suffered damage to a stair-well.

Proper wording (“. . . the damage to hishouse” and “The earthquake dam-aged . . .”) would not require us to sus-pend our disbelief in the suffering ofinanimate objects.

See also SUSTAIN.

Suffix. See Adjectives and adverbs (-ly);Gerund (-ing); -IZE ending; Participle;PEOPLE as a suffix; Plurals and singu-lars; Pronouns, 3, 4, 5 (-self, -selves);Punctuation, 4D (hyphenated forms);Spelling, 1, 3; UP, 3; -WISE ending; -Yending.

SULTRY. Oppressively hot, swelter-ing weather, days, or air may be de-scribed as sultry, particularly if humid.Sultry is applied also to figurative heat,such as feverish passion or temper. Thatadjective serves loosely in other ways,such as a euphemism for sexy. A moviereviewer so used it: “Jessica . . . looksand sounds so sultry . . . that Roger andEddie find her equally alluring.”

A restaurant reviewer turned to it forhelp in expressing her fervor for an Ital-ian appetizer: “The sultry eggplant wasespecially good with the fresh sourdoughbread dipped into the marinade.” Aflowery writer might metaphorically pic-ture some Mexican or Asian foods assultry, but the bland eggplant?

SUN. See STAR and SUN.

SUP. See DINE.

Superlative. See BETTER and BEST(etc.); Comparative and superlative de-grees; MORE and MOST; MOST withsuperlative; Numbers, 10D.

SUPPORTIVE. Supportive has beenan established adjective. It means pro-viding support or help; e.g., a supportivegroup. Now we hear the faddish phrase“supportive of.”

A mayor of New York wrote, “I havealways felt very supportive of civilrights.” Before such a circumlocution be-came a popular habit, he might havewritten simply, “I have always supportedcivil rights.”

The phrase is wishy-washy at best andgrammatically dubious. It is like “Lord,be helpful of us” instead of “Lord, helpus.” More illustrations follow.

John A—— . . . called the book “apioneering effort. I’m very supportiveof the book.”

John should have ended with “support-ive” and left out the rest.

McCarthy . . . was supportive ofthis proposal.

. . . The rest of the board of direc-tors . . . has been supportive of Mr.A——.

. . . The editor of the HindustanTimes, a paper generally supportive ofthe Government, said. . . .

Tightened versions would say, “Mc-Carthy supported this proposal” /“. . . The rest of the board of direc-tors . . . has supported Mr. A——” / “apaper generally supporting the Govern-ment.”

Possibly using “supportive of” as amodel, some writers have brought forththe abnormity below.

In Baku . . . one historian who tookpart in a meeting with Dr. Sakharovwas dismissive of the physicist andNobel Peace Prize winner.

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Weinberger’s antagonist, GeorgeShultz, was dismissive of Cap’s ap-proach.

Change “was dismissive of” to dis-missed.

SUPREMACY, SUPREMACIST.A community had prohibited a demon-stration by a racist group and a come-dian was proposing a compromise: “Anywhite supremist who wants to enter thesquare should first be able to spell theword ‘supremist.’ ” The trouble with hisjoke was that no such word existed. Heneeded the word supremacist.

A supremacist is one who believes inthe supremacy of one race or socialgroup or either of the sexes. A commonexample is that of the white supremacist,a believer in white supremacy; that is,the leading role of the so-called whiterace.

Changing one letter in supremacistgives us suprematist, an adherent ofsuprematism, an artistic movement em-phasizing abstract, geometric forms. TheRussian painter Kazimir Malevichstarted it in 1913. He was best knownfor his painting “Suprematist Composi-tion,” consisting of a white square on awhite background. Except for the coinci-dental emphasis on whiteness,supremacists have nothing to do withsuprematists.

SURE. Being sure (adjective) meanshaving no doubt that something is trueor will come about. Thus it was a con-tradiction for a national TV reporter tosay (about the possibility of lawsuits thatclaim discrimination based on looks), “Ihope we don’t have these lawsuits, butI’m sure we will.” If he was sure thatsomething would happen, how could hereasonably hope that it would not?

A woman called a radio doctor to ex-press fear about possible thyroid cancer.Recommending an examination, he re-

marked, “I’m sure it’s not gonna turnout to be anything, but you always wantto be sure.” His “sure” was not so sureas hers would be. If he was really sure ofher symptom’s benignity, there need nothave been any “but.”

Uttered by loose lips, “sure” canamount to little more than guessing.Whether it is used strictly or frivolouslymay not be apparent, so enfeebled hasthe word become from misuse. To em-phasize certainty, a more reliable adjec-tive may be certain, which implies thatone’s conviction is based on evidence orexperience. If it is based on faith, con-sider using confident.

Sure and secure both originate in theLatin securus, free from care, safe.

SURNAME. See LAST NAME andSURNAME.

SUSPECTED. See ACCUSED, AL-LEGED etc.

SUSTAIN. To sustain a loss or injuryis to endure it or experience it. An inani-mate object does not endure or experi-ence anything. Therefore “sustained”does not suit this sentence:

Hundreds of San Francisco build-ings may have sustained hidden dam-age in Tuesday’s temblor. . . . ”

Better: “. . . may have received” or“Hidden damage may have been done tohundreds. . . . ”

Some authorities shun sustain, evenfor people, in the sense of suffering a spe-cific injury. “He sustained a brokenarm” is a modern, journalistic locution.They would reserve sustain for a special,traditional meaning: to bear up under, tostand against without yielding; e.g., “Anexplorer had to sustain hardship.” / “Histroops sustained the siege for a month.”Accordingly, to “sustain” an injury iscontradictory when it is fatal.

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Sustain (verb, transitive) has othersenses: to maintain, prolong, support, oruphold as valid; e.g., “She sustains myfaith in humanity.” / “I had no desire tosustain the conversation.” / “He sustainshimself by odd jobs.” / “Objection sus-tained.”

See also SUFFER.

SWAMPED. See INUNDATE, IN-UNDATED.

SYMPATHY. See MERCY and PITY.

Synonymic silliness. 1. “Elegantvariation.” 2. How it causes confusion.

1. “Elegant variation”H. W. Fowler called it “elegant varia-

tion,” probably in sarcasm. Usuallymore silly than elegant, it is a conspicu-ous introduction of synonyms, stemmingfrom the misbelief that repetition per seis undesirable and repeating a word in asentence or paragraph (or other unit) isan evil. It is characteristic of journalistsbut not restricted to them. Six newspa-pers, a magazine, and a book suppliedthe examples in this section.

Fifth-seeded Todd Martin beat 10th-seeded Mark Philippoussis 6–3,7–5. . . . Sixth-seeded Michael Stichoverwhelmed Andrei Medvedev 6–4,6–1. . . . Defending champion JanaNovotna ousted Anke Huber 6–4,6–4.

In the absence of any clear-cut distinc-tions among the beating, the overwhelm-ing, and the ousting, we must concludethat the three tennis victories were func-tionally equal.

As concert halls became bigger, andaudiences larger, music became gradu-ally more and more difficult to under-stand at first hearing.

Similarly, “bigger” does not appear todiffer substantially from “larger” in thatexcerpt, from a magazine article.

On the East Coast, cocaine suppliesare dwindling and prices are jumping.On the West Coast, the white powderis readily available but prices haverocketed.

In a story about precipitation in the win-ter, “the white powder” may be snow. Inthe excerpt above, it is probably cocaine.The writer just could not bear to repeatthe word. Note too that on the EastCoast prices jump, while on the WestCoast they rocket.

Hernandez said all ivory revenuemust go toward the conservation ofelephants and development programsfor communities whose crops, homesand lives are threatened by the world’slargest land mammal.

The writer’s substitute for elephant(s)was “the world’s largest land mammal,”but he could have used them. (Somewriters’ favorite elephant substitute is“pachyderm,” a term that includes thehippopotamus, the rhinoceros, andother thick-skinned beasts.)

The paragraph below is the fifth in anews story about Suffolk County, NewYork.

At a news conference here, Mr.Halpin said that the bill would costthe county on eastern Long Islandbusinesses millions of dollars for addi-tional worker benefits—principallyfor eye care—and that it had alreadydiscouraged many new companiesfrom settling in Suffolk and made sev-eral existing ones consider relocating.

The writer had used the name “Suffolk”three times. He wanted to refer to Suf-folk businesses but felt that he simply

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had to find a substitute for Suffolk. So hefound it, a phrase of six words, andheedlessly stuck it into a sentence thatwould be long and complex even with-out it. “Suffolk” appears later in the sen-tence anyway. If the writer had insertedhis six-word synonym there, it might betolerable. As it is, the readers read that“the bill would cost the county on east-ern Long Island businesses,” and theysoon have to retrace their steps.

Rabies caused the death of a 13-year-old boy, the first human in San Fran-cisco to die of the rare disease innearly half a century, health officialshave reported.

The victim . . . died Dec. 15 butwas not diagnosed as having the raredisease until several days later. . . .

The writer wanted to avoid repeating“rabies” but seemed to have no qualmsabout repeating “the rare disease,”which is more conspicuous than thename of the disease and probably unnec-essary, given the frequency.

Similarly, in the passage below,“AIDS” conspicuously becomes “thedeadly disease” twice and then “the fataldisease.”

CHICAGO—Companies must ed-ucate employees about AIDS to pre-vent “groundless hysteria” when aco-worker contracts the deadly dis-ease, the U.S. surgeon general saidTuesday. . . .

Koop said company education pro-gram should tell employees how thedeadly disease is spread.

The fatal disease has no cure.

A book of popular science asks, in re-ferring to the change in weight of a ra-dioactive object, “Would not its surfacedust off a little, or corrode that much?”The (two) authors appear to have intro-duced “that much” to avoid repeating

“a little.” The phrases are almost oppo-sites.

In broadcasts, Hawaii has repeatedlybecome “paradise”; the John F. Kennedyhousehold, “Camelot”; Mars, “the redplanet”; Microsoft, “the software gi-ant”; the New York Stock Exchange,“the big board”; Elvis Presley, “theking”; and the U.S. Supreme Court, “thehigh court.”

2. How it causes confusionThe drive to avoid repetition and find

a synonym at all costs can result in morethan just ungainly expression. The dan-ger of confusing the reader or listener isfar more serious than the danger of bor-ing him.

In telling what is new, if the writervaries not only that which changes butalso that which remains constant, thereaders may have trouble grasping whatis new. Three press examples follow:

Shorter work shifts for young doctorsreplaced the customary 36-hour shiftsfor medical interns and residents.

Did hospitals replace “medical internsand residents” with “young doctors”when reducing the work shifts? Probablynot; one phrase is probably the writer’ssynonym for the other. But if the staffmembers did not change, why changewhat we call them? It was not even nec-essary to use nouns twice. A pronounwould have worked: “Shorter workshifts for medical interns and residentsreplaced their customary 36-hourshifts.”

When a topic is unfamiliar or exotic,readers (or listeners) may not realize thattwo terms are supposed to mean thesame thing. A news story about the dis-covery of an enzyme in the stomach con-tains this sentence:

People have higher blood levels of al-cohol when the substance is injected

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into the blood than they have whenthey drink the same amount of alco-hol.

It is reasonable for readers to think atfirst that “the substance” is the enzyme.But the context indicates it is alcohol.The writer was just synonymizing andnever thought to use the pronoun it.

This is about an election in Japan:

It also is the first time since the Liberal Democratic Party came intoexistence in 1955 that the ruling con-

servatives face a parliamentary elec-tion as the underdogs.

The story never explains outright thatthe Liberal Democratic Party is the “rul-ing conservatives.” American readerswho are uninitiated to Japanese politicsand unaccustomed to finding liberals de-scribed as conservatives may be excusedif they mistake them for two differentparties.

SYSTEMATIC and SYSTEMIC.See Confusing pairs.

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TABLE as verb. See CHAIR, 2.

TAKE and BRING. See BRING andTAKE.

TAKEN and TOOK. See Tense, 5A.

TAKE PLACE. See HAPPEN, OC-CUR, and TAKE PLACE.

TALK TO. See SPEAK TO, TALKTO.

Tautology. The country had heardmany tributes to the late Justice Thur-good Marshall but nothing else quitelike a statement by the moderator of atelevision forum: “His funeral this weekmarked the end of his life.”

It was a type of tautology, a statementthat is undeniable but uninformativeand usually characterized by the repeti-tion in essence of a thought. It may con-tain contradictory elements, as in asentence from a well-known book:“This uncertain change toward warmthmay go on or it may not.”

An American general exhibited tauto-logical mastery. As secretary of state, headdressed the Organization of AmericanStates and imparted this intelligenceabout the Falkland Islands: “It is quiteclear that the crisis has reached a criticalpoint.” Later, in a so-called presidentialdebate, he said, “There are finite limits

to what Europe can do,” as though dis-tinguishing them from infinite limits.

That last quotation illustrates anothermeaning of tautology: the unnecessaryrepetition of a word, phrase, or sen-tence, or its meaning; or an example ofsuch repetition. A synonym is redun-dancy (noun). That which is unnecessar-ily repetitious is redundant (adjective). Aterm with similar meaning is pleonasm,the use of more words than are neces-sary to express an intended meaning; or an example thereof. (The words arepronounced taut-TOL-uh-gee, re-DUN-dense-see, re-DUN-dent, and PLEA-uh-nazm.)

Repetition per se is not wrong; it canbe beneficial when it aids clarity. Moreconfusion results from efforts to avoidrepetition than from repetition.

Here, however, we consider unneces-sary repetition. It may be obvious: “Thisevening ABC will have a special PrimeTime special.” Usually it is somewhatmore subtle.

When a participant in a televised talkshow called a detective in a murder caseracially prejudiced, the host jumped in,informing all, “It’s an alleged allega-tion.” No one asked him, “What otherkind of allegation is there?”

Interviewed on television about a kid-naping, a policeman said, “We’ve had acanine dog in the area, trying to locatethe suspects.” The interviewer failed to

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ask him, “What other kind of dog isthere?”

An anchor woman announced in anational news program, “Washingtonhas been expecting Russia to expel anAmerican diplomat, but so far thathasn’t happened yet.” The sentence didnot need both “so far” and “yet.”

In a report on a straw poll at a con-vention in Florida, a TV man said,“Each one of those votes cost him [Sena-tor Dole] about $1,800 apiece.” Either“Each one of” or “apiece” could havebeen discarded.

This is from a newspaper: “The legaldefense group’s report said women inparticular are being singled out for ha-rassment” (in the military). They “inparticular” are being picked on if theyare being “singled out.”

Another newspaper said the “Party ofthe Democratic Revolution . . . will likelychoose . . . its two-time presidential also-ran in 1988 and 1994” to run for mayorof Mexico City. The paper could haveleft it to the readers to add one and one.

Still another paper said a man wasconvicted of making a “false misrepre-sentation in the sale of a security”—asdistinguished from a true misrepresenta-tion?

Three hosts of talk shows on a radiostation uttered these remarks: (In sup-port of car travel rather than public tran-sit to save time:) “Forty-five minutes isforty-five minutes.” (On commitmentsmade by news media:) “Off the record isoff the record.” (Of the president and hisaides:) “To the extent that they shouldbe held accountable, they should be heldaccountable.”

Most of us, authors included, are oc-casional tautologists. A book aboutbooks tells us, “Every book is a book yeteach one is an individual combination ofauthor, content, publisher, timing” (etc.).It is indisputable that a book is a book, arose is a rose, boys will be boys, businessis business, a deal is a deal, and that’sthat.

See also Twins; Verbosity; and thecross-reference Repetition and its avoid-ance.

TEAM OF. See Collective nouns.

TEAR, TORE, TORN. A hurricanein Florida was being described for a na-tional radio audience: “There were roofscompletely tore up.”

“Tore” was wrong. It is standard En-glish only as the past tense of the verbtear: “He tore the book.” The past par-ticiple of tear is torn, which should havebeen used: “There were roofs completelytorn up” (or, better, “Roofs were com-pletely . . .”). Other examples: “He hastorn the book” and “The book is torn.”

TEMBLOR and TREMBLER. Atemblor is an earthquake. A trembler issomeone or something that trembles. Totremble is to shiver or quake, so thewords are close enough to be easily con-fused.

In commenting on a terrorist attackon U.S. servicemen in Saudi Arabia, apanelist on a television forum sought apicturesque metaphor. U.S. forces were“in a deep fault between the twentiethcentury and the eleventh century,” hesaid. “This was a trembler.” He meant itwas a temblor.

Both words seem to have originated inthe Latin tremulus, trembling. But tem-blor came via Spanish, in which it meansa tremor or shiver; while tremble(r)came via French, in which tremblermeans to tremble.

Tense. 1. Definitions. 2. Don’t swaptenses in the middle of a sentence. 3. Fitquoted and nonquoted parts together. 4.Look to the future grammatically. 5. Per-fect your perfect tenses. 6. Tell the storyin the past or present, not both.

1. DefinitionsTense is a form of a verb that indicates

the time of an action: past, present, or

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future. It usually says something alsoabout the completion or continuation ofthe action.

Mistakes in tense are rife in print, letalone speech. We will turn to illustrationsin later sections, headed by suggestionsfor the orderly use of tenses. Here we listthe main tenses and some typical uses.

A. The past tense (also called thepreterit or preterite). It indicates thatan action occurred in the past (“Shewent home an hour ago”) or that astate or condition existed in the past(“It was the best of times”).

B. The present tense. It indicatesthat an action occurs now (“The earthrevolves around the sun” / “He ishere”) or occurs customarily (“I go towork daily”) or that something existsnow (“The house still stands”).

C. The future tense. It indicatesthat an action is going to take place.(“A courier will deliver the letter.” /“I’ll be there.”)

D. The perfect tenses. Perfect ingrammar indicates when an actionwas, is, or will be completed. Threeare as follows:

• The past perfect tense (orpluperfect)—the action wascompleted before a given time in the past or before a certain otheroccurrence. (“They had fledGermany by the time the warstarted.”)

• The present perfect tense—the actionis completed now. This tense linksthe past with the present. It mayrefer to an action or actions thatbegan in the past, continuing orrecurring until the present.(“Business has been good.” / “Manhas hunted since prehistoric times.”)Or it may refer to a past action thataffects the present. (“They havegiven the police clues.”)

• The future perfect tense—the actionwill be completed in the future,

whether or not it has already started.(“The staff will have totaled all thereceipts by tomorrow noon.”)

E. The progressive tenses (or pro-gressive forms). They indicate that anaction was, is, or will be continuing.(“I was running.” / “The Lees are vis-iting us.” / “He will be singing.”

Some general principles, quotations,and commentary follow. The discussionshere concern the indicative mood; thatis, the ordinary verb form for communi-cating information. For other forms,consult Mood; Subjunctive. The basicform of a verb is discussed under Infini-tive, which includes 3, the perfect infini-tive. See also Verbs.

2. Don’t swap tenses in the middle of asentence

It seems that the writer of the follow-ing sentence, a columnist, could not de-cide whether to tell his story in the pasttense or the present tense, so he usedboth.

He then took off at breakneck speedand as I zoomed down the road at 60mph this guy pulls alongside andpoints at the laundry.

The passage is fairly clear but untidy. Itis as though the writer wore one blackshoe and one white. He should have cho-sen one tense or the other and stuck to it,at least for the duration of the sentence.(A comma after “60 mph” would havehelped also.)

The quotation below should havebeen entirely in the past tense. It is notplausible the way it stands.

. . . William Lowe, president ofI.B.M.’s entry systems division, saidearlier this year that the company isinvesting as much in future RISC-based products as it has put into itsPS/2 personal computer line.

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“Earlier this year,” when he talked aboutthen current spending, he “said . . . thatthe company was investing” as much in the future products “as it had putinto” the personal computer line. We donot know what the company “is invest-ing” now or has invested since “earlierthis year.”

Such shifting from past to present orto future is common in the popularpress, and it is not always a product ofignorance. On one newspaper, the cityeditor told us staff members that it wasconsidered ungrammatical to write thatway, but he instructed us to do it any-how.

In a normal sentence, if the main verbis in the past, the verb of a dependentclause also goes in the past. “He said[main verb] that he did [dependentverb].” In the present, “He says that hedoes” is correct. “He said that he does”is incorrect and illogical.

A book mixes the past and the pre-sent:

Supper of desert survival rations, de-hydrated stew and rice, was deliciouswhen you’re hungry.

“Was” clashes with the contracted are in“you’re.” Make it either “is deliciouswhen you’re hungry” or “was deliciouswhen you were hungry.”

The following passage adds an awk-ward mixture of plural and singular toits shift from past to present.

But all five books became best sell-ers. And while the chain stores even-tually jumped aboard the salesbandwagon, it was independentbookstores that are responsible fortheir success.

Better: “. . . it was the independentbookstore that was responsible . . .” or“independent bookstores were responsi-ble. . . . ” (And change “their” to the

books’ so that no one thinks “their”refers to “the chain store.”)

Here an adverb pertaining to the pre-sent purports to modify a verb in thepast:

Currently, 30 people on Death Rownationwide committed murder whenthey were under 18.

Opening the sentence with “currently”sets the scene in the present for thewhole sentence. Therefore the main verbcannot be “committed” or any otherverb in the past. Place “currently” after“people,” or else revise the rest of thesentence. One possible revision adds twowords: “Currently, 30 people who com-mitted murder when they were under 18are on Death Row nationwide.”

An attribution, like he said or shesaid, parenthetically inserted in a sen-tence, usually does not affect the otherverbs. This excerpt is acceptable: “To-ward that end, she explained, DHS isworking with . . . universities. . . . ”

While generally favoring consistencyin tense, most authorities would makean exception for supposed timelesstruths: “He said that the universe is fi-nite,” rather than “was finite.” / “Itshowed that crime does not pay,” ratherthan “did not pay.” Some, more conser-vative, would not make that exception.You may decide for yourself.

See also 6; Anachronism, 2.

3. Fit quoted and nonquoted parts to-gether

Parts of a sentence must fit togethergrammatically, whether or not some of itis a quotation.

In the second sentence below, thequoted part does not match the non-quoted part. The passage is from a his-tory book.

No one, Tory or Whig, could design aBritish victory out of what had hap-

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pened at Lexington and Concord.Nor had the peasants “ran for theirlives.”

The two halves of the second sentencedo not jibe. It starts out in one tense (pluperfect) and finishes in another(preterit). You may not say the peasants“had . . . ran. . . . ” A change like thiswould put the whole sentence in onetense, yet keep the quotation intact:

Nor was it true that the peasants “ranfor their lives.”

An alternative would be to keep the firsthalf of the sentence but change the quo-tation, making it indirect:

Nor had the peasants run for theirlives.

The quotation marks must be removedbecause the quotation no longer is exact.(Anyway, the book fails to indicate whois being quoted.)

4. Look to the future grammatically

A. WILL and SHALLThe modern use of the future tense is

fairly easy. Will with an infinitive usuallydoes the job. “When will they everlearn?” / “I will be there with bells on.” /“You will do fine.” In colloquial speechonly half of will may be needed: “I’ll beseeing you.” The present can indicate thefuture in some constructions: “He per-forms here tomorrow.” So can a progres-sive tense: “He will be performing here”or “He is going to perform here” (whichbecomes, in loose colloquial speech,“He’s gonna perform . . .”).

Shall usually implies determination orlegal requirement. “We shall overcome.”/ “It shall be unlawful to. . . . ” Now andthen shall is otherwise needed: “Shall wedance?” / “Shall I draw up the papers?”(The formal use of the two words, now

obsolete in the United States and evendisappearing in England, prescribedshall for the simple future in the first per-son and for determination, obligation,inevitability, etc. in the second or thirdperson. Will was used the other way: forthe simple future in the second or thirdperson and for determination etc. in thefirst person.)

B. Dependent clausesTwo types of recurrent mistakes con-

cern a dependent, or subordinate, clause:

• Repeating will in a dependent clauseinstead of using the present tense.“The administration of MayorHarris will end at noon tomorrowwhen John Bradley will take office asmayor.” The second “will” issuperfluous. Change “will take” totakes.

• Using will in a dependent clausewhen the main verb is in the pasttense. “Edison predicted that he willperfect the incandescent lamp.”Inasmuch as predicted is in the pasttense, will has to go in the past tensetoo; its past tense is would. “Edisonpredicted that he would. . . . ” It isthe future from his standpoint, yearsago. “Will”—the future from ourstandpoint—makes no sense.Similarly, “. . . Smythe . . . was toldthat he will be sent back to . . . MazePrison” needs correction: “was toldthat he would be sent back.”

The same principle holds whenthe future is suggested in other ways:“K—— said he plans to present thecase to the district attorney.” / “M—— said she plans to fight thedenial in court if necessary.” Change“plans” to planned. We know theirplans at the time they wereinterviewed, but their plans mayhave changed by now. Expect,forecast, intend, look forward to,

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and predict are among other verbsthat suggest the future.

C. Conditional sentencesAnother problem concerns the condi-

tional sentence: a sentence in which a fu-ture action depends on something elsehappening. The problem takes twoforms:

• Mixing “will” and some verb in thepast subjunctive, which areincompatible:

But the assistance will be sus-pended late in November if any ofthe major Congressional commit-tees dealing with the money ob-jected to its continuation.

Either change “objected” to objectsor change “will” to would. Thelatter gives us the subjunctive mood.(See Mood; Subjunctive.) Such use ofwould should not be confused withwould as the past tense of will in theindicative mood, the ordinary verbform.

• Mixing the subjunctive “would” andsome verb in the indicative, whichare incompatible:

The government estimates thatHong Kong . . . would lose asmany as 20,000 jobs if Bushdoesn’t extend the trading agree-ment.

This time, “would” should be will.An alternative is to change “doesn’t”to didn’t or did not.

D. Distortion of meaningMore than grammatical tidiness may

be involved. Confusion of tenses madethe two excerpts opaque and misleading.

The directors of the Nicaraguan Re-sistance, the Contra alliance, said at

Sapoa they will present the govern-ment with a list of prisoners that theyhad wanted liberated yesterday.

To be compatible with “said,” which isin the past tense, “will” should go in thepast tense: would. “Will” says some-thing is going to happen. In actuality, thepresentation of the list may be com-pleted already. A further correction (thisforeshadows section 5) is to omit “had.”It wrongly implies that the directors’ de-sire for a liberation preceded the Sapoaevent, five days ago, and then ended.

The tenses below are so badly con-founded that the time of the main actionis not apparent.

Upon completion of that term,[Judge] Jackson put him on super-vised probation for a year, meaningthat he must report regularly to a pro-bation officer and be subject to peri-odic drug tests.

It seems to be saying that two events oc-curred in the past; that after the convictfinished serving his term, the judge puthim on probation. That is not the in-tended meaning. The phrase “Uponcompletion of that term” should havebeen followed by a clause like this, in thefuture tense: “he will be on supervisedprobation.” Instead, the phrase is fol-lowed by the irrelevant clause “Jacksonput him . . . ,” which falsely unites withit.

5. Perfect your perfect tenses

A. Be sure of the participle and use itwith an H-word

The past perfect tense uses (1) hadand (2) the past participle of a verb.(“They had eaten, so they were not hun-gry.”)

The present perfect tense uses (1) haveor has and (2) the past participle of averb. (“I have worn this suit for years.” /“She has shown courage.”

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H. L. Mencken listed over 100 pastparticiples (or “perfect participles”) thathe found misused in “common” or “vul-gar” American speech. Often they wereused in place of the past tense; for in-stance, “I been” and “I done” instead ofI was and I did. He said such misuse wasan old practice, common in other En-glish dialects but particularly wellmarked in the American dialect.

The opposite, the use of the past tensein place of the past participle, is anotherold practice. At one time, Menckenwrote, “even the best writers were ap-parently unconscious of its inelegance”:Shakespeare’s plays contain such formsas “I have wrote” / “I am mistook” / and“he has rode.” (Written, mistaken, andridden are now standard.)

Such lapses are rare in published ma-terial nowadays but not in oral speech.In broadcasts a Washington state legisla-tor and a Washington, D.C., correspon-dent for a newspaper muffed has runand have run respectively: “The fact thatthe child has ran away could be for anynumber of reasons.” / “He [Gingrich]would never have ran for president.”

The sentences below were uttered bymembers of the general public and heardon the air. (Correct forms are in brack-ets.)

