A Dictionary of Cont..

There has come to be a faintly negative connotation
to the word epithet. It is more commonly
associated with unfavorable characterization,
with profanity and with name-calling
than with favorable characterization or praise.
Expressions like dirty dog, damned liar and
double-crossing crook are more likely to come
to mind when epithets are mentioned than winedark
sea or curly-headed baby.
Epithet is a common weapon in argument,
especially in political campaigning, for all the
force of connotation can be brought to bear to
substitute for or to counteract logic. In fact most
political labels carry so much emotion that they
have lost their original meaning and are used as
opprobrious designations by members of the opposing
group: communist, fascist, Red, capitalist,
bourgeois, etc. In the 1956 presidential campaign
the Republicans, insisting on calling their
opponents the Democrat Party, to avoid the favorable
implications of democratic, managed to
make even democrat seem unpleasant.
equal is sometimes followed by an infinitive, as in
he felt equal to meet them, but the -ing form of
the verb is preferred, as in he felt equal to meeting
them.
equally as. Since as implies equation (He is as
tall as you are), equally as (in such sentences
as He was equally as astonished as the others)
is redundant. Fowler sternly calls it “an illiterate
tautology,” but in the United States it is accepted,
and used, by people who certainly are
not illiterate.
equilibrium. The plural is equilibriums or equilibria.
equipment. In the jargon of the airlines equipment
is used, at least in public dealings with passengers,
as a synonym for airplane (This delay is
caused by the late arrivul of incoming equipment).
Whether this is thought to be more elegant
or whether it corresponds to some classification
within the business, it is certainly not
standard, though, of course, if it is continued it
may become so.
The adjective mechanical is used by the airlines
in place of such phrases as mechanical
failure or mechanical trouble (On f7ight two
ninety-eight there’s mechanical, but it ought to
leave before six o’clock). This may be the mere
adoption of an abbreviated technical expression,
but one suspects it is at least in part a euphemistic
desire, in dealing with passengers, to
avoid anything as disturbing as mechanical failure
or mechanical trouble. And, indeed, these
phrases might very well convey a false impression,
since the passenger would probably transfer
to them his associations with the automobile
where mechanical trouble usually means a cessation
of function or at least a serious impairment
of it; whereas on a plane it might signify
only what on a car would be called “a need for
adjustment” or “regulation.” This use of mechanical
shows a new industry groping for a new
word and attempting to divest an old word of
its connotations.
equivocal. See ambiguous.
159 escape
errant; arrant. Errant means wandering, as a
knight errant traveling in search of adventure.
By a natural extension it came also to mean
deviant from rectitude or propriety (The famous
beauty and errant lady, the Duchess of Mazarin)
.
Arrant was originally a variant spelling of
errant (and errant is still used for arrant sometimes,
though never the reverse). It came to be
applied especially to vagabonds and other wandering
ruffians of whom former times stood in
particular fear-arrant rogues, arrant rascals,
arrant thieves. From this application the word
came to have the force of an opprobrious intensive.
That is, the thievery and the roguery and
the rascality of these wandering ones (many of
them men made desperate by being driven from
their farms and villages which were destroyed
to make room for grazing lands) was transferred
to the adjective wandering. So that Swift’s
allegation that Every servant is an arrant thief
as to victuals and drink has nothing to do with
the servant’s being or not being a wanderer.
Then it came to mean thorough and unmitigated,
and this meaning, with enough of the opprobrious
retained to prevent its ever being used
in a favorable sense is its current one (an arrant
ass, an arrant fool).
Errant is now archaic and literary. Arrant is
fixed in a few opprobrious terms, most of which
are cliches. Both words may well be avoided.
erratum. Errata, the plural, is also used as a singular
to mean a list of errors or corrections and
has a regular plural erratas, meaning more than
one such list. This is an English word and should
not be given a Latin plural, as in erratue.
error. See mistake.
ersatz. See synthetic.
eruption; irruption. An eruption is a violent bursting
out (The eruption of Vesuvius filled the sky
with smoke and flames). An irruption is a violent
bursting in (The Goths . . . making irruptions
into Gaul).
escape; elude; evade. To escape can mean to get
free from confinement, to regain liberty (No
more dramatic escape from a prison camp has
been recorded). It can also mean to avoid danger,
pursuit, observation, or the like, even by
sheer luck. A man may escape danger or observation
by accident, though there is usually some
connotation of intention (By taking the back
way he escaped being seen. He escaped death
by the mere chance of stopping to lace his shoe).
To elude is to escape by means of dexterity or
artifice (He eluded pursuit by a series of amazing
disguises). When we say that something
eluded our attention, we imply that we almost
perceived it, or admit that we should have perceived
it. There is a suggestion that the thing
itself, by some pixyish sleight or movement,
ducked out of sight for a second. There’s an element
of slyness in it. A fox eludes the hounds.
To evade is to escape by trickery or cleverness,
to get around something that intends to
stop us, to avoid doing something or to avoid
answering directly. When a man evades a ques-