A Dictionary of Cont..

pied by troops, forf and fortress are interchangeable.
In common usage fortress is applied to
larger forts or groups of forts or to the more
heavily armed forts (the great Belgian fortress
of Eben Emnel). There is an old joke that fortress
is feminine and hence harder to silence.
The fortified trading posts of the West were invariably
called forts and the term survives today
in many American place names. Of the two
words only fortress is used metaphorically (A
mighty fortress is our God).
fortitude. See patience.
fortnight, meaning the space of fourteen nights
and days, is in everyday use in England but is
archaic in the United States where two weeks is
used instead (I gef a two weeks’ vacation! early
in September). Fortnight is known in America,
at least to the educated, but is rarely used.
fortuitous. That is fortuitous which is accidental
or happens by chance (This fortuitous encounter
was the cause of his death). Some fortuitous
events may be favorable but the word is not a
synonym for fortunate and it is a mistake so to
use it.
forum. The plural is forums or fora.
forward; forwards. Forward is the only form that
can be used to qualify a following noun, :as in a
forward thrust. It is also the only form used in
the two expressions look forward and from that
day forward. It is the preferred form in giving
a command, as in those behind cried “Forward.“’
and those before cried “Back!” Either
form may be used in’any other construcf.on, as
in move forwards and move forward. ln the
United States the form forward is generally preferred.
forward; dispatch; transmit. The use of forward
and dispatch as simple synonyms of send has
little justification, though it is common in commercial
letters (We regret that a slight debzy will
be necessary, but assure you that the goods will
be forwarded as soon as possible. We have received
your order and will dispatch within the
week, etc.). A letter or package is certainly forwarded
when it is sent ahead to an address at
which the addressee will be and it is forwarded
when it is sent on after him to another address.
Transmit for send is labored elegance unless it
carries the definite idea of passing something
through or over an intermediary. Jones transmits
a message or letter from Smith to Robinson.
Though hasten is now an archaic meaning of
dispatch, the idea of haste is still in the word and
it means to send off promptly or quickly, with
some sense of urgency.
for your information. If that which follows is
truly informative, the introductory phrarse for
your information weakens its effect. If it is not,
it is simply exasperating. Its use is chiefly ironical.
It serves as a polite expression of annoyance
at someone else’s assertiveness.
In interoffice communication, and Such like,
it is often used to mean “You don’t have to do
anything about this; we’re merely informing
you . . . .” In this use it is an established and
acceptable formula, often abbreviated to FYI.
187 fractions
fought. See fight.
found. See find.
fowl. The preferred plural is fowls. The singular
form fowl is often used generically, or collectively,
to mean all of them, as in the fowl of the
air. It may also be used as a mass word meaning
this kind of food, as in they ate fowl all winter.
But only hunters use it as a true plural, as in
several dead fowl.
fraction. The use of fraction to mean a small piece,
a remnant (He will recover only a fraction of
the cost), is over three hundred years old.
Shakespeare so uses it. Troilus in Troilus and
Cressida says bitterly of Cressida that The fractions
of her faith, orts of her love,/ The fragments,
scraps, the bits, and greasy relics/ Of her
o’ereaten faith, are given to Diomed. It is true
that the mathematical senses of one or more
aliquot parts of a unit, the ratio between any two
numbers, or a ratio of algebraic quantities analogous
to the arithmetical vulgar fraction, are
older by several centuries. But three hundred
and fifty years of use by the best writers is surely
enough to establish a usage as standard. None
the less, with the spread of education the mathematical
meaning has become the dominant one
and those who object to using fraction to mean
a small part (insisting that since 9/lOths is a
fraction, a fraction need not necessarily be a
small fragment) have a somewhat better case
than they had fifty years ago. But still not a
strong enough one, not yet at least, to insist that
this common use of the word is an error. Partridge’s
designation of it as “infelicitous” is about
as far as anyone can now go.
fractions. With the exception of half and quarter,
the second term in a fraction is an ordinal number.
such as third, fourth, fifth. But the fractions
are’not ordinals. They represent quantities. Unlike
the cardinals, they are primarily nouns, but
today, especially in scientific work, they are taking
on the adjective uses characteristic of cardinals.
Because a fraction is a noun and represents a
part of some whole, it is traditionally joined to
a following noun by of and a definitive adjective
(such as a, the, this, my, all), as in one-third of
the men, three-fifths of a mile. In current English
this of may be dropped, but not the definitive
adjective, as in one-third the men. This is
more likely to occur with simple fractions, such
as one-third, than with more complicated ones,
but we also say it has nine-tenths the density of
water. When a pronoun follows a fraction, as in
three-fourths of them, the of cannot be dropped.
A generation ago the expression two miles
and a quarter was considered finer English than
two and a quarter miles, hecause in the second
form the noun quarter is being used as an adjective.
Today, the second form is generally
preferred. Both are acceptable.
One hyphen is used in a fraction, but not two.
We write one-twentieth but one twenty-fourth.
When fractions are expressed in figures, of and
the definitive adjective are dropped and the
following noun is made plural, as in 94 miles.