“I must have ate [eaten] lunch withfifteen MPD patients.” / “It shouldn’thave broke [broken] like that.” /“Maybe they should have gave [given]him some treatment program.” / “Shehad just took [taken] her car to the carwash.” Each speaker wrongly used apast tense in place of a past participle.Another erred the opposite way: “Ilooked over to the left and I seen [saw] atornado.”

Sometimes an incorrect participle getsinto print:

Egypt’s chief religious official has also spoke on behalf of Abu Zeid, say-ing he could not be ordered to di-vorce. . . .

Although “spoke” was accepted as thepast participle of speak from the four-teenth to eighteenth centuries, now it isspoken. Spoke is the past tense.

A travel book leaves out the participlealtogether:

but it is quite possible thousands of F-M listeners have or will hear it fromthis exact spot.

“Have” does not go with “hear.” A cor-rection: “have heard or will hear. . . . ”(A hyphen in FM is unnecessary.)

See also Participles.

B. Do not confuse the sequence ofevents

A sequence of events is subject to con-fusion in the press. When a writer fails tomake it clear which events came first,second, and third, the problem mayamount to shortcomings in the use of theperfect tenses.

An account of a shooting rampagecontains this passage:

Bobby S——, 20, was in fair condi-tion at Denver General Hospital. Heescaped from the restaurant and ranto nearby apartments to call police.

The escape and the run took place beforehis stay in the hospital. Therefore thepast perfect (not the past) is the tense touse: “He had escaped from the restau-rant and run. . . . ” (Following that sen-tence, if a still earlier event wasdescribed, the past perfect tense wouldbe used again; for instance, “He hadbeen cleaning the kitchen when theshooting began.”)

Conversely, the next sentence uses thepast perfect tense unnecessarily in lieu ofa simple past tense.

His client and the two cops wereyelling and cursing when the lieu-tenant on duty showed up. Incredibly,less than a minute later, the lieutenant

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had hauled off and punched W—— inthe face.

The punching followed the yelling andcursing. Therefore it is most clearly de-scribed in the past tense. For example:“Incredibly, within a minute, the lieu-tenant hauled off. . . . ”

Next, the sequence of two events ismistakenly reversed by the use of thepresent perfect instead of the past per-fect:

The Mohajir group called the striketo demand the release of more than100 of its workers it says have beenkidnaped by members of the PakistanStudents Federation. . . .

The alleged kidnaping came first; thenthe Mohajir group called the strike andtalked. So change “have been kidnaped”to “had been kidnaped.” (Still better: “. . . 100 of its workers who, it said, hadbeen kidnaped”—adding the relativepronoun and placing the talking with thestriking.)

C. Mind your P’s and H’sThe press often shows misunderstand-

ing of the perfect tenses and their rela-tion to the past and present. Sometimesthe problem is the intrusion of a certainword or phrase.

F.B.I. officials have previously ac-knowledged that the agency recruitedan informer . . . to join Cispes.

The present perfect tense is functionallyequivalent to the present tense. Its haveor has does not mix with “previously”or “in the past.” Here are three alterna-tive ways to repair the sample sentence:

1. Omit “previously,” using the presentperfect correctly: “F.B.I. officials haveacknowledged. . . . ” (They made theacknowledgment at an indefinite timebefore this moment.)

2. Omit “have” and insert had before“recruited”: “F.B.I. officials previ-ously acknowledged [they did so inthe past] that the agency had recruitedan informer. . . . ” (The phrase had recruited is in the past perfect. Theagency had done the recruiting be-fore the officials did the acknowledg-ing.)

3. Change “have” to had and insert hadbefore “recruited,” using the past per-fect twice: “F.B.I. officials had previ-ously acknowledged that the agencyhad recruited. . . . ” (Again the recruit-ing preceded the acknowledging. Theofficials had done the acknowledgingbefore something else happened: viz.the latest news was made public.)“Previously” is unnecessary with thepast perfect but may be used for extraclarity.

To combine have or has with “pre-viously” or “in the past” creates a monstrous nontense. (Dare we dub it the highly imperfect?) A favorite of writers of scientific papers, it has stum-bled its way into the popular press aswell.

Contra spokesmen have previouslystated they use Claymore mines. . . .

Omit “previously.” As an alternative,omit “have” and put “use” in the pasttense: “Contra spokesmen previouslystated they used. . . . ”

The private meeting, which hasn’tbeen disclosed previously, could cre-ate additional political and legal prob-lems for the embattled attorneygeneral. . . .

In the past, Mr. Meese has main-tained he had an “extremely limited”role with the pipeline. . . .

In the upper sentence, “previously”could well be changed to until now. Inthe lower, leave out “In the past.”

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Mr. Dukakis, displaying more hu-mor and emotion than he has in thepast, poked fun at the criticism of hislack of charisma.

The sentence is doubly wrong. The aux-iliary verb “has” should be changed tohad. Even so, it is not enough. Whatverb links up with it? Not “displaying.”Make it “. . . than he had displayed. . . .”

D. Stay in the right time frameThe three press sentences below make

essentially the same mistake: shiftingback in time from the present perfecttense. It is functionally equivalent to thepresent tense.

The chorus of critical statementsabout Colonel North, largely fromAdministration officials, has reachedsuch a crescendo that Elliott Abrams,the Assistant Secretary of State for In-ter-American affairs, was moved tooffer a spirited defense.

Change “was moved” to “has beenmoved.” The action started in the past,but it has continued until approximatelythe present, and the present cannot affectthe past. (See also CRESCENDO.)

MGM-UA has produced few filmslately while its controlling share-holder . . . sought a buyer.

Make it “has sought. . . . ” The two ac-tions have gone on at about the sametime.

. . . The group tried to restore orderafter a demonstration on Saturdaynight got out of control, and had laterprovided safe escort for endangeredAmericans.

Scrap “had.” The escort was providedlater, not earlier; so the past perfect is un-warranted.

The present perfect tense in the first

clause of the second sentence below doesnot belong there. The past tense is usedelsewhere throughout the passage, froma newspaper story.

For a while it appeared that the par-ties would simply be canceled. . . . Butas the Emperor’s blood pressure hasrisen and fallen in twice-daily read-ings, a consensus slowly emerged.Parties were all right, as long as noone had too much fun.

The consensus “emerged” in the past“as”—at the same time that—the Em-peror’s blood pressure rose and fell in thepast. There is no reason here to link theaction of the past to the present, which iswhat the present perfect tense does.

Similarly, the present perfect is unwar-ranted in this sentence, from a book ofessays:

. . . Nearly all the linguistic tendenciesof the present day have been displayedin earlier centuries. . . .

Change “have been” to were, in the pasttense. “Earlier centuries” are history.

E. Watch out for a change in meaningIn the sample below, an excerpt from

a newspaper story about an election inHaiti, the use of a wrong tense reversesthe meaning intended to be conveyed.

“The election process was great,”Carter said, playing down the techni-cal glitches as not surprising in acountry that has never had a totallyfree election.

“. . . Has never had” indicates that thecountry never had a totally free electionup to the time that the sentence waswritten. It was written on the day afteran election was held. Therefore onecould logically conclude from the ex-cerpt that the election was not totallyfree. But the context suggests the oppo-

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site. A correction is in order. Omit“has,” so that the action is in the pasttense; and, to leave no doubt as to themeaning, put in a qualifying word orphrase: “. . . a country that never beforehad a totally free election” or “. . . acountry that never had a totally free elec-tion until yesterday.”

A television reporter’s sloppy use oftense risked creating misunderstandingin an inflammable international atmo-sphere. He spoke of a recently negoti-ated agreement to provide access to allsites in Iraq for weapons inspection,“something Iraq has refused to do.” Us-ing “has”—the present perfect—incor-rectly implied a current refusal by Iraq,contrary to its agreement. Using had—the past perfect—would have correctlyindicated Iraq’s refusal before the agree-ment was reached.

6. Tell the story in the past or present,not both

Even when individual sentences aregrammatical, a passage may be stylisti-cally flawed when tenses shift from sen-tence to sentence. Three books provideexamples. (Emphasis is added.)

The paragraph below vacillates frompast to present, from present to past, asthough the author could not make up hismind.

During the first period of the renais-sance madrigal . . . the principal lead-ers were the Flemish musicians whohad settled in Italy. The composer’schief concern at this stage is to givepleasure to the performers. . . . In itsmiddle phase . . . the renaissancemadrigal becomes a conscious artform. . . . Both Lassus and Palest-rina . . . enriched the literature of theform during these years. [See alsoTHESE and THOSE.]

The historical present—that is, thepresent tense used to tell of past events—is an established rhetorical device. It

suits not only historical accounts butalso descriptions of books and sum-maries of dramatic and literary plots. Ifchosen, it is generally best to continue ittill the story is over.

Another author shifts from future topresent (acceptable) to past (unaccept-able) in one sentence.

The course we will follow begins justbefore World War I; it was the recog-nition of the discontinuous behaviorof the atom, the quantum theory.

Change “was” to is.Either present or past—but not

both—would be appropriate in the finalexample.

Wagner in “The Ring” employs sixharps; and Berlioz, of course, madeliberal use of the instrument. [See alsoOF COURSE, 2.]

Change either “employs” to employedor “made” to makes.

TESTAMENT and TESTIMONY.A testament is a will. In modern use it isrelegated to the legal phrase last will andtestament, which is redundant but wellestablished.

Testimony is evidence, particularly astatement made by a witness under oathin a court. It can be used figuratively:“This gift bears testimony of my love.”

The two words have significance inBiblical theology. Testament: a covenant,a promise by God to man; hence the OldTestament and New Testament. Testi-mony: the decalogue or other precepts ofGod.

Both originating in the Latin testis, awitness, they have been differentiatedover the centuries but sometimes con-fused in contemporary times. Occasion-ally “testament” is used when testimonyis meant, and some dictionaries condonethe mix-up.

On network television a reporter de-

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scribed the scene of a ship accident atNew Orleans.

For now it is wedged between apedestrian playland and a busy com-mercial route. There it sits, a glaringtestament that a river offers the bestof both worlds and shows no mercywhen those worlds collide.

Her use of “testament,” in lieu of testi-mony, was either a lapse or an instanceof poetic license.

THAN. 1. Confused with THEN. 2.With various words.

1. Confused with THENThe mistake in both of these pub-

lished sentences would not have beenconsidered a mistake a few centuriesago: “. . . Women have smaller brainsthen men by an average of 10 percent.” /“Time and his genius for bureaucracytaught him . . . to be a monarch ratherthen a representative.” The writers (ofarticles condemning an anthropologyprofessor and an FBI director respec-tively) probably know better; inadver-tence or typographical error could be toblame.

Than has been spelled differentlyfrom then since about 1700. Here areother differences between the words:

• Than is a conjunction, a connectingword, in a sentence expressingcomparison (“John is faster thanFred”), preference (“I would ratherbe right than be president”), ordifference or exception (“He saidnothing, other than his name, rank,and serial number”).

• Then can be a noun, meaning aparticular time (“Until then, let’skeep in touch”). Then can be also anadverb, meaning at a certain time inthe past (“She was thinner then”),next (“Then he drew his sword”), inthat case (“Then why should I go?”),

or moreover (“These shoes fit well,and then they’re comfortable”).

In careful speech, they are pro-nounced differently, than rhyming withcan; and then rhyming with pen. Speak-ing hastily, people often pronounce bothlike then.

2. With various words

A. “AS”A comparison using as and a compar-

ison using than do not mix. The idiomsare confused in these grim statisticalitems from television news: “The rate ofcrib deaths is twice as high for black in-fants than for whites.” / “. . . A child isfourteen times as likely to die of gunshotwounds in this country than in NorthernIreland.” Each “than” should be as: “ashigh . . . as” / “as likely . . . as.”

Than would be right in a constructionlike this: “Ford grew richer than Croe-sus.” Or this: “It’s more popular thanany other novel in print.” Than com-monly follows (1) an adjective with thesuffix -er or (2) the adverb more or lessplus an adjective.

See also AS, 3.

B. “DIFFERENT”Phrases like brighter than and louder

than are proper, containing compara-tives. It is incorrect to say, “Donkeys aredifferent than mules.” Different from isthe accepted idiom. Different is not acomparative. See also DIFFERENT, 1.

C. Personal pronounsA common puzzle is the choice be-

tween than I and than me, between thanwe and than us, and so on. The choice ofpronoun depends on its function in thethan clause.

In “Myrtle plays better than he does”no one disputes the he; it is the subject ofthe verb does. Now what if that verb isdropped? Though unexpressed, it is un-derstood. The sentence “Myrtle plays

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better than he” (that is, than he does)construes he as the subject of that unex-pressed verb.

In “The company rewarded nobodymore than him” (that is, than the com-pany rewarded him), him is construed asan object of an unexpressed subject andverb. See also Pronouns, 10, especiallyE.

D. RATHER; “PREFER”“Rather” sometimes is superfluous

before than: “I’m more concerned withaffirming a principle rather than settlingthe case.” Being a comparative, moregoes with than. “Rather,” a comparativeadverb, becomes redundant.

At times rather than is correct but averb form that follows is questionable:“We will depend on our own staff,rather than turning [?] to the national of-fice.” Change “turning” to turn. As aconjunction, than ordinarily links paral-lel elements: “Johnny is playing ratherthan studying.” / “He runs rather thanwalks.” / “I slept rather than worked.” /“They chose to call rather than write [or“to write”]. There is a trend, however,toward treating rather than as a preposi-tion, in the manner of this book excerpt:“James delivered the address himself,rather than falling [fell?] back on inexpe-rienced theological students.” Somegrammarians accept the -ing form as id-iomatic, especially at the start of a sen-tence: “Rather than getting fired, I quitmy job.”

Prefer should not be followed by thanor rather than. Normally you prefer onething to another: “I prefer chocolate tovanilla.”

E. SOONER; “HARDLY” or“SCARCELY”

Than often follows a comparative ad-jective or adverb: “He looks bigger thanyou.” / “It goes faster than any othercar.” Sooner is a comparative adverb, of-ten followed by than. Here the earliness

of two actions are being compared, cor-rectly: “No sooner had we arrived thanthe show started.” To substitute “when”is an error. Confusion with hardly orscarcely, neither of which is a compara-tive, appears to be at the root.

This is correct: “Hardly [or“scarcely”] had we arrived when theshow started.” To substitute “than” isan error.

THAN ANY. See ANY, 1.

THANK, THANKS. The presidentof Bolivia was quoted (although inwhich language and under what circum-stances he spoke was not stated):

Bolivia’s unemployment rate standsat 23 percent, thanks to the currencydevaluation and other “brutal” eco-nomic reforms imposed on the coun-try by the World Bank to reduce thecountry’s roughly $4 billion foreigndebt, Zamora says.

No one is likely to offer thanks for anunemployment rate of 23 percent, unlessone’s intention is bitter sarcasm or thehiring of cheap labor. Neither accountsfor the statement, judging from the con-text and the word “brutal” (rather than,say, “kindly”).

You would not expect anyone to offerthanks for the collapse of a road either.A television announcer said in a previewof the news, “Highway number 101 col-lapses near Salinas, thanks to the floodsof ’97.”

At least three dictionaries definethanks to as “thanks be given to.” For asecondary definition, they offer suchphrases as “on account of,” “owing to,”and “as a result of.” But plainly it is notalways appropriate to replace them withthanks to.

Thanks (noun, plural) is an expres-

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sion of gratitude. To tell someone thanks(interjection) is to say thank you infor-mally.

To thank (verb, transitive) is to ex-press gratitude (to someone or some-thing). Occasionally it can mean toblame, when used in a sarcastic sense:“We have ourselves to thank for the de-feat.” One dictionary’s alternative defini-tion of thank as “blame”—with nomention of its special, sarcastic mean-ing—can be misleading.

THAT. 1. Anti-THAT prejudice; unid-iomatic sentences. 2. Errors of omission:wrong road, ambiguity. 3. Need for apair; AND THAT, BUT THAT. 4. Un-necessary THATs.

1. Anti-THAT prejudice; unidiomaticsentences

Some publications and press servicesharbor an irrational prejudice. They arethat-haters. They consider that (as a con-junction or relative pronoun, introduc-ing a clause) to be usually unnecessary.In their style books, they instruct theirwriters to do without it whenever possi-ble.

Sometimes it may indeed be possibleto omit that; for instance, after said anda few other verbs: “She said the moneywas safe.” / “He thinks the car is defec-tive.” Some clauses of other constructionmay hold together idiomatically withoutthat: “This is the school I attended.” Onthe other hand, unless one has orders tothe contrary, it usually cannot hurt toput it in: “This is the house that Jackbuilt.”

Often the mass media print or broad-cast sentences that are unidiomatic with-out that. Although the meaning isunderstood in the following four sen-tences, the clauses in each do not holdtogether gracefully. An asterisk indicatesthe spot where one would normally con-nect them with that.

[A movie criticism on television:] Heis jealous * she has made a new malefriend.

[A television report:] For those whodied [on the U.S.S. Iowa], the thought* it was not an accident only deep-ened the tragedy.

[A newspaper item:] . . . She arrived atcourt for a jury trial on charges * sheslapped a Beverly Hills motorcyclecop.

[A newspaper column:] . . . Their[Democrats’] lone window of oppor-tunity is the voters’ sense * they’re be-ing left out.

See also THAT and WHICH; WHO,THAT, and WHICH.

2. Errors of omission: wrong road, am-biguity

The absence of that is more serious incertain sentences in which a verb, suchas believes or reported, has a clause as itsdirect object. Omitting that after theverb can make a fragment of the clausefalsely appear to be the direct object. Thereader may be sent down the wrongroad and have to start the sentenceagain.

The first two of three press examplesare from a newspaper that is not one ofthe that-haters and cautions its staffmembers against just this sort of thing.

At the same time, he said, he believesthe people he has met since coming tothe United States last week have beensurprised at “our openness, ourfriendliness and our desire to bringpeace to the entire world.”

The company reported 47 percentof those who had taken the test hadfailed because of admitted transgres-sions or attitudes.

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Although acknowledging NewMexico, like most states, offers a “fairreporting privilege” shield from libellawsuits, the judge said the privilegedid not apply because the Journal wasreporting on a statement it itself hadmade.

In the first example, “believes” seems atfirst to have “the people” as its object.“He believes the people he has met sincecoming to the United States last week”forms a false thought—one that is plau-sible until “have been surprised” comesalong. Following “believes” with thatwould have prevented the problem.

In the next two examples, “The com-pany reported 47 percent of those whohad taken the test” and “Although ac-knowledging New Mexico” also formfalse thoughts. “Reported” and “ac-knowledging” should each be followedby that.

Omitting that can render a sentenceambiguous when time is an element:“The Governor said on June 30 thestate’s debt stood at $57 million.” If (a)he was telling what the size of the debtwas on that day, follow “said” with that.But if (b) that was the day when he saidit, follow “30” with that. (Another wayto correct the sentence is to to put “onJune 30” [a] at the end or [b] at the be-ginning.)

See also ASSURE (etc.), 2.

3. Need for a pair; AND THAT, BUTTHAT

A single that may not be enough in asentence containing a series of compara-ble clauses.

Doctors say that some home remedieshelp but others may be harmful.

Who is saying “others may be harmful”?If it is the doctors, follow “but” withthat. If it is the person speaking, makethat fact clear; e.g., “But evidence showsthat others. . . . ”

When the phrase but that or and thatdoes begin a clause, normally the thatparallels a that in the previous clause.Each of these two sample sentencesomits the first that:

Mr. Bush said “no specific mission”was under discussion, but that Mr.Reagan was being kept informed.

. . . He said the imagery of the Pales-tinian uprising in the occupied WestBank and Gaza Strip had inspiredsome Jordanians and that other pres-sures were at work.

“. . . Said that” would balance each sen-tence better. Although the meaning maybe understandable without that, a tidiersentence could be easier to read. This isparticularly true for sentences that arelonger and more complicated:

Mr. Bush said the arrangement,which follows months of delicate ne-gotiations with Japan, would safe-guard sensitive computer software andthat American companies would beguaranteed roughly 40 percent of theproduction work on the new jet fighter.

Some readers probably glanced back tosee what “and that” referred to. “Mr.Bush said that” would have helpedthem. How could it have hurt?

A book on relativity fails to put ele-ments of a sentence in proper relation.Two hypothetical space ships reach rela-tive speeds of light.

. . . Observers on each ship wouldthink the other ship had shrunk tozero in length, acquired an infinitemass, and that time on the other shiphad slowed to a full stop!

To follow “think” with that would beginto improve the sentence. (It contains adefective series. Replace the first commawith and. See Series errors.)

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The same principle of parallelism ap-plies to and which and and who. SeeWHICH, 3; WHO, 2.

After no doubt or no question, “butthat” is not strictly legitimate. See BUT,2.

4. Unnecessary THATsThat is usually unnecessary before a

direct quotation that is complete orstarts at the beginning:

Shakespeare wrote, “Neither a bor-rower nor a lender be; For loan oftloses both itself and friend, And bor-rowing dulls the edge of husbandry.”

Before a fragment of a direct quota-tion, that may be desirable:

Shakespeare wrote that “borrowingdulls the edge of husbandry.”

Take care, however, that the that isnot inside the quotation marks. This iswrong:

Shakespeare wrote “that borrowingdulls the edge of husbandry.”

Sometimes a second “that” is erro-neously inserted in a sentence when itsfunction is already performed by the firstthat:

The party contends that as long as thepresent government remains in powerthat the nation will not mend its shat-tered economy.

“. . . Contends that” includes everythingthat follows, because all of it is onethought. A second that is superfluous.

See also THAT, ALL THAT.

THAT, ALL THAT. This is a Britishimport of recent decades, an illogical col-loquialism that should dispel any notionthat the best English must come fromEngland. It is the slovenly use of

“that”—often preceded by a meaning-less “all”—usually after a negative.

When used properly as an adverb,that means to the extent or degree statedor indicated. For instance, “The papersays 5,000 people attended, but I don’tthink that many were there.”

A columnist told of people’s fears dur-ing a gale and added, “There weren’tthat many people using umbrellas.”How many people are “that many”?The preceding paragraphs did not stateor indicate any number, so “that” didnot refer to anything. It should havebeen discarded.

A book of popular science says,“. . . The actual telescopic effect is notthat difficult to discover” and “Ourdaily understanding of our actions is notthat far from a scientific account.” Noth-ing was said about difficulty of discov-ery. Nothing was said about distancefrom science. “That” could have beenomitted both times without sacrificingany meaning.

No standards of coldness, difference,time, or harm had come up when a net-work newscaster said illogically, “Itwasn’t warm, but it wasn’t that cold”; acolumnist wrote, “In my opinion, menand women are really not that differ-ent”; and an article said:

. . . It didn’t take that long [for a pres-idential candidate to use a slanderousrumor]. . . . The last week’s eventsmay not have been that harmful.

Where were the editors to ask: Howharmful? How long? How different?How cold? How far? How difficult?Some of them were putting vague that’sof their own into headlines: “For CornBelt Farmers, Oat Bran Isn’t That Chic.”

Placing “all” before a misused “that”just adds another superfluous word, onethat can sometimes be misleading. Thetwo words were paired legitimately in aquestion asked by a television reporter,“Why would he want to give Democrats

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all that money?” All (adverb), meaningthe entire amount (of), modified that(adjective), referring to a sum previouslymentioned. The two words togethermodified money (noun).

But “all that” was superfluous in aneditorial: “Voters do not always takeelections for the European Parliament allthat seriously. . . . ” And an autobiogra-phy could have omitted the phrase fivetimes; examples: “. . . The old man hadnot done all that badly. . . . I was not allthat distressed. . . . ”

“All that” contradicted a previousstatement in each of three articles. Onereported layoffs and declining profits ata television network and then added:

And according to . . . a media consult-ing firm, . . . the outlook is not all thatbright.

If the writer had painted a bright picturebut wanted to introduce some ominousfact, he could reasonably say “the out-look is not all that bright.”

These are contradictory excerpts froma movie review and a record review:

. . . Dodge is a fairly boring guyand his co-workers aren’t all that in-teresting either.

Sales have slumped in recent times,owing partly to poor-quality sound.Most of his recordings did not soundall that good when newly made inNBC’s drably dry Studio 8H.

The expression introduces anotheropportunity for misunderstanding to thelanguage. A headline dispensed a vaguemessage:

Air bags not allthat safe, studies say.

If “not all,” are some? And how safe is“that safe”? A review of a television se-

ries compared it with other series andsaid, “These guys aren’t all that muchfun.” Are some of them? And this isfrom a news story:

A 69-year-old enthusiast of morerapid liberalization, Mr. Zhao had notbeen all that popular recently. . . .

The story did not say anything earlierabout popularity; thus it provided nostandard for gauging what “all that”meant. Had Mr. Zhao not been verypopular? Had he not been popular atall? Was his popularity down to 35 per-cent? We have to guess. (We have toguess also what his age or liberalizationpolicy has to do with his popularity. SeeModifiers, 2.)

What has become popular is the sub-stitution of “that” or “all that” for fac-tual information. People holding acasual conversation or even the writer ofa subjective column on some trivial sub-ject may get away with it. It stands outsorely in a sober presentation of news orother facts.

The newspaper last quoted has run aperiodic column by a maven in word us-age, who should be expected to set usstraight. This is an excerpt: “What, then,do you do when strong becomes pejora-tive and weak is not all that bad?”

A book by a self-styled word wizarduses an empty “that” term six times. Inthe example, a study on frequently usedwords is discussed:

The front-runners, whatever theirorder, should not be all that differenttoday or any day. Our English, writ-ten or spoken, doesn’t change all thatmuch.

The author is evidently unaware of atleast one change: the spread of a faddishexpression that he uses twice in oneparagraph.

Its insidious effects are manifested

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four times in a compilation by a writerknown for his sophisticated vocabulary:“. . . Really, the figure was not all thatsurprising. . . . There wasn’t all thatmuch to choose from. . . . ” And so on.

Both “that” and “all that” appear inone sentence of an article. “. . . Thejokes in the book are not in the mainthat great, not all that creative.” Howthe terms differ and just what they meanare anyone’s guess.

In a book for writers and editors, theproblem is somewhat different; a stan-dard for comparison is given: “Com-pared to a number of other professions,editing hasn’t really been around all thatlong.” Drop “all that.” The openingphrase makes another comparative mod-ifier redundant. (See also COMPAREDTO and COMPARED WITH, 1;REALLY.)

The final quotation is from a maga-zine essay by a professor of English,protesting the lowering of standards ofbehavior: “. . . Common decency hasnot been all that common for longstretches of human history.” May onealso protest the lowering of standards ofEnglish usage and all that fuzziness?

THAT and WHICH. 1. The differ-ence. 2. Indiscriminate WHICH; mix-upof THAT and WHICH. 3. “THAT” inplace of WHICH. 4. Versions of a fa-mous phrase.

1. The differenceTwo book titles, The Light That

Failed and The Mouse That Roared,help to illustrate the distinction betweenthat and which (used as relative pro-nouns). That seemed to the authors to bethe natural word to use. The books werenot called The Light Which Failed andThe Mouse Which Roared. The titleswould have appeared stilted had theycontained “Which.” Furthermore, tomany readers That firmly ties Light toFailed, and Mouse to Roared.

“Which” would suit a sentence likethis: “The light, which failed only once,has long been a reliable beacon for sea-farers.” The clause within the commas isnot essential to the main thought, so itstarts with which. In contrast, take thissentence: “We need to replace the lightthat failed, but the other lights serve uswell.” That failed is an essential clause,hence that.

The that clause is called a restrictiveclause (or, in Britain, a defining clause).No comma precedes it. The which clauseis called a nonrestrictive clause (or, inBritain, a nondefining clause). Commasset it apart.

Sometimes the meaning of a sentencedepends on the proper choice betweenthe two pronouns. It makes a differencewhether the boss tells his new employee(1) “Get the widget, which we alwaysuse for this type of work” or (2) “Get thewidget that we always use for this typeof work.” Just what the new employee isto get depends on a single pronoun. If weassume that the boss knows his gram-mar, the first sentence implies that he hasonly one widget; the second sentence im-plies that he has more than one widgetand insists on a particular one and thatthe newcomer had better find out whichone.

Writers began consciously making thedistinction between those two pronounsin the relatively recent past. In the bookThe King’s English, first published in1906, brothers H. W. and F. G. Fowlertook a notable step toward increasedclarity when they wrote:

. . . That, when possible, is the appro-priate relative for defining and whichfor non-defining clauses. . . . It wouldcontribute much to clearness of styleif writers would always make up theirminds whether they intend a defini-tion or a comment and would invari-ably use no commas with a definingclause and two commas with a non-

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defining. [But the call for an invari-able use of two commas was a mis-take. The “non-defining” clause, ornonrestrictive clause, may come at theend of a sentence and need only onecomma to set it apart.]

