A Dictionary of Cont..

isks are still used in very formal writing, but
even here the periods are also acceptable. Some
newspapers and magazines use three asterisks in
a separate line to show quotation omissions of a
paragraph or more in length.
else’s, is the standard form for the oossessive of a
pronoun followed by else, as in somebody else’s
dog.
The practice of putting the possessive slign after
else instead of after the pronoun itself is relatively
new and seems to owe its position in literature
to Dickens. Other nineteenth century writers,
such as Thackeray, Mark Twain, Henry
James, wrote somebody’s else. During the transition
from this to the modern form a compromise,
somebody’s else’s, was often used.
The old form may still be used with n4O when
there is no following noun, but not otherwise.
That is, we must now say who else’s signature
did you get?, but we may also say whose else
could 1 get?
elucidate. See explain.
elude. See escape.
elusion; elusive. See allusion.
elves. See elf.
emanate is to flow from, to proceed from as a
source or origin. It is used exclusively of nonmaterial
things. Ideas, plans, hopes, fears, and
so on, emanate from certain persons or conditions;
but it would be a mistake to say that a
river or a street emunated. Since the word means
to flow as from a source or point of origin, it is
natural to use it as a synonym for originate, but
unless the sense of flowing out from the point
of origination is kept this use is careless and
should be avoided. An idea or an attitude may
emanate from someone; it cannot emanate with
him.
embargo. The plural is embargoes.
emend. See amend.
emerge; issue. To emerge is to rise or come forth,
as from water or some other liquid, especially to
come forth into view or notice from concealment.
Thus when a question or a problem
emerges in the course of action or discussion, it
arises, unforeseen, out of the situation (Pe~usrrs
emerged from the b!ood of Medusu. The periscope
barely emerged, with a faint feathering of
the surface, before the gun was brought to bea/
upon it. Cromwell, who entered the Cilril War
as Lieutenant-General of the Horse, emerged uhsolute
ruler of Englund. On piecing the vurioas
pieces of evidence together, the facts gradually
emerged).
To issue is also to come forth, but it is used
of a number of persons or a mass of matter, OI
a volume of smoke, coming through an o:ltlet or
outlets, and often with the suggestion of a forceful
or tumultuous coming forth after having
been shut up or enclosed (The army, breaking
through the defile, issued out upon the subjacent
plain. The smoke issued from the chimney in
rolling clolrds). See also immerge.
emigrant; immigrant. An emigrant is one who
leaves one country to settle in another. An immigrant
is one who comes into a new country to
settle. Thus a man is an emigrant from the country
of his birth or previous residence, an immigrant
as he comes into the new country.
eminent. To be eminent is to be conspicuous,
prominent, exalted in station or public estimation.
But since these things are comparative and
death is a leveler, no man can be eminent after
he is dead. He is then either famous or forgotten.
Of course eminent may be used of a man when
the reference is to what he was when he was
alive. Strachey’s Eminent Victorians were eminent
in the Victorian age. At least one of them
is now famous. See also fame, immanent.
emphasis. The plural is emphases.
emphatic tenses. See do.
employ is obsolescent for employment in England
but is still current in the United States in the
rather stilted phrase being in someone’s employ.
As a verb employ stresses the service performed,
whereas hire stresses the wages to be
paid for the performance of the service (She was
employed at her needlework. Is not the laborer
worthy of his hire?), though the words are often
used interchangeably.
employee. Anyone who is employed is, in the
United States, an employee. No orthographical
distinction is now made between a hired male
worker and a hired female worker.
emporium. The plural is emporiums or emporia.
An emporium is a place, a town or a city, which
is the principal center of trade for a region (The
vast regions of the northwest, for which Chicugo
is the commercial emporium). It is used grandiloquently
as a term for a large store selling a
variety of articles (When Z was working in the
paper-box factory I thought I loved a clerk in
Kuhn’s Emporium). Since the latter meaning
has, in common usage, almost entirely replaced
the former, anyone who insists on using the
word is confronted with the choice of being
either grandiloquent or obscure.
empty; vacant. That which is empty contains nothing.
It is devoid of its usual or appropriate contents.
An empty house would be one devoid of
furniture. Empty hands carry nothing. An empty
mind is free of thought. Though vucurzt is often
used interchangeably with empty, it is usually
applied to that which is temporarily unoccupied.
A vacant house could be one from which the
family is temporarily absent, though the furnishings
remain. A vacant store would be one that
is empty at the moment but for which a new
tenant is expected or at least hoped. When a
position is said to be vacant, it is assumed that
it will soon be filled. Empty would never be
used in such a context. A vacant stare is one
devoid of expression; perhaps there is a kind
suggestion that the intellectual vacuity back of
it is only temporary.
enclose; enclosure. Enclose is now preferred to
inclose and enclosure to inclosure.
enclosed herewith; under separate cover. Enclosed
herewith (or herein) is a redundancy,
since that which is enclosed must of necessity
be therewith or therein. The phrase is a piece
of outmoded commercial jargon which, fortu-