A dictionary of modern english usage the classic first edition

a MODERN ENGLISH USAGE http://avaxhome.ws/blogs/ChrisRedfield This page intentionally left blank H W FOWLER A DICTIONARY OF MODERN ENGLISH USAGE Edited with an Introduction and Notes by DAVID CRYSTAL OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS OXPORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York Editorial material © David Crystal 2009 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) A Dictionary of Modern English Usage first published 1926 This edition first published 2009 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, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Library of Congress Control Number: 2009921241 Typeset by Cepha Imaging Private Ltd., Bangalore, India Printed in Great Britain by Clays Ltd., St Ives pic ISBN 978-0-19-953534-7 08 CONTENTS Introduction Note on the Text Select Bibliography A Chronology ofH W Fowler vii xxv xxvi xxviii A DICTIONARY OF MODERN ENGLISH USAGE Appendix: Fowler's Pronunciation Preferences 743 Notes on the Entries 745 This page intentionally left blank INTRODUCTION No book had more influence on twentieth-century attitudes to the English language in Britain than Henry Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage Within a few years, people no longer felt it necessary even to mention the title and talked simply of 'Fowler' Adjectives soon followed—Fowlerian, Fowlerish, Fowleresque—and he eventually received the ultimate linguistic accolade, of being turned into a common noun The practice continues In February 2008 William F Buckley wrote a piece for the United Press Syndicate on the verbal traps used by Obama and Clinton in the race for the democratic nomination: it was entitled 'A Fowler's of Polities' How did the Dictionary come to be written? The memorial note at the front of the book tells us that Henry and his brother Frank began to plan the book together in 1911 It was a curious arrangement They were committed to working on The Pocket Oxford Dictionary, the successor to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, which they had completed that year But Henry was horrified at the thought of the drudgery involved in compiling another dictionary, and wanted to devote his linguistic energies to something more creative The brothers therefore agreed that Frank would work on the Pocket and Henry on a different kind of book, and they would exchange roles after each had completed a quarter or so of their respective texts—that is, if Henry could bring himself to being a lexicographer again Henry would often comment on his 'misolexicography', as he put it: T am no true lexicographer', he wrote in a letter to his Oxford publisher in his seventies, saying that the only parts of the science of language he cared about were grammar & idiom' In fact, the idea for the book had first come up in 1907, following the warm reception given to The King's English the year before The publishers were interested in a follow-up companion, and Henry responded with the suggestion that they write something in which 'approval & condemnation [would be] less stingily dealt out than has been possible in the official atmosphere of a complete dictionary' They first proposed a large idioms dictionary, but this was turned down They then suggested a shorter book which would warn 'against the unidiomatic', and this was welcomed Oxford University Press referred viii Introduction to it as the 'Reduced Idioms Dictionary', and later as 'the Perfect Englishspeaker's Companion' Following lengthy discussions with the Press over the kind of information to be included, the scope was widened to include observations on spelling and pronunciation Henry had completed only about a quarter of the book when the First World War began, and he and Frank—despite their ages— enlisted When the War ended, he tried to work on it again, but, following Frank's death in 1918, he found his time totally taken up with the need to complete the Pocket Dictionary, which he eventually sent to the Press in 1922 He was relieved then to be able to return to what he called his general vade-mecum of English writing' The Society for Pure English had been established in 1913, but was forced to abandon its plans until what it called the 'national distraction of the War was over When it began publishing its Tracts after the War, the series contained several of the longer articles Fowler was preparing for his book He eventually sent it to press at the end of 1923 A move from Guernsey to Somerset led to a considerable delay in processing the proofs, and it took another three years before the Dictionary saw the light of day It was published on 22 April 1926 The Climate of the Time Fowler's life coincided with a remarkable period in British linguistic history The growth of comparative philology in the early nineteenth century had led to an explosion of interest in the history of language and languages, and one of the consequences was the increased study of English and its regional varieties The Early English Text Society was founded in 1864 The English Dialect Society began publishing its regional volumes in 1873 The International Phonetic Association was formed in France in 1886 and presented its first phonetic alphabet two years later Daniel Jones, who would become Britain's best-known phonetician, published the first edition of his English Pronouncing Dictionary in 1917 Most importantly, the Philological Society (established in the year Fowler was born) was planning its first major project in lexicography It was eventually entrusted to James Murray, who in 1879 began the gargantuan task of compiling the New English Dictionary—which would appear, over fifty years later, as the Oxford English Dictionary Fascicles of different letters were to be published from 1884, and Fowler kept abreast of them Introduction ix It was also a great age of individualists In 1873 Isaac Pitman founded his Phonetic Institute in Bath, advocating the importance of shorthand and spelling reform In 1878 the Dorset writer William Barnes made his case for maintaining the Anglo-Saxon character of English in his Outline of English Speech-Craft And a few years later George Bernard Shaw took up the cudgels on behalf of spelling reform, simplified punctuation, and other language projects, one of which—the application of phonetics in elocution—received a dramatic interpretation in the form of Pygmalion in 1914 (with Daniel Jones