Practices in earlier centuries werechaotic. Literature suggests that somewriters sensed differences between thetwo pronouns while others did not; of-ten which was forced to serve both func-tions. The principle enunciated by theFowlers had a good deal of influence inboth Britain and the United States. By nomeans was there rapid or even generalconformity. Numerous writers contin-ued to favor a restrictive which. Empha-sis is added in this 1920 passage from awork by H. G. Wells (and in the exam-ples that follow):

. . . These nine main language groups

. . . are the latest languages, the sur-vivors, which have ousted their moreprimitive predecessors. There mayhave been other . . . ineffective centresof speech which were afterwardsoverrun by the speakers of still surviv-ing tongues, and of elementary lan-guages which faded out. We findstrange little patches of speech still inthe world which do not seem to beconnected with any other languageabout them.

The first which seems to be nonrestric-tive; the other three seem to be restrictiveand, under the Fowler principle, replace-able by that. We cannot be positive of anauthor’s intent when he uses which inboth ways; at least he should precedeeach nonrestrictive which with acomma. Wells apparently has done so.Seven pages later, the word appears fourtimes in one sentence.

The alternation of settlement, no-madic conquest, refinement, fresh

conquest, refinement, which is charac-teristic of this phase of human history,is particularly to be noted in the re-gion of the Euphrates and Tigris,which lay open in every direction togreat areas which are not arid enoughto be complete deserts, but whichwere not fertile enough to support civ-ilized populations.

The first which and the second seem tobe nonrestrictive; the latter two seem tobe restrictive. Again, a comma correctlyprecedes what appears to be each nonre-strictive use. Still, we cannot be positiveof the meaning of which when it is usedin both ways. Such usage persists to thecurrent day among many writers, al-though many others do observe the dis-tinctions between that and which.

2. Indiscriminate WHICH; mix-up ofTHAT and WHICH

Some writers who use “which” in re-strictive clauses at least set off nonre-strictive clauses with commas. Othersseem totally baffled by the grammar andthe punctuation and either (a) use“which” without the comma for bothtypes of clause or (b) use “that” and“which” interchangeably. Trying to de-termine exactly what a writer intendedcan be an insoluble puzzle for a reader.There are writers who think that is more“colloquial” and which is more “liter-ary.” Nonsense. Each word has a clearfunction.

In the following passage, a newspaperwriter uses “which” restrictively in hisfirst sentence; in his second, he correctlychooses which for a nonrestrictive clausebut fails to precede it with a comma.

. . . Increasing civil suit judgmentsagainst city, county and state govern-ments are being caused by several factors, including . . . a court rul-ing which allows governments to be sued. . . .

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The legislature in 1976 passed theTort Claims Act which allows citizensto sue the government. . . .

In the first sentence, “which” should bethat. In the second, a comma belongs af-ter “Act” to make it clear that whatcomes after the comma is explanatoryand not an integral part of what comesbefore.

A card listing postal rules containstwo restrictive clauses using “which.”Both are wrongly separated from themain sentence by commas.

Mail, which is properly addressed to apost office box or caller service num-ber, will be delivered through thatpost office box or caller service. . . .Any information on the application,which changes or becomes obsolete,must be corrected by promptly updat-ing the Form 1093 on file. . . .

Not all mail will be delivered; not all in-formation must be corrected. Each“which” clause is essential to the mainidea of the sentence. Thus all the com-mas should be deleted and each “which”should be that.

The sample sentence that follows,from a book criticizing American educa-tion, contains both that and which withno comma, used in a roughly parallelway. The precise intent of the author isuncertain.

But there is one dangerous new trendthat threatens to wreak havoc uponour educational system—a new thrustwhich can kill America’s traditionalenthusiasm for constantly improvingthe nation’s schools and colleges. . . .

See also PREVENT.

3. “THAT” in place of WHICH“That” appears to be used nonrestric-

tively, and therefore erroneously, in bothof the following examples.

Maximus is in the early stages of theprogram that, when it hits full stride,could be processing 100,000 recipi-ents [of welfare payments].

TV Guide is the nation’s largest sellingweekly magazine, with a circulationof more than 17 million, that earnedan estimated $75 million profit lastyear.

In both of the examples, “that” appearsto be used nonrestrictively. In the formerexample, “that” ought to be which andpreceded by a comma. The clause“which . . . could be processing 100,000recipients” is a nonrestrictive clause; theinformation it adds could be tossed outwithout damage to the first part of thesentence. The article talks of only oneprogram. If there were another program,“that” might properly be used restric-tively, distinguishing the program “thatcould be processing 100,000 recipients”from another program.

In the latter example too, “that” in-troduces a nonrestrictive clause, so itought to be which. The clause “whichearned” etc. merely gives supplementaryinformation.

An exception to the restrictive-thatprinciple is customarily made to avoid adouble that, as in “That that I see I be-lieve.” Rather than follow that (demon-strative pronoun) with another that(relative pronoun), you can make thesecond word which: “That which I see. . . . ” But technically the double thatis not wrong.

4. Versions of a famous phraseThe final passage is out of the ordi-

nary. A columnist erred by inadvertentlyimproving the grammar of a historic per-sonage. (The emphasis is thecolumnist’s.)

President Franklin D. Roosevelt didnot say that Dec. 7, 1941, was “a day

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that will live in infamy.” He said itwas “a date that will live in infamy.”

Not exactly. The item was headed “YouCould Look It Up.” It was a good idea.Three books of quotations did match thecolumnist’s version in toto. But threeothers gave “a date which will live in in-famy,” a quotation confirmed byreprints of the speech in three morebooks and, conclusively, by a soundrecording of the speech. A booklet accompanying the recording was theleast accurate: “Franklin D. Rooseveltdeclared it a ‘day that will live in in-famy’. . . . ”

The popularity of the “that” version,which paradoxically is the more gram-matical, should at least hearten adher-ents to the Fowler principle.

THAT, WHO, and WHICH. SeeWHO, THAT, and WHICH.

THE. 1. Generalities. 2. Intrusion. 3.Omission. 4. Pronunciation.

1. GeneralitiesThe definite article, the, is the most

common word in English. It usually in-troduces a particular thing or individualor group, one that was mentioned beforeor whose existence is known or pre-sumed to be known. (See A and AN for adiscussion of the indefinite article.)

Typically, something or someone thatis preceded by a or an when first men-tioned is later preceded by the (if not re-placed by a pronoun): “One of thepeople I met there was a professor fromSt. Louis. . . . The professor said. . . . ”

The may precede a noun on first men-tion if the noun is specific and known.“The country is behind him,” but “Hewas a man without a country.” / “Thehats [specific ones] look good on you,”but “Hats [in general] look good onyou.”

We may speak of “Thomas Edison,

the inventor” because of his fame but“Joe Doaks, a store clerk.”

In addition, idiom calls for the definitearticle in various expressions and con-structions. It must go in a superlative(“It’s the biggest”) but not often in acomparative (“This one is bigger”). “Sheis in the hospital.” (In England one issimply “in hospital.”) “I took the bus,”but “I went by bus.” / “They read thepapers,” but “They read books.” / “Theevening is my favorite time of day,” but“Evenings are for relaxation.”

A single the can serve for multiplenouns when the nouns pertain to oneperson or idea: “the lord and master” /“the vice president and general man-ager” / “the pain, pleasures, and satisfac-tions of life.” More than one person oridea gets a separate the: “the chairmanand the president” / The Prince and thePauper / “the star and the planet.” Themay occasionally be repeated for empha-sis when not essential to the meaning:“Here she is: the one, the only. . . .”

Besides serving as an article, the canbe an adverb, used with a comparativeadjective and meaning to that extent orby that. “The more the merrier.” / “Theyare none the wiser.”

See also A and AN.

2. Intrusion

A. Of THEToo many journalists have the habits

of omitting the article the where it be-longs (see 3) and sticking it in where noarticle belongs or where a or an wouldbe more appropriate.

In the following excerpts from threepress stories, each intrusive “the” is em-phasized; it does not apply to anythingthat was mentioned before or that anyreader would already know about.

When the headaches began, Gabeltook aspirin and kept working. Whenhe suffered a seizure and lost con-

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sciousness, doctors found the malig-nant brain tumor.

Nothing was said before about head-aches or a brain tumor. Nor could read-ers have expected them to be mentioned.Delete the first “the.” Replace the second“the” with a.

According to authorities the [fraud-ulent investment] scheme operatedfrom 1979 to 1987. The two salesmenwere Hank . . . and Nate. . . .

The second “the” sends a reader back tolook—in vain—for any mention of sales-men.

The video cameras are barely no-ticeable around the perimeter of thebeige building, noiselessly filming pic-tures of the empty sidewalk, thefenced-in lot and the vacant entrancelobby.

That sentence was the first in a newsstory. Omit the opening “The.” Keep thenext the (every building has a perimeter)but change every succeeding one to a,except for “an empty sidewalk.”

Sometimes the unwarranted use of thecan cloud the meaning of a sentence. Anews story tells of a mother in Illinoiswho was charged with manslaughter forallegedly causing her newborn baby’sdeath by using cocaine during preg-nancy. Midway in the story it says:

Cocaine use by the mother hasbeen linked to health problems in thebaby. . . .

Was it talking about that Illinois motherand her baby or about mothers and ba-bies in general? If the latter, as the con-text suggests, make it, “Cocaine use bymothers has been linked to health prob-lems in their babies. . . . ”

A book relates an experience of

“the Scottish physician, AlexanderHamilton. . . . ” The indefinite article, a,would be more appropriate. In theUnited States he is not famous enoughfor the; the American statesman with the same name is. One could well say“the statesman Alexander Hamilton”but “a Scottish physician, AlexanderHamilton. . . . ” (Note that the commadoes not belong in the the phrase. SeePunctuation, 3D.)

B. Of noun; of editorial opinionA front-page story in a Nevada news-

paper shows that (1) the intruder can bethe noun that follows the and (2) the canintrude a point of view in a supposedlyunbiased piece.

Houston Police Chief Lee Brown . . .wants Bush to set up a national crimecommission. The panel would exam-ine the root causes of crime and drugabuse—including urban joblessnessand poor education.

The first sentence mentions “a . . . com-mission.” The second mentions “thepanel.” We can guess that they are thesame, but why should we have to? If“a . . . commission” is correct, the sec-ond reference should be to The commis-sion or simply It. See also Pronouns, 6B;Synonymic silliness.

The second “the” poses another prob-lem. It implies that “the” root causes ofcrime and drug abuse have been deter-mined and are commonly known. If thatwas the chief’s opinion, it should havebeen made clear. Otherwise a more ob-jective phrase than “the root causes”was needed; examples: alleged causes /some possible causes / social ills thatsome say cause.

C. Of modifierOften the noun following the does not

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wiched between them. This passage isfrom a book of travel reminiscences:

On the way we stopped to pick upa lone white figure walking along theroad. . . .

The tall, bearded figure got in thecar. . . .

Were there two figures? Probably not,inasmuch as the latter sentence is the firstto introduce a “tall, bearded figure.”Therefore to precede the entire phrasewith “The” is unwarranted. Normallythe applies only to something that hasbeen stated or is well known, not to newinformation. The only thing in commonbetween “lone white figure” and “tall,bearded figure” is figure. Thus the sec-ond sentence can properly speak of Thefigure and the adjectives should beplaced elsewhere; for instance: “The fig-ure, tall and bearded, got in the car. . . . ”(A comma after “lone” in the formersentence is desirable too.)

These in essence are the first two sen-tences of a news story:

. . . A city-financed apartmentbuilding . . . will officially open to-morrow in Queens.

The 14-story building in Flushingincludes a medical center, social ser-vices, emergency alarms . . . andclosed-circuit television. . . .

The opening sentence says nothingabout a 14-story building. It mentionsonly “a city-financed apartment build-ing.” The second sentence would be ti-dier by kicking out the “14-story”intruder and uniting the natural couple,“The” and “building.” Among variouspossible rewordings: “The building has14 stories and includes a medical center,social services. . . . ” (In the first sentenceFlushing, Queens would help those un-familiar with the geography of NewYork City.)

Another news story mentions “the ap-pointment of a commission of inquiry”in Israel. The next sentence says, “Thethree-man commission ruled yesterdaythat. . . . ” Readers can assume that justone commission is involved, but a neaterstory would put The together with com-mission. Either mention the three men inthe first sentence or reword the second toput the modifying phrase elsewhere, e.g.,“The commission, made up of threemen, ruled yesterday that. . . . ”

Still another news story mentions thegovernor of Louisiana by name and titlein the lead sentence. Below, the articlerefers to “the one-time cotton farmerand Harvard Business School graduate”(with no identification), and later itquotes “the 45-year-old conservativeDemocrat” (with no identification). Un-less different people are being described,connect those descriptive phrases to thegovernor (by name or title or both) andchange each “the” to a. (See also Modi-fiers, 2.)

There is more justification for a re-porter’s designations of AndreiSakharov, a world-famed Russian, as“the physicist” (twice), “the physicistand human rights campaigner,” and “thelongtime human rights campaigner.”(That last one may be on the borderline.)

3. OmissionA peculiarity of more than a few jour-

nalists when writing is to omit a wordthat they would not think of omittingwhen speaking: the definite article, the.They will not leave it out every time,only sometimes: at the beginning of asentence, for instance. A newspaper col-umn tells of a parade in Massachusetts:

Focus was dedication of the restoredhome of Katharine Lee Bates, the ladywho wrote “America the Beautiful.”

Would the columnist speak like that:“Focus was . . . ”? Certainly not. If he

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used focus at all, he would precede itwith the. He would probably even putanother the before “dedication.” Noticethat the sample sentence uses the threetimes. If it were consistent, it would say“dedication of restored home ofKatharine Lee Bates, lady who wrote‘America Beautiful.’ ” (Such a sentence isnot recommended either, of course.)

This is from a caption for a picture ofa well-known bridge:

Spanning San Francisco Bay, the land-mark was world’s longest until 1961.

The logic that permits one definite article(before “landmark”) but omits another,just as desirable (before “world’s”), isobscure.

What accounts for those odd omis-sions? Is it rationing of definite articlesby the newspapers; or is it an idiosyn-cratic newsroom rule of yore, perpetu-ated and varied by generations ofjournalists imitating the mannerisms ofother journalists? A newspaper editor of mine forbade staff members to startany story with an article, definite or in-definite. “It’s weak,” he explained. If thewritings gained anything, it was circuity,not strength.

A newscaster said a kidnaping victim“made her escape and was able to callpolice.” A press service reported that agunman’s victim “ran to nearby apart-ments to call police.” Observe that jour-nalists “call police.” Most others “callthe police”; this is idiomatic when policeis construed as singular (a department),which is commonly the case, rather thanplural (policemen).

4. PronunciationBefore vowel sounds, the is usually

pronounced THEE. Examples: the ap-ple, the ooze, the M-1.

Before consonants, the is pronouncedTHUH, voiced, with almost no vowel:the car, the watermelon, the yellow. In a

dialectal variation, some pronounce thethat way before vowels as well.

The is pronounced either way beforethe long e sound, as in the easel.

THEE, THOU, and YE. See Pro-nouns, 10A.

THEFT. See CRIME, MISDE-MEANOR, and FELONY; Crimes, 3.

THEIR. See Homophones; Possessiveproblems, 4; Pronouns, 2.

“THEIRSELF” or “THEIR-SELVES.” See Pronouns, 5.

THEM and THEY. See Pronouns,10; Pronouns’ classification.

THEM and THOSE. Let the griz-zled prospector of story exclaim,“There’s gold in them hills!” Were hisEnglish corrected, it would not ring true.It behooves the rest of us to speak ofthose hills, those fruits, or those days.

Those and them are pronouns (nounsubstitutes). Those is also an adjective (amodifier of a noun). Them is not.

You can either “forgive those whosin” or “forgive them who sin” (or notforgive at all). But a radio host who saidthat many suicides in Iran “are due tothem kind of laws” was dead wrong.“Those kind” would not be right either,combining a plural adjective and a sin-gular noun. Any of these work: thosekinds of law or that kind of law or lawsof that kind.

See also KIND OF, 1; Pronouns, 2(misuse of them); THESE and THOSE.

THEMSELVES and “THEM-SELF.” See Pronouns, 5.

THEN. See FORMER; THAN.

THEORY. See HYPOTHESIS andTHEORY.

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THERE, anticipatory. See Exple-tives.

THERE confused with THEIR.See Homophones.

THERE in contractions. See Con-tractions, 1.

THEREFORE and THEREFOR.Although they look similar and are bothadverbs, the three-e word and the two-eword have different accents and mean-ings. The first syllable is emphasized inTHERE-fore, the second syllable inthere-FOR. Therefore means as a result,consequently, for that reason, hence. “Ithink; therefore I am.” / “Now, there-fore, be it resolved. . . . ”

Therefor means for it, for that, forthem, for this: “Lessee shall be providedwith said machines and the suppliesneeded therefor.” / “The fine thereforshall be not more than one hundred dol-lars.” Like therefrom, thereof, thereto,therewith, etc., it is used mainly in legaldocuments, occasionally elsewhere for aformal or archaic effect.

Under therefor, Webster’s Third Dic-tionary presents “THEREFORE” as asecond meaning, in effect sanctioning themisspelling of the latter.

THERMONUCLEAR. See NU-CLEAR.

THERMOS. Thermos is a trademarkfor a portable container that keeps liquidor food hot or cold by means of a partialvacuum between the outer and innerwalls. A problem is exemplified by astatement in a theater review that “ac-tors balance thermoses in the sand” andby suggestions for take-out meals in acookbook:

Put one of the sauces . . . in a small,wide-mouthed thermos and use as adip. . . . Put your favorite soup in a

thermos. . . . Take [instant soup] inthermos.

If it is a Thermos, it gets a capital T; if animitation, it may be called a vacuum bot-tle, vacuum jar, or the like.

THESE and THOSE. These is theplural of this. Those is the plural of that.

A book says, about the renaissancemadrigal, “Both Lassus and Palest-rina . . . enriched the literature of theform during these years.” Those years—about 1550 to 1580.

“It’s hard to make ends meet thesedays,” but “Those were the days!” SeeTHIS, 1.

THEY and THEM. See Pronouns,10; Pronouns’ classification.

THEY misused. See Pronouns, 2.

THINK, past participle. The pasttense of think is thought: “I thought so.”The past participle also is thought: “Ihave thought about it.” It is not“thunk.”

A participant in a news forum said:“Who would have thunk that the Russo-American summit would have a friskyRussian president and an American pres-ident in a wheelchair?” The rhetoricalquestioner, known as an English-language maven, probably knew better.What was he thinking?

THIS. 1. THIS and THAT. 2. VagueTHIS.

1. THIS and THATLet us talk of this and that. Each has

several functions.

• As an adjective: this woman; thatmountain.

• As a demonstrative pronoun: thistastes sweet; that was historic.

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• As an adverb: the fish was this big;was it that bad?

Both words refer to the thing or per-son mentioned or understood. Whetherthe thing or person is here or there deter-mines which word to choose. When re-ferring to something near, in space ortime (or, sometimes, thought), use this;to something relatively far, use that. Thewords may be used in comparing twothings, one close and the other more dis-tant: “Isn’t this melon bigger than thatone?” See also THESE and THOSE.

When something is about to be stated,this is suitable. (“This poem expressesmy sentiment:” / “This above all: tothine ownself be true”). Often that isclearer in referring to what was alreadystated. (“Our review validates the current National Security Council Sys-tem. . . . That system is properly thepresident’s creature. . . . Having saidthat. . . . ”)

For a few decades, this has tended toencroach upon the province of that. Amodern book says, “This year Boswellwent again to London, once more besetby the anxiety of departure.” Customar-ily this year refers to the year we are nowin. The author is referring to 1773, men-tioned six sentences back in the previousparagraph. “That year” would havebeen preferable.

At the same time, this has tended tousurp the functions of nouns and otherpronouns, including it, he, and she, andits use has swelled. The excerpt that fol-lows is from a government memoran-dum. It uses this, the pronoun, in threeconsecutive sentences. Alternative sug-gestions are offered in brackets. (Empha-sis is added. In an omitted passage afterthe first sentence, the speaker praisesIran for its supposed cooperation. Ourconcern here is solely verbal.)

“Regarding the commitment of theU.S. to turn a page, this [it?] is ex-

pressed by my presence on behalf ofthe President. . . . This [That?] spirit,if it had been present in our first en-counter, would have made clear wecould reach some agreement. Unfor-tunately, we have reached this pointafter a year and three efforts, wherewe thought we have an agreement.This [The delay, frustration?] has af-fected the President’s view of our abil-ity to reach an agreement. . . . This[It?] affected his faith in our ability towork together.”

The next section contains several ad-ditional examples of the overuse of this,emphasizing the serious matter of com-prehension.

2. Vague THISA companion to the excessive depen-

dence on this is the absence of any clearantecedent. An antecedent is the nounthat a pronoun represents. It is hazy ornonexistent in the excerpts to come.

. . . Quayle is among 51 senators whosigned a letter urging Mr. Shultz notto issue a visa for Mr. Arafat.

This would make it even more diffi-cult for a Bush Administration to re-lax American conditions for dialoguewith the P.L.O. . . .

What is the antecedent of “this”? Theletter? Something else? Something notexplicitly mentioned, such as Mr.Shultz’s nonissuance of a visa? We mustguess.

I rejoice when European countriesthrow off tyranny through the will ofthe people, and I wonder whether thiscould have prevented the Naziscourge.

What is “this”? The will of the people?The will of the German people, had itbeen different? The collective will of Eu-

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ropean people to intervene during thethirties? A vague “this” is no replace-ment for adequate thought.

In the book excerpt that follows,“this” appears three times in five sen-tences. The first time, the antecedentmay be phenomenon. The second time,the pronoun it might have been a betterchoice. The third is more conjectural; re-placing “This” with a noun would havemade the meaning clearer. (Emphasesand parentheses are in the book. Brack-ets are added.)

“And this occurs in the case of opaquesurfaces”; the hues depend on the na-ture of the reflecting body. HereLeonardo deals with the point orsheet of light that is reflected onsmooth and polished surface. This[It?] is one aspect of what is calledriverberazione in Manuscript A. Prop-erly speaking, lustro is separate fromreflection (riflesso) in which a specularimage is produced. This [?] is impor-tant insofar as it involves the transferof a neighboring color on the localtint of a given object.

Initially, the last “This” seems to standfor “reflection,” the phenomenon men-tioned last. But the context suggests thatlustro, or luster, is a better guess. A littlelater, the following passage appears.

It was the moment of sfumato—ofgrace, of ambiguity—that forLeonardo tended more and more tobecome integrated in the finality ofthe painting. This [?] was all the morefaithful to its vocation since it was ca-pable of impressing upon the con-science the strangeness of the real thatit had to explore.

“Ambiguity” (not “grace”) sums it up.

THOSE and THEM. See THEMand THOSE.

THOSE and THESE. See THESEand THOSE.

THOU, THEE, and YE. See Pro-nouns, 10A.

“THUNK.” See THINK, past partici-ple.

THUS. Thus, meaning accordingly,therefore, or in this (or that) way, is anadverb. To append “-ly,” as these ex-tracts do, adds nothing to the meaningand an inane cuteness to the style.

Democratic pollster Peter Hart yes-terday described the problems facingDukakis and Jackson thusly: “Wehave one candidate who . . .” [etc.].

Salisbury’s reasoning—advanced invivid detail in his book—goes thusly:

The American Establishment, as itevolved . . . [etc.].

“Thusly” fits no serious discussion, ifanything. It should have been stripped ofits suffix and turned into thus, or re-placed by a synonym such as in this wayor as follows.

TILL and “’TIL.” A caption for a lo-cally televised news report (on damagedfreeways) read “CLOSED ’TILSPRING.” Soon after, an episode in anational television series was titled “’TilDeath Do Us Part” (concerning thekilling of husbands). Later a motion pic-ture titled ’Til There Was You came totheaters.

Till, with two l’s, is the word that wasneeded. It takes no apostrophe, becauseit is not a contraction. Meaning until, itis a bona fide word and may be used inall writing, formal and informal, al-though until is more common as the firstword of a sentence. As a preposition,each means either up to the time of (“Iworked till [or until] midnight”) or, with

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a negative, before (“The game doesn’tstart till [or until] 8”). As a conjunction,each means up to the point that or up tothe time of (“He stayed till [or until] thejob was done”). “Up till” or “up until”is redundant.

There is a word til, with no apostro-phe, which comes from Hindi and de-notes the sesame plant, particularly asused in India, for food and oil. Othermeanings of till are (noun) a money con-tainer, glacial drift, and (verb, transitive)to prepare land for farming.

Time. See A.M., P.M. (etc); Anachro-nism; Any, 5; “AT THIS POINT INTIME”; A WHILE and AWHILE; BIG TIME; FORWARD and BACK;Tense; THAT, 2; WHEN, WHERE indefinitions.

TIME-HONORED. See HONOR-ABLE, HONORARY, HONORED, 4.

Titles. 1. Imitation titles. 2. Social ti-tles. 3. Titles of office.

1. Imitation titlesIt is a journalistic peculiarity to stuff a

description or job title in front of some-one’s name as though it were a formal ti-tle of respect. The beginning of thisquotation will illustrate:

Outgoing Deputy Chief of Staff forPublic Affairs Selma ——— said in anews release Friday that [Governor]Carruthers was informed of her resig-nation and those of Mike ——— andBruce ——— a week ago.

Imagine calling up a governor’s staff as-sistant and asking, “Is this ‘OutgoingDeputy Chief of Staff for Public AffairsSmith?’” That mouthful (without the“Outgoing” and the name) might consti-tute her formal job title, but it is not a ti-tle that normally precedes a name, in the

manner of a social title or a title of office.If it followed the name, it would be justas informative and not nearly so cum-bersome: “Selma ———, deputy chief ofstaff for public affairs.” (All those capi-tal letters are unnecessary. So is “Outgo-ing.” If the woman has submitted herresignation, of course she is going out.)

To suspend a name pending a long de-scription is usually too awkward forbroadcasting but habitual in the press.Some short, bona fide titles, such as Sen-ator, may precede names. (See 2 and 3.)And “the actress Jane Roe” and “aplumber, John Doe” are idiomaticforms. What smacks of journalese is“Actress Jane Roe” or “Plumber JohnDoe.” In its style book, The AssociatedPress condones “astronaut John Glenn,movie star John Wayne, peanut farmerJimmy Carter.”

It gets worse when a long job title ispiled up in front of a name. Further ex-amples follow below. Perhaps the writersthought they were being terse. The firstsaves no words from the piling-up; eachof the others saves two small words.(Smoother wordings are in parentheses.)

“Supervisor of Correctional Educa-tion Bill Lane” (Bill Lane, supervisor ofcorrectional education); “California En-ergy Commission Chairman Charles Im-brecht” (Charles Imbrecht, chairman ofthe California Energy Commission);“Youth Guidance Center chief probationofficer Fred Jordan” (Fred Jordan, chiefprobation officer of the Youth GuidanceCenter); and “former deputy staff chiefand now Transportation Secretary An-drew Card” (Andrew Card, formerdeputy chief of staff and now secretaryof transportation). Note that there is no“staff chief” or “Transportation Secre-tary”; the terms are chief of staff and sec-retary of transportation.

The practice is not new. A monstrousspecimen was attributed to a dispatch re-ceived in a newspaper office from a wireservice, probably in 1939:

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VICE-PRESIDENT-IN-CHARGE-OF-EVAPORATED-CONDENSED-AND MALTED MILK-CHEESE-MINCE MEAT-AND-CARAMELSARTHUR W. RAMSDELL ANDVICE-PRESIDENT-IN-CHARGE-OF-CASEIN-ADHESIVES-AND-PRESCRIPTION-PRODUCTS WIL-LIAM CALLAN WERE ELECTEDTO THOSE OFFICES TODAY BYTHE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE BORDEN COMPANY.

The habit extends to fictional peopleand includes the creating of descriptions.A movie review said, “Carrey plays slickLos Angeles lawyer Fletcher Reede.” Amore natural phrasing might be “Carreyplays a slick lawyer of Los Angeles,Fletcher Reede.”

