The Penguin Dictionary of American English Usage and Style_4 potx

that state that, if we provide treat- ment for infants and children, we must provide for their education if they are hospitalized for long periods of time,” E—— said. The administrator was mixed up and the reporter probably was too. They may have confused “fortuitous” with a com- bination of felicitous, meaning apt or ap- propriate, and fortunate, meaning lucky. Either word would have been a better choice than “fortuitous.” That which is fortuitous may be inter- preted as appropriate or inappropriate, lucky or unlucky. Natural disasters are fortuitous. Like felicitous, it is a four- syllable word beginning with f and end- ing with -itous. It shares the first five letters of fortunate. Otherwise fortuitous has little in common with the other two adjectives. The Latin equivalents and an- cestors of fortuitous and fortunate are fortuitus and fortunatus, which in the distant past evidently had a common root in fors, chance, luck. A book by two scientific writers ap- pears to suggest that accident and uncer- tainty pervade the universe. The components of such a universe could truly be called fortuitous. In the follow- ing example, no problem appears up to the second comma. For some people, the exceedingly fortuitous arrangement of the physi- cal world, which permits the very spe- cial conditions necessary to human observers’ existence, confirms their belief in a creative Designer. In this example, felicitous would itself be more felicitous than “fortuitous.” Fortu- nate also would pass muster. A similar problem appears in another book, by a traveler telling about car trouble in Africa. Within a few moments, the engine fired. The mechanic danced a few steps and doffed his hat just as the boy on the bicycle returned holding up a tube triumphantly. Never had so many fortuitous omens graced us at once. 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 our clocks “forward” one hour; that is, move them in the direction in which clocks automatically move. Turning the clock “back,” say from 2 a.m. to 1 a.m., is what we are advised to do in the fall when standard time returns. The mne- monic “Spring forward, fall back” does not help some people, who misunder- stand those adverbs and arrive at places two hours late or two hours early. An announcing of a shift in time re- quires caution. The new hour or date needs to be stated precisely. The manager of a television station decided to start its network programs at 7 p.m. instead of 8 p.m. A newspaper re- ported that she was “moving prime time forward one hour.” Sometimes forward (as an adjective) can indeed mean early: “A forward con- tingent is on its way.” But forward (as an adverb) can refer also to the future: “From this day forward” / “I look for- ward to the party.” Similarly, back can suggest an earlier time to some (“Think back to your school days”), a later time to others (who may recall the movie Back to the Future). If a meeting originally scheduled for May 3 is postponed, or put off, to May 10, is it moved “ahead” one week? The 140 fortunate 02-F–L_4 10/22/02 10:30 AM Page 140 future lies ahead, but three comes ahead of 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. All three words stem from the Latin fundus, bottom, yet their meanings are not all similar. The writer of this sentence did not know that fundament bears only su- perficial resemblance to fundamental: “That event was the fundament of Polish nationalism.” Foundation, meaning base, basis, or founding, would have been a better choice of nouns. Fundamental is a basic principle or (as an adjective) basic or es- sential. Take away -al and we have fun- dament, meaning anus or buttocks. FOUNDER. See FLOUNDER and FOUNDER. FRACTION. When the anchor man for a television network placed President Gorbachev’s salary at $30,000 a year and remarked, “It’s a mere fraction of the $250,000 that President Bush makes,” was he saying anything wrong? Strictly speaking, any number below one is a fraction. Nine-tenths or even 99/100 is a fraction and it is not small and not subject to the modifier “mere” or “only.” (In mathematics, any number with a numerator and denominator can be called a fraction, even if it exceeds one; for example, 3/2.) On the other hand, one-twentieth could be described as a small fraction of something, one- thousandth a tiny fraction. Therefore it is not reasonable to re- strict fraction to a small part, a little piece, 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 of verbosity. Obviously $30,000 is a frac- tion of $250,000. Had he made a calcu- lation and reported, “It’s a mere 12 percent of the $250,000,” at least he would 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 the 54,000 that existed before the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. A replacement for “is only a fraction of” might have been “is only 13 percent of” or (if the writer could not handle the arithmetic 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 a hoary one and very widespread. Even a brilliant scientist-author has made it. He writes that the public distrusts science, adding: This distrust is evident in the cartoon figure of the mad scientist working in his laboratory to produce a Franken- stein. Nobody produces a Frankenstein (ex- cept, perhaps, Mr. and Mrs. Franken- stein). Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel of that name was not the monster but its creator, Victor Franken- stein. The monster, which ultimately killed him, had no name. The term Frankenstein’s monster or Frankenstein monster may be applied to any creation that escapes from the cre- ator’s control and threatens to, or actu- ally does, crush him. “Nuclear energy is Frankenstein’s monster,” or “In develop- ing nuclear energy, man created a Frankenstein monster.” frankenstein 141 02-F–L_4 10/22/02 10:30 AM Page 141 “FREAK ACCIDENT.” No news story of a distinctive accident is complete unless 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 even very freakish, freaky, or “freak.” For in- stance, a network anchor man described “a freak accident” in which a tree was blown down upon a van. And a newspa- per reported “a freak accident” in which debris 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 two sentences, each containing a useless word. Perry planned to lease the planes to Jordan for free. . . . Soldiers, trying to build good will, cut hair for free [in China]. “For” serves no purpose in those sen- tences or in these two, found in newspa- pers: Since Oct. 1, Capital Metropolitan Authority patrons have been riding city buses for free. . . . The company has grown from 300 outlets in 1980 in part on its boast it would deliver the pizza for free if its drivers were late. People are being offered the planes, the haircuts, the bus rides, and the pizza free or 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 with free than with the adverb expensively. Whether the illegitimate phrase origi- nated in a mistaken analogy with for nothing or in a conscious attempt at cuteness is not known. (The last quoted sentence, while con- taining a surplus word, omits a desirable word after “boast”: the conjunction that.) See also Prepositions, 7. 2. FREE and FREELY Freely is an alternative to free as an adverb meaning in an unrestrained or unlimited manner. The horses run freely or free. To say “The publication is dis- tributed freely” when free of charge is meant can be ambiguous. Free is also a common adjective: a free country. FREEDOM. See DEMOCRACY, FREE- DOM, and INDEPENDENCE. FROM . . . TO. See BETWEEN, 3; RANGE, true and false; Punctuation, 4C. “FROM WHENCE.” See WHENCE and “FROM WHENCE.” -FUL ending. See Plurals and singu- lars, 2B. FULL STOP. See Punctuation, 8. FULSOME. Fulsome fools some people. 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’s fulsome promises.” Although in Middle English fulsom meant simply full or abundant, it took on a negative connotation. Perhaps ful suggested foul. Anyway, in modern En- glish it combines the idea of abundance with the idea of excess or insincerity. 142 “freak accident” 02-F–L_4 10/22/02 10:30 AM Page 142 One of those fooled was a TV net- work’s chief anchor man. He said, in de- scribing Robert Dole’s last day in Congress: And so the senator leaves the Senate with the most fulsome praise ringing in his ears. The broadcaster probably did not intend to describe the praise as excessive or in- sincere, but that is essentially what he said. Although some opposing partisans may have secretly agreed with such an assessment, another expression would have been preferable, say a lavish chorus of praise. (That corrects the misuse and ties in with the ear-ringing theme.) FUN. The first time I heard someone say anything like “It’s so fun,” I was in Europe and appreciated that the woman talking to me could speak my language at all. But for an American television re- porter to speak of “the career that had looked so fun and so glorious” could not be easily condoned. A substitute for “so fun” would have been like such fun or so full of fun or so enjoyable. Fun is properly a noun, usually mean- ing enjoyment or merriment, or a source of it. “We had fun.” / “This game is fun.” (As a noun, it is modified only by an adjective—e.g., “great fun” or “some fun”—not by an adverb. In a sentence such as “It seems so enjoyable” or “so funny,” so is an adverb, modifying a predicate adjective.) Fun is partially accepted as an adjec- tive before the noun (attributive adjec- tive). Informally people may speak of “a fun trip” or “a fun city.” In a superlative misuse, a departing talk show host said, “It was probably the funnest two years I ever spent.” FUND. In the sense of money avail- able for use, funds is a plural noun. A company reported to stockholders: For the three months ended June 30 . . . funds from operations was $45,521,000. . . . Revenues . . . were $62,173,000. . . . Funds from opera- tions for the six months ended June 30 . . . was $85,990,000. . . . Rev- enues . . . were $12,500,000. . . . “Funds . . . were,” just as “revenues were.” A singular phrasing would be “income from operations was $45,521,000.” A fund, singular noun, is a supply of money set aside for a specific purpose (the emergency fund); or a supply of something else (a fund of knowledge). FUNDAMENTAL and FUNDA- MENT. See FOUNDATION, FUN- DAMENTAL, and FUNDAMENT. FURIOUS, FURIOUSLY. See FUROR and FURY. FUROR and FURY. Fury (noun) is violent action or violent rage: “the fury of the battle” / “the storm’s fury.” A tabloid headline screamed, “FURY OVER CLAIM IKE KILLED 1M GER- MAN POWs.” The article did not bear out the headline. A book about Eisen- hower was not met with “fury” (as The Satanic Verses was, for instance). How- ever, on the basis of the article, the book could be said to have created a mild furor. Furor can range in intensity from harmless to violent. It can be a fad, a public commotion or uproar, a state of high excitement, a frenzy, or violent anger or fury. (Furore is a variation in the sense of a fad. It is mainly British, an import 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) furor and fury 143 02-F–L_4 10/22/02 10:30 AM Page 143 or vehement(ly) without the implication of violence. FURTHER. See FARTHER and FURTHER. FURY. See FUROR and FURY. Fused participle. See Gerund, 4. FUSION and FISSION. See NU- CLEAR. Future tense. See Tense, 1 and 4. 144 further 02-F–L_4 10/22/02 10:30 AM Page 144 GAL. See GUY. GAMBIT. A chess maneuver in which a player sacrifices a pawn or piece to try to gain an advantage is a gambit. Usu- ally it occurs at the beginning of a game and 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 of opening move, opening remark, maneu- ver, move, strategy, have become wide- spread, dulling the word. Magazines have described a remark to initiate a conversation as a “conversational gam- bit” and a move in Congress as a “leg- islative gambit.” Those uses omit the main element of a gambit: the sacrifice. GAMBLING and GAMING. To bet or risk money on the outcome of a contest or of a game of chance is gam- bling (noun). A euphemism for it is gam- ing, used by those who advocate or play a role in legal gambling. The word gambling was scarcely used in an initiative measure to make it easy to put gambling devices and games of chance on Indian reservations in Califor- nia, but “gaming” appeared hundreds of times. The Nevada Gaming Control Board regulates gambling casinos in that state. The word gambling has had disrep- utable associations; gaming, like games, sounds clean and recreational. General dictionaries consider them synonyms. GAMUT. See GANTLET and GAUNT- LET, 2. GANTLET and GAUNTLET. 1. The difference. 2. GAMUT. 3. More meanings. 1. The difference Confusion between these two words is rampant. The main use of either is in a common expression. The historian Francis Parkman wrote: They descended the Mississippi, run- ning the gantlet between hostile tribes. A radio newscaster said, referring to gun battles between drug dealers: Residents have to run a gauntlet just to 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 to leave his driveway. gantlet and gauntlet 145 G 02-F–L_4 10/22/02 10:30 AM Page 145 Is it “gantlet” or “gauntlet”? Ameri- can tradition leans toward the former. The latter, a British import, has become more common in colloquial use. Both are corruptions. Originally one ran the gantlope. A gantlope, from the Swedish gatlopp, was used in a punishment of thieves and then of soldiers. It consisted of two rows of men facing one another and holding such objects as sticks and knotted cords. The offender was stripped to the waist and forced to run the gantlope as the others struck him. It was not long before people began confusing gantlope with a then familiar word, gauntlet, a type of glove, of which gantlet was a variant. The first quotation of gantlope in The Oxford English Dic- tionary is from 1646; fifteen years later “run the gantlet” appears; afterward we see both gauntlets and gantlets as well as gantlopes. The phrase was used almost from the start in both a literal and a figurative sense. Today it is nearly always used fig- uratively, meaning to suffer attacks, par- ticularly from two sides; to risk perils; or even to endure any series of troubles. Literally “run the gauntlet” is like saying “run the old glove.” A gauntlet was an armored glove of medieval times. A man who cast his gauntlet to the ground was issuing a challenge to fight. If another picked it up, he was accepting the challenge. The custom gave rise to the expressions throw down the gauntlet and take up the gauntlet, meaning to is- sue or accept a challenge. To run the gantlet is favored by four works on English usage and the manuals of the Associated Press and The New York Times. It was the preferred term in American dictionaries through 1960. Later dictionaries have offered both spellings for each sense. The books have never agreed on pronunciation. The sug- gestion here is to pronounce the words as they are spelled, GANT-let and GAUNT-let, and to use the former for running and the latter for throwing down. All sources agree that only the gauntlet is thrown down. 2. GAMUT Gamut (noun), which appears in the expression run the gamut, usually means the complete range or extent of things; for instance, “The chefs ran the gamut of flavors.” It is sometimes confused with the other g-words. This was from a news re- port: “Prisoners were forced to run a gamut.” 