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GOOD WORD GUIDE GOOD WORD GUIDE Editor A Martin H Manser Consultant Editors Jonathon Green and Betty Kirkpatrick Compilers Rosalind Fergusson, David Pickering, and Jenny Roberts All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the Publishers First published in 1988 Third edition published as Bloomsbury Guide to Better English Fourth edition published in 1997 Fifth edition published in 2003 Copyright # 1988, 1990, 1994, 1997, 2000, 2003 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 38 Soho Square, London W1D 3HB www.bloomsbury.com/reference 10 British Library Cataloguing in Publication A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 7475 6524 eISBN-13: 978-1-4081-0339-5 The moral right of the author has been asserted Acknowledgments The editor expresses his thanks to the following: the late John Silverlight for his helpful comments as Consultant Editor on earlier editions, Rosalind Desmond and Gloria Wren for their careful editorial checking, Kathy Rooney and Faye Carney, of the publishers, for their encouragement at every stage of the book's production, and on the first edition, Sarah Peasley for help in compiling the text and Margaret McPhee for advice on Australian English All papers used by Bloomsbury Publishing are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable, well-managed forests The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin Typeset by Hewer Text Limited, Edinburgh Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc CONTENTS INTRODUCTION vii GUIDE TO PRONUNCIATION xiii GOOD WORD GUIDE TABLES: Animals (male, female, young) 19 Collective nouns 58 Collectors and enthusiasts 59 Countries and peoples 72 Eponymous words 108 Foreign words and phrases 129 Non-sexist terms 211 Phobias 231 Prefixes 240 Similes 278 Smileys 281 Suffixes 292 Text messaging 300 Verbs (irregular verbs) 317 INTRODUCTION T hese days the term `communicative skills' has become a vogue expression, being much in evidence in situations vacant columns and playing an important role in educational rethinking In common with many voguish expressions of the age overuse has left it in danger of not being taken seriously This is a great pity since the phenomenon which the term describes is of paramount importance in modern life Failure to communicate effectively is at the root of many social ills and misfortunes, from war to missed career opportunities, from industrial strife to broken relationships If only we had been able to persuade the other party of our real intentions, what misunderstandings and conflict might have been averted Nowadays there is little excuse for poor communicative skills in those with a basic education, even in those who feel that they missed out at school in this particular area of education Articulacy is not necessarily inborn; it can be acquired Never before has there been such a wealth of self-help English language material available to ease the process of this acquiral The proliferation of English language reference books is a relatively recent occurrence Not long ago the average family bookshelves probably stocked, if any reference books, an ancient Bible, a dog-eared, somewhat elderly dictionary, and perhaps a set of out-of-date encyclopedias In many cases this state of affairs must have changed radically, judging from current sales of English language reference books Something of a revolution hit reference book publishing, brought about partly by the arrival of computerization and new technology and partly by the realization among publishers that reference books, although expensive to produce, represented less of a risk than other branches of publishing There was probably also an element of response to demand as people came to realize the need for articulacy in the modern world For whatever reasons, bookshop shelves have become positively crammed with a wide range of attractive, up-to-date English language reference books, most of them extremely reasonably priced At first most of these were English language dictionaries but soon a wider selection of books joined them The net result was that the promotional activities involved in bringing these reference wares to the notice of the public made it difficult for people not to be aware of an important fact ± that language is subject to change Newspapers revelled in providing their readers with selected lists of the `new English', the more bizarre the better The speed at which new words are added to the language nowadays is overwhelming, but it is not only the vocabulary that is subject to change As attitudes and conventions change other areas of language change with them ± stylistics, usage, and even, in some cases, pronunciation It is all too easy to feel marooned in this sea of change While the importance of Introduction viii communicative skills cannot be denied, many people find it difficult to set about acquiring them Getting to grips with something as amorphous as the English language can be a daunting task, particularly for those whose formal education omitted to convey much about the structure or grammar of the language Dictionaries obviously provide a great deal of self-help with regard to language but their contribution is frequently restricted to meaning, spelling, or pronunciation People seeking to extend their competence in the use of English require more varied and in-depth assistance Thesauruses are another great boon to those wishing to improve their standard of articulacy but here again they are far from providing all the solutions Although would-be writers or speakers will undoubtedly find in thesauruses a wide range of inspirational words with which to clothe ideas, they might well feel in need of some guidance as to how exactly these words should be used In the present age much more emphasis than hitherto