providing the inspiration for Henry Higgins) In a literary context, several novelists, such as Dickens and Hardy, painted word-pictures full of the realities of everyday speech As a lexicographical individualist, Fowler was in good company The focus on everyday speech in all its bewildering diversity was in sharp contrast to the educational ethos of the period, with its concentration on written texts, Classical languages, formal grammar, and the combination of prescriptive ('do') and prescriptive ('do not') rules governing 'correct' usage There was a concern to maintain the linguistic values that had been established by the language scholars of the late eighteenth century, such as Bishop Lowth, John Walker, and Samuel Johnson, as part of a trend to give linguistic identity to an educated class within Britain The Society for Pure English (SPE) made this very clear in its opening Tract (October 1919): The ideal of the Society is that our language in its future development should be controlled by the forces and processes which have formed it in the past; that it should keep its English character, and that the new elements added to it should be in harmony with the old The concern was real Several other European countries, the SPE members observed, had men of letters to guide the development of language, whereas 'the English language, which is now rapidly spreading over the world, is subject to no such guidance, and to very little intelligent criticism' Moreover, the old methods of training were under threat In 1890, grammar had been dropped as a compulsory subject in the school curriculum, and in 1921 the Newbolt Report on the teaching of English went so far as to say that uncertainty about the facts of usage made it 'impossible to teach English grammar in the schools' The SPE nailed its flag to the mast: "The Society, therefore, will place itself in opposition to certain tendencies of modern taste; 7/o Notes on the Entries come out overwhelmingly in favour of the im- versions, for both words: impractical is over twenty times more common than unpractical in Google searches (in 2008) and impracticable over 150 times more common than unpmcticable A few people still maintain a distinction, using unpractical for persons and impractical for inanimate objects and ideas, but they are in a decreasing minority precedence, precedent: 'pre'sid- is here recommended' Fowler does not mention the pronunciation with a long vowel, pree, which is common in US English and increasingly heard in the UK premature: 'the last syllable is fully pronounced & not weakened to -cher' This pronunciation has now become standard One of the variables Fowler probably had in mind was the use of a long vowel: pree- is standard in US English and often now heard in the UK PREPOSITION AT END: 'a cherished superstition This is another entry where Fowler expresses his opposition to unrealistic prescriptive rules that have captured the public imagination His analysis of the origins of the situation (from Dryden onwards) is accurate, as is his placing the blame at the door of those who have been 'overpowered by notions of correctness derived from Latin standards' After reading that 'immense pains are daily expended in changing spontaneous into artificial English' and that those who support the rule 'are unconsciously trying to deprive the English language of a valuable idiomatic resource', it is hard to believe that pedants persisted in attacking end-placed prepositions throughout the twentieth century The point is of interest, for the historian of ideas, as it is often claimed that Fowler exercised a major influence on usage attitudes 'Up to a point, Lord Copper', one might say Few pundits, it seems, were prepared to follow Fowler's words: 'Follow no arbitrary rule' PRESUMPTUOUS WORD-FORMATION: 'words that should not have been brought into existence' Looking at Fowler's list, we see several words that have since become standard, such as bureaucrat, coastal, feature, forceful, lectureship, and speedometer, and some that have not, such as amusive, dandiacal, funniment, and minify Why some words take root and others not is one of the great mysteries of language change But the examples well illustrate the pointlessness of trying to compile such lists in the first place program(me): 'the regular spelling' It comes as a surprise to many people to hear that -am was the normal spelling in Britain, when the word first arrived in the early seventeenth century (from Greek programma), with the meaning of a public notice But in the early nineteenth century, the word came into English again, this time from French, in the now familiar sense relating to concerts and festivities, and the -mme spelling became fashionable in Britain (though such writers as Carlyle, Scott, and Shaw preferred -am) Fowler stands up for -am, and would doubtless be pleased to see the reappearance of this spelling in present-day British English (with two-thirds of instances being in computer contexts) Notes on the Entries 771 proposition: 'the injury that is being done by this single word to the language' This is one of Fowler's more self-contradictory entries On the one hand he grants 'that there is nothing unsound in principle about the development of sense'; but he doesn't like this particular development His grounds, though, are extremely vague: 'idiomatic usage is clean against if—though what else is idiomatic usage but the usage of the majority? The mention of 'Americanism' suggests a second agenda In the event, proposition developed as a somewhat more formal alternative to proposal Fowler did not live to see the emergence of the sexual sense of proposition as a verb, cited from the mid-i93os PS-: 'the pronunciation of the p is likely to be restored' We now know that this never happened, except in jocular pronunciations Fowler seems to have overestimated the influence of literacy on pronunciation here OED editor James Murray also supported it PURISM: 'every man is potentially a purist & a sloven at once' It is often forgotten how strongly Fowler objected to purism, which he defines as 'a needless & irritating insistence on purity or correctness of speech' Although critics have pointed out that many of Fowler's own entries would have to be considered purist by this definition, he was certainly right to emphasize the relativity inherent in the term, and it is a pity that his view did not exercise greater influence in the twentieth century pur sang: 'one should