The idea, or at least popularizing, ofimitation titles has been ascribed to Timein its early years. The magazine still dis-plays phrases like “Asian-American fundraiser John Huang” and “GOP virtue-crat William Bennett.” (The latter usedto be called “drug czar William Ben-nett.”)

Even figures from the past may getsuch treatment in the press. A caption re-called the appointment of “Presbyterianelder and Warren G. Harding campaignmanager Will Hays” in 1922 as presi-dent of an organization to protect Holly-wood’s reputation.

Fortunately, historical authors are notready to write of “Italian Navigator andDiscoverer of the New World Christo-pher Columbus,” or of “Commander ofthe Continental Army in the AmericanRevolution and Father of His CountryGeorge Washington.”

See also Modifiers, 4.

2. Social titlesDuring the Reagan administration a

newspaper item said:

Reagan will address the grandpar-ent-volunteer group at . . . Epcot Cen-

ter [on a drug topic]. . . . Reaganplans to return to Washington onWednesday afternoon.

To most Americans, the subject of eachsentence could be only one person, Presi-dent Ronald Reagan. It was not. Thestory was about Nancy Reagan.

Nobody meeting her would addressher as “Reagan.” She would be “Mrs.Reagan” even to her worst enemy. Butthe particular newspaper had a style rulethat everyone must be called by his orher last name on the second reference,with no title. So the staff followed it, re-gardless of the resulting absurdity.

Two administrations later, a contro-versy arose over a newspaper’s publica-tion of private comments by HillaryClinton. An article about the matter ap-peared in a magazine (for the newspaperindustry). The first sentence apparentlysuggests that President Clinton hadstuck up for his wife:

Clinton was said to be furious herremarks were publicized. . . .

This was the second time Clintondined with women feature writers atthe White House. . . .

One man who was once asked tothe White House for a tête-à-tête withClinton is . . . [etc.].

The person repeatedly called “Clinton”was not President William J. Clinton butMrs. Clinton. The practice of omittingthe social titles of women had becomewidespread, and the magazine was fol-lowing it too.

It can be confusing, as we see. It doesnot reflect the norm of civil behavior—would you call her “Clinton”?—thoughthe press professes to mirror society. Andit can be considered degrading to deprivewomen of their titles. To deprive men oftheir “Mr.” has long been commonplaceamong American newspapers.

Even children get the icy, surname-

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only treatment. A story about a malprac-tice suit said:

Hospital staff failed to electroni-cally monitor Chan’s fetal hearttone . . . [while] her mother was in la-bor. . . . As a result, Chan suffers fromcerebral edema and seizures [etc.].

Who, outside the press, would refer to afetus and a girl of five that way?

Some publications grant social titlesonly to the subjects of obituaries. Otherswill not have them even then. This is typ-ical of more than one daily: “Howarddied June 10, days before her 80th birth-day.” Broadcasting has picked up thatrude style. An anchor woman repeatedlyreferred to the late actress Audrey Mead-ows as “Meadows.” Though called“Miss Meadows” in life, in death shewas not afforded the respect of a title.

The Associated Press (AP) will not re-fer to a man as Mr. unless it is combinedwith Mrs., as in Mr. and Mrs. JohnSmith. AP does use social titles (it callsthem courtesy titles) for women. Itprefers a woman’s own full name and notitle on the first reference: Mary Smith;on the second reference, the form is Mrs.or Miss or—if she prefers—Ms. Smith orjust Smith.

Allowing both sexes social titles is get-ting rare in the press. In second and laterreferences, The New York Times willusually put Mr., or another bona fide ti-tle, before a man’s surname. Its generalpolicy has long been to use the full nameand no social title for a woman on thefirst reference in a news story, thereafterto use the title Miss or Mrs. with the sur-name.

In 1986, the newspaper amended itspolicy: It would use Ms. when thewoman preferred it or when her maritalstatus was not known. Earlier, Ms. “hadnot passed sufficiently into the languageto be accepted as common usage. TheTimes now believes that ‘Ms.’ has be-come a part of the language. . . . ” In

practice, it seems to be the paper’s femaletitle of first resort.

Ms. may be traced at least to the1950s. A leaflet on letter writing by anassociation of office managers suggestedits use to solve a problem: how to ad-dress women of uncertain marital status.And a manual for secretaries recom-mended: “If in doubt about ‘Miss’ or‘Mrs,’ use ‘Miss’ or ‘Ms’ (meaning either‘Miss’ or ‘Mrs.’).”

Promoted by feminists and assignedthe pronunciation MIZ, Ms. becamecommon in the seventies. The traditionalMiss and Mrs. were said to be discrimi-natory—although polls suggested thatmost women favored them and dislikedMs. For instance, betrothed maidens ob-jected to the society pages’ raising doubtabout their marital status.

Business has accepted Ms. An execu-tive says, “I myself find it very useful, of-ten having occasion to address letters towomen whose marital status is unknownto me and not easily discovered.”

News people have cause to like it, justas they like leaving out titles altogether.By using “Ms. Smith,” they need nottake the trouble to find out if a woman isMiss Smith or Mrs. Smith. And if theycan say just “Smith,” they may not evenhave to find out if a person is a womanor a man. (Some first names, includingDale, Lee, Leslie, Marion, Robin, andToby, are of dual gender, and foreignnames may be puzzling.)

Mr. and Mrs. are abbreviations of mis-ter and mistress, which for centuries hasusually been pronounced MISS-iz whenreferring to a married woman. Unlikethem, Ms. is an artificial entity that repre-sents no single word and has no plural.(See Plurals and singulars, 2H.) Nor doesit have a distinctive pronunciation; it bor-rows from musty, regional dialect, inwhich Mrs. is pronounced MIZ. At leastone clerk of a law court, announcingnames of jury panelists, regularly pro-nounced it “EM ESS,” like the abbrevia-

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tion of master of science, multiple sclero-sis, millisecond, manuscript, missile sys-tem, or Mississippi in postal code.

Miss is still used, with a surname, inaddressing or referring to a girl; or awoman who has not married; or awoman by her professional name, even ifshe is married and has a different per-sonal name. (In a news story, ElizabethTaylor was called just “Taylor” twiceand then, in a flash of civility, “Miss Tay-lor.”) Miss or madam is used without asurname to address a female stranger.(“Miss, you dropped your purse.”)

Traditional etiquette decrees thatwhen Mrs. precedes a full name, it shallnot be the woman’s own name (“Mrs.Agnes Cooper”) but her husband’s(“Mrs. John Cooper”).

To say “I am Mr. Doaks,” instead of“I am Joseph Doaks,” is considered im-modest, unless one is addressingschoolchildren. And this is a matter ofword usage rather than etiquette, but itis not correct to say “His name is Mr.Edwards”; rather, “He is Mr. Edwards”and “His name is George L. Edwards.”See also REVEREND.

Mr. and Mrs. with a name are alwaysabbreviated. It is never “Mister Doaks.”But they are never abbreviated whenused as words: “Hey, mister, do youhave a match?” / “I have to call the mis-sis” (or “missus”).

Publications that use social titles haveexceptions. The Times omits them fromsports stories and from references to fa-mous people who are no longer living.An eastern newspaper that I worked forexcluded Mr. from the names of arrestedmen. When I asked why, the city editorreplied, “Any son of a bitch that getshimself arrested doesn’t deserve to becalled mister.”

3. Titles of officeSome job titles may precede names,

and they are short: President, Governor,Senator, Representative (or Rep. forshort), General, Colonel, Dean, Profes-

sor, etc. A title that precedes a name be-gins with a capital. That goes only for anofficial title, not a pseudo title like “DrugCzar” or “Rock ’n’ Roll King” or“Cherry Blossom Queen.” (For citizensof a republic, we seem remarkably fondof royal appellations.)

Dr. is another title that may precede aname, when the doctorate is earned andnot just honorary. It is superfluous whenthe degree follows a name. Frank A.Robinson, M.D., or George B. Sanders,Ph.D., is enough.

No other title should precede Dr. “Su-perintendent of Schools Dr. AmbroseWalker” goes too far. Better: Dr. Am-brose Walker, superintendent of schools.Nor should any other pair of titles becombined, as in “County SupervisorMrs. Frederick J. Van Buren.” The officecan go after the name.

An official position or office men-tioned in a general sense does not meritan initial capital: “He has decided to runfor governor.” When the word identifiesa particular holder of the office, it mayreasonably be capitalized: “The Gover-nor has signed. . . . ” Another reasonablestyle is that of The Associated Press. Itcalls for all titles to be in lower casewhen not affixed to a name: “The popegave his blessing” but “Pope John Paulgave. . . . ” An article, attributed to AP,was inconsistent:

. . . He . . . became the first Virginiamayor to lose his seat in an electionon recalling him from office. . . . TheCity Council can pick a member toserve as Mayor, go outside . . . for aMayor, or do nothing.

In each instance, mayor is used in a gen-eral sense; it does not refer to a particu-lar person, so no capital M is warranted.

An official title of modest length is customarily capitalized before thename: “Attorney General Janet Renosaid. . . . ” But it needs no capitals afterthe name: “Janet Reno, the attorney gen-eral, said. . . .” Sometimes a lawyer in no

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official position is called, for instance,“Attorney Roger U. Nelson.” There isno title of “attorney,” hence no com-pelling reason to put it in front of aname, particularly with a capital A. (Seealso ATTORNEY and LAWYER.)

When the name of a person is intro-duced in any writing or talk, an identify-ing title or description normally isnecessary, unless the person is famousenough to need none—Jefferson andLincoln come to mind. A book abouttravels in Africa tells an anecdote inwhich “Bokassa” is mentioned threetimes with no title. The fourth time, he is“Emperor Bokassa” (the ruler of theCentral African “Empire”—now Repub-lic—until 1979). The first mentionwould be a better place for the title, incase the name of that tyrant is unfamiliarto any reader.

In a long piece with a sizable cast ofcharacters, one identification per personmay not be enough. Reading “O’Briensaid . . . ,” readers may strain to remem-ber him if he was identified twenty para-graphs back and other names have sincebeen introduced. Let memories be refreshed: “Dr. O’Brien, the director,said. . . . ” Then no one need search,guess, or give up.

Once a person has left a public officein which he held a prominent title, suchas President, Senator, Judge, or Ambas-sador, continuing to attach that title tohis name is no longer necessary, if itmakes any sense at all. Yet there is anAmerican tradition of doing just that.People will persist in addressing a one-time Senator Scott that way, even thoughhe has legally been Mr. Scott for manyyears. The Honorable honorific has stay-ing power too. See HONORABLE (etc.).

For titles of books, etc., see Capital-ization; Italics; Punctuation, 10.

TO. 1. Missing. 2. Overworked.

1. MissingIn light of the many functions of to, its

appearance more than once in a sentence

should disconcert nobody. Yet some-times a single to is left to handle a doubleload.

A notice offering a reward for infor-mation about the perpetrators of a crimesaid:

IN CASE OF A DUPLICATION OF INFORMATION OR DISPUTE,THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS . . .WILL BE THE SOLE JUDGE AS TOWHOM THE REWARD SHALL BEPAID OR AS TO THE MANNER INWHICH THE REWARD MAY BEDIVIDED.

The first “TO” is part of the phrase “ASTO.” But the writer evidently expectedthe same “TO” to perform double dutyin the phrase “TO WHOM,” somethingit could not do.

Another TO could be slipped in nextto the first one, but “AS TO TOWHOM” looks strange. A better way isto follow “SHALL BE PAID” with theadditional TO. A further improvementis to replace each “AS TO” with asharper preposition: “. . . THE SOLEJUDGE OF WHOM THE REWARDSHALL BE PAID TO OR OF THEMANNER IN WHICH THE REWARDMAY BE DIVIDED.”

In another statement, “as to” and “towhich” get only one to between them:

As to which additional commoditiesthe guaranteed price should be ap-plied, Mr. Gaitskell said. . . .

“. . . Applied to. . . . ”See also Prepositions, 4.

2. OverworkedEach of two dictionaries enumerates

twenty-seven meanings of to, mostly as apreposition.

A frequent function is to indicate theinfinitive of verbs (to go, to eat). In thatcapacity to has no meaning itself anddoes not fulfill the normal function of apreposition, though classified as one.

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To can also indicate accompaniment(“dance to the music”), addition(“adding insult to injury”), agreement(“to my liking”), benefit (“It goes to agood cause”), contact (“a blow to thejaw”), direction (“I’m going to town”),extent or result (“It’s burned to ashes”),limit (“We stayed to the end”), posses-sion (“It belongs to us”), purpose (“Iwork to support my family), ratio (“Theodds are two to one”), and many otherthings.

To occasionally is an adverb meaningtoward something implied or under-stood (“They kept the ship to” [thewind]) or to a point of contact (“Shesoon came to” [consciousness]).

This two-letter word is overworked asit is. It ought not to be loaded with stillmore tasks: “The best present for theperson on your list who has everythingis . . . a gift membership to the . . . Insti-tute.” In that sentence, from a newslet-ter, the idiomatic preposition would bein.

The star of a situation comedy was di-rected to say, “One night I came home tofind my ex-husband having sex withthree hookers in my lingerie.” Perhapsnobody in the audience would seriouslyremark, “There must be a better reasonto go home,” but that construction doesmimic to used in the sense of purpose.Better: “I came home and found. . . . ”

Similarly: “ABC put two of its betterdramas . . . on Saturday nights only tosee them squashed” and “Students . . .demonstrated in support of the protest-ing workers, only to feel let down whenthe strikes did not spread. . . . ” Probablyfew if anyone would take such sentencesliterally and think that the network or the students showed masochistic ten-dencies; nevertheless “only to” is a pecu-liar form. The same points would bemade concisely with “and saw themsquashed” and “and felt let down. . . . ”

An established use of to is to indicatea compulsion to perform an action:

“You are to report for work tomorrowmorning at 8.” Headline writers haveconverted that to a simple future: “Stateto appeal judge’s ruling,” meaning thatthe state will appeal. Except in headlines,a construction like “The rainy season isto begin soon” is no substitute for thesimple future: “will begin soon.”

To has so many meanings that it caneasily be misinterpreted when used care-lessly, conveying a distorted message.For instance: “George Fox . . . defiedOliver Cromwell to found the Society ofFriends in the seventeenth century.” Areader who thinks “to found” servesthere as an infinitive can interpret thesentence as saying that Fox daredCromwell to found the society—which ishistorically wrong. Either by founding orin order to found would eliminate theambiguity. Although several critics con-demn the phrase in order to as a usuallyexcessive replacement for to alone, itneed not be avoided when, occasionally,it makes the meaning clear.

See also COMPARED TO and COM-PARED WITH; Gerund, 3; HAVE, HAS,HAD, 4; Infinitive; Prepositions, 1, 7;SPEAK TO, TALK TO; TO, TOO, andTWO.

TOGETHER WITH. See WITH, 2.

TOO. 1. Meanings. 2. Omission of O.

1. MeaningsTwo meanings of too (adverb) that

are suitable for both formal and infor-mal purposes are (1) also, in addition(“They pay well and give benefits too”),and (2) excessively, overly (“These shoesare too big for my feet”). Used in the firstsense, too should not start a sentence,but then too may.

Too has several colloquial uses. Some-times it is merely an intensive, used incontradicting someone. “He is too thebest player.” So could be used instead.

At times too preceded by a negative

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substitutes for not sufficiently or not atall. Such use is sometimes unnecessary,illogical, or, worse yet, ambiguous.

A book says that (1) “Not too muchlight can be shed” on the origin of cer-tain words and (2) “Addison wasn’t tooappreciative of” word games. A new-comer to colloquial English might bepuzzled. Why would we want “toomuch” light instead of just enough light?And why should Addison have been“too appreciative” as long as he was ap-preciative enough? The contexts indicatethat the “too” is unnecessary in eachcase. In the first sentence, “Not muchlight . . .” would have communicated themessage. The second sentence might bejustified as a touch of irony, although“Addison did not appreciate . . .” wouldbe more straightforward.

In those excerpts, “too” is just an il-logical colloquialism. It can be down-right ambiguous: “Your dress is not toogood for the party.” Literally someone isbeing told that she is not overdressed.According to the colloquial sense, how-ever, she can get the message that she iswrongly dressed. Another example ofambiguity: “I can’t regard this book toohighly.” The speaker may consider thebook to be the ultimate in brilliance ornot good enough to merit much regard.

With some modifiers—all too, buttoo, and only too—it can mean regret-tably or unfortunately. “The rumors areall too true.” / “They’re only too eagerto take your money.” In modern use,only too is often a mere intensive, equiv-alent to very (a use deplored by SirErnest Gowers). “We’re only too pleasedto be of service.”

Too can be part of a hyphenated ad-jective, such as “a too-familiar com-plaint” or “the too-trusting visitor.”

See also NONE, 2.

2. Omission of ONot infrequently those who do not

work with written words leave out the

second o in too, producing the preposi-tion “to.” Occasionally professionalwriters or typesetters err in that way, assomeone did in an article in a computermagazine:

If program files get out of order,which happens all to often for me,First Aid comes to the rescue.

“. . . All too often. . . . ” No computerprogram yet invented will guard againsta mistake of that sort.

See also TO, TOO, and TWO.

TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. SeeEllipsis (near end).

TOOK and TAKEN. See Tense, 5A.

TORE, TORN. See TEAR, TORE,TORN.

TORTUOUS and TORTUROUS.The adjectives tortuous and torturousshare a Latin root and are often con-fused, yet they have different meaningsin English.

Torturous, as it suggests, pertains totorture or great pain (“a torturous inqui-sition”). It is pronounced TORE-chur-us.

Tortuous means twisting, not straight-forward, or very complex (“the tortuoustrails”). It is pronounced TORE-chew-us.

A lawyer said his client’s plea of guiltyto an assault charge was made under a“very torturous set of circumstances.”He probably meant tortuous.

Webster’s Third Dictionary gives tor-tuous as one of the meanings of tortur-ous, thereby encouraging the confusion.

Both adjectives, and the related ad-verbs tortuously and torturously, trace tothe Latin torquere, to twist. So do theverbs torture and torment, the noun tort(injury in a legal sense), and the adjective

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tortious (TORE-shus, pertaining to atort).

TO SAY NOTHING OF. Discuss-ing lexicographical tradition, two au-thors write:

Inevitably, Webster and Richardson,to say nothing of Webster and Wor-cester, disliked one another.

If the authors intended to say nothing ofWebster and Worcester, why did they sayanything of them?

“To say nothing of” is one of severalpeculiarly contradictory expressions andwords. See NOT TO MENTION; Ver-bal unmentionables.

See also INEVITABLE.

TOTAL. 1. “A TOTAL OF.” 2. Singu-lar vs. plural verb.

1. “A TOTAL OF”In an enumeration such as “two owls

and a hen, four larks and a wren—a to-tal of eight birds,” a total of is a usefulphrase; it denotes a sum of the items.

The phrase “a total of” frequentlystarts sentences like these in the press:

A total of 60 police and protesterswere injured in the scuffles. . . .

A total of 402 Iowans who saidthey would definitely or probably attend the state’s precinct cau-cuses . . . were interviewed. . . .

A total of 143 nations . . . joined inapproving two resolutions challeng-ing the closing of the observer mis-sion. . . .

What is the need for “a total of” whenonly one figure is mentioned? Obviouslysomeone has counted the injured people,the Iowans, or the nations and come upwith a total.

The usual purpose is to get around a

journalistic and literary taboo on start-ing a sentence with a figure. “143 na-tions,” or the like, is never supposed tobe written. When, as a young reporter, Iasked an editor why, he said only, “Itwould look strange.” Maybe so at first,because the rule has precluded initial fig-ures, at least in texts. Headlines maystart with figures.

Even if we accept the rule, “A totalof” is usually a superfluous beginning.“Sixty police” is easy to write and read.“One hundred two Iowans” is not toohard. “One hundred forty-three na-tions” is just a little harder.

An article contained the pair of sen-tences below. The latter is particularlyawkward.

A total of 167 delegates will be se-lected from the state’s 34 assemblydistricts. . . .

A total of 2,081 of the 4,161 delegateswill be needed to win the nomination.

Is the 4,161 not the total? Better: “Ofthe 4,161 delegates, 2,081 will beneeded. . . . ”

See also Numbers, 11.

2. Singular vs. plural verbA subject starting with “the total of”

ordinarily takes a singular verb. “The to-tal of 1.7 million votes was the highestever recorded in the state.” But a subjectstarting with “a total of” often takes aplural verb. “A total of 1.7 million voteswere cast in the state.” The first exampleemphasizes the total as a statistic. Thesecond emphasizes the votes that werecast.

Some writers fix on total and makeevery verb singular, however unid-iomatic: votes “was” cast.

See also Collective nouns, 2.

TO, TOO, and TWO. Pronouncedthe same, the three words are confusedby writers from time to time, perhaps

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out of absent-mindedness or careless-ness. It is hard to believe that a writerdoes not know the differences amongtwo or 2, the number between 1 and 3;too, the adverb meaning excessively andalso; and to, the two-letter workhorseindicating direction, extent, purpose, in-finitive (with a verb), and many otherthings.

A manual suggests a reason for thefailure of a computer printer: “The pageis to complex for the printer’s memorycapacity. . . . ” Change “to” to too. Andthis is from a restaurant review: “Chil-dren will probably enjoy two the friedtaro patty. . . . ” Change “two” to too.

See also TO; TOO, 2.

Trademarks. A trademark, alsospelled trade-mark, is a distinctive name,design, picture, symbol, or other deviceon goods offered for sale. It distinguishesthe goods of a particular manufactureror seller from similar goods produced orsold by others.

Technically, a brand name, such asPepsi-Cola or Sunkist, is a trademark;while a distinctive name of a businesssuch as Kmart Stores or Bank of Amer-ica, is a trade name (usually two words).Often, especially in popular usage, tradename is applied to the product too.

Registration of either at the U.S.Patent and Trademark Office or a corre-sponding state office is not essential, butit affords legal protection in case of in-fringement. In preventing unauthorizeduse of a mark or name, the law not onlyprotects ownership but also helps to pro-tect the public from deception.

The name of a product that is a trade-mark should always begin with a capitalletter. It is accurate usage; besides, ithelps keep the name from going into thepublic domain, losing its precise mean-ing, and penalizing the owner for its suc-cess. Aspirin, escalator, and yo-yo areamong former trademarks.

Manufacturers advertise and takeother steps to encourage capitalization

of such trademarks as the Coca-Colanickname Coke, which contrasts withcoke, a coal product and slang for co-caine. After Webster’s Third Dictionarycame out, G. & C. Merriam Co. had torevise some 300 entries when owners oftrademarks like Kleenex and Frigidairethreatened suit over the lack of initialcapitals.

Every product has a generic name—soda pop, facial tissues, refrigerators,and so on—that can be used in lieu of abrand name. Some publications takepains to avoid mentioning the commer-cial names of products except in adver-tisements. “But if a trade name[trademark] is pertinent to a story, useit,” The New York Times tells staffmembers. Its example: “The robbers es-caped in a white Cadillac sedan.”

See also BAND-AID; JELL-O; KO-DAK; SEEING EYE; THERMOS;VASELINE; XEROX.

TRADITION. See HONORABLE,HONORARY, HONORED.

TRAGEDY. Tragedy signifies a seri-ous play with a very sad ending, or aplay of that sort as a genre. It is a dramadepicting a character’s struggle with anoverpowering adversary through a seriesof solemn, pathetic, or shocking events,ending in calamity. Typically the protag-onist’s passion or character flaw leads tohis undoing.

When it does not pertain to drama,tragedy (noun) suggests an event or se-ries of events characterized by or endingin calamity or great suffering and usuallydeath. Tragic (adjective) means pertain-ing to or having the character of either adramatic tragedy or a general tragedy; itcan mean calamitous or disastrous.

Tragedy or tragic is frivolously in-voked at times to describe a state of af-fairs that is merely disagreeable orundesirable but involves no calamity orgreat suffering. A book speculates on the

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loss to English literature if Joyce, Shaw,Swift, and other literary masters of Ire-land had written in Gaelic:

Their works would be as little knownto us as those of the poets of Icelandor Norway, and that would be atragedy indeed.

That might be unfortunate (if “that”refers to unfamiliarity with the works ofthe Irishmen), but why would it be a“tragedy”? How would our ignorance ofa literature cause us—much less thereaders of that literature—calamity orgreat suffering? (The analogy is imper-fect. The Irish literati included non-poets; and our ignorance of Norwegiandoes not preclude our familiarity withthe dramas of Ibsen. An Icelander andthree Norwegians, including the poetBjørnson, won the Nobel Prize for litera-ture.)

In another book, the absence of atragedy is perversely labeled a “tragedy.”

For a man with Theodore Roosevelt’sneed for personal fulfillment, it was asort of tragedy that he had no war—not even a Whiskey Rebellion.

The author seems to imply that war,with its killing and suffering, is of nomoment if it brings a president “per-sonal fulfillment.”

See also DISASTER.

Transitive and intransitive verbs.See Verbs, 1.

TRANSPIRE. To use “transpire” in-stead of happen or occur or take place isloose and pompous. The pomposity of“transpired” clashes with the informalstyles of the movie review and book thatare quoted here. See if anything wouldbe lost by replacing “transpired” with,say, happened.

His speech . . . is intended to be takenstraight—I guess. In light of every-thing that’s transpired, however . . .the speech is a hoot, and the screeningaudience was snickering disrespect-fully. . . .

“You took this receipt to Follope.He said to you, ‘Thank you,’ but now,several days pass, nothing haschanged.”

This was precisely what had tran-spired.

The loose use tends to devaluate avaluable word. To transpire (verb, tran-sitive or intransitive) is literally to giveoff vapor, moisture, odor, etc. through abody, plant, or other surface. Used figu-ratively about information, to transpire(verb, intransitive) is to leak out, to be-come known, or to come to light. For ex-ample, “The committee made itsdecision three months ago, but the factsdid not transpire until yesterday.” Noother single word expresses that mean-ing.

TRAVESTY. A travesty is a type ofburlesque or satire. It is a piece of litera-ture or drama that (1) ridicules its genreor (2) treats a serious work or loftytheme absurdly, grotesquely, or ironi-cally.

Travesty is used figuratively, usuallywith justice, to suggest a grotesque ordistorted imitation. The phrase “travestyof justice,” describing an unfair law orlegal decision, has become a cliché sinceEdith Wharton used it in 1923 in A Sonat the Front: “. . . It’s an iniquitous law,a travesty of justice” (that permitsFrance to conscript an American).

If a figurative meaning is intended,“travesty” alone is apt to make no sense:A newspaper article reported that Israelileaders opposed blanket compensationfor Palestinians claiming damages from

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Israeli army actions during the intifada,or uprising.

But Leah Tesemel, an Israeli lawyerwho represents several Arab claim-ants, said travesties had been commit-ted against Palestinians, beyond whatcourts would consider as legal armedresponse. . . .

You can no more “commit” a travestythan you can “commit” a comedy or asatire.

An article in another paper dealt witha school board’s approval of educationalmaterials on the Sino-Japanese conflict.

However, some who worked on theoriginal curriculum proposal say thatthe administrators’ revision of the ma-terials omits the context and imagesnecessary to convey the travesty’s im-pact.

Was it a mistyping of tragedy or a dis-play of ignorance? To call the killing ofmillions a “travesty” is bizarre.

Travesty entered England in 1648, asa French verb, in the title of Le VirgileTravesty en Vers Burlesque, Virgil traves-tied in burlesque verses, by Paul Scarron.Meaning to disguise, travestir was anadaptation of the Italian travestire, fromthe Latin trans-, across, and vestire, toclothe.

TREAD. The past tense of tread (verb,transitive and intransitive) is trod. “Wetook our packs and trod the path forthree hours.” To use trod in a presentsense is an error. Webster’s Third Dictio-nary tends to sanction the error, uncriti-cally quoting, “The eccentric is forced totrod a lonely way.” Make it tread.

The past participle is trodden or trod.“The boy has trodden [or “trod”] thisroad often.” The other forms are regu-lar: treading, treads. In archaic times thepast tense was trode.

Among the meanings of tread are towalk, step, or dance on or along; totrample; to oppress; and to pump thefeet (in water).

TREASON. See Crimes, 5.

TREMBLER and TEMBLOR. SeeTEMBLOR and TREMBLER.

TRILLION. See BILLION.