is placed on the importance of being able to produce a high standard of English, whether oral or written Formerly this aspect tended to be neglected in favour of highly developed reading and interpretative skills but this is now being rectified in these days of mass communication Participation in the communication media, for example, is no longer restricted to a few highly educated experts Audience participation has extended from the realms of the stage to the realms of radio and television and beyond them to the dizzying heights of chat rooms and web forums on the Internet Indeed one wonders what local low-budget radio stations would without the phone-in contributions of the man/ woman in the street, not to mention the chat show featuring the local celebrity who has published a first novel, climbed Everest, or lost more weight than anyone else in the community All manner of things are of interest to the media In order to improve one's oral and written skills it is important to have more than just a dictionary and a thesaurus as self-help material Of immense help are books that offer guidance in the use of language, particularly those which show language in action by including example sentences or phrases Such books provide very valuable ground rules on which to base one's own English usage Few of us can rely entirely on instinct or even on memory when it comes to the English language for it is full of quirks and inconsistencies Even the most educated benefit from having a standard authority to fall back on Language reference books these days are less didactic than they were In general we have moved on from the times when they were entirely prescriptive in their comments on language Now most of them adopt a more descriptive role, restricting themselves to stating what is actually happening in language rather than dictating what ought to be happening Inevitably there are people who are unhappy with this change of emphasis There is a school of thought prevalent mainly among older people which seeks to impose a kind of restriction on language that is no longer imposed on other areas of life It is as if, in an age of uncertainty and kaleidoscopic change, they look to language to provide a safe, unchanging structure ix Introduction This places an impossible burden on language It does not exist in a vacuum but simply reflects what is happening in society and the world around If we not like the words, we probably not like the events but it is difficult to hold back the tide of change At the very least we cannot stem the flow of vocabulary additions which are created in response to new inventions, new discoveries, and new concepts New labels have to be found and so are born camcorders, E-numbers, genetic engineering, and teleshopping, to name but a few of the new words that are invading the language from every area of human activity The development of the World Wide Web and the revolution in communications it has brought about has proved a particularly powerful engine for linguistic innovation, spawning hosts of new acronyms, technical terms, and slang words, as well as promoting creative attitudes towards the use of grammar and symbols Language change is not confined to new vocabulary additions Sometimes the old gets recycled in a new form as words alter their meaning in some way The classic example is, of course, the word gay, which has almost entirely lost its `merry' associations ± except in literature written before the present day ± in favour of the modern meaning of `homosexual' There are, however, a growing number of other instances of language change, several based on misconception or error Hopefully was an early example when it came to mean `it is to be hoped that' as well as `with hope' Now disinterested is frequently to be found meaning `not interested' as well as `unbiased' There is now a very fine line to be drawn between error and alternative usage ± and sometimes the former becomes the latter Data, for example, as the plural of datum should come accompanied by a plural verb but it is now frequently seen in the presence of a singular verb, particularly in the field of information technology The same fate has befallen as simply the plural of medium media It is no longer thought of but as a word in its own right As such it is increasingly accompanied by a singular, rather than a plural, verb Educational trends frequently have an effect on the state of the language With the virtual demise of the teaching of classics in schools a knowledge of Latin and Greek in relation to the English language is now quite a rare phenomenon among younger people So is born the puzzlement over confusion over stadia/stadiums and medium/media and datum/data and the referendums/referenda The creative writing phase in primary schools was the forerunner of many spelling problems and even more grammatical problems It is, of course, a good thing to encourage creativity and self-expression, but some knowledge of the structure of the language is necessary if one is to use it with confidence and skill With the introduction of such measures as the Literacy Hour in schools, significant attempts have been made in recent years to restore good standards in reading and writing, including the correct use of grammar, but what is done cannot be undone and there remain generations to whom formal knowledge of linguistic principles is a closed book This has undoubtedly affected modern English as it is used by the man/woman in .. .GOOD WORD GUIDE GOOD WORD GUIDE Editor A Martin H Manser Consultant Editors Jonathon Green and Betty Kirkpatrick... vii GUIDE TO PRONUNCIATION xiii GOOD WORD GUIDE ... offend everyone The Good Word Guide, one of the most wide-ranging English language reference books available, presents the reader with the facts associated with the relevant words and makes recommendations