A Dictionary of Cont..

hesitate 220
herself and herself will tell you. This was once
literary English but is no longer standard in the
United States. For the regular uses of herself,
see reflexive pronouns.
hesitate. This word may be followed by an infinitive,
as in he hesitated to tell her. It is sometimes
heard with the -ing form of a verb, as in he hesitated
telling her. This is not standard English.
hew. The past tense is hewed. The participle is
hewed or hewn. Hewed is the preferred form for
the participle but hewn is still acceptable.
hiatus. The plural is hiatuses or hiatus, not hiati.
hiccup; hiccough. The proper word for the characteristic
sound caused by a quick, involuntary
inspiration’s being suddenly checked by a
closure of the glottis is hiccup, one of the best
onomatopoeic words in the language. Hiccough
is apparently a euphemism or genteelism in
spelling. The dictionaries accept it as a permissible
variant but, fortunately, it doesn’t seem to
be gaining much ground. The obsolete spellings
of hickop and hicket were good. It’s a pity
they’ve been lost.
hide. The past tense is hid. The participle is hidden
or hid. Hidden is the preferred form for the
participle. Hid is also used, as in he had hid the
package, but is considered bookish by some
people.
hide; conceal; secrete. Hide is the everyday working
word (He hid the money under the mattress.
She hid her dismay under an assumption of indifference.
The stop light was hidden by an
intervening pole). Concenl is more formal. A
hen would hide her eggs; a man would conceal
his motives. Concealment, however, has become
as much of an everyday word as we have for
the act of hiding. Hiding is rarely used seriously
to describe the act of concealing. To secrete
means to hide carefully in order to keep secret.
It has acquired a faint connotation of furtiveness;
a secretive person is not merely reticent,
there is a suggestion of something slightly dishonest
about him. This may be due to a vague
confusion with the biological meaning of secrete
(really a different word), the separating off, or
preparation from the blood, as in the secretions
of the glands. Thus it may be felt that the
secretive man is not merely concealing something,
but internally creating something that
may help him but harm us. See also cache.
hide one’s light under a bushel. As a term, usually
employed ironically, for concealing one’s
merits or talents, to hide one’s light under u
bushel (taken from Matthew 5:15) is now a
cliche. Except in this phrase bushel has not been
used for a bushel basket or container for more
than two hundred years.
high and dry. To say of something that has been
abandoned or someone who has been forgotten
or passed over that it or he has been left high
and dry is a cliche. The figure is of a ship that
has been beached.
high; highly. When used in its literal, physical
sense high is as truly an adverb as it is an adjective.
We say he jumped high and never he
jumped highly, When used in a derived sense,
high is an adjective and highly an adverb. We
say the table has a high polish and it is highly
polished. See also tall.
high-toned; stylish. High-toned literally applies to
sounds that are high in pitch. Though in
England the term also means having high or
lofty moral principles (In whose high-toned impartial
mind/ Degrees of mortal rank and state/
Seem objects of indifferent weight--Scott), it is
usually employed in this sense in America contemptuously
or ironically. Wallace Stevens, for
instance, has entitled one of his poems “Hightoned
old Christian lady.” A third sense, the one
most frequently intended in America, is stylish,
fashionably elegant (We don’t think there is
any place in Arizona for high-toned fox hunting
-Chicago Sun, Nov. 1, 1946). This sense, however,
is still not so stylish as stylish.
hilarity. See glee.
him. See objective pronouns and his.
himself. In Ireland and Scotland this word is
sometimes used in place of the word him or he
(when applied to the head of the family), as in
Z see himself coming and himself will soon be
here. This was once literary English but is no
longer standard in the United States. For the
regular uses of himself, see reflexive pronouns.
hind. The comparative form is hinder. The superlative
form is hindmost or hindermost. See also
hart.
hinder. The -ing form of a verb following hinder
is usually introduced by from or in, as in hinder
him from going and hinder him in carrying out
his plans. See also prevent.
hindrance. See handicap; obstacle.
hindsight has such a homely, folksy, Anglo-Saxon
ring to it that one would assume that it was the
good old word and retrospection a stilted latinization
dragged in by scholars in recent years.
But the contrary is true. Hindsight was made up
by scholars in the late nineteenth century and
retrospection is of respectable antiquity, going
back to the early seventeenth century. As a
contrast to foresight (His hindsight is better
than his foresight), however, especially in such
ironical uses as the wisdom of hindsight, the
word has definitely replaced retrospection, but
in almost any other sense of looking backwards,
retrospection is preferable.
hippopotamus. The plural is hippopotamuses or
hippopotami.
hire; rent; charter. Hire is the general word, most
commonly applied to paying money for labor
or services (He hired twenty machinists.
McGill’s was not hiring unskilled labor). In
New England hire is used in speaking of money
borrowed at interest (They hired the money,
didn’t they?) to distinguish it, apparently, from
money borrowed at no interest from a friend.
The use of hired man, hired girl, while retained
as a democratic euphemism for servant, seems
to have had its origin in the fact that in colonial
times there was an important distinction between
an indentured servant and a hired servant.
Hire is used also to designate paying for the
temporary use of vehicles or buildings (The