be brave enough to place them as such' This is a curious recommendation—that when a word is borrowed from another language, it should follow the word-order preferences of that language If taken literally, it would mean that all adjectives taken from French should appear in English after the nouns they qualify—which would go clean against Fowler's oft-stated predilection for natural English idiom He does not assert this principle anywhere else in the book, and French adjectives are allowed to take up their English pre-noun position without comment question(n)aire: 'It should be treated like commissionaire And so it came to pass The standard spelling today has just one n, and the usual pronunciation is with a [kw-] onset, though the [k-] onset is still heard quieten: 'it is common in uneducated talk' And in educated talk, now It can hardly be called a 'superfluous word' today Indeed, the dominant uses of the two verbs seem to have reversed, with quiet becoming more restricted than quieten The intransitive use, especially followed by down (as in The crowd quieted down) is labelled 'Now chiefly North American by the 6th edition of the SOED quite:' "quite all right" is all quite wrong' Why was the locution so popular then, and why does it continue to be today? Because Fowler was wrong in his analysis: quite and all are not 'identical in sense' Quite is here an emphasizer of the whole phrase all right, and has more the meaning of 'truly or 'definitely Fowler does not mention an important semantic difference between British and American usage When British people say that something is quite 772 Notes on the Entries relevant, they mean that it is 'somewhat relevant'; for Americans, however, the phrase means Very relevant' rapport: 'will not be missed in English' This is an example where Fowler's sense of usefulness let him down Far from the word being allowed to disappear, it increased in usefulness Most of the OED citations are from the twentieth century rationale: 'sometimes mispronounced' Fowler's Latin influenced preference never caught on, and the French analogy became the norm Pronouncing dictionaries still mention the Latin version, but it is rarely heard today reason: '3 Wrong forms nearly as common Fowler has the reason why in his list of examples, but pays it no special attention This usage attracted greater criticism later in the century reference: '& even a written testimonial' This is one of the best examples of a case where subsequent usage shows Fowler's notion of 'slipshod extension to be seriously flawed No one today would think of the 'testimonial' sense of reference as being anything other than a perfectly legitimate and useful lexical development, whether initiated by the 'uneducated' or not In fact the earliest citations for reference in this sense in the OED are not by uneducated people at all: they include the novelist Galsworthy refutable, irrefutable: 'seem likely to result in the pronunciation here advised' Fowler's sense of analogy let him down here: the pronunciation with stress on ref never caught on, probably because people wanted to avoid a sequence of three following unstressed syllables (See also confer(r)able.) regiment: 'Pronounce the noun The recommendation to omit the i was never taken up, apart perhaps from in military usage Modern dictionaries give only a three-syllable pronunciation relation(ship): 'in the improper sense' Fowler's argument seems plausible—that relation is already abstract, and therefore relationship, using the abstract suffix -ship, is unnecessary But the fact of the matter is that relationship has settled down nicely in the language So why has it proved to be useful? Partly because a whole new set of social circumstances evolved which the word relation(s) did not express: the emotional (and especially sexual) association between two people (I'm in a relationship) In the 19705 it became a more genteel way of expressing what would otherwise be called an affair remonstrate: 'is pronounced (in contrast with demonstrate) rimo'nstraf This pronunciation hardly outlived Fowler Most modern dictionaries give only the version with stress on the first syllable A few allow Fowler's version as a minor alternative repetitional, repetitionary, repetitious, repetitive: 'few writers have the hardihood to use any of them Both repetitious and repetitive are now commonplace, the former having lost whatever American associations it may have had Google statistics (in 2008) Notes on the Entries 773 speak for themselves about the way usage has diverged: repetitional (5,900), repetitionary (1,300), repetitious (1.1 million), repetitive (37 million) respective(ly): 'The evil is considerable enough to justify an examination at some length' This is one of those entries in Fowler where the length of the entry is well justified by the range of examples collected The respectively construction is governed by very precise rules in English grammar, and requires careful control if it is not to be misleading, unclear, ambiguous, or unintelligible retro-: Tn most words the usual pronunciation is retro' This pronunciation has now disappeared Only a short vowel is given in modern pronouncing dictionaries RHYTHM: 'is not a matter of counting syllables & measuring the distance between accents' This is one of Fowler's most insightful essays, providing a valuable corrective to the mechanical approach to prosody which was common in the late nineteenth century Rhythm is essentially our perception of regularity in the stream of speech, and is phonetically easy to define, for a given language Rhythmicality—our sense of appropriateness or acceptability of rhythm in specific utterances—is a much more difficult matter to address; and Fowler provides some useful guidelines He does not, however, say much more than that sentences must 'sound right', and that we must rely on 'instinct' Analysis of his examples would show that the reason for the unrhythmicality is not just a phonetic matter, but is more to with syntactic (and occasionally lexical) complexity, as indeed he suggests himself with his reference to reducing the length of one of the examples (the last on p 505) by 'chopping off' piece after piece His contrast with the 'masterpiece of rhythm' at the very end of his essay is not really fair, as that extract from the Bible illustrates a simple sequence of short coordinate clauses, which it would be difficult to read in anything other than a rhythmical way right: 'right