TRIO. A trio is a group of threesingers or musicians, or a musical com-position for three voices or instruments.In a more general sense, a trio can be agroup of three people who are connectedin some joint action or at least closely as-sociated. The Three Stooges might qual-ify, but not three strangers who happento be in an elevator at the same time. It isa journalistic cliché to use the word forany three people.

An article concerning the Salvadoriancivil war says, “The trio was cookingspaghetti and beans when a knock at thedoor came at 10:45 p.m.” The threepeople were not three musicians or threecooks at a restaurant but a woman andtwo friends of hers who came, sepa-rately, seeking refuge. To call them a“trio” stretches the word thin. Better:“The three were cooking. . . . ” Havinglinked them into a unit (“The trio wascooking”), the writer evades the gram-matical snare (“when it heard a knock”)and never again mentions the group inthe remaining thirteen paragraphs.

TRIUMPHAL and TRIUM-PHANT. The difference between theseadjectives is subtle. Triumphant meansvictorious, also elated over victory. “Thearmy is triumphant.” / “Their tri-umphant feeling was short-lived.” Usingthe word to mean triumphal is obsolete.Triumphal goes with something com-memorating or honoring a triumph:“We walked under the Triumphal

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Arch.” / “The band played Verdi’s Tri-umphal March.” Webster’s Third Dic-tionary promotes confusion of the twowords by giving “TRIUMPHANT” as ameaning of triumphal.

The related adverbs are triumphantlyand triumphally. Triumph (noun) is vic-tory, conquest, or distinguished achieve-ment. To triumph (verb, intransitive) isto be victorious.

TROOPER and TROUPER. SeeHomophones.

TROOP, TROOPS, and TROUPE.Paraphrasing a bill in the U.S. Senate, atelevision panelist said it would put thepresident on notice that “you’re going torequire prior congressional approval be-fore you send one troop into Haiti.”

“One troop” sounded odd. Thespeaker may have meant one servicemanor one soldier. The singular, troop, de-notes a unit of Boy Scouts or Girl Scoutsand, sometimes, a nondescript group ofpeople or animals. In the military sense,a troop technically is a subdivision of acavalry regiment; otherwise the plural,troops, is nearly always used, meaningarmed forces collectively or any body ofsoldiers prepared to fight: “Troops havebeen shipped to Haiti.”

A number may precede troops whenthe idea is to refer, impersonally, to agroup; but not when the idea is to referto individuals. Thus, “They have some300 troops at the border” but not “Thefive troops described their experiences.”

Troop is not to be confused withtroupe, pronounced the same, meaning agroup of entertainers.

“TRUE” or “FALSE” FACTS. SeeFACT, 3.

TRUSTEE and TRUSTY. See Con-fusing pairs.

TRUTH. See FACT, 4; Twins, 1.

TRY AND and TRY TO. A televi-sion panelist said of a presidential candi-date, “He wants to try and get out asmany Republicans as he can.” Was “tryand” correct or should it have been tryto?

It passed muster. The consensus of au-thorities is that try and is a colloquial id-iom that need not be avoided when itseems natural in speech, although somefind it too casual for careful writing oreven for the heights of oral eloquence.None impugn the good standing of tryto.

The two phrases are not identical inmeaning. “Let’s try to stop them” and“Try to remember where you put thekeys” literally call for attempts. On theother hand, “Try and stop me” is not aliteral instruction but an expression ofdetermination, and “Let’s try and win”offers encouragement. “We will try toreach our goal next month” implies res-olution, while “We’ll try and repair itsoon” implies “Don’t count on it.”

TUMMY. See STOMACH.

TURBID and TURGID. See Con-fusing pairs.

’TWAS (it was). See Expletives.

Twins. 1. Legal. 2. Nonlegal.

1. LegalA candidate for city treasurer who

promised, in a written statement, “I willscrutinize each and every receipt” wasusing legal language. Doubling andsometimes tripling of ideas in more orless redundant phrases has been charac-teristic of lawyers for ages. By augment-ing each with every, or null with void,they presumably have sought to addrhetorical weight and insure understand-ing.

Some are just ritual phrases, such asthe triplet the truth, the whole truth, and

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nothing but the truth, which is directedat laymen. Two other triplets, ready,willing, and able and way, shape, orform have been adopted by the lay pub-lic. So have any and all, fit and proper,part and parcel, peace and quiet, sepa-rate and distinct, and various andsundry. The Constitution uses aid andcomfort and full faith and credit. Othercommon legal twins include aid andabet, cease and desist, free and clear, saveand except, sole and exclusive, termsand conditions, and true and correct.

Many combinations have set mean-ings established by court decisions. Lessfamiliar ones may risk unexpected inter-pretations, so the legal drafter shouldmake sure that each word is necessary.Two words are not necessarily betterthan one. See also TESTAMENT andTESTIMONY; UNLESS AND UNTIL.

2. NonlegalMany nonlegal twins exist as clichés.

They include alas and alack, betwixt andbetween, bits and pieces, bow andscrape, fair and square, fast and furious,fear and trembling, first and foremost,free and easy, hale and hearty, hem andhaw, hook or crook, hue and cry, kithand kin, leaps and bounds, lo and be-hold, might and main, nerve and fiber,nook and cranny, pillar to post, pompand circumstance, pure and simple, rackand ruin, rags and tatters, rant and rave,really and truly, right and proper, safeand sound, so on and so forth, thick andfast, to and fro, trials and tribulations,ways and means, and well and good.

Some twins, like flotsam and jetsam,jot or tittle, and spick and span, are in-separable. Anyone using an isolatedalack, betwixt, fro, or main (noun) is notlikely to be understood nowadays butmight have been in past eras.

One of the words may provide an ad-ditional shade of meaning or it may bejust an empty synonym in legal style.Cranny does supplement nook, as kith

does kin. Yet such pairs are hackneyedexpressions. Whether a particular phrasewill best convey one’s message is worth athought.

The pairs listed above are just frater-nal twins. There is also a class of identi-cal twins, including boy oh boy, by andby, day by day, eye to eye, ha ha, man toman, more and more, neck and neck, onand on, out(-)and(-)out, over and over,so(-)so, (call) a spade a spade, throughand through, time after time, up and up,(if) worst comes to worst, (what’s) doneis done, and the British hear, hear and tata.

See also Clichés; Tautology.

TYPE. 1. Noun: followed by OF. 2.TYPE and KIND; other meanings.

1. Noun: followed by OFAs a noun, type usually means either

(a) a category or class or (b) a person,creature, or thing with the features of thecategory or class. “What type of animalis it?” / “A baboon is a type of monkey.”/ “The guiro is an instrument of the per-cussion type.”

When type is followed by the name ofthe category or class, of should inter-vene.

As recorded in an autobiography, afather wrote to his son that as a teen-ager “you will establish definitely thetype person you will be. . . . ” And in amagazine, a witness to a plane crash wasquoted as saying, “I won’t tell you it’s aseven-twenty-seven, but it’s that type air-craft.”

Idiomatic English calls for “type ofperson” and “type of aircraft.” We donot say, “I wonder what species flower itis” or “I like this variety apple.”

Commercial appropriations of theword—e.g., “silk-type material”—areunderstandable, if sometimes shady. Imi-tation of the commercial pattern, in anattempt to be droll, may account for

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slangy phrases like “reading-type mate-rial” in lieu of type of reading material.

2. TYPE and KIND; other meaningsUsed strictly, type fits a clearly defined

group (“Citrine is a type of quartz”)while kind or sort has more general ap-plication. (“That is the kind of weather Ilike.” / “She is the sort of person whogets along with everyone.”) Strict usersappear to be in the minority.

The noun type can also denote printedcharacters (“The manuscript has been

set up in type”) or the metallic blocksproducing them in traditional printing.Type can serve as an adjective when itpertains to printing, as in type style andtype faces, or when it is united with atechnical term, as in Type AB blood. Asa verb, type (present participle typing)can mean to operate a typewriter orcomputer keyboard (“She types eightywords a minute”) or to classify (“Theytyped him as a vagrant”).

See also KIND OF.

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ULTIMATUM. An ultimatum is notjust any demand. This noun, along withthe adjective ultimate, stems from theMedieval Latin ultimatus, meaning final.An ultimatum is the ultimate demand orproposition or statement of terms pre-sented by the government of one coun-try to the government of anothercountry before launching war or usingforce. The threat of hostilities is ex-pressed or implied in the statement. Ulti-matum is too important a word to betreated in the casual way it often is.

“Iran issued an ultimatum toBritain,” a newscaster announced ontelevision. Iran’s demand, that Britainban a book, was backed by the threat ofsevered relations but not hostilities.Therefore calling it an “ultimatum” isnot a precise use of the word. At leastthe demand had an element of finality.Not so in the next instance, reported in anewspaper article:

When city officials discovered that[an unauthorized street clock] lastmonth, they issued an ultimatum tothe restaurant’s owners. If you wantpermission to erect the clock . . . youmust first remove it.

There “ultimatum” is evidently sup-posed to be humorous, so its irrelevanceto international relations does not alone

preclude its use. However, the officials’proposition carried no threat of forcefulaction and was not final. The next sen-tence says, “But discussions that beganlast week produced a less severe solutionyesterday.” So no “ultimatum” was is-sued, even stretching the word to thebursting point.

The South Korean government issueda statement asking the United States toclarify news reports of official spying onthe Korean president. A story about thestatement starts out with a contradic-tion: “The State Department yesterdayrejected another South Korean ultima-tum, the second in two days.” Asidefrom the Koreans’ obvious reluctance towage war on the United States, the factis that they made two successive de-mands, so the first cannot be trulyrecorded as an “ultimatum.”

A front-page headline: “Vatican Is-sues an Ultimatum. . . . ” According tothe story, the Vatican’s envoy to Panama“delivered an ultimatum” to GeneralManual Noriega, the Panamanianleader, during the U.S. invasion: Hissanctuary at the embassy would expire.What the envoy delivered was more likean eviction notice. The idea of the small-est state in the world threatening mili-tary violence is ludicrous.

UNDESCRIBABLE. See INDE-SCRIBABLE, UNDESCRIBABLE.

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UNEMPLOYED, UNEMPLOY-MENT. See JOBLESS.

UNEXPRESSIBLE. See Verbal un-mentionables.

UNINTERESTED. See DISINTER-ESTED and UNINTERESTED.

UNIQUE. “It is absolutely the mostunique place in the world,” a secretaryof the interior said about the GrandCanyon. A scientist said about mam-moths, “They were very unique ani-mals.” An orchestral manager wasquoted as saying, “Ojai is something sounique among festivals.”

Unique (adjective), from the Latinunicus, only or single, means being theonly one of its kind or without an equal.The Sun, as a star, is unique in the solarsystem but not in the universe.

To call something or someone “themost unique” is as meaningless as callingit “the most only one.” Uniqueness can-not vary in degree. So adverbial quali-fiers like “most” / “very” / “so” /“rather” / “more” / “somewhat” cannotapply to unique. Some of them may ap-ply to weaker adjectives such as excep-tional, extraordinary, outstanding, rare,remarkable, or unusual. A very rare birdhas a few specimens; only the final speci-men will be unique. It is possible to qual-ify unique with adverbs like truly, really,nearly, most nearly, or more nearly,which do not purport to change the de-gree of unique.

But the speakers quoted above are notin the word business. Those in the massmedia should know better, should theynot?

On television a newscaster said, “Thebudget bill was rather unique,” and anannouncer described “America’s mostunique travel adventures.” A magazinesaid that “the most unique mail orderitems” were not the most expensive. And

the word appeared twice in a news storyabout a tribute to a baseball player:

[Jackie Robinson] lived a career socompelling and unique its retellingonce again riveted. . . . The obviouspresence of such people of color un-derscored the unique relationshipbaseball has had with minorities since1947. . . .

Robinson’s career was unique—not “so”unique, though so unusual, so extraordi-nary, etc. would be correct. The secondsentence is grammatically sound, thoughthe aptness of “unique” may be debated.Minorities are in other sports. Journal-ism need not ape the advertising indus-try, which tries to persuade us that everyproduct is “unique.” (Another error inthe first sentence is the intransitive use of“riveted.” Rivet is a transitive verb: “itsretelling riveted the audience.” See alsoRACE and NATIONALITY, 3.)

Surely an educator should be expectedto know the proper usage of words. Ahigh school supervisor in the Southeasttold a television interviewer that not ev-eryone was capable of teaching. “It takesa very unique individual. . . . ” (One whospeaks properly?)

UNLESS AND UNTIL. The phrase“unless and until” befits a legal docu-ment. Separately, unless and until havedifferent meanings. Together, they areusually excessive in normal prose.

The conjunction unless means if not,or except when. The conjunction untilmeans up to the point that, or up to thetime of. When combined in “unless anduntil,” they add up to an overblownphrase. Usually one word or the other,depending on the context, can bescrapped with no loss of meaning. Thissentence, from a book, illustrates thetwo words in combination:

Those laws [governing matter un-der very extreme conditions] are im-

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portant for understanding how theuniverse began, but they do not affectthe future evolution of the universe,unless and until the universe recol-lapses to a high-density state.

Unless is enough. The universe will con-tinue to evolve, if it does not recollapse.To use “until” alone might suggest thatrecollapsing is a sure thing. The additionof “and until” is unnecessary and morelegalistic than scientific.

Sometimes “or” replaces “and,”yielding the phrase “unless or until.”The result is the same.

A comparable phrase is “if andwhen.” If means in the event that. Whenmeans at the time that. Here too oneword or the other, depending on context,usually can stand alone. A variation ofthe phrase is “when and if.” Suchphrases can be left to lawyers.

See also Twins.

UNLIKE. 1. Clarity. 2. Comparability.

1. ClarityUnlike can be clearer than

not . . . like: “Campbell is not a collegegraduate, like his predecessor, Morgan.”Was Morgan graduated from college ornot? If he was, a better way to begin is“Unlike his predecessor. . . . ” But if hewas not, a better way is “Like his prede-cessor. . . . ” See also LIKE, 1; NOT, 1E.

Users of unlike must make it clear justwhat they are contrasting. The con-trasted elements need to be isolated andnot obscured by modifiers. In this sen-tence from a newsletter, nine modifyingwords precede the noun “lift”:

Unlike other GGT buses, the new Flx-ible buses features an Americans withDisabilities ACT (ADA) approvedfront door wheelchair lift which al-lows for a 45-seat bus capacity.

The extent of the difference between thebuses is blurred by the pile-up of modi-

fiers and the ambiguous “which.” SeeModifiers, 4; THAT and WHICH. (An-other mistake is a noun-verb disagree-ment in number: It should be “busesfeature.” Flxible is a brand, not a mis-take.)

2. ComparabilityThe prepositions unlike and like are

opposite in meaning but alike grammati-cally. Whereas like likens one thing toanother, unlike contrasts one thing withanother. Either way, the things need tobe comparable to make complete sense.In the use of unlike, we encounter thesame problem of false comparison thatwas shown in the use of like.

This remark was made on a nationaltelecast: “Unlike thirty years ago, wenow have sunscreens to shield us fromdaily exposure.” A time in the past andwhat we now have belong to differentcategories. “Unlike what we had thirtyyears ago . . .” is a correction.

Unlike occasionally serves as an ad-jective: “the unlike duckling.”

See also LIKE, 2.

UNMENTIONABLE. See Verbalunmentionables.

UNQUALIFIED. See DISQUALI-FIED and UNQUALIFIED.

“UNQUOTE.” See QUOTE andQUOTATION.

UNSPEAKABLE. See Verbal unmen-tionables.

UNTHINKABLE. Two dictionariesoffer the identical opening definition ofunthinkable: “Not thinkable; inconceiv-able.” Such a definition is paradoxical.Anything you can think is thinkable.Anything you can conceive is conceiv-able. Just to mention something, albeitto condemn it as wrong or impossible, isto think of it.

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This discourse is to reject, not theword, but the definition and inappropri-ate use of the word. When all four pan-elists in a television discussion agreedthat U.S. withdrawal from Saudi Arabiawas “unthinkable” (a word suggested bythe moderator), they all thought of it.The proposition might have been calledunacceptable, undesirable, unfeasible, orunreasonable (or a good idea, had pan-elists been selected who did not all thinkalike), but was it really “unthinkable”?

The same two dictionaries offer anidentical second definition: “Not to bethought of or considered.” That one ismore tenable. There may be certain con-cepts that, though they can be thought,should not be thought. In that sense, dic-tators regard democracy as unthinkable;and, in promoting their product,cigarette companies regard the danger tohealth as unthinkable. Normally you canthink what you want in our society. Ourlaws restrict only what you do; thought-control is generally unacceptable.

It is verbal profligacy to use “unthink-able” just to express disagreement with aproposition, unless it is horrible or evilbeyond contemplation. To use it to de-scribe something that actually exists orhas already been done (“the administra-tion’s unthinkable actions in LatinAmerica”) is preposterous.

See also Verbal unmentionables.

UNTIL. See TILL and “’TIL”; UN-LESS AND UNTIL; UP, 2 (end).

UNUTTERABLE. See Verbal un-mentionables.

UP. 1. As a verb. 2. In phrases. 3. Prefixand suffix.

1. As a verbAs a verb, up is more or less colloquial

and not for all occasions.Using it in the (transitive) sense of

raise or increase—to “up prices” or

“prices were upped”—is scorned bysome critics, one of whom calls it “jour-nalese.” At least one expression of thatsort has become established: to up theante, meaning to increase the stakes, par-ticularly in a poker game.

To up (intransitive) is also to rise orget up, or to act unexpectedly or sud-denly: “She upped and walloped him onthe jaw.”

2. In phrasesWhen added to a number of verbs, up

(adverb) forms distinctive phrases, inwhich up does not bear its literal mean-ing: higher or the opposite of down.

Make up, for instance, can mean toput together, form, arrange, complete,compensate for, become friendly again,or put on (cosmetics). We bring up (chil-dren or topics), get up (in the morning),keep up (an activity or appearance), lookup (information in a reference book),and turn up (something lacking).

Up may intensify verbs, adding an ele-ment of completeness or thoroughness.Treasure-hunters dig, hoping to dig upriches. To dress is less formal than todress up. To tear a book damages it; totear up the book destroys it. Clean upand tie up are somewhat intensified ver-sions of clean and tie in literal senses,and they have respectively the additionalmeanings of make a lot of money (collo-quial) and delay or immobilize.

Nevertheless, up goes unnecessarilywith some other verbs, making no differ-ence in their meanings. Two professorswrote that “some of the resources freedup by pruning military outlays shouldpermit Democrats to advance the ‘pock-etbook issues’. . . . ” No one is likely tomiss “up” if it is removed from a sen-tence like that or phrases like these: “endup” (the meeting), “light up” (a cigar),“finish up” (the job), “head up” (a com-mittee), “make up” (the beds), “matchup” (cloths), “open up” (the gate), “payup” (the money), “write up” (an article).

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The “up” in “hurry up” / “join up” /“wait up” adds nothing to hurry, join,wait.

Instead of telling someone just to lis-ten, it is fashionable (at this writing) totack on the appendage “up.” On a radionews network, the remark “Listen up,Steven Spielberg” prefaced a broadcastof a computer-generated portrayal of adinosaur cry.

Up is the first word in sundry phrases.Among useful ones are up against,meaning confronted with; up for, pre-sented for (election, trial, etc.); up to, oc-cupied in, capable of, or equal to; and upto date, current. (“These accounts are upto date” or “These are the up-to-date ac-counts.”) The “up” is redundant in “upuntil” or “up till,” inasmuch as until ortill means up to a point or time.

See also CAUGHT and CAUGHTUP.

3. Prefix and suffixUp- is joined as a prefix in many

words. Some of them, accenting the up-,are upbeat, upbraid, upgrade, upkeep,upright, uprising, uproar, upshot, up-start, and upward. Others, such as up-heaval, uphold, upholster, and uproot,accent the second syllable. Still othersgive about equal stress to both syllables:upside (down), upstairs, upstream, anduptown. The stress may vary, as in upset:the noun is UP-set, the verb up-SET; theadjective goes either way. Dictionariesdisagree on the pronunciation of someother up- words.

Up is hyphenated in the adjectives up-and-coming, meaning advancing towardsuccess; and up-and-down, meaningfluctuating in direction or vertical.

As a suffix, -up may or may not bejoined by a hyphen. Examples are thenouns breakup, buildup, holdup, setup,windup, close-up, make-up, and shake-up (all accenting the first syllable). Asverbs, each of the root words would beseparate from up. Dictionaries do not

agree what to hyphenate, and severaldictionaries show no pattern behindtheir choices. For instance, one bookruns wind-up, shakeup, and a choice be-tween make-up and makeup. Anotherspells them windup, shake-up, andmakeup.

A usable rule of thumb for wordswith up suffixes (suggested by Roy H.Copperud) is to follow the root wordwith a hyphen if it ends in a vowel.

See also UPCOMING; PICK UP andPICKUP; ROUND UP and ROUNDUP;SET UP and SETUP.

UPCOMING. Upcoming dates backto the fourteenth century. For about 500years it was solely a noun, meaning theaction of coming up; for instance, “Fromthe hill, we watched their upcoming.”Then it began to be used also as an ad-jective, in a similar sense, e.g., “the up-coming travelers.”

Its adjectival use as a synonym for an-ticipated, approaching, coming, or forth-coming, as in “the upcoming election,”began still later. The Oxford EnglishDictionary can trace that “chiefly U.S.”application only as far back as 1959.

In its newest sense, upcoming has notwon general acceptance. Use it if youhave to, but never as a replacement forcoming up, the way a telecast of enter-tainment news misused it: “With thenew season upcoming, optimism ishigh.” The flavor is German, not En-glish. Change “upcoming” to coming upor just coming.

A predecessor of the original upcom-ing, by about three centuries, was up-come, a rare verb meaning to come up.

See also Backward writing, 3.

US and WE. See Pronouns, 10.

USE. See UTILIZE, UTILIZATION.

USE TO and USED TO. Each ofthe samples below displays a wrong

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tense of the verb use. Past should be pre-sent and present should be past.

“ ‘What did your name used to be?’this reporter couldn’t resist asking.”Change “used” to use: “ ‘What did yourname use to be?’ ”

“I use to like people for what I couldget out of them.” Change “use” to used:“I used to like people. . . . ”

Used to, indicating a former state or aformer activity, often is correct. Butwhen did goes with a verb, it takes overthe job of casting the verb’s action in thepast. In that way, use is no different fromother verbs. We say, “When did sheleave?” (not “left”) or “I did not sleep”(not “slept”).

The fact that used to and use to soundso similar can account for the confusion.

In the negative, two constructions arepossible. One may say either “He didnot use to drink much” or He used notto drink much.” The first is more com-mon, especially in speech. The meaningof use to may be expressed in otherways: “He did not drink much in thepast” or “in past years” or “in thosedays.”

Used to can mean accustomed to. “Iam used to hard work.” / “We were usedto walking barefoot.” That sense em-ploys only used, the past participle, andonly in the passive.

UTILIZE, UTILIZATION. Utilize,often conscripted as a high-flown syn-onym for use (verb, transitive), has itsniche. It implies putting to practical usesomething that has not been practical sofar, or making something more produc-tive or profitable by finding a new usefor it.

These are appropriate examples:“Many companies would like to utilizethe natural resources of the Antarctic.” /

“Silicon was utilized in the computerrevolution.” In the examples below(from a book and a newspaper), “uti-lize” is used loosely.

You should be able to boost yourusual weekly or monthly sales figuresfrom time to time by utilizing one ofthe more popular promotional tech-niques.

If the techniques are already in popularuse, using will do in place of “utilizing.”

To avoid becoming a rape victim,there are several precautions to followas well as a variety of defenses to uti-lize if assaulted.

Again, use is enough. Utilize would bethe right word in speaking, for instance,of “a variety of common objects to uti-lize as defenses.” (See also Crimes, 1.)

A related noun is utilization, which attimes is forced to serve as a pretentioussynonym for the noun use. In a dictio-nary article, a linguist describes a mil-lion-word sample of American writingcontaining 61,805 word forms.

As already suggested in our discussionof the frequency of words of differentlength, word utilization in actual usevaries enormously.

The sentence would be improved bychanging “word utilization in” to their.

Another synonym for use is employ(verb, transitive), which has its own nu-ance: to apply or devote to an activity.“She employed her time and energy inhelping the poor.” Of course employalso means to hire or to use the servicesof an employee.

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VASELINE. Vaseline is a brand ofpetroleum jelly, used for medicinal pur-poses. As a trademark, it should be capi-talized.

A book of language instruction fornewcomers prints the commercial namesof several products in lower case. Insample dialogue, a customer tells a phar-macist, “I’ll need some vaseline, too.”Another commercial product that thebook incorrectly mentions in lower caseis Q-Tips. See also BAND-AID.

H. L. Mencken, who refused to capi-talize Vaseline and many other trade-marks, wrote that it had enteredGerman and French dictionaries and, asfan-shih-ling, was among four “Ameri-canisms” borrowed by the Chinese.(The others were p’u-k’e, poker; tel-lu-feng, telephone; and ch’ueh-ssu-teng,charleston, the dance.) He described itsorigin: Robert A. Chesebrough coined itin 1870 or so, drawing from the Germanwasser, water, and the Greek elaion, oil,for he believed that the decompositionof water gave rise to petroleum.

VENAL and VENIAL. See Confus-ing pairs.

VENUE. Venue is a legal term. It isthe locality in which a crime is commit-ted or the cause for a civil suit occurs. Itis also the political division from whicha jury is called and in which a trial is

held. When a lawyer requests a “changeof venue,” he wants the trial moved else-where.

Lately it has been used as a highfa-lutin synonym for a variety of simplewords, which would generally be quiteadequate and often be more specific. Ithas been particularly common in showbusiness, but some in other fields too areforcing it into service. This is from abook about marketing (emphasisadded):

Still, consider if this [a newsletter]is a good venue for you. . . .

But particularly for consultantswhose strong suit is not the writtenword, it [use of a newsletter service] isa plausible venue.

Before “venue” began circulating pre-tentiously outside the legal community,the writer might have used medium (firstsentence) and course (second sentence).

A weekly newspaper chose to use“screening venue” rather than movietheater. A restaurant reviewer preferred“lunch venue” to lunchroom. A radiocommercial for language instructionused “venues” in place of schools. And anotice posted at a legitimate theater an-nounced “EVENTS AT OUR OTHERVENUS” (sic).

VERBAL. 1. Oral and verbal. 2. Pop-ular definition. 3. Technical meanings.

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1. Oral and verbalA lawyer did not write this sentence,

which is looser than it may seem.

A written, detailed contract has thevirtue of specifically spelling out termsand mutual obligations, but it alsobinds a lot tighter than a verbal agree-ment.

The opposite of a written contract is anoral contract; that is, one that is spokenrather than written. All contracts oragreements are verbal, because they haveto do with words, whether or not thewords are written down.

Verbal (adjective) pertains to words. Itcan have any of these senses:

A. In words or through the use of words.Songs communicate in both musicaland verbal ways.

B. Emphasizing words as such, withoutregard to the ideas or facts that theyconvey. This is purely verbal criticism,not substantive.

C.Word for word. A verbal translation isliteral, rather than literary.

Verbal and oral both come fromLatin, in which verbum means word andoris means mouth.

Oral has other mouth-related mean-ings. An oral vaccine is one that is swal-lowed. Oral hygiene is health care forthe mouth.

The adverbs related to verbal and oralare verbally and orally.

2. Popular definition“Verbal” often serves in popular

speech as an antonym for written. Gen-eral dictionaries offer that loose useamong their definitions. But why choosea fuzzy word when using a precise one isso easy?

The Random House Dictionary addsa note defending the use of “verbal” tomean spoken: The practice dates fromthe sixteenth century; it rarely produces

confusion; one can tell the meaning fromthe context.

Contrarily, The American HeritageDictionary (first edition) cautionedagainst the application of verbal to termssuch as agreement, promise, commit-ment, and understanding; it can meanwhat is written, while oral cannot. Ver-bal (says the third edition) “may some-times invite confusion,” as in thisexample: Does “modern technology forverbal communication” refer to deviceslike radio and telephone or those liketelegraph and fax?

Webster’s second edition said, in themain text under verbal, that “by confu-sion” it was taken to mean spoken. Web-ster’s Third drops that qualification.

3. Technical meaningsIn grammar, verbal has some technical

meanings. Verbal (adjective) means per-taining to a verb, or having the functionof a verb, or used to form verbs (such asthe verbal suffix -ize). A verbal (noun) isa word or phrase formed from a verbthat is used as a noun or adjective.Gerunds and at times infinitives and par-ticiples may be called verbals.

