A Dictionary of Cont..

This, of course, is obvious, as a good example
should be. But Pope was able, when he chose,
to achieve the effect with great subtlety, as in
his description of a sneeze in The Rape of the
Lock:
Sudden, with starting tears each eye o’erflows,
And the high dome re-echoes to his nose.
Milton is a great master of onomatopoeia.
His skill in using the device contributes to the
grandeur of many of his fmest passages--as, for
instance, the ominous reverberation in his description
of the opening of the gates of Hell:
. . . on a sudden open f7ie
With impetuous recoile and jarring sound
Th’infernal dores, and on their hinges gnate
Harsh thunder. . . .
But onomatopoeia in itself has little merit.
The mere doing of it is a sort of trick or at best
a skilful exercise, as in Poe’s The Bells. It is
only when it enhances the meaning, by creating
a mood or contributing by the suggestion of its
sound to the main thought, that it has value.
No one should be encouraged to use it deliberately
and in serious prose it should probably be
avoided.
The adjective is onomatopoeiac or onomatopoetic,
the first being the preferred form.
onset means basically an assault or an attack, the
act of setting upon (The onset at Omaha Beach
was especially bloody), a beginning or a start
(The onset of winter, with its lowering skies
and dreary winds, was especially depressing).
Only in medical usage (The onset of fhe disease
was obvious on cursory examination) may onset
be used to designate initial symptoms or Erst
signs.
onus; gravamen. An onus is a moral burden, a
resDonsibilitv (He shouldered the onus for the
wh>le adventure). The gravamen is that part
of an accusation which weighs most heavily
against the accused (The gravamen of the charge
was that the revolver which fired the fatal shot
was found in the trunk of his car). By extension
gravamen means grievance. This meaning is
obsolescent in England but standard in the
United States (The real gravamen of the charges
[against Democracy] lies in the habit it has
of . . . asking the powers that be whether they
are the powers that ought to be). The plural
of gravamen is gravamina.
onward; onwards. Onward is the only form that
can be used to qualify a following noun, a:$ in
the onward course. It is the preferred form in
giving a command, as in Onward, Christian soldiers.
Either form may be used in any other
construction, as in the road led onwards .and
he went onwurd. In the United States the form
onward is generally preferred.
op. cit. is an abbreviation of the Latin words
opere citato and means in the work cited.
opera. See opus.
operative; operator. Operative is used chiefly as
an adjective, meaning active, exerting force, 15%
cacious, effective (The original rules are *still
operative). When used as a noun, opera,tive
339 opposite
means a worker, one skilled in some branch of
work, especially productive or industrial work;
a workman, artisan, factory hand, especially one
who tends a machine (The cotton operatives,
being unorganized, had no remedy for their
miseries). This use is now largely American,
the English preferring mill-hand or workman.
American also is the use of operative for a
detective, a euphemism adopted by the Pinkertons
at the turn of the century which passed
into common usage (I had pawned the pistol
for twenty dollars . . ., and in its place Z was
carrying a small pistol belonging to another
operative).
Operator, in various combinations, is more
specific than operative (linotype operator, punch
press operator, telephone operator). Used alone
-particularly in America-it applies to those
conducting large-scale operations (mine operators,
mill operators) and, especially, to those
who operate in stocks in a large or speculative
way (Wall Street operators began jumping out
of windows in the fall of 1929). Big operator
is a slang term, often with sarcastic overtones,
for one who bustles about in self-importance,
manipulating and maneuvering with great to-do.
ophthalmologist; optician; optometrist. See oculist.
opinion, in my. An opinion is a judgment or belief
resting on grounds insufficient to produce
certainty. When, therefore, one adds in my opinion
to some statement, one is modestly or tactfully
seeking to avoid the appearance of being
dogmatic. This is admirable, but it may also be
tedious and sometimes timid. Then the emphasis,
somehow, seems to fall on my rather
than on opinion and the phrase, meant to be
disarming, is often pontifical and irritating. It
is usually better to say Z think.
opinionated; opinionative. Opinionated is an adjective
describing one who is obstinate or conceited
with regard lo his opinions, conceitedly
dogmatic (At the risk of sounding opinionated,
Z say that Yeats is our best poet since Milton).
Since an opinion is a judgment not sufficiently
grounded in fact to be a certainty and since
conceit is an exaggerated estimate of one’s own
abilities, opinionated is necessarily a vague
word. It is highly charged emotionally and usually
conveys a wholly subjective estimate made
by the user. It is now completely derogatory
and comes, like bigoted, close to being a term
of vulgar abuse. That does not mean, of course,
that it is not useful. But in using it these things
should be borne in mind.
Opinionative is a word faultily formed from its
Latin root and seldom understood by writer or
reader. Basically it means of, pertaining to, or
of the nature of opinion (That’s a purely opinionative
conclusion). In a secondary sense it
means opinionated, though in the interests of
clarity one might better use opinionated when
that is what one means.
opponent. See antagonist.
oppose. See antagonize.
opposite. As an adjective, opposite is followed by
to (His store is opposite to mine); as a noun,