is better' There has been a marked preference to use rightly in formal usage since Fowler's time, doubtless because of the increasing association of the dropped -ly ending with colloquial or regional speech, as in the time went quick (See also slow(ly).) root, rout: 'It would be a convenient differentiation The senses involved militate against any clear differentiation There is no clear semantic dividing line between the meanings 'attach by a root', 'search for roots', 'search around, rummage', and 'search someone out' The trend is to use root for all, but rout is still common in the last instance salve: 'are pronounced sahv' This pronunciation is still mentioned in dictionaries, but it has been largely replaced by the spelling-pronunciation in which the / is sounded sambo: '(half-breed)' This word has now become taboo, along with other labels considered to be offensive when applied to non-white people 774 Notes on the Entries seer: 'has double pronunciation This subtle phonetic difference is no longer recognized—if it ever was Modern pronouncing dictionaries make no distinction sense (vb.): 'the meaning [of "perceive"] is not yet part of ordinary English' It is now Collocations such as sense danger and sensing someone's presence have become standard, especially with the meaning of'become vaguely aware' The word soon lost the 'irritation or suspicion of preciocity which Fowler claimed 'most readers feel'—though it is open to question whether there was ever any basis for that claim It is an occupational hazard for writers on usage to generalize their personal intuitions to an imaginary populace One of the values of corpus studies and studies of acceptability is that they have repeatedly shown the unreliability of individual judgements, especially when usage is mixed or changing sensitize: 'extra-photographic use has not yet gone very far' A century on, it is possible to see how this usage has become standard The OED citation quoted by Fowler has now been supplemented by another from 1978, and it is regular dictionary practice to list the three main senses— photographic, physiological, and general—without comment sentence: 'If it contains' Fowler's definitions are no longer the norm in descriptive grammars of English His notion of compound sentence includes cases where 'a subject consists of more than one parallel noun (or pronoun, as in his example You & I ) And because his notion of clause is restricted to subordinate clauses (see note on clause above), he is unable to deal with coordination (as in John went by bus and Mary went by train) other than by calling the two elements different sentences (as in his final example in the entry) This makes it impossible for him to use the traditional definition of a sentence as 'ending in a full stop' By contrast, for example in the grammars by Randolph Quirk and his associates (such as The Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language), compound and complex are seen as two types of multiple sentence: compound sentences contain clauses in a coordinate relationship (John went by bus and Mary went by train), and complex sentences contain at least one clause in a subordinate relationship to another (John went by bus because the train was cancelled) In this approach, a sentence containing coordinate noun phrases (the man and the woman) remains simple Shakspere &c.: 'Shakspere, Shaksperian, are therefore recommended' While Fowler was not the last to opt for the Shakspere spelling (there is an online Shakespeare forum called Shaksper), his choice now seems eccentric More contentious is the distinction between Shakespearian and Shakespearean The consensus in Shakespeare studies is for the latter, and this is reflected in a Google search (in 2008), with -ean being four times more common than -ian shall & will, should & would: 'the necessary rules' This is a very strong statement by Fowler: 'no formal grammar or dictionary can be held to have done its duty if it has not laid down the necessary rules' However, there is now abundant evidence to show that the distinction was Notes on the Entries 775 forced and artificial, even in the seventeenth century when the rules governing the complementary use of shall and will were first introduced Today, the situation is rapidly simplifying, as shall is common today only in British English; it has virtually disappeared from American English, and is rare in other global varieties In British English, moreover, its functions are reducing, being associated with written rather than spoken English, and increasingly found only in more formal or polite styles (especially in legal and authoritative statements) The only context in which shall is now at all frequent is in the first person in questions: Shall we go by car? Fowler returns to the subject in the entry on will, 2, where he addresses the regional issue: 'There is the English of the English, & there is the English of those who repudiate that national name'—thinking mainly of the Scots It is probably the strongest statement from any defender of the shall/will distinction, that it 'endows his speech with a delicate precision that could not be attained without it, & serves more important purposes than that of a race-label' shoot, chute, shute: 'there seems to be no good reason against making shoot the only spelling' This is a curious line for Fowler to be taking, as his usual stance is to maintain difference whenever sense distinctions are to be found (as in the case of spirt, spurt) In this case, his feelings about the matter were ignored Chute and shute are both well-established spellings today silvan, sylvan: 'It is often too late to mend mis-spellings, but hardly so in this case.' Fowler was wrong A century on and we find sylvan the norm, with silvan an occasional alternative ski(n.): 'Pron she' This pronunciation is no longer given in modern dictionaries slow(ly): 'slow maintains itself as at least an idiomatic possibility' The 'encroachments of -// have continued to make many people avoid the -/y-less form in formal speech and writing Today, -/y-less forms can sound odd, as in Fowler's own usage: at the end of the entry on try, he writes, 'It is an idiom that should be not discountenanced, but used when it comes natural.' (See also right.) small: 'patent pairs latent pairs' Fowler here anticipates one of the strategies used in linguistically inspired semantics, where words are related in meaning through such sense associations as synonymy