A Dictionary of Cont..

devote 134
visor. That number by which the divid.end is
divided is the divisor.
devote may be followed by the -ing form of a verb
with the preposition to, as in he devoted himself
to earning a living, but not by an in:6nitive
or a clause.
devoted. See addicted.
dexterous; dextrous. Both forms, meaning adroit,
are correct. Dexterous has the advantage of
being more clearly related to dexterity. Dextrous
has the advantage of being shorter.
diabolical rage differs, apparently, from ordinary
rage in the malevolence of its fury and the
menace of its hostility. The Devil was thought
to be given to special tantrums at the thought
of lost bliss and the sight of man’s inrmcence
and expectations of felicity to come. But people
-at least not many of those who employ fivesyllable
words-no longer believe in a literal
devil who gnashes actual teeth and stamps and
screams in ill temper. The term has become a
cliche and is generally to be avoided. (So also
with diabolical skill and diabolical cunnhg.)
diacritical mark is a mark, point, or sign added
or attached to a letter or character to distinguish
it from another of similar form, to give it a
particular phonetic value, to indicate stress, etc.
The chief diacritical marks are the dieresis
(or diaeresis) in English (the sign * * placed over
the second of two adjacent vowels to indicate
separate pronunciation, as in cooperate), the
tilde in Spanish [see tilde], the cedilla in French
and Portuguese (a mark placed under c before
a, o, or I(, as in facade, to show it has the sound
of s), the umlaut in German [see umlaut] and
various accent marks (‘, ‘, h, “, etc.) used to
indicate pronunciation and stress.
diagnosis. The plural is diagnosises or diagnoses.
dialect. See vernacular.
dialectal; dialectical. Dialectal means of a dialect
or characteristic of a dialect (A dialectal peculiarity
of Scotch is the pronunciation as 0% of the
sound that appears in English as ou, in house or
mouse).
Dialectical or dialectic means of or per’taining
to the nature of logical argumentation (Pure
reason is always dialectical. His subtle intellect
concerned itself more and more excl(usively
with the dialectical splitting of dogmatical
hairs). Dialectical is often used for dialectal, so
often that this use is now standard. But dialectal
cannot be used for dialectical.
dialogue; duologue; monologue; soliloquy; conversation;
talk. A dialogue is a conversation between
two or more persons, especially in a play
or a novel (The action was good but the dialogue
was forced). Duologue is a conversation
between two persons only. The only use it has,
and that is rare, is as a special name for a dramatic
piece in the form of a dialogue limlited to
two speakers. A monologue is a prolonged talk
or discourse by a single speaker, a composition
in which a person speaks alone, or a form of
dramatic entertainment by a single speaker
(Browning was a master of the dramatic monologue.
Bea Lillie’s monologues are incompar-
able). Some insist that a monologue cannot be
a soliloquy (that is, talking when alone), that it
may consist of one person speaking but someone
else must be present, as in Browning’s famous
dramatic monologues. But in America today, it
is used a great deal of one person speaking alone,
used more that way, indeed, than in its earlier
sense, in standard speech and writing. Conversation
is an exchange of thoughts in spoken
words. If more than two persons take part, it
may be called a colloquy and if it is extraordinarily
stuffy and pompous it may be called a
colloquium. A conversation is informal but not
quite so familiar as talk. When Samuel Johnson,
one of the greatest of conversationalists, said
Yes, sir, we had good talk, he meant that the
conversation had been particularly easy and
relaxed, lively, interesting, rapid and gay. The
spellings dialog, duolog, and monolog are acceptable.
dialysis. The plural is dialyses.
diamond in the rough. To say of someone of
sterling worth but uncouth manners or exterior
that he is a diamond in the rough or a rough
diamond is to employ a cliche. Do so if you wish,
but know that you are doing so.
dice. The singular and the plural are both dice.
Originally dice was the plural of die, which
meant one of the cubes used in games of chance.
In this sense one has very little occasion to use
the word in the singular. But when the occasion
does arise the form dice is now used in place of
the old singular die, as in he did not touch Q
dice. Dice is also the form used as the first element
in a compound, as in dice playing and
dice box. The plural dices has been in existence
for several centuries but has never become
standard.
Today the old singular die is used only in the
derived sense of a stamp or mold, and in this
sense it has a regular plural dies. The expression
the die is cast originally meant the dice have
been thrown. Most Americans today hear this
in the new sense of die, as if it meant the mold
has been formed. Either metaphor accounts for
the sense of the expression, which is that it is
now too late to change one’s mind. As a way of
saying that a decision has been irrevocably
made, the die is cast is a cliche.
dickens is employed in many contexts for devil
(What the dickens do you mean? Who the
dickens is that? I’ll give him the very dickens
when Z see him). It is now often thought to be
a euphemistic substitution of the last name of
the author, Charles Dickens, employed simply
for alliteration. This is not so, however. The
word was so employed centuries before Charles
Dickens was born (I cannot tell what the dickens
his name is-Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of
Windsor). It has been suggested that it is a form
of devilkin, or little devil, but there is no proof.
diction is the element of style which depends on
choice of words, as distinguished from sentence
structure or arrangement of material. Good
diction conveys ideas with clarity and precision
of effect, whatever the style may be.