Verbal unmentionables. Unmen-tionables is a euphemism for underwear,little used now, except in an attempt tobe humorous. It was once applied totrousers. We are assigning the designa-tion of verbal unmentionables to a cate-gory of paradoxical expressions orwords. What distinguishes each is that itseems to discourage any reference to thevery thing it is used to refer to. If takenliterally, it might not be used at all.

Expressions include it (or that) goeswithout saying, needless to say, not tomention, not to say, to say nothing of,and words cannot describe. Single wordsinclude inconceivable, indescribable, in-effable, inexpressible, unimaginable, un-mentionable, unsayable, unspeakable,unthinkable, and unutterable.

This quirk in our language is far fromnew. In Eureka, an essay on the universe,

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published in 1848, Edgar Allan Poewrote that “a certain inexpressibly greatyet limited number of unimaginably yetnot infinitely minute atoms” had radi-ated from a primordial particle; thattraveling from the star 61 Cygni, even atan “inconceivable rate, light occupiesmore than ten years”; and that stars give“birth and death to unspeakably numer-ous and complex variations” of life.(Emphases are added.)

To hint at or mention somethingwhile feigning an unwillingness to men-tion it is a rhetorical device known asapophasis (a-POF-a-sis), adopted fromthe Greek word for denial. A guest onthe air who says “I won’t plug myrestaurant, Joe’s Eatery” is using it.

See also INDESCRIBABLE, UNDE-SCRIBABLE; OF COURSE, 3; NOTTO MENTION; TO SAY NOTHINGOF; UNTHINKABLE.

Verbosity. Using many words or toomany words, either in writing or inspeaking, is verbosity or wordiness. Usu-ally it means using more words than arenecessary to communicate one’s mean-ing. Verbosity (pronounced vur-BOS-ih-tee) can in addition imply an instance ofspeech or writing that is obscure,pompous, or tedious; or a tendency to-ward such speech or writing.

A noun with similar meaning is pro-lixity (pronounced pro-LIX-ih-tee), thequality of or tendency toward such ex-cessive length or elaboration in speech orwriting as to be tiresome.

The related adjectives are verbose(vur-BOAS), wordy, and prolix (PRO-lixor pro-LIX).

Nouns pertaining to unnecessary rep-etition are pleonasm, redundancy, andtautology. See Tautology.

The prose of government, academia,art, science, business, and other fieldscan be verbose, jargonal, or just windy.An official in southern California re-ported that an earthquake was mild bysaying, “We have not activated the disas-

ter mode.” To announce that an epi-demic was going away, the director of afederal health agency said, “There is adownslope on the curve of occurrence.”A Tennessee school board consideringcurricula decided that “pre-assessment,post-assessment, learning alternativesand remediation will be an integral partof instructional modules within theframework of program development.” Acollegiate dean in Wisconsin said she hadworked at “conceptualizing new thrustsin programming.”

An artist wrote this of her abstractpaintings: “A strong frontal progressiveimage of light through the layers declaresthe present, which is, life existing in thenow.” (See Punctuation, 3D.) A plaquein an art gallery said of another abstractartist, “Through the use of layering, herpaintings invoke a sense of continuum, apresent tense portrayal that reveals aconnection to our past as well as prepar-ing ground for the future.” (See EVOKEand INVOKE.)

The beginning of a study by two pro-fessors in a scientific journal is quotedbelow. The study deals with pigeons.Had it dealt with people, it might havebeen complicated.

In general, research on concurrentchoice has concentrated on steady-state relations between the allocationof behavior and independent variablesthat are associated with reinforcementor aspects of responding. The devel-opment of quantitative models de-scribing stable-state choice has beensuccessful, and is exemplified by thegeneralized matching law (see Davi-son & McCarthy, 1988, for a review),which provides a description of the re-lation between behavior-output ratiosand reinforcer-input ratios when twovariable-interval (VI) schedules areconcurrently available.

Now some bedtime reading for stock-holders, excerpts from a corporation’sannual report:

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The portion of sales hedged is basedon assessments of cost-benefit profilesthat consider natural offsetting expo-sures, revenue and exchange ratevolatilities and correlations, and thecost of hedging instruments. . . . Forforeign currency denominated bor-rowing and investing transactions,cross-currency interest rate swap con-tracts are used, which, in addition toexchanging cash flows derived fromrates, exchange currencies at both in-ception and termination of the con-tracts. . . . Because monetary assetsand liabilities are marked to spot andrecorded in earnings, forward con-tracts designated as hedges of themonetary assets and liabilities are alsomarked to spot with the resultinggains and losses similarly recognizedin earnings.

Popular language has deadwood too.“In spite of the fact that” can often boildown to although; “was in attendanceat” to attended; “for the reason that” tobecause; “of a friendly (or cheerful etc.)character” to friendly (or cheerful etc.);“is in possession of” to has; and so on.Recent decades have brought manyroundabout expressions, such as “I amsupportive of him” instead of I supporthim; “at this point in time” instead ofnow; “in terms of” and “all that” usedunnecessarily; “for” free and listen“up”; and “person” and “people” assuffixes.

Even a short piece can be too long if ithas unnecessary components. A longwork is not necessarily too long if it istightly composed. That means beingconcise and to the point; preferring ac-tive verbs to passive verbs and fresh ex-pressions to clichés; avoidinghighfalutin, obscure, or superfluouswords and phrases; not being too ab-stract; illustrating generalities with spe-cific examples; favoring simple sentencesover complicated ones; using long sen-

tences sparingly and with clear, consis-tent structure; and using grammar, sen-tence structure, and vocabularycarefully.

Verbosity should not be confusedwith verbiage, an instance of (not a ten-dency toward) an overabundance ofwords. Verbiage can also denote a styleof using words, such as legal verbiage ina court document.

Among pertinent entries are Activevoice and passive voice; ADVOCATE;“AT THIS POINT IN TIME”; AWHILE and AWHILE; BOTH; BU-COLIC; CAUGHT and CAUGHT UP;CHARACTER; Clichés; CONSENSUS;DEMOLISH; Expletives; FRACTION;FREE; IDYLLIC; IN ATTENDANCE;IN TERMS OF; IS IS; KNOT; LIKE, 3;MEAN (adjective); OFF and “OFF OF”;ON, 2; PEOPLE as a suffix; PERSON;PERSONAL; PRESENTLY; REVERT;SITUATION; SUPPORTIVE; THAT,ALL THAT; Twins; UP, 2; WITH.

Verbs. 1. Basic facts. 2. Creation fromnouns. 3. Mistakes in number. 4. Prob-lems in using auxiliaries. 5. Shortage ofobjects.

1. Basic facts

A. What is a verb?A verb is typically a word of action. It

tells what someone or something does.“The boy works.” / “This monkeyhowls.” / “Paris fell on that day.”

The person, creature, thing, or ab-straction—that is, the subject—need notact overtly. The subject may just exist insome way, or something may happen tothe subject. The verb tells us that. “I amthe captain.” / “They live in Detroit.” /“The city was besieged for two years.”

B. Verb phraseA verb may consist of more than one

word, usually termed a verb phrase.“The dog has eaten my manuscript.” /

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“The kettle is whistling.” / “I will re-turn.” In each example, has or is or willserves as an auxiliary verb (also called ahelping verb or just an auxiliary). It com-bines with the main verb (the word thatexpresses the main action), e.g., the par-ticiple eaten or whistling or the infinitivereturn, in a verb phrase.

Many (composite or phrasal) verbshave adverbial tails: burn down, checkin, hold up, and so on.

C. Transitive and intransitive verbsVerbs fall into two main categories:

transitive and intransitive.

• A transitive verb needs an object tocomplete the meaning. An object isthat which (or one who) receives theaction or is affected by it. In “Hemakes money,” makes is the verb;money is its object. In “Jenny playsthe harp,” plays is the verb; the harpis its object.

• An intransitive verb completes itsmeaning without needing an object.“Jesse ran.” / “I hope.” / “Stop!”(The subject, you, is implied.)

A given verb may fit both categoriesor just one of them. In most general dic-tionaries, an abbreviation like v.t. (verb,transitive) or v.i. (verb, intransitive) indi-cates whether or not a verb’s particularmeaning needs an object to complete it.

(Some verbs that are commonly tran-sitive [requiring objects] are used intran-sitively [without objects] in legal writing.A book on law says, “The owners . . .defended on the ground that . . .”; andlater, “The Supreme Court affirmed.”That is, the owners defended themselvesagainst an accusation; and the SupremeCourt affirmed the judgment of thelower court. Another book says, “TheCourt of Appeals, after a careful reviewof the record, reversed.” Inasmuch as thelatter book is for laymen, reversed thejudgment, a transitive use of the verb,

would be more idiomatic. Reverse hasalso a general intransitive sense: “Themachine reversed.”)

Confusion between the two categoriescomes up in ADVOCATE; CLINCH;COMMIT, COMMITTED; CULMI-NATE; LAY and LIE; LIVE, 2; OBSESS(etc.).

D. PredicateAnother important term is the predi-

cate, the part of a sentence (or clause)that tells about the subject. It consists ofthe verb and any object, modifier, orcomplement it may have. In the sentence“Yankee Doodle went to town, riding ona pony,” everything after “Yankee Doo-dle” is the predicate.

E. Objects, direct and indirectAn object like dams in “He built

dams” is a direct object. It tells what orwho receives the action. A transitive verbmay have an indirect object too. It tellsto whom (or what) or for whom (orwhat) the action is done. In “I gave mylove a cherry,” my love is the indirect ob-ject; a cherry is the direct object.

F. Linking verbA special type of intransitive verb is a

linking verb (also known as a copula ora copulative verb). It links the subjectwith a word that identifies or qualifies it:“Tubby is a cat.” / “We became fat.” /“She seems happy.” Is links Tubby withcat. Became links we with fat. Seemslinks she with happy. Note that it is not“happily.” The linking verb is not modi-fied. (The subjective complement, theword linked to the subject, may be anoun, adjective, or pronoun.) See alsoBAD and BADLY; FEEL; GOOD andWELL; Pronouns, 10D.

G. MoreHundreds of word entries deal with

verbs, from ABIDE and ABIDE BY toZERO IN. So do some topic entries be-

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sides this one, including Active voice andpassive voice; Complement; Infinitive;Mood; Sentence fragment; Subjunctive;Tense.

2. Creation from nounsA group that declares its opposition to

pollution says in a brochure, “Our staffattorneys and scientists . . . watchdoggovernment and corporate actions. . . . ”The staff members may watch those ac-tions, but watchdog is a noun. They canno more “watchdog” actions thansingers can “songbird” melodies.

The Weather Service announced onthe telephone, “Please selection the ex-panded menu for weather information.”Selection is a noun. Just as we cannot“adoption” or “perception,” neither canwe “selection.” We can adopt, perceive,or select.

This is not to say that a verb shouldnever come from a noun, but those sup-posed verbs are longer than the regularverbs, fill no need, and just repeat thenouns.

Some verbs formed from nouns havegained full acceptance. Among them arediagnose from diagnosis; donate fromdonation; edit from editor; and scavengefrom scavenger. Not everyone is com-fortable with burgle from burglar, emotefrom emotion, and enthuse from en-thusiasm. Most accept orate, from ora-tion, in a contemptuous sense. Surveil,from surveillance, is fairly new to dictio-naries.

A verb like those is called a back-formation, a word that seems to be theparent of another word but really devel-oped from the latter.

Escalate, a back-formation from esca-lator, came out of the Vietnam era.Meaning to heighten (the war), the verbserved a purpose. It has a shortcomingthat limits its value, however. Escalatorsgo down as well as up.

Similarly, when a television reportersaid, describing a traffic accident, “Thecar was accordioned,” how promising

was that makeshift verb? An accordionmay be either pulled out or squeezed in.

During telecasts of the Olympicgames, commentators like to say, for in-stance, “I think she has great chanceshere to medal”—instead of win a medal.They may find such a verb useful, but itsgeneral use should be discouraged.Sounding just like meddle, it has an in-herent potential for misunderstanding.

A reporter spoke of the need “to inertfuel tanks” in airplanes. Did insert mis-lead her? Or is a national telecast an oc-casion for experimenting with verbs thathave not entered the dictionaries?

A columnist wrote, “If he doesn’t in-come average, Mr. Lucky’s federal in-come tax alone will be $456,400.” We will probably not see much of thatpurported verb again, fortunately, for in-come averaging has since been abol-ished.

3. Mistakes in numberIt is an elementary rule that a singular

subject takes a singular verb; a pluralsubject takes a plural verb. Sometimespeople find it tricky to interpret or justslip up.

The essential noun of the subject con-trols the number of the verb. Do not bedistracted by any intervening words.That noun and its associated auxiliaryverb are emphasized in these correct ex-amples: “The information about the ar-rests was released yesterday.” / “Thisbook of new poems has just been pub-lished.” In the next example, also cor-rect, the essential noun is plural and itfollows a qualifying phrase that foolssome writers: “A total of 1.3 millionvotes were cast for both candidates.” SeeTOTAL.

A cooking columnist and a news re-porter should have known better butmay have been distracted by irrelevant,singular nouns:

I like to serve it [a French fish dish]with croutons on top that is flavored

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with olive oil and crushed black pep-per.

The layoffs, which trimmed theparty’s paid staff to 35, was just thelatest indication of tough times forCalifornia Democrats.

The “croutons . . . are flavored. . . . ”The “layoffs . . . were just the latest. . . . ”

This was reported in a radio newscast:

Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat ofVermont, is among senators who isopposed to calling witnesses.

Yes, he “is among senators,” but thosesenators “are opposed.” See ONE OF, 3.

Usually a subject made up of two ormore nouns or pronouns (or both) thatare connected by and demands a pluralverb. “Frankie and Johnny were lovers.”An exception is made when the nouns orpronouns express just one idea or iden-tify just one person: “The hue and cryover this issue surprises me.” / “Ourvice-president and general manager ishere.” The two examples that follow callfor no exception.

A university president wrote that col-lege applicants need, not prestigious in-stitutions, but “the firm knowledge thattheir education and growth as humanbeings depends on themselves alone.”Change “depends” to depend. Educa-tion and growth are two ideas.

Another president—of the UnitedStates this time—said, “Democracy andfreedom is what the concept of the neworder is about.” Make it “Democracyand freedom are. . . . ” They are twoideas. See DEMOCRACY, FREEDOM,and INDEPENDENCE.

Contractions do not excuse errors innumber. “Here’s the pitching probablesfor the three-game series against the Pi-rates . . . ,” a sports item said. “Here’s,”a contraction of “Here is,” should beHere are. See Contractions, 1.

Traditionally a phrase or clause intro-

duced by the expression along with, aswell as, in addition to, together with, orjust with does not affect the number ofthe verb. By that view, the expression ei-ther is not a part of the subject or is asubordinate part. (Grammarians givevarying explanations.) For instance,“The farm, as well as the house, is up forsale.” A few critics allow a plural verb ifthe items are supposed to get equal em-phasis or if a plural feeling prevails.

Nouns with exotic endings accountfor many errors. A common error is tomistake a plural, like media or phenom-ena, for a singular. See Plurals and singu-lars, which lists many pertinent entries.

At times a group may be either singu-lar or plural, but a sentence should nottreat it in both ways. See Collectivenouns.

The functions of many commonwords and phrases are often misunder-stood. They include each, every, either,neither, or, and nor and words andphrases with (-)one. These examples(like all those following in this section)are correct: “Each of the athletes is vy-ing . . .” / “Neither he nor I was cho-sen.” / “Everyone in these parts knowseveryone else.” / “He’s one of the fewpeople who live here.” See Number(grammatical) for a list of many perti-nent entries.

Placing the verb before the subjectdoes not change the need for agreement:“In this square stand the county’s firstresidence and the original courthouse.”

When a fraction is followed by aprepositional phrase, the latter deter-mines the number: “One-fourth of ourtaxes go to support government waste.”/ “Two-thirds of the county lies underwater.”

4. Problems in using auxiliariesSometimes it works: letting two auxil-

iary verbs (helping verbs) help one mainverb. “We can and must win,” for in-stance, avoids repeating “win.”

But sometimes this locution turns into

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a trap: “The fair shows what our countycan and is accomplishing.” To say“can . . . accomplishing” is wrong, evenwith the two words in between. A simplecorrection presents the main verb twice,in the two forms needed: “. . . can ac-complish and is accomplishing.”

A similar example: “This departmentmay—and occasionally has—lookedoutside for its leadership.” To say “may . . . looked” is wrong. A correction fin-ishes one idea before turning to the sec-ond: “. . . may look outside for itsleadership, something it has occasionallychosen to do.”

Several decades ago there arose a falsedoctrine that declared a verb phrase tobe an indivisible unit; no auxiliary verbmight be separated from a main verb;any adverb must go outside that unit.

By that rule, instead of saying “Thefacts have long been known” (correct),one had to say “The facts long have beenknown” (questionable). And not “Thevehicle is slowly gaining speed” (correct)but “The vehicle slowly is gainingspeed” (questionable). The second sen-tence of each pair is less idiomatic thanthe first, though clear.

It may not be as clear if instead of say-ing “He appears to have partly recov-ered” (correct), one says “He appearspartly to have recovered” (incorrect).Which verb the adverb belongs to maynot be immediately apparent.

Even conservative grammarians haveno sympathy for that doctrine, whichseems to have developed from the fear ofsplitting infinitives. It is not only permis-sible to split verb phrases but desirablewhen idiom and meaning so demand.Splitting infinitives is not necessarilywrong either. See Infinitive, 4.

See also WHO, 3, concerning the per-son of a verb following I who or youwho.

5. Shortage of objectsMultiple verbs in a sentence may have

the same object: “She buys, cooks, and

serves food.” Buys, cooks, and servesshare one object: food.

If another word or phrase follows theobject, the verbs may or may not sharethe object. Here the verbs do: “We in-vited and welcomed Ben in.” Both in-vited and welcomed fit both Ben (theobject) and in.

This faulty sentence is another story:“He insulted and threw the people out.”Only the second verb accepts the object(the people), because only that verb ac-cepts the tail word (out). Threw and outgo together; the people is locked up be-tween them, unavailable to insulted. Thedefect may be fixed by relocating thenoun and inserting a pronoun: “He in-sulted the people and threw them out.”

A defective sentence in a biographypresents four verbs that are supposed tobe transitive. Only the last has an object(them).

For the younger ones, Emma wastheir mother-figure, who fed, dressed,bathed, and put them to bed.

The verb put goes with to bed. The ob-ject, them, is locked up in between. It isunavailable to the other three verbs,which do not go with to bed. A correc-tion is to insert another and and anotherthem: “who fed, dressed, and bathedthem and put them to bed.”

VERTEBRA and VERTEBRAE.A vertebra is any one of the thirty-threebones of the spine. It is pronouncedVUR-tuh-bruh.

Vertebrae is plural, using a Latinform. It is pronounced either VUR-tuh-bree or VUR-tuh-bray. An alternativeplural is vertebras, VUR-tuh-bruz.

Said on a television news program:“She has a broken vertebrae” (-bray).Correction: “She has a brokenvertebra,” designating one of the bones,not more than one.

The spine is known also as the back-bone, spinal column, or vertebral col-umn.

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VERY. 1. Limitations. 2. Overuse.

1. LimitationsVery is a very common word and a le-

gitimate one, classified as both an adverband an adjective. Its use as an adverb islimited and the subject of divided opin-ion.

Bearing the sense of extremely ortruly, very easily modifies words that aresolely adjectives: large, strong, brightest.

Hardly anyone would try to say, “Themedicine very helps him” or “The speak-ers very praised her.” Very does notmodify verbs, even though modifyingverbs is a normal activity of adverbs. Butmay we say, “He is very helped by themedicine” or “She was very praised bythe speakers”? In other words, may weuse very before a past participle, which isa verb used as an adjective?

Those with easy-going ears and eyeswould say yes. Those who are more par-ticular would probably give a qualifiedno and disapprove of those examples.Such critics have included seven-eighthsof The American Heritage Dictionary’susage panel, which rated “She was verydisliked by her students” unacceptablein writing but approved “He seemedvery worried.” The difference is that dis-liked—like helped and praised—is not incommon use as an adjective. People donot usually speak of “the dislikedteacher” any more than “the helped pa-tient” or “the praised woman.” But wor-ried, as in “the worried parents,” isconsidered to be a full-fledged adjectiveas well as a past participle.

When in doubt, a writer should re-word the thought. A participle may beproperly intensified in several ways, withor without very. “He is very muchhelped” or “greatly helped.” / “She wasvery highly praised” or “profuselypraised.”

When very serves as an adjective, theoften precedes it, but not invariably. Theadjective can mean actual (his verywords), identical (this very spot), mere

(the very thought), necessary (the verysolution), precise (the very center), or ut-ter (the very bottom).

2. OveruseAn episode in an old comedy series on

television depicted an intellectually defi-cient anchor man straining to write athoughtful essay. He could get no furtherthan “Freedom of the press is very, verygood and very, very important.”

Inexperienced writers indeed tend toresort to very too freely. Speakers too,both amateur and professional, areknown to overdo it. A restaurant criticon the radio described a county’s restau-rants, “some of them very, very small butall of them very, very good.” A TV re-porter said, at the scene of a search for amissing person, “The bushes get very,very thick. It would be very, very easy tolose someone out here.”

A second very says nothing that thefirst does not say. And if one very is inad-equate, perhaps what is needed is an al-ternative adverb—or a stronger adjectiveand no adverb. For instance, an alterna-tive to “very, very small,” is extremelysmall or tiny.

VIABLE. Viable (adjective) means ca-pable of living. A human fetus or a new-born is viable when it has developed tothe stage at which it can survive outsidethe womb. Usually at twenty-eightweeks it reaches the stage of viability(noun), the capacity to live and grow.

A viable seed is one that is capable oftaking root and growing.

The adjective or noun may be usedfiguratively for something that does notpossess life or its potential, just as bornand live may be so used: “Many doubtedthat the new country could survive, butit proved its viability.”

The essential idea is the capability ofexisting and surviving. Where is thatsense in the passage below, from an en-cyclopedia?

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The invention of the semi-conductordevice known as the transistor in1947 . . . ushered in what many havecalled the second industrial revolu-tion. After a decade of further devel-opmental work, the transistor becamea viable alternative to the electrontube. . . .

If the device could exist for a decade af-ter its invention and 1947 was the yearof its invention, 1947 was when it be-came viable. It seemed to be viableenough then to start a revolution. Ifcommercial, durable, effective, feasible,practical, practicable, or usable wasmeant, the writer should have used it.

A retired appellate judge, who used tobe expected to use words judiciously,said of the jury system, “I’m beginningto wonder about its viability.” How canone doubt the viability of a system thathas existed for centuries? If the speakermeant advantage, benefit, usefulness,value, workability, or worth, he shouldhave said so.

Whether the age of a president mat-tered to voters was a question on a tele-vision panel. A panelist quoted RichardM. Nixon:

He said he thought that the babyboomers, having seen Clinton inthere, would decide that was nolonger viable to have somebody [like]that.

In “viable,” the panelist seems to havemeant nothing more than desirable.

For the four following uses, one couldsubstitute feasible, practical, promising,or a comparable adjective. Television:“For an engineer, the standard iswhether it works or whether it’s com-mercially viable.” / An editorial: “Thevoters . . . instructed our city officials todevelop a viable plan for the water-front.” / An article: “. . . Switching tocomputer programming is not a viable

option.” / A headline: “Private fire dept.may not be viable.”

Feasibility, practicality, or a compara-ble noun could have replaced “viability”in an article: “. . . Giving the [Internet]system a new purpose has unearthedfundamental problems that could wellput off commercial viability for years.”

The English language adopted theFrench viable, likely to live, derived fromvie, life, which came from the Latin vita,life.

See also VITAL.

VICE and VISE. See Homophones.

VICIOUS and VISCOUS. See Con-fusing pairs.

VIRGULE. See Punctuation, 12.

VIRTUAL, VIRTUALLY. Virtual(adjective) means being so-and-so in ef-fect or in essence, though not in actualfact or name. This is a strict use:

Gorbachev . . . has calmly acceptedthe dissolution of what had been a vir-tual Soviet empire of Communistsatellites in Eastern Europe. . . .

While it was never officially called any-thing like the “Soviet Empire,” itamounted to that.

Often “virtual” or “virtually” (ad-verb) becomes just a fancy way of sayingnear or almost. Almost would be prefer-able to “virtually” as loosely used twicein this passage:

. . . Samuels has major expenses andvirtually no income. . . . “Virtuallyeverybody who knows about this hascalled to volunteer”. . . .

An editorial about a candidate for theU.S. Senate illustrates confusion aboutvirtual:

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First, the notion that he is a “vir-tual candidate” under the direction ofhis wife . . . is absurd and, frankly,misogynist.

Let us postulate, for argument’s sake,that the man’s wife was the politicallyambitious one, was telling him what todo, and was doing things that a candi-date would do. Then she would be thevirtual candidate. The husband wouldbe the official candidate, perhaps a pup-pet candidate, but not a “virtual” candi-date.

In computer applications, the adjectiveis used for simulated: “virtual reality.”

See also VIRTUE.

VIRTUE. Virtue usually denotes ei-ther good moral quality (in a person) ormerit (in a thing). It can also mean effi-cacy, effective force, especially the powerto strengthen or heal: a drug’s virtue.

A speaker was technically correct butrisked being misunderstood: “The greatvirtue of using that stuff is that it’s ubiq-uitous. It’s available everywhere.” Hewas talking about the “virtue” of usingthe particular explosive that blasted theWorld Trade Center in New York. Bet-ter: “To the terrorists, the benefit of thatstuff is. . . . ”

An obsolete meaning of virtue is thatof manly merit, courage, or strength.Those are meanings of the Latin virtus,the source of virtual and virtuoso as wellas virtue. Virtus stems from vir, a man ormale, the source of virile. Yet virtue andvirtuous, with the meanings of chastityand chaste, have often been applied justto women.

VISCOUS and VICIOUS. See Con-fusing pairs.

VISE and VICE. See Homophones.

VISITING FIREMAN. See -MAN-,MAN.

VITAL. Vital (adjective), stemmingfrom the Latin vitalis, of life, has essen-tially the same meaning in English: relat-ing to life, characteristic of life, essentialto life, imparting or renewing life, or liv-ing. We speak of vital statistics, vital en-ergy, the vital organs, vital fluid. “WhenI have pluck’d the rose, I cannot give itvital growth again” (Shakespeare). Increation “the Spirit of God . . . vitalvirtue infused and vital warmthThroughout the fluid mass” (Milton).

By figurative extension, vital is used tomean essential or indispensable to thelife or existence of something. “Water isvital to agriculture.” But the word is de-graded when it replaces needed, wanted,important, significant, or less substantialadjectives.

Those in the news business, enamoredof short and exciting words, have longoverused and trivialized vital. A copy ed-itor will choose it for a headline overneeded, if not important, as a matter ofcourse. One TV reporter called Egypt “avital American ally” and another said,“Helicopters are vital to modern militaryoperations”—meaning that the U.S.could not survive without Egypt or fightwithout helicopters?

The following samples, from a head-line and two articles, may illustrate theultimate degradation of that word of life:its application to devices for the mass de-struction of life.

“How a Vital Nuclear Material Cameto Be in Short Supply” / “The shortageof tritium, a vital material for nuclearweapons, arrived right on schedule.” /“The Savannah River Plant, near Aiken,is the nation’s only source of tritium, aperishable gas vital to thermonuclearwarheads.”

All the blame cannot be placed on thenews business. Prime Minister MargaretThatcher of the United Kingdom de-clared that “Short-range nuclear missilesare absolutely vital” (not just “vital” but“absolutely vital”). The chairman of the

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Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed “a re-duced but still vital nuclear force to deternuclear adversaries.”

In the seventeenth to nineteenth cen-turies, vital could be legitimately used tomean destructive to life. A vital woundwould be a fatal wound today. Whennews people or public officials speak of adiabolic weapon as “vital,” let us thinkof the word in that archaic sense.

See also VIABLE.

VIZ. (namely). See Punctuation, 2A.

Voice. See Active voice and passivevoice.

VULGARITY. See OBSCENE, OB-SCENITY.

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WAITER, WAITRESS. See PEO-PLE as a suffix; PERSON, 1 (end);WAIT FOR and WAIT ON.

