A Dictionary of Cont..

faithfully 172
rather than actually (The laughter fairly rocked
the building). At the same time, it can mean
moderately, passably, tolerably (Things are going
fairly well with me now. You’re fairly safe,
if you watch what you’re doing) and there are
many written contexts in which one cannot be
sure which of the two meanings i’s intended.
There is never any doubt in speaking since the
intonation of the voice will always make the
meaning clear.
faithfully. See sincerely.
faker; fakir. A faker is one who fakes, a petty
swindler (Both ladies then came to the conclusion
that the fortune teller was a faker). A fakir
is a Mohammedan or Hindu religious ascetic or
mendicant monk. The two words are often confused,
more out of ignorance presumably than
skepticism.
fall. The past tense is fell. The participle is fallen.
Fall may be followed by the -ing form of a verb
with the preposition to, as in I fell to eating.
It could once be used in this sense with an infinitive,
as in I fell to eat, but this construction
is now obsolete.
Full may be followed by an adjective describing
what falls, as in smiling, the boy fell dead.
It may also be followed by an adverb describing
the fall, as in it fell silently.
fallacy. See mistake.
fall between two stools. To say of someone who
has failed because he was unable to choose
between alternatives that he has fallen between
two stools is to employ a cliche. The proverb
once had considerable force and more robust
expression (Between two stools the ars goeth to
the ground) but it has been exhausted by overuse.
fallen. See fall.
fall to with a will, as a term for starting in to
eat heartily, is trite.
falsehood. See lie.
falseness; falsity. Both falseness and falsity define
a quality of nonconformance with the truth. But
they cannot always be used interchangeably.
Falseness applies to persons and implies an intentional
departure from truth or loyalty (The
falseness of the declaration was embarrassingly
obvious. The guilt of falseness in their hearts).
Falsity is usually applied to reports and documents,
doctrines and opinions (Such reports
bear their falsity upon their faces. This doctrine,
whose falsity has been a dozen times exposed
. . .). Falseness suggests more intentional
untruthfulness than does falsity.
fame. See celebrity.
family is a group name and may be used with a
singular verb, as in the family that has just
moved in. But usually the speaker has in mind
the individual members of a family, and in that
case a plural verb is required. My family is all
sick is not standard English because the all
proves that the speaker is thinking of the individual
members, and this in turn requires a
plural verb.
famous. See notable.
fancy; fantasy; phantasy; imagination. Fancy is
now confined to light and often playful imaginings
(In the spring a young man’s fancy/ Lightly
turns to thoughts of love). A fancy waistcoat
would be one designed to please a fanciful taste.
It would be a little out of the ordinary, but not
much.
Though Fowler and Partridge make a distinction
between fantasy and phantasy, assigning to
the former the sense of caprice and to the latter
the sense of a visionary notion, no such differentiation
is maintained by American dictionaries.
The two words are regarded as variants, with
the preference being given to fantasy which is
given the meaning of unrestrained or extravagant
fancy bordering, sometimes, upon insanity
(These fantasies are often dangerous). A fantastic
waistcoat would be one so extravagant in
design or material or both as to be ludicrous.
Few words in our language have had their
meanings so thoroughly discussed as imagination.
Generations of Ph.D. candidates have
sucked a thin aliment from the problem. And
the best one can make of all the discussion is
that imagination, as applied to artistic creation,
means the blending of memories and experiences
in the mind of the artist in such a way as
to produce something that has never existed before,
yet something that may have in it a vision
or interpretation of reality hitherto unperceived
(The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, [and, one
might add, the literary critic when on this subject]
/ Are of imagination all compact).
far. The comparative form is further or further.
The superlative form is furthest or farthest. The
forms farther and furthest can only be used in
speaking of distance. The forms further and
furthest can be used in this sense and also in the
sense of additional, as in further details and
further delay. Some grammarians would like to
restrict further and furthest to figurative senses
but this is a hope and not a description of current
usage. It seems more likely that farther and
farthest will be dropped from the language and
further and furthest become the only acceptable
forms. That has not yet happened, however.
And to pronounce the positive form fur as if it
were spelled fur is not standard at present.
In Great Britain the word far is no longer
used to qualify a noun, except in set phrases
such as the fur north, a far cry. This is not true
in the United States where fur is still used as an
adjective in natural speech, as in put it in the
far corner and open the far window. For all
the further, see all.
far be it from me, as a rhetorical disclaimer, is
not only a cliche but, often, a piece of humbug.
It is interesting that Joseph’s protestation of innocence
in the business of the cup in his brother’s
sack (Genesis, 44:17) which was prefaced in
Wycliffe’s edition with Fer be it fro me that Z
thus do, was changed in the Ring James version
to read God forbid that Z should do so and then
changed back in the Revised Standard Version
to Far be it from me that I should do so. Appar-