A Dictionary of Cont..

dash 126
dare may be used with or without an 3: in the
third person singular and may be followed by
the simple form of a verb or by a to-infinitive.
It may enter into compounds like any other
regular verb or it may be treated as if this was
impossible. We may say I do not dare and do
you dare?, or we may use the older forms and
say I dare not and dare you? Some gramrnarians
feel that this is license enough and object when
the new forms are used in the old construction,
that is, without the to of the infinitive, as in he
dares go, he dured go, I don’t dare go. Sotne also
insist that the old forms cannot be used when
the word has its relatively new meaning of
“challenge,” as in I dare you jump. But the best
writers and speakers have not agreed with them.
Combinations of the old and the new forms are
used by outstanding writers today, as in do I
dare disturb the universe? (where the purist requires
dare I disturb or do I dare to disturb).
Now that the verb dare has moved out of the
class of can and may, acquiring an s in the third
nerson singular and a to-infinitive following it,
ihe regula; verb need seems to be moving in.
Need often drops its s and its to, as in r’ze need
not answer. See need.
dash. The dash marks a sharp break in the sentence,
an introduction of some surprise element.
It is a comfortable punctuation mark since even
the most rigorous critic can seldom claim that
any particular example of it is a misuse. Its
overuse is its greatest danger, and the writer
who can’t resist dashes may be suspected of uncoordinated
thinking.
The primary uses of the dash are:
1. To indicate a sharp break in the sentence,
as in Then he-would you believe it?--ran to
the corner grocery.
2. To show interruption of a sentence or
word, especially in dialogue, as in “But you
must have th--” and “Well, the only reason
I-“.
3.
Iv in
As a replacement for parentheses, especiaiinformal
writing. In this case the dashes
are, of course, used >n pairs, as in AI1 those
things-the sound of the apples sputtering, the
smell of the cinnamon, the glow of the firesuddenly
made him decide to stay.
4. To summarize, emphasize, or contrast with
what has been said earlier in the sentence, as in
A good five-cent cigar-this is what the country
needs and wants and He could always find a job
when he wanted to-he just never wanted to.
5. After a word or phrase, when followed by
several phrases set in separate lines that require
this word or phrase to complete their meaning,
as in:
I wish they would-
See him nominated.
Get him elected.
Support his policy.
6. To suggest profanity without offending
anyone’s sensibilities, as in Why, you-!, You
S-! It is considered old-fashioned to combine a
dash with a comma, a colon, or a semicolon, as
in Dear Sir:-
dastardly means cowardly, meanly base, and
should not be applied to acts, however vicious,
in which there is not at least an element of
cowardice. Thus the act of the Puerto Rican
terrorists who, in November 1950, attempted to
assassinate President Truman, though it was
shocking, desperate, ferocious, mad, misguided,
and murderous, was not, as many papers called
it, “dastardly.” Whatever else the assassins were,
they were not cowards: the attack was made
openly in full daylight; they attacked the armed
guards directly, with the almost inevitable certainty
of being killed themselves.
data. This word is commonly used to mean the information
at hand-verbal or statistical reports
or laboratory observations. In this sense data
may be treated as a singular or a plural.
In the social sciences data is usually treated as
a singular. Specialists in these fields characteristically
refer to their data as it and talk about
much data and very little data. These are singular
constructions. They are perfectly acceptable,
provided they are not followed by a plural
verb. In the physical sciences data is more often
treated as a plural. This too is acceptable, provided
it is done consistently. But it is not enough
to use a plural verb. If data is a plural it should
be referred to as they and not as it and should
have plural qualifiers such as these, many, few,
and not singulars such as this, much, little.
A singular construction such as the data is
now in, but we have not examined much of it is
perfectly good English. A plural construction
such as the dutu are now in, but we have not
examined many of them is also acceptable. But
mixed forms such as much of the data are new
and little data are available are simply wrong.
No one should think that he must treat data as
a plural merely because Julius Caesar may have
done so. Many English singulars have foreign
plural forms, such as stamina. There are even
words with English plural forms, such as news
and the United States, that are nevertheless
treated as singulars.
The form data may be used as the first element
in a compound, as in data sheets.
dative case. The dative is a Latin case. It is thought
to have originally carried the meaning of “to”
or “toward” and was used broadly in classical
Latin to show that a noun or pronoun had some
intrinsic relation to the verb other than that of
nominative or accusative. Most often this was
the relation of indirect object. Modern English
shows the dative relationships by position or by
means of prepositions. See indirect object and
objective pronouns.
davenport. An American who announced casually
that he was just going to lie down on the davenport
would fill an English visitor with consternation
or at least curiosity, for davenport, which
in the United States means a large sofa, often
one that can be converted into a bed, means in
England a small writing table.
dawn on. To say that something dawned on a
person, meaning that he began to perceive the
import of a remark or an event, is a phrase to
be used sparingly.