WAIT FOR and WAIT ON. Youwait for a bus. A waiter waits on pa-trons. To wait for something or someoneor some event is to remain inactive or inanticipation until it or the person arrivesor the event takes place. To wait onsomeone is to serve the person.

Wait on is dialect or slang when usedin place of wait for as a newscaster usedit in speaking of a budget bill “that ev-eryone is waiting on” and as a magazinedid: “You don’t boot up your juicer oreven your video. So who wants to waiton their PC?” (The plural “their” dis-agrees with the singulars wants and PC.See Pronouns, 2.)

Among several obsolete or rare mean-ings of wait on is to pay a formal visit tosomeone considered a superior. “Hewaited on the king in his palace.”

See also ON, 2 (end).

WAKE, AWAKE, AWAKEN,WAKEN. 1. First choice: WAKE(UP). 2. The other verbs. 3. Past tense;participle; other forms.

1. First choice: WAKE (UP)When the alarm clock rings in the

morning, do you wake, wake up, awake,

awaken, waken, or go back to sleep?The (a)wake(n) verbs, Old English de-

scendants, all mean to arouse from sleepor a state like sleep, or to come out ofthat state. The distinctions in usage arecomplicated. In general, wake is the util-ity tool, good for most everyday use.The other words are substituted in figu-rative or poetic use, in the passive voice,or for the sake of formality or meter.

Wake is the only one that goes withup. The up does not affect the meaning.You cannot go wrong with it. Tagging itonto wake is common and idiomaticwhen wake is used as an intransitiveverb, especially so in the imperative andthe present tense: “Wake up!” / “Wewake up at 7 a.m.” In the past tense, upis optional: Either “I woke up at dawn”or “I woke at dawn” is acceptable.

When wake is used as a transitiveverb, it is just about as common and id-iomatic with the up as without it: “Weshould wake him” or “We should wakehim up.” / “Don’t wake the baby” or“Don’t wake up the baby.”

Unlike the other three words, wakehas the additional sense of be or remainawake. It is commonly expressed in thephrase waking hours.

2. The other verbsIn figurative and poetic senses, the

verbs starting with a—awake andawaken—are favored: “They awakened

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to the danger.” / “The country hasawaked.” / “Awake! for morning in theBowl of Night Has flung the Stone thatputs the Stars to Flight.” Sometimes,however, the other words are so used:“Wake up, America!”

In the passive voice, the words endingin n—awaken and waken—are oftenchosen: “The world was awakened bythe event.” / “They were wakened by thebell.”

Although each of those verbs has beenused both transitively and intransitively,usually awake is intransitive—“She fi-nally awoke to the problem”—andawaken and waken are transitive: “Re-vere awakened the town.” / “The roosterwakens us each morning.”

3. Past tense; participle; other formsThe past tense of wake is woke, and

the past tense of awake is awoke. For thepast participle of wake or awake, simplyadd d: “She had waked [or “waked up”]at 5 a.m.” / “The world has awaked.”

For either the past tense or the pastparticiple of awaken or waken, just add -ed: awakened, wakened.

When a political party spokesmansaid on American television that “thecountry has woken up,” he used a par-ticiple that would have been more ac-ceptable in Britain. In the U.S. it is has(or had) waked.

In saying that “Africa . . . has awokento life a second time,” the translator of abook used an obsolete participle. Has(or had) awaked is the modern style.

A policeman said (about the victim ofan intruder), “She wasn’t positive howshe became awoken.” Make it “how shebecame awake” (adjective) or “how shewas wakened” (past participle).

The gerund of wake—“WAKING”—is the title of Chapter XI of Lewis Car-roll’s Through the Looking Glass. Thetitle could have been “AWAKENING,”but then it would not have rhymed withthe title of Chapter X, “SHAKING.”

WANT and WISH. See WISH.

WARRANT. A warrant is a writtenauthorization. A warrant of arrest, or ar-rest warrant, is a court order, usually to alaw enforcement officer, to arrest some-one for a particular reason and bringhim before the court.

When a television newscaster an-nounced, “The FBI has issued arrestwarrants for two young white men,” hewas confused and inaccurate. The Fed-eral Bureau of Investigation makes ar-rests. It does not issue “warrants” forthose arrests. Only a judge or magistratemay issue an arrest warrant or a searchwarrant.

A search warrant directs a law en-forcement officer to search a person,place, or thing for property or evidenceneeded for a criminal prosecution andbring it before the judge or magistrate.

WAS and WERE. An article said thatCongress was cutting the Pentagon’sbudget requests for a defense program. Itcommented:

But even if the “Star Wars” pro-gram was not running into budgetaryproblems, there would be otherdoubts about [it]. . . .

“Was” should be were. The were form(the past subjunctive of the verb be) isused in clauses describing situations thatare purely hypothetical or plainly con-trary to fact. More examples are “I wishthat I were rich” and “He acted asthough he were king.”

When the situation is not hypotheticalor contrary to fact but merely uncertainor conditional, was is the form to use(for the verb be in the third person):“She looked out to see whether it wasraining.” / “He promised to cut spendingif he was elected.” / “If that nugget wesaw was real gold, the man struck itrich.”

See also Mood; Subjunctive.

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WATCH and WATCHDOG. SeeVerbs, 2.

WAY and “A WAYS.” An editor of aCalifornia weekly wrote: “Zap [NorthDakota] seems like such a long waysfrom home.” A network anchor man ad-dressed this comment to women politi-cians: “You’ve come a long way. There’sstill a ways to go.” And a reporter on thesame news series said about the Los An-geles Police Department: “The commis-sion’s chairman believes LAPD still has aways to go.”

“A ways” is regional and colloquial.Combining singular and plural words, itis not acceptable in strict usage. A andway are both singular and may be com-bined (“such a long way from home”) ora synonym may be preferable (“still adistance [or “some distance”] to go”).

WE and US. See Pronouns, 10.

WEATHER and WHETHER. SeeHomophones.

WEIRD. Weird means eerie, mysteri-ous, occult, supernatural, unearthly, un-canny. This adjective has been watereddown in popular speech, particularlythat of juveniles, to describe what ismerely different from the norm, out ofthe ordinary, unconventional, or un-usual. In a TV cartoon, a husband says,“Your guitar teacher looks pretty inter-esting, and by ‘interesting’ I meanweird.” (No, he means unconventional.)The wife replies, “Well, she is weird.”

The word’s ancestor was the Old En-glish noun wyrd, meaning fate or des-tiny. It became werd or wird in MiddleEnglish; its related adjective was werdeor wirde, concerning or having thepower to deal with fate or the Fates. InShakespeare’s Macbeth, the threewitches call themselves “the weird sis-ters.”

WELL. See AS, 5; GOOD and WELL.

WENCH and WINCH. “Were youalone on the boat or was there a crewmilling about with wenches and jibs andsuch?” The host of a television showprobably was not trying to be funnywhen he asked that question.

A wench is an archaic term for ayoung woman. It could refer particularlyto a country girl, a maidservant, or aprostitute. Today it is used, if at all, in ahumorous or facetious way.

The word intended by the host wasprobably winch, a machine for hoisting.It has either a motor or a hand crankthat winds a rope or a chain around adrum as a load is lifted.

WEND and WIND. Seeing the high-way blocked by earthquake damage, LosAngeles motorists proceeded to “windtheir way” either northward or south-ward. So said a newscaster on television,possibly aiming for wend but missing.To wend is to direct (one’s way) or to go.Still, if the road was a winding one,“wind” (long i, as in find) could be ac-ceptable.

A similar use was questionable in a ra-dio report on “the Chinese New Year’sparade, which is continuing to wind itsway down San Francisco streets.” Wendits way (his way, her way, etc.) is the ex-pression. The route did not wind. Someof the participants, however, carryingalong stylized Chinese dragons, did pro-ceed in a twisting or curving manner, soperhaps they were winding their way.

WENT. See GONE and WENT.

WERE. See WAS and WERE; Sub-junctive.

WHAT EVER and WHATEVER.See (-)EVER.

WHEN AND IF. See UNLESS ANDUNTIL.

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WHENCE and “FROMWHENCE.” A senator said, “Theseyoung people [cadets] are a reflection ofthe society from whence they came.” Acritic wrote, “No one is seriously urgingthe novelist to return to the verse epic,from whence he sprang.” And this wasin a travel article: “Thus, people re-turned to Brussels from whence they hadwandered.”

Whence means from where or fromwhich place. From is part of the mean-ing. “. . . The society whence they came”/ “. . . the verse epic, whence he sprang”/ “. . . to Brussels whence they had wan-dered” are enough.

WHEN EVER and WHENEVER.See (-)EVER.

WHEN, WHERE in definitions.Teacher: “What is the real meaning ofdumb?” Johnny: “That’s when you can’ttalk.” The teacher would probably ac-cept the boy’s answer. He lacks the ver-bal facility to say “inability to speak.”Children explain things that way—andso, alas, do some adults: “A perfectgame is where no batter of the losingteam reaches first base.” Better: “A perfect game is a baseball game inwhich. . . . ”

Using when or where to connect aword or phrase with a definition or ex-planation is not necessarily forbidden. Itis acceptable, at least informally, if thedefinition or explanation deals withtime, after the when; or place, after thewhere: “Dusk is when it starts gettingdark.” / “The range is where the buffaloroam.” For more completeness, insert anoun between the is and the w adverb:“the time” or “the place.” General dic-tionaries favor noun phrases, withoutwhen or where, such as “the start ofdarkness in the evening” and “a large,open area suitable for animals to wanderand graze.”

An author tells of lessons in flying a

small airplane. “The only thing” thatfazed her “was when David [the instruc-tor] demonstrated” a certain maneuver.A clause beginning with the adverbwhen is not a thing, a noun. Better: “wasDavid’s demonstration of. . . . ”

WHEREAS. See Sentence fragment,1.

WHERE EVER and WHEREVER.See (-)EVER.

WHEREFORE and WHEREOF.A radio host recommended a far-offrestaurant. Having been there, “I knowwherefore I speak,” he said. If he meant“I know what I’m talking about” andwas intent on making his point througharchaic language, the word to use waswhereof (adverb). It can mean of which,of whom, or whence. What he said in ef-fect was “I know why I’m talking.”

Wherefore (adverb) means for what,for which, or why. Shakespeare’s Julietasks, “O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore artthou Romeo?” Wherefore is not just anelegant synonym for “where,” contraryto the belief of some. The moderator of atelevision forum titled a sequence, aboutshortcomings in the economy, “Where-fore Art Thou, Rosy Scenario?”

Wherefore can also be a noun mean-ing cause or reason, as in “Never Mindthe Why and Wherefore” (from Gilbertand Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore). Bothwhereof and wherefore have been usedas conjunctions too.

WHERE in definitions. See WHEN,WHERE in definitions.

WHETHER. Something is missingfrom a sentence in an article for con-sumers:

New York’s new law . . . also re-quires that every automobile-insurance policy . . . provide

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consumers with collision coverage forcars they rent—whether they buy col-lision coverage for their own cars andwhether they rent more expensive carsthan they own.

Each whether demands or not, either im-mediately (“. . . whether or not . . . andwhether or not . . .”) or later(“. . . whether they buy collision cover-age for their own cars or not andwhether they rent more expensive carsthan they own or not”).

Most of us probably would stick inthe or not automatically, whether or notEnglish grammar figured in our occupa-tions. Perhaps the writer of the quotedsentence gave a vague thought to thematter: Somewhere in his past, some edi-tor had instructed him that “whether”alone was enough, that “or not” was su-perfluous.

At times, it is true, whether alone isenough. That is so when whether, intro-ducing an indirect question, can be re-placed by if. For example: “I askedwhether [or if] he had bought collisioncoverage for his car.” In such a sentence,or not is unessential, though it cannothurt.

Otherwise, whether introduces a setof possibilities or alternatives, connectedby or. The gist is often that somethingtakes place or exists regardless of otherevents or conditions. “We will meetwhether it rains or not.” / “We will meetwhether it rains or shines.” / “I’ll quit af-ter this hand, whether I win or lose.” /“The problem will persist whether onecandidate or the other is elected.” Insuch sentences whether (conjunction)means essentially in either event. It canmean just either: “He intends to getwhat he wants, whether honestly or oth-erwise.” / “The cabinet was consideringwhether to enter the war or to remainneutral.”

Or may be followed by anotherwhether: “Whether we win or whether

we lose, we’ve put up a good fight.” Theextra “whether we” is unnecessary butacceptable. There may be more than twopossibilities: “Whether we win, lose, ordraw. . . . ”

Each example below (from a syndi-cated advice column and an authorita-tive law book) contains a redundant pairof words and lacks two needed words.

DEAR DAD AND MOM: You areunder no obligation to foot the bill foryour daughter’s wedding regardless ofwhether she and her fiancé lived to-gether prior to their marriage.

Thus . . . a novel completed in 1980. . . would enjoy Federal statutoryprotection at fixation in manuscriptor other form, which protectionwould continue for the life of the au-thor plus fifty years, regardless ofwhether published.

In each example, omit “regardless of”and insert or not after “whether” or af-ter the final word of the sentence.

An occasional expression is whetheror no, meaning in any case. “The delega-tion flies home tomorrow, whether orno.”

WHICH. 1. Ambiguity. 2. Overuse. 3.Parallels; people; possessives.

1. AmbiguityEverything is clear here: “Come and

see the show, which opened last week.”Which (as a relative pronoun) representsthe show (a noun) and introduces aclause giving further information aboutit.

Too often, which is meant to representsomething other than the normal nounor noun phrase that a pronoun is sup-posed to represent (its antecedent). Forinstance: “My neighbors were celebrat-ing boisterously, which kept me up till 2a.m.” The thing that “kept me up” may

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be inferred, but a sharper sentencewould specify it. Which might bechanged to and the noise.

Can which ever stand for the entireidea of a preceding statement? Maybe. Itdepends on one’s tolerance for disorderand whether or not the material is am-biguous. “Which” has been applied toamorphous ideas so often that when anoun does precede it, it may not be clearwhat “which” is meant to stand for.“The job requires her to walk dogs,which she dislikes.” Does she dislike thetask or dogs? Changing “which” to ei-ther a task or animals would answer thequestion.

Carelessness about antecedents some-times results in sentences that say the op-posite of what the writers intended. Asentence in an autobiography refers to ageneral:

Norm Schwarzkopf did not sufferfools gladly, which you can get awaywith in the absolute command envi-ronment of the battlefield.

“Which” has no literal antecedent. To“suffer fools gladly” seems to be it, andthe “which” clause seems to say that youcan do so in the environment of the bat-tlefield. The context suggests the reversemeaning: You can refuse to do so in theenvironment of the battlefield.

This sentence from an article (in aweekly paper) deals with a presidentialelection campaign:

Nor does he [Jerry Brown] have themoney to buy TV time, which is thekiss of death in a state like Texas, withits 23 media markets.

It says that “TV time . . . is the kiss ofdeath in . . . Texas.” From the context, itappears that the writer meant roughlythe opposite: The lack of television expo-sure is ruinous in Texas. (“Kiss of death”describes something that is supposedly

helpful though actually harmful. In thequotation, the expression is misleading.Where is the “kiss”?)

Which is more liable to cling to theclosest preceding noun or noun phrasethan to some vague idea in a writer’smind.

See THAT and WHICH for a discus-sion of restrictive and nonrestrictiveclauses and how a failure to discriminatebetween them can cause confusion.

2. OveruseJournalists, with their aversion to rep-

etition, are fond of the pronoun which.It permits a writer to avoid repeating anoun after the first mention. The samplebelow (from a picture caption) illustratesoverdependence on the word.

There were no injuries in the blaze,which ruined the third floor of thebuilding, which was being remodeled.

Presumably the two whiches were in-voked to prevent repetition of “blaze”and “building,” although the writer didnot seem to mind the repetition ofwhich. But it was not necessary to repeatboth nouns when a personal pronouncould replace one of them. Nor did ev-erything need to be stowed into one,graceless sentence. This is a possiblerephrasing: “There were no injuries inthe blaze. It ruined the third floor of thebuilding, which was being remodeled.”

3. Parallels; people; possessivesA clause starting with and which nor-

mally needs to follow a parallel whichclause. The same principle applies to butwhich. See also THAT, 3; WHO, 2.

“And” serves no purpose here; eitherreplace it with a comma or insert whichis after the first comma: “Acme Corp.,the city’s largest employer and which re-cently announced an expansion, hasbeen bought by a Japanese company.” Ifwhich is is inserted, the second which be-

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comes optional: “Acme Corp., which isthe city’s largest employer and [which]recently announced” etc.

The clauses usually need to be trulyparallel, if “and” is to make sense. Thisexample mixes a that (restrictive) clauseand a which (nonrestrictive) clause:“Buses that run during rush hours andwhich most passengers take will sooncost more to ride.” Delete “and” and en-close “which most passengers take” incommas. See THAT and WHICH, 1.

Which refers to things, not to people.Two relative pronouns refer to people:who and that. See WHO, THAT, andWHICH.

Which has two possessive forms: ofwhich and whose. Whose applies both topeople and to things. See WHOSE, 1.

WHICH and THAT. See THAT andWHICH.

WHICH and WHO. See WHO,THAT, and WHICH.

WHO. 1. Ambiguity. 2. Journalisticstand-by. 3. Verb: person, number.

1. AmbiguityWhich name does the “who” repre-

sent in this item by a news agency?

Bobbie Arnstein, executive secre-tary of Playboy magazine magnateHugh Hefner, who was appealing a15-year drug sentence, was founddead today in a hotel room, an appar-ent suicide victim.

The relative pronoun who tends to affixitself to the nearest preceding name ordesignation. In this instance it is“Hefner.” Three paragraphs later, thestory makes it clear that Miss Arnstein,not Mr. Hefner, had been the convict.The clause “who was appealing a 15-year drug sentence” should have been re-

moved and turned into a separate sen-tence, with She in place of “who.”

2. Journalistic stand-byThis deals mainly with the overuse of

who clauses. (See also WHO andWHOM; WHO, THAT, and WHICH.)

When a journalistic writer wants topresent a fact about a person but cannotthink of any logical place for it, he is li-able to put it in a clause beginning withwho that he stuffs into some sentence,whether relevant or irrelevant. (SeeModifiers, 2, for other tricks.)

These two sentences lead off two con-secutive paragraphs in a news storyabout a criminal trial:

The attacker, who became knownas “the South Shore rapist,” was saidto have stalked his victims for days,confronted them in their bedrooms asthey slept and put a screwdriver totheir throats. . . .

The defendant, who was ashenfaced and expressionless during theannouncement of the verdict, faces amaximum of life in prison.

A case could be made for the who clausethe first time. In the second sentence, it isirrelevant. The defendant’s facial appear-ance has nothing to do with the penalty.Later in the same story, we find thesethree sentences, two of them consecu-tive:

Mr. C———, who spent most of histime in court taking notes, did nottake the stand in his own defense. . . .

Mr. C———, who was a suspect ina string of similar crimes in Florida,fell under suspicion in the Long Islandattacks in November 1986 and wasplaced under surveillance.

Mr. C———, who had served timein jail for stealing a car, was surrepti-tiously taped talking with his paroleofficer about his broken foot, an Alco-

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holics Anonymous meeting and othersubjects.

Individually the three sentences are pass-able. Each who clause pertains to therest of the sentence. But the sum of those“Mr. C———, who” sentences does notamount to admirable style. In the lastone, it seems plain that the writer re-peated the name just to follow it with“who had served” etc. The normalmeans of referring to the subject wouldbe the pronoun he. “He had servedtime . . . and was . . .” or “Having servedtime . . . , he was. . . . ”

In THAT, 3, and WHICH, 3, thepoint is made that a clause starting withand that or and which normally followsa comparable that or which clause. Theprinciple holds for and who (and butwho): In “Adams, a candidate for mayorand who has served on the City Councilfor four years, said . . . ,” the “and”serves no function and ought to bedeleted. It can stand if “who is” is in-serted after the first comma; if it is, thesecond who becomes optional: “Adams,who is a candidate for mayor and [who]has served” etc.

3. Verb: person, numberIn the sentence “He who hesitates is

lost,” obviously who represents he (thatis, he is the antecedent of who). There-fore, the verb hesitates is right, agreeingwith the subject, the pronoun he. Bothwords are in the third person, singular.

Confusion can enter in the first or sec-ond person, singular. In an English trans-lation of a German comic opera, a mansays, “It is I who are honored.” Correc-tion: “It is I who am honored.” Whodoes not change normal conjugations.The verb agrees with what who repre-sents; above, it represents I, which doesnot go with “are” or “is.” Similarly, “Isit you who have [not “has”] made thedecision?”

In the sentence “It is people like her

who restore my faith in humanity,” re-store is the right form of the verb. Thequestion to be asked is what who repre-sents. Here it represents certain people.It is the same when that substitutes forwho.

See also ONE OF, 3.

WHO and THAT, WHO andWHICH. See WHO, THAT, andWHICH.

WHO and WHOM. 1. The basics.2. The critics. 3. WHOEVER andWHOMEVER.

1. The basicsAll speakers of the English language

know the meaning of who or whom:what person(s) or which person(s). Whatmany of us do not know is when to useeach. It could be the foremost grammati-cal puzzle we face. So difficult can it be,it is no wonder that professional writers,editors, and public speakers mix up thetwo pronouns perpetually.

In brief, who is in the subjective (ornominative) case; whom is in the objec-tive (or accusative) case. Thus the sen-tences “Who stole my heart away?” and“I saw who slew the dragon” are cor-rect. Who is the subject of the formersentence; in the latter sentence, it is thesubject of the clause “who slew thedragon.” And the sentences “I knowwhom she kissed” and “Never send toknow for whom the bell tolls” are alsocorrect. In the former sentence, whom isthe object of the verb kissed; in the lattersentence, whom is the object of thepreposition for.

Often the puzzle gets more compli-cated: “The jurors disagreed on who [orwhom?] they felt had the stronger case.”Who is right; it is the subject of theclause “who . . . had the stronger case”;and the whole clause is the object of thepreposition on.

A four-column headline in a leading

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newspaper said: “Who Do They ThankWhen the Staff Get a Raise?” Probably itdid not look bad to most readers, al-though technically the first word shouldhave been Whom, the object of the verbThank. (More likely, some noticed theBritish-style “Staff Get” instead of “StaffGets.” See STAFF.)

An advertiser in the personal ads was

ABANDONED

By her boyfriend whom has foundother interests of which she is not oneof anymore.

“Whom” should have been who, thesubject of the verb has found, and pre-ceded by a comma. (Among the ad’sfaults, “of . . . of” is redundant and“anymore” is not pertinent. Could it bethat he scorned her English?)

A network anchor man made a simi-lar mistake in the choice between whoand whom:

You’ll meet the man whom, some say,bears at least some of the blame.

“. . . The man who. . . . ” Who is thesubject of the verb bears; the phrase“some say” amounts to only a paren-thetical explanation. (Whether the copythat was read really had commas or notis not known, but it does not matter.)

Often you can test the choice by re-ducing the sentence or clause to its barebones and changing the w-pronoun (rel-ative pronoun) into an h-pronoun (per-sonal pronoun). The newspaper samplebecomes “They thank him.” Him is ob-jective; therefore use whom, also objec-tive. The television sample becomes “Hebears blame.” He is subjective; thereforeuse who, also subjective.

Some may be asking, Must we solve apuzzle every time we intend to open ourmouths or put pen to paper? Whom ap-pears headed the way of shall, to be re-

served for special occasions but nolonger of regular utility. Meanwhile, as arule of thumb, use whom only when youare confident that it is right. When indoubt, use who.

2. The criticsThe use of “who” in place of a proper

whom, at least in popular speech, is metwith tolerance by many language au-thorities. They are less tolerant of the useof “whom” in place of a proper who.Writers and speakers so use “whom” notinfrequently in the belief that it is the ob-ject of the following verb, the grammar-ian George O. Curme wrote (in thethirties).

This incorrect usage was very com-mon in Shakespeare’s time: “Arthur,whom they say is kill’d tonight Onyour suggestion” (King John, I, ii,165).

Curme could understand the popularityof who, especially at the beginning ofsentences: “Who did they meet?” is notunnatural.

A contemporary of his, H. L.Mencken, wrote:

The schoolmarm . . . continues theheroic task of trying to make heryoung charges grasp the difference. . . . Here, alas, the speechways of theAmerican people seem to be . . .against her. The two forms of the pro-nouns are confused magnificently inthe debates in Congress, and in mostnewspaper writing, and in ordinarydiscourse the great majority of Ameri-cans avoid whom diligently, as a wordfull of snares. When they employ it, itis often incorrectly, as in “Whom isyour father?” and “Whom spoke tome?”

In 1783, Mencken noted, Noah Websterdenounced whom as usually useless and

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argued that common sense sided with“Who did he marry?”

Theodore M. Bernstein found it un-derstandable that spontaneous speakers,lacking time for the grammatical analy-sis required, would occasionally err.However, he wrote (1965), “The trans-gressions of the writer, however, are notso easily overlooked.” Within ten years,though, Bernstein was advocating thedoom of whom, its banishment from theEnglish language, except in one context.His sole exception was “when it followsimmediately after a preposition and‘sounds natural’ even to the masses.”Examples: “To whom it may concern” /“He married the girl for whom he hadrisked his life.” He called whom “uselessand senseless . . . a complicated nui-sance.” Of twenty-five “experts in En-glish,” fifteen agreed with him; sixdisagreed; four were in between.

On the conservative side, Wilson Fol-lett mocked “some liberal grammarians”who opposed whom in its orthodox usesbut who condoned its misuse in suchsentences as these:

“I know perfectly well whom youare.” [The misuser thinks “whom” isthe object of know. The correct pro-noun is who, the subject of are.]

“He resists a reconciliation with hissweet wife, whom he insists is a socialbutterfly.” [Who is right; “he insists”is parenthetical, as though withincommas.]

He suggested that the writers used“whom” wrongly for fear of soundingignorant and that, in contrast, a histo-rian wrongly used “who” for fear ofsounding superior:

“M. departed eight days later in hu-miliation as the man who, more thananyone else, the President had repudi-ated.”

The “radical grammarian” approves,Follett said, even though

who makes you anticipate a clause ofwhich it is the subject and leaves youjolted when you find that this clause isnever coming.

On the liberal side, Roy H. Copperudfound “Who are you going with?” and“Who did you invite?” not only correctbut preferable to whom. As for the useof “whom” instead of who, he accompa-nied the Shakespearean quotation ofCurme’s and other classic lines with thiscomment:

. . . When the critics of such errorsmust indict the translators of the Bible,together with Keats and Shakespeare,as having known no better, theirpreachments take on a hollow ring. . . .

A century earlier, the grammar in twoBiblical passages, Matthew 16:15 andLuke 9:18, had been found wanting. Inthe King James Version (1611) they said,respectively:

He saith unto them, But whom say yethat I am?

[H]e asked them, saying, Whom saythe people that I am?

The English Revised Version (1881)changed each “whom” to who; and whoremained in the Revised Standard Ver-sion (1946), amid modernized syntax(“who do you say . . .” / “Who do thepeople say . . .”).

The Oxford English Dictionary findswhom “used ungrammatically for thenominative WHO” by such writers asShakespeare and Dickens:

Tel me in sadnes whome she is youloue. [Romeo and Juliet, I, i, 205. TheOxford prefers original spellings.]

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A strange unearthly figure, whomGabriel felt at once, was no being ofthis world. [The Pickwick Papers.]

The Oxford says whom is “no longercurrent in natural colloquial speech.”

3. WHOEVER and WHOMEVERThe principles that apply to who and

whom apply to whoever and whomever,which mean anyone that or no matterwho. A network anchor man said:

Whomever does buy the yacht willnot be allowed to sail her.

Whoever is the subject. A person nor-mally would say, “I wonder who willbuy the yacht,” not “whom.”

On a television forum, a journalistsaid (about a political caucus in Iowa):

There are going to be stories about it,depending on whomever wins.

Change “whomever” to whoever; it isthe subject of the verb wins. Omit “de-pending on,” which is superfluous.

WHODUNIT. See DO, DID, DONE.

WHO EVER and WHOEVER.See (-)EVER.

WHOEVER and WHOMEVER.See WHO and WHOM, 3.

WHOM. See WHO and WHOM.

WHOSE. 1. For people and things. 2.WHOSE and WHO’S.