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 since been applied to the whole series of rec- ognized musical notes or, sometimes, to just the major scale. 3. More meanings Gantlet is also a railroad term. It is a section where two tracks overlap, en- abling a train from either line to pass in a narrow place. Gauntlet for glove is not wholly obso- lete. Certain types of work and dress gloves and glovelike athletic devices are known as gauntlets. GAS. 1. Confusion. 2. Definitions. 1. Confusion An automobile company was selling a low-pollution van, “powered by natural gas instead of gas,” a news agency re- ported. On its face, the quoted phrase seems to part with logic. Natural gas is a gas. No doubt the writer meant gasoline, for 146 gas 02-F–L_4 10/22/02 10:30 AM Page 146 which “gas” is a common, colloquial American term. Displayed in serious writing, it does not fare well. When it is being contrasted with the real gas, “gas” is particularly ill-chosen. It can perplex those who are unaccustomed to informal Americanisms and do not recognize it as the British petrol. A newspaper article used the phrase “gas tax” eleven times (counting the headline), never once spelling out the topic: the federal gasoline tax. Even Americans are not always sure what is meant by, say, “I smell gas.” 2. Definitions Gas is a substance that is neither solid nor liquid and is characterized by very low density and readiness to expand and fill 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 Greek khaos, 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 the distillation of petroleum and used as a fuel in internal-combustion engines. Natural gas is a mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons, mainly methane, found in the earth in oil deposits and used as a fuel. Petrol, the British term for gasoline, is pronounced PET-trull. GAUNTLET. See GANTLET and GAUNTLET. GAVE and GIVEN. See Tense, 5A. GAY. 1. History. 2. The press. 3. Two meanings. 1. History Gay is an adjective that, for seven cen- turies, has primarily meant joyful, light- hearted, merry, or mirthful. Chaucer, for instance, wrote that a pilgrim “iolif [jolly] was and gay.” It can also mean bright or showy. Tennyson: “when all is gay with lamps.” Probably of Teutonic origin, the word came to Middle English from the French gai. The use of gay in the above senses dates back at least to 1310, antedating Chaucer, The Oxford English Dictio- nary indicates. Records of its occasional euphemistic use to mean a man “of loose and immoral life” begin in 1637; a woman, 1825. Its use as a euphemism for the adjective homosexual did not be- come popular until close to 1970, al- though rare uses dating from the 1880s are documented. Used in the sense of homosexual, the adjective gay used to be considered slang but now is accepted as standard by all dictionaries. Gay as a noun, meaning a homosexual person, has been so ac- cepted by American dictionaries but is considered slang by the Oxford. 2. The Press The publicly sold style manual of The New York Times disapproves of gay for homosexual, although in 1987 the staff was told that the adjective was accept- able. (Gay could describe both sexes, but lesbian 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 someone else not be “a sad” or “a tall”? Most of the press had been quicker to adopt gay in the sexual sense, particu- larly in headlines, where news essences must be squeezed into small spaces. Be- ing able to replace a ten-letter word with a three-letter word pleases a typical edi- gay 147 02-F–L_4 10/22/02 10:30 AM Page 147 tor. So to see a headline in 1990 in a San Francisco newspaper saying “Homosex- ual rights law challenged” was surpris- ing, particularly when the text of the article said: Federal courts have found that gays are not protected against bias by the U.S. Constitution. Gov. Deukmejian vetoed a bill in 1984 to give gays equal rights under state law. [A mis- placed prepositional phrase produces “bias by the U.S. Constitution.” See Modifiers, 3.] The same paper ran the headline “A GAY BASHER ASKS: WHY?” Was he a basher who was gay? No, but that sense results from the adjectival use of a noun adopted from an adjective. Homosexuals themselves have em- braced gay, as adjective and noun, al- though many originally