A Dictionary of Cont..

duty
solution (the assurance that things might have
been worse), Dutch bargain (not likely to be
kept), and other derisive and opprobrious terms.
Many of these have been retained in American
speech and a number of new ones, mostly
humorous and lightly contemptuous, added.
Among them are It beats the Dutch, Well, I’m
a Dutchman, and Dutch treat or going Dutch.
The common term to talk like a Dutch Uncle,
meaning to talk sternly and to lay down the
law, to scold, warn, reprimand, may have hidden
in it the fact that the word boss is the Dutch
baas which originally meant uncle. So also with
to cry uncle, i.e., to admit defeat, to concede
that the other man is baas or boss.
duty. See service.
“D . V . ” See Deo volente .
each. At one time each and every were two forms
of the same word and could be used interchangeably
to refer to the individual members of a
group. Today every is used when the members
are thought of as a group or whole, and each
when they are thought of individually. The rule
is that “every totalizes, and each individualizes.”
Every cannot be used in speaking of a group of
less than three. Each may be used in speaking
of only two, but it may also be used in speaking
of any larger number.
Each may be used as an adjective, as in each
man. It may also be used as a pronoun and in
this construction may be followed by of, as in
each of them. When used as an adjective, each
may stand before a singular noun or after a
plural noun or pronoun, as in each nran, the
men each, they each. When qualifying a plural
noun or pronoun it may also stand after a linking
verb or an auxiliary verb, as in they tzre ench
right, they have each decided.
When each is used as an adjective and qualifies
a singular noun the combination is always
singular, as in each man carries his ow’n pack.
When each qualifies, or refers to, a plural noun
or pronoun and precedes the meaningful element
in the verb, the combination is plural and
is used with a plural verb and plural pronoun,
as in we each have our own opinion and they
have each done their duty. The use of a singular
pronoun, such as his, in a construction of this
kind is a grammatical mistake. It is the sort of
mistake that would only be made by a. person
who was over-anxious about his grammar. When
each follows the meaningful element of the verb,
as in they have tried, each in a different way, it
is independent of the subject, a pronoun and
not an adjective.
When functioning as a pronoun, each is usually
treated as a singular, as in each carried his
148
E
dwarf. The plural is dwarfs, never dwarves.
dwell. The past tense is dwelt. The participle is
also dwelt. Dwelled is no longer used in standard
English, but it was once a literary form, as in
Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain. See also
reside.
dyed in the wool. A woolen fabric is dyed in the
wool if its color was imparted to it while it was
yet in the state of unspun wool. Another term
for it, now obsolete, was dyed in grain, so that
in the figurative senses engrained and dyed in
the wool mean the same thing-a conviction or
characteristic that is ineradicable because it is
in the very basic stuff of its holder’s being. This
tired phrase is used far more today in America
than in England.
dyes. See dice.
own pack, and some grammarians claim that it
must always be treated so. But in literary English
there are a number of exceptions to this
rule. When each refers indefinitely to both men
and women the word their is sometimes used in
place of his, as in each carried their own puck.
(See they.) When a plural word stands between
the pronoun each and its verb, the verb may be
singular or plural, as in each of them is and
each of them are; the plural is generally preferred.
When each refers to more than one
singular word joined by and, there is more difference
of opinion about the number of the verb.
H. W. Fowler says that the hymn lines, soon
will you and I be lying, each within our narrow
bed, cannot properly be sung except by married
couples. But to most people’s taste, calling what
is yours and mine his is a deeper outrage than
calling it ours, whether we own it in common or
not. The adjective each may qualify a singular
noun in the genitive case, as in each boy’s jacket.
But it cannot qualify a plural noun in the genitive
or a singular noun that follows a genitive,
as in the boys’ each facket. The pronoun each
itself does not have a genitive form. We cannot
say each’s.
In current English the word each is often used
to mean “each and the next one,” as in between
each row. Some grammarians object to this new
meaning, or new use of the word, and say that
between the rows is required here. But each is
used in this way by Kipling, Sackville-West, and
other modern writers.
Euch cannot be used with a negative verb. We
may say each failed but we cannot say each did
not succeed. The negative of each is neither, no
one or not every one.
each other; one another. These expressions have
the same meanings and are used in the same