and antonymy, and where sequences of words are related through the notion of collocation His set of examples is illuminating, and his judgement correct—'the distribution is by no means so simple & definite as the pedantic analyst might desire' spirt, spurt: 'It would plainly be convenient' Later usage ignored his recommendation The only spelling given by modern dictionaries is spurt 776 Notes on the Entries SPLIT INFINITIVE: '2 tame acceptance of the misinterpreted opinion of others' It is surprising that Fowler's ferocious attack on those who defend split infinitives at all costs—'bogy-haunted creatures'—was not more influential, but the antagonism to this construction continued long after his death, and still rumbles on—though modern pedants race to distance themselves from it John Humphrys, for example, calls it a 'bogus rule' in his Lostfor Words (2004, p 49) Fowler's arguments are exactly those which any linguist might make He points out that these people are 'deaf to the normal rhythm of English sentences' A typical modern linguist's observation is: 'To boldly go has one big thing in its favour It is following the natural rhythm of English' (myself, in Who Cares about English Usage (1984, p 30) Fowler was well aware of his strong views on this matter As he wryly remarks (p 560): 'the author's opinion has perhaps been allowed to appear with indecent plainness' statist, statistician: 'with the cumbersome statistician left in sole possession It is puzzling why Fowler found this word 'cumbersome', given the frequency with which its accentual pattern (weak-weak-strong-weak) is used in English And statistic as a noun is known in English from the end of the eighteenth century (See his next entry.) steam: '3 All these have the accent on the second word' This is no longer the case: words like steam-roller have all conformed to an initial-word pattern STOPS &c.: p 566 'for Davies read Davies' (p 566) The insertion of a comma between the subject and the verb in such sentences is usually condemned in modern punctuation guides, notwithstanding the coordination, 'read much—,' (p 571) This kind of double punctuation mark is indeed considered 'fussy' these days, and would generally be avoided strategic(al): 'overwhelming preponderance for the short sound' Fowler notes that the pronunciation with a long vowel 'is at least as often said', and this has proved to be the preferred version since STURDY INDEFENSIBLES: '"it's me" it too will die' Fowler was never more wrong than in his writing off this usage On the contrary, if anything is near to death, it must be it is I (See also between, I.) SUBJUNCTIVES: 'ARRIVALS one good reason for abstaining from if Given Fowler's inclination for traditional grammatical constructions, it comes as a surprise to see his general condemnation of the subjunctive Modern approaches are not so severe, recognizing that a useful contrast of formality is involved, as illustrated by If this was to happen vs the more formal If this were to happen American English also makes more use of the subjunctive than British English Fowler makes no secret of his aim 'to discourage' what he calls survivals and arrivals; but a century on, the contrast expressed by the subjunctive continues to be used Notes on the Entries 777 SUPERSTITIONS: 'That ungrammatical piece of nonsense This is Fowler at his best The use of an introductory conjunction has been part of English since Anglo-Saxon times, and innumerable authors—not just Macaulay—have used it syllabize &c.: 'The best thing would be to accept the most recognized verb syllabize' Usage eventually went in other directions Syllabify and syllabification are now used far more than syllabize and syllabization, in a ratio of about 10 : i -T & -ED: 'use the -t spelling in both classes' Fowler sees this contrast as solely one of spelling and pronunciation However, linguistic research has shown that there is a potential semantic contrast expressed by these forms The difference is subtle, but is best explained in relation to the durational meaning of the verbs—part of what grammarians refer to as aspect In such pairs of sentences as The house burnt down, the implication is that the event took place quite quickly, whereas burned is more likely in The house burned for days Similarly, I've dreamed all my life of living in Scotland is more likely than I dreamt all my life of living in Scotland It is not a hard-and-fast rule, but it does help to explain the point about frequency which Fowler mentions Spilt is much more likely than spilled because the action of spilling is usually short Learned is much more likely than learnt because the action of learning usually takes some time (See also dream.) tasty: 'has been displaced, except in uneducated or facetious use' This observation surprises modern readers, for the word no longer has such restrictions, though in British English it is often informal and used in metaphorical ways (as in tasty mortgage deals) Corpus studies show that tasty is now about ten times more common than tasteful templet, -plate: 'The -et form is better' Fowler is right to point to the 'false association with plate, which emerged in the nineteenth century (the OED's earliest reference is 1844), but false association of ideas has never stopped a usage developing, and today templet has dropped out of use and template is the norm that (conj.): ' the use or omission of the t of a substantival clause depends partly on whether the tone is elevated or colloquial' Fowler accurately captures the stylistic contrast in this use of that, anticipating such later linguistic descriptions of the contrast in terms of 'formal' vs 'informal' The choice is not solely a stylistic one, however, for sometimes a question of intelligibility is involved In such sentences as I saw that the man in the brown overcoat was ready to leave, the use of that helps to signal straight away that we are dealing with an object clause If it is omitted, there is an expectation that the sentence is going in a different direction—I saw the man in the brown overcoat—and it is only after we get to overcoat that we realize what the true construction is We then have to go back in our minds and reanalyse Linguists sometimes call such potentially misleading constructions 'garden-path sentences', because of the way we have been led 'up the garden path' 778 Notes on the Entries that (rel pron.): '2 it is a fact that the proportion of thats to whichs is far higher in speech