A Dictionary of Cont..

signed
wholly different from their actual name. These
people invariably write their professional names
as an autograph and their actual names as a
signature. And most of those who appear
before the public under their actual names have,
as a protective measure, a way of writing their
name for “autographs” distinct from what they
would consider their signature.
signed, sealed, and delivered. As an expression
for something’s being brought to a full and
satisfactory conclusion, signed, sealed, and delivered,
a jocular echo of legal terminology, is
a cliche.
silent partner; sleeping partner. To describe a
partner who takes no active part in the conduct
of a business, or is not openly announced as a
partner, Americans usually say silent partner,
sometimes sleeping partner. The English always
say sleeping partner.
silver; silverware; plate. Silver and silverware
seem to be used interchangeably in America to
describe table utensils, whether made of solid
silver or merely plated (The thieves took a fur
coat and a set of silverware. If you’re going on
a vacation, you’d better put the silver in your
safe-deposit vault). Utensils of solid silver are
a little more likely, especially among the upper
middle classes, to be called silver and the silver.
Domestic dishes, utensils, etc., of gold or silver
are in England often referred to coilectively as
plate (His lordship’s plate alone was valued at
five thousand pounds). The term is not used in
this sense in America.
silver Lining. As a term for a bright aspect of an
otherwise dark situation, an element of hope
where things seem hopeless, an assurance that
things cannot be as bad as they appear to be at
the moment, a reference to the silver lining is
hackneyed. It is drawn from the proverb Every
cloud has a silver lining which is based on the
common phenomenon of a bright ring encircling
or partly encircling a storm cloud. The
actual phrase is highly poetical and would be
splendid had it not been tarnished by overuse.
It seems to have originated from Milton’s lines
in Comus (Was I deceiv’d, or did a sable cloud/
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?).
similaq analogous. Similar means having likeness
or resemblance, especially in a general way (His
war experiences were similar to mine). Analogous
means having analogy-that is, having a
partial similarity, corresponding in some particular
(He regarded the resurrection of man as
analogous to the resurrection of nature in the
spring. The effect of historical reading is analogous,
in many respects, to that produced by
foreign travel). In geometry, figures that are
similar have the same shape: their corresponding
sides are proportional and their corresponding
angles are equal. In biology, analogous
means corresponding in function but not
evolved from corresponding organs, as the
wings of a bee and those of a bird.
&mile; metaphor. A simile is a direct comparison
of things, proclaiming itself as such by as or
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like, often introduced for its own sake and
usually elaborated to display many resemblances
in its comparison:
Falstaff frets like gummed velvet
As when the potent rod
Of Amram’s son in Egypt’s evil day
Wav’d round the Coast, up call’d a pitchy
cloud
Of Locusts, warping on the Eastern Wind,
That o’er the Realm of impious Pharaoh hung
Like Night, and darken’d all the Land of Nile:
So numberless were those bad Angels seen
Hovering on wing under the Cope of Hell
‘Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding Fires;
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance-
With a glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
A metaphor is an implied comparison, expressed
often in a single word, introduced
usually in order to make a meaning clearer.
It almost always confines itself to the one
principal resemblance of the comparison it
establishes:
. . . but I tell you, my lord fool, out of this
nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety
The hounds of Spring are on Winter’s traces
The wind came down from heaven
And smoked in the fields
In every metaphor there is latent a simile. Every
metaphor could be expanded into a simile and
almost every simile could be compressed into a
metaphor.
simple sentence. A sentence which contains only
one clause is called a simple sentence. That is,
a sentence is grammatically simple if it is impossible
to lift a second sentence out of it. The
idea expressed in a simple sentence is not necessarily
simple. For example, all the king’s horses
and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty
Dumpty together again is a simple sentence.
See sentences.
simple verb form. The expression “the simple
form of the verb” is used in this dictionary to
mean the uninflected form, such as talk. In
English this form is the infinitive, the imperative,
the present subjunctive, and the present
indicative except for the third person singular
(which normally has an additional s, as in he
talks); the verb to be is the only exception.
Here the simple form be is the infinitive, the
imperative, and the present subjunctive, but not
the present indicative, which has the three forms
am, is, are.
These various forms do not make a reasonable
group and the expression “the simple form
of the verb” is sometimes extremely awkward.
In most cases it is used to avoid the word
infinitive. More people Seem to have heard of