1. For people and thingsWhose is the possessive form of both

who and which. Thus whose, unlikewho, applies not only to people but alsoto things. An alternative possessive formof which is of which, though applying

this phrase sometimes yields an awk-ward product. Whose is proper here:

To the last fibre of the loftiest treeWhose thin leaves trembled in the

frozen air. . . .

The poet (Shelley) could have written “. . . the loftiest tree / The thin leaves ofwhich trembled. . . .” Fortunately he didnot.

2. WHOSE and WHO’SWhose, the possessive pronoun, as in

“Whose broad stripes and bright stars,”should not be confused with who’s, thecontraction of who is, as in “Who’safraid of the big, bad wolf?”

A newspaper’s main story dealt withthe closing of a thoroughfare (called theGreat Highway) because of sand blownonto it. The headline, nearly across thefront page, read: “Great Sandway -who’s fault?” The editor had erro-neously written “who’s” instead ofwhose. (He had also used a hyphen in-stead of a dash. See Punctuation, 4.)Later, two magazines similarly confusedthose words, which are both pro-nounced HOOZ:

He’s an astronaut and an olderAmerican who’s sixth sense a fewyears back, led him to search for theplaces NASA’s work might overlap. . . . [The comma is not needed. SeePunctuation, 3D.]

The security deposit may not be usedfor . . . repairing defects that existedprior to occupancy by the tenantwho’s deposit is in question. . . .

The opposite mistake was made by acandidate for a metropolitan schoolboard in a statement sent to voters, op-posing a proposed new election system:

They’ve tried this in Cambridge, Mas-sachusetts and they’re still trying tofigure out whose their mayor.

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Who is or who’s, not “whose,” wouldhave been right. (A comma is needed af-ter “Massachusetts.” See Punctuation,3A.)

See also Punctuation, 1B.

WHO, THAT, and WHICH. 1.Animals and things. 2. Choice in refer-ring to people.

1. Animals and thingsAnimals (excluding humans) and

inanimate objects are not entitled to therelative pronoun “who.” Use that orwhich for them. When to use each is dis-cussed in THAT and WHICH.

Who suits only people. That also isacceptable for people. See 2.

“Who” does not belong in any of thefollowing six excerpts. That should re-place it in the first three examples, whichin the next three. (In the former group,each has a restrictive or defining clause;in the latter, a nonrestrictive or nondefin-ing clause.)

The first example is a headline in a su-permarket tabloid: “Goat who ate dyna-mite is walking bomb.” A goat gets that,not “who.” (Another, typical headline inthat issue: “DOG DRIVES TO HOSPI-TAL AFTER OWNER HAS HEARTATTACK IN CAR.” Would that wordusage were the only problem.)

Although organized entities, such ascompanies, unions, associations, and in-stitutions, are made up of people, theyare not people. Change each “who” tothat in the pair below, from a book and anewspaper.

AT&T, a communications giantwho never knew true competition un-til deregulation, now embraces thecustomer loyalty program concept.

Unions who represent civil serviceemployees argue that . . . the basicwork skills needed are essentially thesame. . . .

A literal fish story, from a magazine, isquoted next. Sea creatures and birds,like beasts, have no claim to “who.”

Unlike birds (and some solitary orpair-forming fish species), who feed orshelter their young, and mammals,who suckle them, schooling fishesabandon eggs and larvae to float awayon the currents.

“Unlike birds . . . , which feed or sheltertheir young, and mammals, which sucklethem. . . .”

Likewise, each “who” should bewhich in the pair of press sentences be-low. Countries, governmental bodies,and other geographical and political en-tities are not people, although people be-long to them.

It was unclear whether Angola andCuba, who are eager to sign the pro-tocol, would adapt so readily to SouthAfrica’s schedule.

His veto forces a showdown withthe 18-member County Legislature,who will vote on Tuesday on whetherto override it and enact the bill.

See also WHOSE, 1.

2. Choice in referring to peopleJust as who should not represent

lower creatures and things, whichshould not represent people. A networkanchor man was out of line in telling of“an American couple which went toLondon” to look for a nanny. Eitherwho or that would have been suitable inplace of “which.”

Both who and that are used as relativepronouns to refer to people. It is a mat-ter of personal preference.

That, if chosen, should introduce onlya restrictive (essential or defining) clause.“He was the best pitcher that ever joinedour team.” / “The architects that de-

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signed those structures display greatimagination.” Who may be substitutedin each instance. Further examples of therestrictive use of who have traditionallycome up at political party conventions:“. . . a man who achieved . . .” / “. . . aman who represents . . .” and so on.

Who (sometimes whom)—never“that” or “which”—begins a nonrestric-tive (unessential or nondefining) clausereferring to a person or persons. “Doyou know Helen Johnson, who used towork here?” / “The Millers, who livenext door to us, came to the office to-day.” Notice that a comma precedeswho in a nonrestrictive clause. A pair ofcommas is needed when the nonrestric-tive clause does not end the sentence.

H. W. Fowler, the grammarian, notonly condoned the application of that topeople: he proposed “the establishmentof that as the universal defining relative,with which & who(m) as the non-defining for things & persons respec-tively.” If politeness stood in the way,Fowler had a subtle compromise: Atleast save who for particular persons(“You who are a walking dictionary”)and that for generic persons (“He is aman that is never at a loss”).

There has been little movement to-ward applying that to people. Fowlerwas more successful in getting that ac-cepted as a restrictive (defining) relativepronoun for nonhuman subjects. Con-ceding that his proposal might not winout, he added a caveat that remains im-portant:

Failing the use of that as the onlydefining relative, it is particularly important to see that who defining[restrictive] shall not, & who non-defining [nonrestrictive] shall, have acomma before it.

See also THAT and WHICH; WHO;WHO and WHOM.

WHY. See (-)EVER; REASON, 2.

WILL and WOULD. See Doublenegative, 1; Subjunctive, 2, 3; Tense, 4.

Will (legal). See TESTAMENT andTESTIMONY.

WILLY-NILLY. Willy-nilly (adverb)essentially means without choice, undercompulsion. “The soldiers were sentwilly-nilly into a perilous land.”

It is the remnant of an aged expres-sion: will he, nill he, meaning whether hewill it or not will it; that is, whether he iswilling or unwilling. Any other personalpronoun could be substituted. Shake-speare used the expression in The Tam-ing of the Shrew: “. . . Your father hathconsented / That you shall be my wife;your dowry ’greed on; / And, will you,nill you, I will marry you.” To will, or todesire, is still used. To nill (descendedfrom the Old English nyllan) is an obso-lete verb, meaning not to will, not to de-sire. Do not confuse nill with the nounnil, nothing (from the Latin nihil).

Willy-nilly (adjective) means being oroccurring whether one wishes it or not:“a willy-nilly experience.” Sometimesthe word is used loosely as a synonymfor indecisive (adjective), (possibly underthe influence of shilly-shallying). Someusers wholly misunderstand willy-nilly,projecting sundry meanings into it.

The host of a radio talk show said fi-nancial considerations had to moderateexpenditures for highway safety: “Wecan’t just go out and willy-nilly do what-ever we think is going to be helpful.”Any of a number of adverbs would havefit better: at will, exorbitantly, extrava-gantly, freely, limitlessly, unlimitedly, un-restrainedly. Each suggests that theaction would be performed willingly.The speaker chose a word with the op-posite sense.

The chairman of a Senate committeethat was conducting an investigation

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said, when asked if the president wouldbe subpoenaed, “You don’t send off sub-poenas willy-nilly.” Certainly you don’tsend off subpoenas unwillingly; the re-cipient is the one who must act willy-nilly. The senator may have meantcarelessly, hastily, thoughtlessly, or oneof the previously mentioned adverbs.

WINCH. See WENCH and WINCH.

WIND SHEAR. See SHEAR, 2.

-WISE ending. They must think thatadding a -wise to the word is efficient:

• A radio reporter asked a heart-attack specialist, “Where does thefuture lie technology-wise?” Thereporter probably believed she wasusing language sharply andeconomically by tacking “-wise”onto the noun instead of having tosay “as far as technology isconcerned.” But a crisper questionwould be, “What technology liesahead?” or “What inventions areneeded?”

• A lawyer used similarly roundaboutlanguage in commenting on adefendant’s performance in court:“Demeanor-wise he’s coming offfine. Testimony-wise he couldn’t beworse.” The lawyer could have said,in a more straightforward way, “Hisdemeanor is fine. His testimonycouldn’t be worse.”

Although -wise has long been scornedas a suffix taking the place of concern-ing, with reference to, or with respect to,it does have legitimate functions in twoother senses. It signifies (1) direction ormanner, as in clockwise and otherwise,and (2) knowledge or wisdom, as inpenny-wise and worldly-wise.

In those two functions it roughly par-allels the word wise, meaning (noun)manner, method, or way and (adjective)

possessing wisdom, shrewdness, pru-dence, or erudition. The noun is usedmainly in the phrases in any wise, in nowise, and in this wise.

WISH. A supermarket posted a signsaying, “If you wish for cannedSALMON please ask checker at check-stand for it.” To wish for something is topossess or express a longing or deep,heartfelt desire for it. The phrase can ad-ditionally mean to seek to acquire orachieve the thing by supernatural means,through the medium of a genie, fairy,shooting star, wishing well, birthdaycake, or chicken bone.

“If you wish canned salmon,” omit-ting the “for,” would have been an im-provement, although a number of criticsconsider the verb wish followed by asimple object to be a genteelism, an ex-cessive refinement. Want is the verb touse in that grammatical context, particu-larly when the desire is so prosaic ortransitory.

To wish blends well with an indirectobject (“I wish you luck”), a clause (“Iwish I had a nickel”), or an infinitive(“Do you wish to file a complaint?”).With an infinitive, want works as well orbetter.

Wit. See QUIP, QUIPPED.

WITH. 1. Common misuse. 2. Func-tion; meanings; number.

1. Common misuseIt is an amateurish practice to fasten

an extra thought to a sentence by the useof a nearly meaningless “with.” Yet thepractice is habitual in the popular press,even among the best newspapers. Afront-page story in a leading daily pro-vides three illustrations. (Emphasis isadded.)

Complexity has become a signifi-cant bottleneck in computing, with

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designers finding that their machinesare encrusted with powerful com-putational routines that are rarelyused. . . .

The competitive pressures have ledto a “benchmark war” between mak-ers of different microprocessors witheach manufacturer issuing impressivereports on performance. . . .

The competition to gain “designwins,” the semiconductor industry’sphrase for having their product ac-cepted by computer makers, has cre-ated some bitter feelings, withcompanies rancorously challengingthe performance claims made by oth-ers.

Each paragraph could easily be madesimpler and clearer by separating thethoughts. Omit “with” and start a newsentence, putting the verb in the presenttense.

Complexity has become a signifi-cant bottleneck in computing. Design-ers find that. . . .

The competitive pressures have ledto a “benchmark war” between mak-ers of different microprocessors. Eachmanufacturer issues impressive re-ports. . . .

The competition to gain “designwins” . . . has created some bitter feel-ings. Companies rancorously chal-lenge the performance claims. . . .

An alternative to two separate sentencesis two independent clauses, separated bya semicolon:

Complexity has become a signifi-cant bottleneck in computing; design-ers find that. . . .

(In the third paragraph of the excerpt,“having their product” is questionable.Better: “having its product” or “havingproducts.”)

Another typical example, from thefront page of a mainly financial newspa-per, concerns a South African election:

But the trend was unmistakable, withthe ANC capturing more than 60% ofthe vote.

The sentence is shorter and plainer thanthe previous samples, but “with” is justas inane. Take it out and see if the sen-tence needs it. Or follow “unmistak-able” with a colon, semicolon, or dashand “the ANC captured more than 60%of the vote.” Or follow the comma with“and the ANC captured” etc.

In the following sentence, “with” isnot just wishy-washy; it can send readersdown the wrong track.

Luaus are still popular on Oahuwith everyone eventually succumbingto their lure.

“Luaus are still popular on Oahu witheveryone” forms a complete thought,but not the writer’s thought. Any ofthese could replace “with”: a comma; asemicolon and the clause “everyoneeventually succumbs to their lure”; acomma and where or and followed bythat clause; a period and a new sentenceworded like that clause.

Journalists often treat repetition likethe plague, but the writer of the follow-ing sentence did not seem to mind the“with . . . with.”

At the same time, Syria rejected theP.L.O.’s discussion with the UnitedStates, with official newspapersdeclaring that peace in the MiddleEast “should be taken by force.”

When repeating a word helps to make asentence clear, one need not shun repeti-tion, particularly when the meaning ofthe word is the same. In the excerpt,however, the first with indicates interac-

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tion; the second has negligible meaningand can mislead readers. After “UnitedStates,” a new sentence is desirable: “Of-ficial newspapers declare that. . . . ” (Thedouble “with” in the opening example isless conspicuous.)

The “with” form is not restricted tonewspapers. A scholarly book uses it sixtimes; for example:

And Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)created a new constitutional right toprivacy, with the opinions in the casebasing this right on several provisionsof the Constitution.

Omitting “with the opinions in the case”would sharpen the sentence.

Before attaching an extra thought to asentence, a writer needs to consider howthe extra thought relates to the firstthought; and whether or not it must beattached; and, if it must, whether or notthe connecting word, phrase, or punctu-ation shows the relation.

2. Function; meanings; numberUnlike and, with is not a connecting

word, or conjunction, the way it is mostoften misused. It is a preposition, like of,by, and for. (See Prepositions, 1.)

Its dozens of senses include the fol-lowing: accompanying (“The Smiths arewith their children”), agency (“Clean itwith soap and water”), association(“Dessert comes with the dinner”), cau-sation (“They wept with joy”), closeness(“She’s sitting with that soldier”), con-trast (“The Earth is tiny compared withJupiter”), entrusting (“Leave it with thereceptionist”), manner (“She sang withfeeling”), membership (“Are you withus?”), opinion (“It’s all right with me”),opposition (“He argued with the um-pire”), possession (“Who is the boy withthe drum?”), presence (“It’s filled withhelium”), and relationship (“He’sfriendly with people”).

When with has the sense of accompa-

nying, does a singular verb remain singu-lar? “The computer with the printercosts [or “cost”?] $1,900.” What ofalong with or together with? “Mr. Far-rell, along with his son, is [or “are”?] ar-riving this evening.”

The established view is that the verbsremain singular: costs, is, etc., inasmuchas with is a preposition and not a con-junction. But some grammarians allow aplural verb if the items or individuals getequal emphasis.

Despite the many meanings of with, itis sometimes chosen over more appro-priate prepositions. An ad announced alecture entitled “The Rules” by two au-thors (of a book by that name): “ProvenSecrets for dating and marrying Mr.Right with ELLEN FEIN and SHERRIESCHNEIDER. . . . ” Would that makehim a bigamist? Maybe no one reallythought so, but by would have been bet-ter than “with.”

WITHER and WRITHE. “Thatperson you can see withering inpain . . .”—it should be writhing in pain.An anchor man made the mistake on anational telecast. He confused two verbs(intransitive) that look somewhat similarbut have different meanings, pronuncia-tions, and Old English origins.

To wither is to dry up, lose freshness,or shrivel. To writhe is to squirm, twist,or contort the body. Each verb has atransitive sense, meaning to cause (some-thing or someone) to have the particulareffect. The first word is pronouncedWITH-er, the second RYTH (each thvoiced as in THE).

WITH PREJUDICE and WITH-OUT PREJUDICE. The defense inthe O. J. Simpson murder trial made amotion. A radio newscaster said the mo-tion was “that charges against Simpsonbe dismissed without prejudice, meaninghe could not be tried again.” She got itbackward.

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When a legal action is dismissed with-out prejudice, it is as though the casewere never brought to court. It means (ina criminal case) that the prosecuting sidemay try the defendant again on the samecharges, or (in a civil case) that the plain-tiff may bring a new suit on the sameclaim.

Conversely, the dismissal of a legal ac-tion with prejudice amounts to a finaljudgment on the merits of the case. Itbars any new prosecution on the samecharge or any new suit on the sameclaim. A defense attorney in any legalcase wants the court to dismiss the casewith prejudice, for then the defense haswon. That was the motion of the Simp-son defense.

Those legal uses of prejudice (noun)have little to do with its common use tosignify bias. However, witnesses and oc-casionally jurors or judges may be saidto harbor common prejudice, either an-tagonism or favoritism.

Prejudicial (adjective) is often used inlegal contexts to mean harmful to therights of a party, whether because ofbias, emotion, or error.

Literally prejudice means prejudg-ment. It originates in the Latin praejudi-cium, same meaning, from prae, before,and judicium, judgment.

WOMAN. See -MAN-, MAN.

WOOD and WOODEN. A fire wascaused by children who put paper towelsclose to what a radio newscaster called“a wooden stove.” He must have meanta wood stove or wood-burning stove.Obviously you could not have a stovemade of wood.

Wood is a perfectly good adjective; itmeans containing, used on, or related towood, or existing in a wood or forest.Moreover, wood is an alternative towooden, meaning made of wood; for in-stance, both a wooden bowl and a woodbowl are right.

WORDINESS, WORDY. See Ver-bosity.

Words that sound alike. See Homo-phones.

“WORLD’S OLDEST PROFES-SION.” See “OLDEST PROFES-SION.”

WORSE and WORST. See BET-TER and BEST, WORSE and WORST.

WOULD and WILL. See Doublenegative, 1; Subjunctive, 2, 3; Tense, 4.

WOULD HAVE, WOULD’VE,and “WOULD OF.” See HAVE,HAS, HAD, 2.

WRACK. See RACK and WRACK.

WREAK and WRECK. A televisionreporter predicted that the traffic patternon a main thoroughfare during a forth-coming municipal event would “wrecksome havoc.” Whether she mistook“wreck” for wreak or simply did notknow that the latter should be pro-nounced REEK is not clear.

Hurricanes and tornadoes wreak, thatis, inflict, havoc. It is not possible to“wreck” havoc, because to wreck is todestroy and havoc is destruction. As forthe TV prediction, to wreak havocwould be an overstatement—the trafficpattern would more likely cause confu-sion or something of the sort—unless thereporter foresaw some destructive acci-dents.

See also RACK and WRACK.

WREST and WRESTLE. “. . . Theguerrillas slowly wrestled victory fromblack Africa’s biggest army,” a front-page newspaper story said.

The right verb is not “wrestled” butwrested. When you wrest somethingfrom someone or something, you obtain

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it or usurp it by forceful pulling andtwisting, persistent effort, violent action,or underhanded method. (It is a transi-tive verb.)

To wrestle (transitive or intransitiveverb) is to grapple with someone, espe-cially in a contest. Followed by with oragainst, it can mean to struggle.

For a passage about gorillas thatreally wrestle, see the next entry.

WRESTLE, WRESTLING andRASSLE, RASSLING. A sign at azoo’s gorilla enclosure said, in part:“Through games of chasing and rassling,

the bonds of trust and friendship areformed.”

The standard noun is wrestling, thestandard verb wrestle. “Rassling” or“rassle” is dialectic or very informal, noton the same plane as a fancy phrase like“the bonds of trust and friendship.”

Other deviant spellings are rassel, ras-tle, wrassle, and wrastle.

WRITE confused with RIGHT.See Homophones.

WRITHE. See WITHER and WRITHE.

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XEROX. The only criticism to be lev-eled at an absorbing book about an inci-dent of modern history is that it treats aproper noun as a common noun:

. . . Bosbin had yet another set of con-ditions to impose: that the Globepromise to defy any court injunctionand that it provide the services of itsxerox machine. . . . The investigationhad been aided by . . . the Los Angelesadvertising woman who made a xe-rox machine available to Ellsberg. . . .The advertising woman who lent Ells-berg her xerox machine . . . testifiedagain. . . .

Either use a capital X, if it is indeedthe Xerox brand, or call the device acopier, copying machine, photocopier, orthe like. Xerox is a trademark. Capital-ize it, just as you would capitalize thename of any similar machine labeledCanon, Kodak, Konica, Minolta, Mita,Panasonic, Ricoh, Royal, Savin, Sharp,or Toshiba.

The dry photographic process thatthe various copiers use is xerography,from the Greek xeros, meaning dry, andgraphein, to write.

To make a photocopy of a docu-ment is to photocopy it or, if the con-text makes it clear, simply to copy it. “Xerox” as a verb is questionable. Thepronunciation is ZEER-ox.

-Y ending. 1. Conjugation. 2. Suf-fixes.

1. ConjugationA national advice columnist advised

mothers of young children to quiz themon the details of any trips taken withfamily friends or relatives. The headline,in at least one newspaper, was “BeHappy She Prys.”

“Prys” was a misspelling. Pries isright. She or he pries. I, we, you, or theypry. The past tense and past participle ofpry is pried, for all persons.

The conjugation of a verb ending in ymay depend on whether a consonant ora vowel precedes the y.

A. Preceded by a consonant. In the present tense, the y is replaced by -iesfor the third person, singular (e.g., he or she). In the past and perfect tenses,the y is usually replaced by -ied for allpersons. Otherwise the verb is notchanged.

Thus he, she, or the baby cries (not“crys”). I, we, you, they, he, or she cried,had cried, and have cried. I, we, you, orthey cry. Everyone is crying, will cry, andwould cry.

The forms are similar for the other -ryverbs (dry, fry, try); the -fy verbs (am-plify, beautify, clarify, classify, defy, elec-trify, qualify, and so on); the -ply verbs(apply, comply, imply, multiply, ply, re-ply, supply, etc.); and miscellaneous

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other y-ending verbs (ally, deny, proph-esy, spy).

Fly has its own irregularity in the pasttense: You, I, he, or any other personflew. (He flied is right only in baseball.) Itis like the other -ry verbs in the presenttense: I fly, he flies, and so on.

B. Preceded by a vowel. Usually averb in which the final y follows a vowelis conjugated normally. He or she praysor employs. I, we, you, and they pray oremploy. All persons prayed or employed.And so on.

For some exceptions, see LAY andLIE; MAY and MIGHT; PAY; SLAY,SLAIN, SLEW.

2. SuffixesThere are general rules for adding a

suffix to a basic word ending in y. Theydepend on whether a consonant or avowel precedes the y. The rules havemany exceptions.

A. Preceded by a consonant. If a con-sonant precedes the y, usually the ychanges to i—unless the suffix beginswith i.

Some examples are the change ofbeauty to beautiful and beautify; happyto happily and happiness; and holy toholier and holiest. While cry becomescrier and defy becomes defiant, both re-tain the y when -ing is added: crying, de-fying—the suffix begins with i.

Among exceptions are dryness, baby-hood, and ladylike. The change of ac-company to accompanist and thechanges of military to militarism andmilitarize are exceptions to the i-suffixexception.

To make a common noun like army,lady, or sky plural, -ies is added: armies,ladies, skies. When a proper noun ismade plural, the y remains: Germanys,Marys.

The y remains when a possessive ’s isadded: anybody’s, everybody’s, Harry’s,Mary’s.

B. Preceded by a vowel. If a vowel

precedes the y, usually the y remains. Ex-amples are enjoyment, joyous, obeyer,payable, and playful.

Among exceptions, day changes todaily; and gluey changes to gluier andgluiest. Adjectives that end in -wy, likechewy, dewy, showy, and snowy, changethe y to i: dewier, showiness, etc.

To make a noun like day, key, or toyplural, add s. But the plural of colloquyis colloquies.

As suggested in Spelling, 3: when indoubt, look it up.

“YES, VIRGINIA.” If Francis P.Church, the editor of The Sun in NewYork, had known what his poetic edito-rial was starting, he might have re-sponded differently to the eight-year-oldgirl who wrote in 1897 to ask, “Is therea Santa Claus?” (Perhaps, “No. Sorry,Virginia, but that’s the way it is.”) Sevenwords—“Yes, Virginia, there is a SantaClaus”—have become hackneyed. Imita-tors, who may never have read the wholeeditorial, appropriate from two to fivewords for conversion to a variety ofuses.

(An ad for a general store:) “Yes, Vir-ginia, There is an After ChristmasSALE.” (A subtitle of a network TV fo-rum:) “Yes, Virginia, there are four can-didates [for governor of Virginia].” (Alocal TV newscast:) “Yes, Virginia, it cansnow in San Francisco.” (A column:)“Yes, Virginia, computers make mis-takes.” (An editorial:) “No, Virginia,there is no incumbent-protection plan.”The writer of the last sentence did noteven keep the “Yes.” It is puzzling whyhe had to drag Virginia into it at all.

YET. See BUT, 5; TAUTOLOGY.

YIDDISH. Two Jewish languages ex-ist: Hebrew, an ancient Semitic tongue,akin to Arabic but with its own alpha-bet; and Yiddish, a medieval tonguebased on High German, incorporating

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words from Hebrew and Slavic lan-guages and written in most of the He-brew characters. Millions of Jews speakneither; they speak the languages of thecountries in which they live.

A general’s autobiography tells of Ja-maican family friends

so close they were considered rela-tives. “Mammale and Pappale” wecalled them. Don’t ask me why theJewish diminutives.

The precise modifier would have beenYiddish, pertaining to the language. Jew-ish is not a language and not a synonymfor Yiddish, although using it that way isa common mistake, rather than a blun-der. That apparently occurred in Israel.Later in the same book we read:

In Jerusalem my counterpart . . . , theIsraeli chief of staff, threw a party forme, at which I surprised the guestswith some Bronx-acquired Yiddish.

Did the general think that Yiddish wasthe official language of Israel? It is He-brew.

See also JEW, JEWISH.

YOU and ONE in the same sen-tence. See ONE as pronoun, 1.

YOUR and YOU’RE. Your andyou’re, pronounced alike, should not beconfused in writing. Your, as in “To yourhealth,” is the possessive form of thepronoun you. You’re, as in “You’renext,” is the contraction of you are.

A writer did confuse them when hequoted a sitcom character saying, “Whodo you thank when you’re whole body isfeeling so good inside?” It should be“your whole body.”

See also Punctuation, 1B; WHO andWHOM, 1.

YOURSELF, YOURSELVES. SeePronouns, 3, 4.

YOU WHO. See WHO, 3.

“YOU WON’T BELIEVE.” A tele-vision play was promoted with the line“A true story with an ending you won’tbelieve.” I passed it by, thinking “If aplay is not believable, why see it?”

“You won’t believe” how overusedthat fad phrase is. Or maybe you will.

Z. The twenty-sixth and last letter ofthe English alphabet is pronounced intwo ways. The American way is ZEE.The British way is ZED.

The pronunciation of z comes up in abook by a scientist. A passage describesa modern theory in physics (unifying theelectromagnetic force and the weak nu-clear force):

. . . In addition to the photon, therewere three other spin-1 particles,known collectively as massive vectorbosons, that carried the weak force.These were called W+ (pronounced Wplus), W− (pronounced W minus), andZ0 (pronounced Z naught). . . .

The author has told us how to pro-nounce the 0—as naught (NAUT)—butnot how to pronounce the Z. He isBritish. The theory was propounded bytwo academics, one in the United Statesand one in Britain. The book was pub-lished simultaneously in the UnitedStates and in Canada, where ZED is pre-ferred.

See also ZERO and O.

ZERO and O. The figure 0 is a zeroor cipher or naught (also spellednought), the arithmetical symbol fornothing or the absence of any quantity. Itis the zero mark on a thermometer andthe point where the graduation of a scalebegins. The word zero, like cipher, origi-nates in the Arabic sifr, zero. The pluralis zeros or zeroes.

An announcer has pronounced the

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numbers in the television series “BeverlyHills, 90210” as “nine oh two one oh.”That is how the figure 0 (zero) is oftenpronounced in informal speech—like theletter O. But they are not the same andusually do not look the same whenprinted. In most common type styles, thefigure is narrower; the letter is rounder.

See also Z; ZERO IN.

ZERO IN. The district attorney whowas supervising the O. J. Simpson mur-der case had just been interviewed byBarbara Walters on the matter of domes-tic violence in general. He said, “I’m glad

you zeroed in on not just talking aboutthis one case.” In using the phrase zeroin to refer to the avoidance of some-thing, he reversed its meaning.

In a general sense, to zero in is tomove near, close in, converge. For exam-ple, “The police are zeroing in on thesuspect.” Zeroed in is the past tense andpast participle, zeroing in the presentparticiple.

In military terminology, to zero orzero in is to adjust the sights of a rifle sothat the target aimed at is hit. To zero inon a target is to take precise aim at it.

See also ZERO and O.

486 zero in

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