than in writing' (p 635) This entry shows Fowler's sophisticated stylistic awareness His observation is not only correct; so is his explanation, referring to the different kinds of syntactic construction found in speech compared with writing The only point to be added, perhaps, is that considerations of euphony sometimes promote the avoidance of one or the other, if a different use of these words is found nearby Many writers dislike such sequences as seen in I realize that the answer that was provided and would change the second that to which Likewise, a change from which to that is more likely in I don't know which of the answers which were given is the one to accept Fowler allows for this in his section on 'Elegant variation under which) (that) (who, therefore: 'it is a matter of taste' Fowler is right to refer this matter to the distinction between 'light punctuators' and 'heavy punctuators', but his subsequent observation is worth noting: 'the putting of a comma before t inevitably has the effect of throwing a strong accent on the preceding word' It is good advice to listen to the sound of a sentence while writing it, and to judge whether the intonational emphasis conveyed supports the intended semantic content -TH NOUNS: 'the suffix is no longer a living one' But it is not completely dead either, as the facetious revival of coolth illustrates First cited in 1547, it was revived in the late eighteenth century (the OED has a 1781 citation from Fanny Burney), and later used by such writers as Kipling, Tolkien, and Ezra Pound tidal: 'barbaric appearance' It is unclear why Fowler should have so strongly objected to tidal It had already developed a huge range of general and technical uses during the nineteenth century (tidal alarm, tidal river, tidal wave, tidal boats, and many more), and had been used by such writers as Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, George Eliot, and Mark Twain tire, tyre: 'there is nothing to be said for tyre' Apart from the etymological issue, Fowler's observation that it is 'needlessly divergent' from American usage is surprising, given that in other places he is suspicious of Americanisms and at the same time willing to recognize the importance of regional differentiation (as in his entry on synonyms) The distinction is now standard, for American vs British English, with Canadian English showing mixed usage (tire predominating) Both spellings have long been present as alternates in English, but the modern British usage is a twentieth-century development, probably influenced by the use of the tyre spelling in the first British patent application for tyres on wheels in 1890 tortoise: 'the pronunciation -oiz or -ois is not even given as an alternative by the OED' It is now The 6th edition of the SOED gives -oiz as an alternative transpire: 'The notorious misuse' The meaning of 'happen is now standard This is another curious example where Fowler takes against a change in meaning, even though the kind of Notes on the Entries 779 semantic shift involved (from a narrower to a broader meaning) is something that has often happened in the history of English Perhaps he was influenced by Dr Johnson, who also disliked it But the fact of the matter is that the word in this meaning has now established itself as a more formal alternative to happen or occur, both in British and American English (in the latter, being found in dictionaries over a hundred years ago) tribute: '2 A SLIPSHOD EXTENSION' Fowler's examples are indefensible In each case, the primary sense of tribute ('act showing respect, admiration, etc') is perfectly possible try: 'It is an idiom that should not be discountenanced' Fowler's analysis of try and as a colloquial usage is accurate, and his drawing-out of its semantic nuances is worth noting, for these are always ignored in blanket pedantic condemnations turbine: 'will doubtless pass away' Quite the opposite 'Reverence for spelling' is a very powerful influencer of usage, and people today usually rhyme turbine with mine, though the shortvowel version is still mentioned in pronouncing dictionaries Why Fowler feels this to be 'misguided' is unclear, given that in several other entries he fulsomely acknowledges the role of spelling in pronunciation change type: '5 as the two words exist' This is a nice illustration of a historical issue in the evolution of terminology The issue was resolved very quickly, but it is interesting to learn that it was felt to be a worry in Fowler's time tyrannize: 'the present idiom is to tyrannize over, not to tyrannize, one's subjects' Both forms are now used, with the latter predominant The 6th edition of the SOED describes tyrannize over us being 'chiefly historical' u '5 rarely changes' Fowler ignores the normal American usage in such words UNATTACHED PARTICIPLES: 'our grandsons will know' (p 675) They indeed Due to is now around fifty times more common than owing to The example demonstrates the unreliability of Fowler's notion of 'idiom' All dictionary definitions of idiom and idiomatic rely on a notion of widespread and conventional natural use among native speakers No definition says 'among certain kinds of native speakers only Fowler's characterization of 'illiterates' as those 'who are unfamiliar with good writers' unduly restricts the notion of idiom, and gives it a subjective (and elitist) interpretation which is ultimately circular—for anyone who uses due to cannot, according to Fowler, be counted as a 'good writer' (See also due.) Despite Fowler's condemnation of 'fanatical purists' who condemn any sentence in which there is a seemingly unattached participle, he is himself open to criticism for not taking context sufficiently into account in determining whether a construction is ambiguous or not From the opening example of this entry, it is clear that Fowler is concerned about cases where unattached participles cause ambiguity But few of his quoted examples actually give rise to ambiguity at all Because we know, for instance, that it has to be the pen 780 Notes on the Entries which caused the meningitis (p 676), and that it is impossible for the girl to have caused it, there is no conceivable ambiguity The word order might be rhythmically inelegant, certainly—but that is a separate issue, which Fowler does not address Nor, for that matter, later language pundits, who inveigh against the unattached participle regardless of whether or not a semantic issue is involved unique: 'the adverbs