A Dictionary of Cont..

invite 256
invite; invitation. Though damned as incorrect
and ill-bred and listed in the dictionaries as
slang, invite as a synonym for invitation has
remained impudently in use for three hundred
years (Bishop Crunmer gave him an earnest
invite to England-1659. Did you get an invite
to the Phi Sip dance?--1957). It is one of those
words that may be used with a full assurance
that it will be clearly understood but must be
used with an awareness that in some quarters
it is condemned. If, therefore, you use it in
these quarters, you risk condemnation.
invoice; inventory. An invoice is a written list of
merchandise, with prices, delivered or sent to a
buyer (We trust the shipment reaches YOU in
good condition. The invoice is enclosed). An
inventory is a detailed descriptive list of articles,
with number, quantity, and value of each
(Every six months he set down an inventory of
his stock). Taking inventory is sometimes used
metaphorically of taking stock of one’s resources.
The English term for taking inventory
is stock-taking. Invoice is often misused for
inventory.
involve; entail; implicate. To involve meant originally
to envelop or infold by surrounding and
it should not be used unless there is some
suggestion of including as a necessary circumstance
or consequence. To say of someone that
he found himself more deeply involved in the
consequences of an act than he had intended
to be would be to use the word with a proper
understanding of its meanings. But to say of
a project that the cost involved has been tremendous
(unless it is definitely meant the cost
inextricably connected with a certain policy or
action, ensuing upon the decision to put the
policy into force or take the action) is to use
the word weakly and unnecessarily. Why not
simply The cost has been tremendous?
To entail is to bring on or involve by necessity
or consequences (Moving to New York entailed
a change in their whole way of Iife). It
differs from involve in that involve often carries
a suggestion of trickery in the entanglement
with embarrassment to the one involved, consequences
not foreseen at the time of the action.
One is often involved in harmless matters and
an act may entail good, bad, or indifferent consequences,
but one is implicated in something
discreditable. If a man is involved in a scandal,
he may be an innocent victim. If he is implicated
there is a suggestion that at least someone
thinks him to some extent guilty.
inward; inwards. Inward is the only form that
can be used to qualify a following noun, as in
that inward eye. Either form may be used in
any other construction, as in driven inwards
and driven inward. The form inward is generally
preferred in the United States.
ipse dixit. “Unless the witness explains the process
of analysis and reasoning by which he reached
his conclusion, the jury must take-or refuse
to take-the conclusion simply upon his ipse
dixit.” The term is useful, but the colloquial
his soy-so is preferable.
. .
i.q.; 1.0. 1.4. IS an abbreviation of the Latin idem
quad and means “the same as.” When the
same letters are capitalized, as in I.Q., they are
an abbreviation of the English words intelligence
quotient, which means the ratio of one
particular person’s intelligence to the average
intelligence of people of his age.
iris. The plural is irises or irides, not ires.
iron curtain. Sir Winston Churchill’s statement,
at Fulton, Missouri, on March 5, 1946, that an
iron curtain had descended across the continent
of Europe, separating the Soviet sphere from
the rest of the Western world, caught the public
fancy and passed at once into the language.
Like the Fifth Column of the Soanish Civil
War in 1936, it supplied a dramatic term for
something new that had not yet found a name.
It was a good metaphor, with all the cold, grim,
and menacing connotations of iron and the
suggestion, in curtain, of shutting out the light.
But the term has become a little too popular
-even to the point of impeding and confusing
thought in regard to Russia and our relations
with her. And like many highly successful and
felicitous phrases it has begotten a number of
less felicitous imitations, such as the bamboo
curtuin surrounding China or the nylon curtain
which we have been charged with lowering.
iron band in a velvet glove. As a term for ruthless
severity hypocritically masked in suavity
and seeming kindliness, an iron hand in a velvet
glove is a hackneyed metaphor.
iron out. The metaphorical use of iron out, in the
sense of removing difficulties or disagreements
as an iron smooths out wrinkles (The Chairman
of the Board was confident that these differences
of opinion could be ironed out before the
next stockholders’ meeting), seems to be confined
to American speech and writing. Though
many dictionaries do not recognize its existence,
it is used and understood everywhere in the
United States and is not regarded as slang.
irons in the fire. As a term for having more
enterprises than one can well look to, having too
many irons in the fire is now a clich6. When it
was fresh and especially when the sight of a
smithy was a part of everyone’s daily experience,
it was a valuable metaphor. The clangor
of the heavier hammers, the rapid ring of the
lighter ones, the roar of the bellows, the heat,
the flying sparks, the hiss of hot metal being
tempered and, above all, the furious urgency
engendered by the need to work the metal while
it was red hot, and that in the face of considerable
danger, all combined to give the figure
vitality. But few people today are familiar with
a smithy and the metaphor has cooled to the
point where it can no longer be worked.
irony. See humor.
Iroquois. The singular and the plural are both
Iroquois. This word was originally a plural but
may now be used also as a singular, as in three
Iroquois and one Iroquois.
irregardless. There is no such word as irregurdless.
It is a redundancy, erroneously patterned
after irrespective.