resisted it. Some of them annually celebrate “Gay Pride Day.” No one has explained why a eu- phemism is needed for that which one takes pride in. 3. Two meanings Harper Dictionary (1985) reported that only 36 percent of a usage panel of 166 members accepted the modern sense of gay. Some expressed anger. Isaac Asi- mov: “This use of ‘gay’ has killed a won- derful word. . . .” Erich Segal: “It robs our language of a lovely adjective. . . .” While gay in the traditional sense, that of merry or bright, can at times be mis- understood—“It was a gay party” per- mits two interpretations—reports of its demise have been exaggerated. Anyone who wants to use the word in that way has a perfect right to do so but should see that the context makes the meaning clear. It was clear in a 1990 article in the The New York Times: But today the only people walking in Red Square were tourists who had come to ogle the gay domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral. See also HOMOPHOBIA. GENDARME. Americans who use the word gendarme think it is French for policeman. They are partly right, as right as a European would be in using “con- stable” or “sheriff” for an American po- liceman. A movie guide book describes the plot of the 1963 film Irma la Douce: “A gen- darme pulls a one-man raid on a back street Parisian joint and falls in love with one of the hookers he arrests.” The lead- ing actress recalled in a TV documen- tary: “I played a prostitute and Jack played a young gendarme who tried to rescue me from the street.” Jack (Lemmon) did not play a “gen- darme.” One French-English dictionary defines gendarme as a policeman “in countryside and small towns.” Another defines 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 a term of grammar. It is the classification of certain words as masculine, feminine, or neuter. In English those words are nouns and pronouns, the great majority of 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 is natural. That is, most words of mascu- line or feminine gender represent sexual, or at least human, qualities. But the word gender is not synonymous with sex. In various languages it often has nothing to do with sex—or with any- thing else. In the Romance languages, grammar 148 gendarme 02-F–L_4 10/22/02 10:30 AM Page 148 arbitrarily decrees nouns to be masculine or feminine, regardless of any sexual qualities. Thus, in Spanish el día, the day, is masculine, while la noche, the night, is feminine. In French la plume, the pen, is feminine, while le crayon, the pencil, is masculine. Even in English, the feminine pro- nouns she and her are often applied to such neuter things as ships and coun- tries. His in a phrase like to each his own, while masculine in gender, is used in a neuter sense. In recent decades an increasingly pop- ular use of gender has been as a eu- phemism for sex, meaning the classification of human beings and ani- mals as male or female. It is not obvious why sex, in such an innocent sense, needs a euphemism. Thus, a magazine chart lists library visits by demographic categories, includ- ing “AGE . . . INCOME . . . EDUCA- TION” and “GENDER.” On another page, an essayist criticizes “double stan- dards that have the effect of . . . pitting race against race, gender against gen- der.” Sex, rather than “gender,” would be quite fitting in both instances and in the newspaper sentences below. Prosecutors and defense lawyers may not bar a potential juror from serving in a criminal trial solely be- cause of the person’s gender. . . . [Under a proposed bill] a man could sue a woman for a violent attack, ar- guing it was based on his gender. Not even an editor’s normal penchant for short words in headlines overcomes the squeamishness toward sex. The first news story was headed “Potential Jurors Can’t Be Barred Because of Gender, Court Rules.” While gender has increasingly usurped the role of sex in genteel use, the casual use of sex as a noun denoting coitus or any sexual activity has become more common. For instance, the mes- sage that “We had sexual intercourse” is more likely to take the form of the “slept together” euphemism or “We had sex.” Strictly speaking, all of us have sex all the time. It is either male or female. Genitive (possessive). See Double possessive; 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 of omission. 3. Gerund or infinitive? 4. Pos- sessive with gerund. 1. Definition When 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 me happy”), a direct object of a verb (“Jane loves kissing”), the object of a preposi- tion (“By oversleeping, John missed the plane”), or a subjective complement (“His goal was finding the missing link”). Many -ing words are not gerunds. “Reinforcements are coming.” / “The senator delivered a stinging rebuke.” / “Laughing hysterically, he could barely resume the broadcast.” In those exam- ples coming, stinging, or laughing is a present participle. It is a verb form that expresses present action (in relation to the tense of the finite verb) and can serve as an adjective. Do not confuse a gerund with a pre- sent participle. It appears that an editor did so in program notes for a recording: A music critic “reproached Beethoven for the absence of a great vocal fugue gerund 149 02-F–L_4 10/22/02 10:30 AM Page 149 [...]