that u can tolerate' Fowler is right to allow adverbs with unique, but his divide between the two groups is arbitrary and unsustainable The arbitrariness can be seen in the contrast between absolutely unique (which he finds acceptable) and very unique (which he doesn't), even though both usages strongly affirm the uniqueness And if it is possible to emphasize the uniqueness of something (as in absolutely unique), there is no reason why one should not de-emphasize it, by using a word which in effect says T think this is unique but I am not sure' That is partly the motivation for people saying such things as rather unique and somewhat unique But there is another motivation, in that the meaning of the word unique has developed a secondary, non-absolute sense—not 'the only one of its kind' but 'a remarkable example of its kind' This in turn allows such usages as more unique and most unique to develop What seems to have happened, semantically, is that unique is now seen as part of a scale, at the top of which is the absolute ('the only one') sense Points on this scale are selected by the use of an adverb: absolutely unique is equivalent to what was once simply called unique, and lower down we have rather unique and the others The adverbs seem to be increasingly relied upon to resolve potential ambiguity If I say, these days (e.g referring to a stamp), This is a unique example, it is unclear whether I am using unique in the absolute or relative sense Adverbs would clarify: This is an absolutely unique example vs This is a somewhat unique example us: 'i if becomes we is thought pedantic' It is surprising that Fowler's obsession with Latinate cases should lead him to even allow that becomes we is grammatical in English His reluctance to accept the inevitable is perhaps seen in his tortuous circumlocutory negatives at the end: 'Let us Liberals at any rate be content would not have been unbearably ordinary.' -ve(d), -ves, &c.: 'roof No v forms' Roof has certainly had a -v form—there are many examples in the Middle English period—and the analogy with hoof/hooves probably kept it alive It is allowed as an alternative plural in the 6th edition of the SOED, for example, and a pronunciation with a /v/ is not unusual There are 79,000 instances listed in Google (in 2008)—but nearly 10 million for roofs vend: 'a tendency to DIFFERENTIATION' This does not seem to have taken place The -er spelling is found only in American English, with perhaps a slight trend for it to be used for machines that sell things (whereas vendor is for people who sell things) But all varieties show the predominant use of -or, in any of its applications Notes on the Entries 781 vertigo: 'The correct pronunciation The pronunciation with stress on the second syllable has now been entirely replaced by one with stress on the first The older pronunciation receives no mention in modern dictionaries very: 'similarly I cannot say' This testing of a usage in various syntactic contexts shows Fowler as close to modern linguistics as it is possible to get The last few lines of his first paragraph could have been written by any descriptive linguist interested in grammatical acceptability, as could the criteria listed in the second paragraph The examples of course show a gradient between the adjectival and participial constructions viva, vivat, vive: 'a fact forgotten The use of the plural would have been considered extreme pedantry even in Fowler's day (See also bravo, brava, bravi.) VOGUE-WORDS: 'nice Fowler's criticism of this word reinforced the anxiety about its overuse which had been around since the late eighteenth century, and during the twentieth century it came to be virtually banned from children's school writing It is difficult today to see the basis for Fowler's objections with reference to the other words in his list Words evidently have a temporary vogue use and then either die out or settle down VULGARIZATION: 'when blundering hands are laid upon them' Fowler perhaps realized the trap he was laying for himself, in this entry He ends it: 'perhaps the less said here on this matter the better', and he was right His problem is the contradiction which lies within his observation 'Vulgarization of words that should not be in common use' For who is to decide which words should or should not be in common use? His examples not support his fears: in a few cases, a word has died out, but faerie is still available to us, notwithstanding the use of fairy, as is optimistic and hopeful and most of the others In all cases, it is the usage of the majority of people who have made it happen—all presumably 'blunderers', to Fowler WARDOUR STREET: 'mainly occupied by dealers in antique & imitationantique furniture' This is a fascinating insight into a past time Today, Wardour Street reminds us primarily of film companies, leaving Fowler's interesting list of archaisms in need of a new heading wastage: 'not better [than waste]' The two words have developed very different contexts of use, over the years Chiefly, waste is countable and wastage uncountable So we find a waste of time and icy wastes alongside wastage of tissue and natural wastage In cases where both words can be used with the same collocation (waste/wastage of natural resources), the former tends to refer to a specific instance of the problem, whereas the latter gives more emphasis to the process taking place over time 782 Notes on the Entries well (adv): 'English requires not You were there as well as me but You were there as well as T How then can one explain the predominance of the former, then and now? Fowler misses the syntactic complexity of as well as He assumes that it is a conjunction, not a preposition However, it patterns along with besides and in addition to in most of its uses (There were ten people in the room besides/in addition tolas well as the chairman) so that its primary use has to be prepositional A secondary use does indeed move as well as towards coordination: The referees, as well as the players, were very tired But this usage is not like the usual conjunctions, as reflected in the label chosen for it by The Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language: 'quasi-coordinators'—a label also applied to such linking items as rather than, as much as, if not, and not to say But even here the parallel with prepositions is strong: compare John, as well as his friends, protested and John, with his friends, protested So if the usage is prepositional