A Dictionary of Cont..

tentious (Notice to our patrons: We are not responsible
for lost articles), but it is definitely
established in American usage. It may be base of
merchants to flatter those who buy from them
but usage is not concerned with motives: if
enough people use a word often enough in a
certain sense, that sense will become established
and standard. And that is what has happened to
patron. It is interesting to observe, however, that
it is used less by shops than by theaters, night
clubs, racetracks, and restaurants.
Stores prefer customer, and while this should
mean one who customarily makes his purchases
at a certain store (and so did mean in England,
at least until recently, and in America at some
of the more exclusive and expensive stores), it
has come to mean merely a buyer [q. v.] and
those who were formerly called customers are
now often called regular customers.
patronize. Although most British authorities reject
this usage as pretentious, patronize is aclcepted
in the United States in its commercial sense of
trading with or favoring a shop or restaurant,
etc., with one’s patronage (We believe in patronizing
our local stores). To treat in a condescending
way, an accepted standard meaning in
England also, is in America now a secondary
meaning (Harvard men are thought to have a
way of patronizing their less fortunate fellow
collegians). The least common sense in America
is the basic sense in England: to act as a patron
toward, to support (He patronized several philanthropic
causes).
pause. See stop.
pavement; sidewalk. A sidewalk in American terminology
is a walk, especially a paved one, at
the side of a street or road (On winter mornings
he usually had to shovel snow from the sidewalk
in front of his house). The English term for
such a paved walk is pavement. In America
pavement means the paved part of a paved! road,
what the English call the roadway (After the
collision there was glass all over the pavement).
pay. The past tense is paid. The participle i.s also
paid. Pay may also mean to let out rope (followed
by out or awny). In this sense it is. quite
regular and has the past tense and participle
payed.
pay (noun). See honorarium.
peak. See top.
peanut. American peanut is English monkey nut
or, more soberly, ground nut, though the: English
understand and sometimes use the American
term. The slang terms of peanut for someone
who is petty or insignificant and peanuts for a
trifling reward or remuneration (Pauley estimated
that altogether they involved less than
%1,000,000-just “pertnuts” in the whole scheme
of things) are not used in England.
pearls before swine. Urging someone not to cast
pearls before swine, as a warning against offering
art, literature, wit, or whatever it is, to the
unappreciative, has become a cliche, to be used
with care. Unless it is received with the same
lack of thought that it is commonly spoken with,
it is highly offensive. It is not merely that some-
361 peer
one is called a swine. In this age of general
abusiveness that might easily be forgiven. It is
that one’s own tastes, artistic productions, witticisms,
or imp-ulses, are considered as pearls.
And that, in this democratic age, will not be
forgiven.
peculiar. See odd.
peculiarly should not be used loosely as an intensive,
in the place of such words as especially,
particularly, or very. Peculiar derives from a
Latin word meaning “pertaining to one’s own”
and it means that which exhibits qualities not
shared by others or that which mystifies because
it is so individual that we cannot understand it.
So a memory, for example, which is peculiarly
dear is not necessarily very dear; it is dear,
rather, because it involves something not to be
found in other memories or so closely pertaining
to one’s own experiences that a sense of its dearness
could not easily be communicated to another.
pedautry is the undue display of learning, the prcsentation
of material in a didactic fashion, or
a finicking adherence to rules and technicalities.
The pedant has been a stock comic character in
literature because of his pompousness and lack
of humor, his parade of knowledge without
sense, and his remoteness from the everyday
world.
Pedantic writing is characterized by polysyllabic
words and circumlocution. It is most likely
to be found in specialized fields of knowledge
where the necessary technical words seem to
attract unnecessarily long and obscure companions.
Authority and official position also seem
to stimulate pedantry.
Grammar is a favorite haunt of the pedant.
He is equipped with rules, which he is convinced
came before practice, and effectiveness and lucidity,
charm, wit, grace and the fine excesses that
surprise us with delight are nothing to him. His
sole delight is to pounce upon the violation of
one of his rules.
peek; peep; peer. As verbs, peek and peep are
synonymous, meaning to take a quick look
through a narrow aperture or small opening,
usually furtively or pryingly (I can see his pride
peep through each part of him. You shouldn’t
peek; you’re expected to keep your eyes shut
till we tell you to open them). Peek is more often
associated with children’s games and usually has
a connotation of childishness about it. It has almost
been lost in England, where peep is much
more frequently used. To peer is to look continuously
and narrowly for some time in order
to penetrate obscurity. (And I peer into the
shadows,/ Till they seem to pass away).
peer, a noun, derives from the Latin par, equal,
and means a person of the same civil rank or
standing, an equal before the law, or one who
ranks with another in respect to endowments or
other qualifications (He will be tried by a jury
of his peers. He is the peer of any student in the
college). The word is frequently misused, however,
to mean superior (as in He is the equal, if
not the peer, of anyone here or There may be a