... on one of the islands was the subject of TV news on the mainland An anchor woman said, “There is more trouble in paradise tonight Another home went up in flames on the Island of Hawaii.” Isn’t it odd that a land where lava consumes houses should remind her of heaven and not of the other place? HEAD ON and HEAD-ON See Joining of words; Punctuation, 4D HEADQUARTERS Headquarters, meaning a center of operations,... member of a troupe of performers, a per- 171 former of long experience, or (informally) a loyal worker Vice, a wicked practice Vise, a clamping device Weather, the condition of the atmosphere Whether, in either event; either; if See also the following entries: AFFECT and EFFECT ALL TOGETHER and ALTOGETHER (etc.) BLOC and BLOCK BORE, BORNE, and BORN CAPITAL and CAPITOL COMPLEMENT and COMPLIMENT EXERCISE and. .. unproven explanations for the origin of the solar system On the other hand, Einstein’s special and general theo- ries of relativity—dealing with space, time, mass, energy, and gravitation— have been repeatedly tested in experiments and are generally acepted by the scientific community In view of the abundance of alternative explanations for the creation of the alphabet, hypothesis would seem to be an... Among the various other theories concerning the alphabet are the hypotheses that the alphabet was brought by the Philistines from Crete to Palestine, that the various ancient scripts of the Mediterranean countries developed from prehistoric geometric symbols [etc.] Another hypothesis, the Ugaritic theory, evolved after an epoch-making discovery Among “theories” are several “hypotheses”? Another... acts].” GO OFF and GO ON Occasionally the phrase go off is ambiguous It can mean the same as go on—even though off and on are opposites, as anyone who has flipped an electric switch knows Go off can have these contradictory meanings: (1) to take place ( The show went off as planned”) and (2) to discontinue or go away ( The show went off the air”) The execution of a prisoner was hours away when the news... done.” / The company 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 the storm.” / “I’m tired of having my property defaced.” The form is the same; it is active, yet the meaning is passive The subjects do not cause the action; it is thrust upon them The passive use of the verb have is not new; it is found in the writings... the kingdom of heaven, the abode of eternal bliss; and understandably that scenic, flowery, subtropical kingdom suggested it to some 165 Notwithstanding the one-sided picture presented in travel promotions, Hawaii residents complain of many of the same problems that beset other Americans: problems concerning the environment, health, the law, living costs, population pressures, and so on Then there are... annexed by the United States in 1898 and became a U.S territory in 1900 he and him It is composed of the Hawaiian Islands, once called the Sandwich Islands, a chain some 2,000 miles southwest of San Francisco Hawaii is the most southerly state of the United States It is not the most westerly; Alaska is Hawaii is properly pronounced HaWHY-ee—never Ha-WHY-uh, which some dictionaries condone; and never... I I and i The letter i should be dotted in lower case and only in lower case A capital I should never get a dot Although dotted capital I’s are seen on innumerable homemade signs, they offend the eyes of professional sign painters, calligraphers, typographers, and others sensitive to the letters of our alphabet In the opening episode of a television comedy series, a learned professor chalks the word... “their ought to be a law.” Make it there (the adverb), not “their” (the possessive pronoun) Sometimes they’re, the contraction of they are, is confused with one or the other A movie review said “he crawls into a construction sight .” Site (a place) would be right, not “sight” (a view) A third word that sounds the same is cite, to quote, refer to, or of cially summon or mention Forty other groups of . implication of violence. FURTHER. See FARTHER and FURTHER. FURY. See FUROR and FURY. Fused participle. See Gerund, 4. FUSION and FISSION. See NU- CLEAR. Future tense. See Tense, 1 and 4. 144 further 02-F–L _4. four works on English usage and the manuals of the Associated Press and The New York Times. It was the preferred term in American dictionaries through 1960. Later dictionaries have offered both spellings. Originally one ran the gantlope. A gantlope, from the Swedish gatlopp, was used in a punishment of thieves and then of soldiers. It consisted of two rows of men facing one another and holding such