after all, the pronoun in Fowler's example is going to be me—which is what we find in general use today Only people who have become oversensitized to the I/me distinction are likely to hypercorrect and use I well-nigh: 'only as a guess' Fowler's guess was right Later citations all have an associated word But the usage seems to be dying out The 6th edition of the SOED (2007) labels it as 'Now archaic and literary' what ever, whatever: 'should then be in two separate words' Fowler was insistent that in interrogative or exclamatory cases there had to be a space (and also in however and whichever) But there were many examples in his day when the words were set solid, and this practice has increased since, both in British and American English The 6th edition of the SOED, for example, gives pre-eminence to the solid variants, inserting 'also as two words' as an alternative (See also ever.) while (or whilst): 'is a conjunction Fowler treats the two forms as synonymous, which they usually are But there are different patterns of usage depending on regional and stylistic factors Whilst is very rare in American English, and in standard British English tends to be restricted to formal writing and speaking It is hardly ever seen in the daily press or in everyday conversation It will however be heard in some regional dialects, along with such words as amidst (See also among, amongst.) whisky: 'the first as the standard form' Today it is recognized that usage is split: whisky from Ireland and the USA is usually spelled whiskey (plural whiskeys'); whisky from Scotland, Canada, and Australia is usually spelled whisky (plural whiskies) British English spelling on the whole favours whisky, as the generic term, regardless of where the spirit comes from, and American English favours whiskey whose: 'in the starch that stiffens English style' One of Fowler's most memorable metaphors, used to castigate the view that 'whose shall refer only to persons' The prescriptive view, around since the eighteenth century, had insisted on of which, despite the awkwardness which Notes on the Entries 783 often ensued (I chose a book the cover of which was torn) Fowler is in no doubt that whose is the right usage: 'good writing is surely difficult enough without the forbidding of things that have historical grammar, & present intelligibility, & obvious convenience, on their side, & lack only—starch' His entry does not deal with all uses of whose, however In particular, he omits to point out that, when opening a question, whose retains its animate sense Whose book were you reading? means 'Who did the book belong to?' not 'Which of the books were you reading?' WORKING & STYLISH WORDS: 'stylish words' Several of the words in Fowler's list have since changed their status Some now express a sharper difference of meaning, as in the case of catarrh/cold and antagonize/oppose Some have become associated with stylistically restricted varieties, such as angle (in the sport of angling) Some have simply become standard working usage, as with violin, where fiddle is now the stylistically special form A number, however, still retain the same kind of stylishness that Fowler disliked, such as assist and dwell (See also GENTEELISM.) workless: 'something shorter is wanted' The brevity demanded by headlines has motivated several stylistic developments in English Why Fowler should be opposed to this feature of newspaper language isn't clear WORN-OUT HUMOUR: 'we feel a bitterness' There are signs of a Fowlerian sense of humour in several of his entries—but not in this one Boredom rather than bitterness is the emotion more likely to be generated by humour when it is genuinely 'worn out' Many of the examples he cites are now unintelligible, without special historical knowledge However, some of them hardly fit his description The Hamlet parody, for example, is still alive and well, and frequently to be seen in contemporary writing, showing that people still find new applications appealing worth) (worth while: 'This is worth while' The standard spelling today is to print the words solid, as worthwhile This usage developed steadily during the twentieth century Fowler's support for worth while and (in attributive position) worth-while influenced several later usage writers (such as Ernest Cowers), and this usage retains favour among those who follow the style manuals But worthwhile is now by far the most common in both British and American English—eight times as frequent as worth while on Google (in 2008) wrath, wrathful, wroth: 'It is very desirable that differentiation should be clearly established.' Fowler's desire to use wroth as an adjectival form was already being ignored in his day, as he recognizes It ceased to be used soon after The OED's latest quotation is 1883 write: 'I will write you soon is not [idiomatic]' Why 'must' the person being written to be introduced by fo? Fowler gives no reason, other than to assert it is not 'idiomatic' But if idiomaticness is a function of widespread usage, then this assertion will not stand The omission of 784 Notes on the Entries to in adverbial contexts has long been a feature of formal and informal American English and has been increasing in British English -x: 'It is to be hoped that some day all of these will be anglicized with -s' There is little sign of this happening, a century on, apart from portmanteaus, as these Google searches (2008) suggest, though the totals under plateaux are interesting: adieux 1.8 million adieus 84,000 beaux 28 million beaus 282,000 chateaux 7.6 million chateaus 335,000 flambeaux 445,000 flambeaus 10,000 plateaux 3.9 million plateaus 1.8 million portmanteaux 21,000 portmanteaus 42,000 rondeaux 113,000 rondeaus 9,000 rouleaux 1.5 million rouleaus 7,000 trousseaux 52,000 trousseaus 12,000 y6: 'The pronunciation of this is the, not ye' Historically, Fowler is correct; but he ignores the dominant usage, which is in fact 'ye' Although largely facetious, the pronunciation illustrates the way that people are much more likely to follow the spelling of a word rather than its etymology zinc: 'The forms zinced & zincing are obviously wrong' They certainly not follow the usual spelling rules, so that Fowler's recommendation of zincking (perhaps, pace his view, better than zinked) has a certain appeal But the meaning and pronunciation of the word zinc is so clear-cut that the problem seems to be purely a theoretical one Dictionaries generally give zinced, etc without comment