A Dictionary of Cont..

een standard English. Twice is the only acceptable
form.
twice over. Some authorities consider twice over
as redundant, insisting that twice conveys the
identical meaning. But twice over has acquired
the suggestion that the repetition is immediate;
whereas that which happens twice simply happens
again, any time after the first time. Browning’s
wise thrush that sings each song twice
over,/ Lest you should think he never could recapture/
The first jine careless rapture hardly
expects the listener to stand around all day waiting
for the demonstration of his virtuosity.
twinkling of an eye, in the. In addition to its present
meaning of scintillating, twinkling used to
mean nictitation or the act of winking. Philemon
Holland, in his translation of Pliny (1601),
speaks of an ague accompanied “with head-ache
and much twinkling or inordinate palpitation of
the eyes.” The 1609 Douay Version of Isaiah
3: 16 speaks of the daughters of Sion walking
with “stretched out neck. . . and twinglings of
eyes.” The King James Version has “wanton
eyes” and the Revised Standard Version has
“glancing wantonly with their eyes.” But, except
for its lack of dignity, the informal “batting
their eyes” wouid have been better.
At any rate, this meaning of twinkling is obsolete
and the phrase in the twinkling of an eye is
now a clichC.
twins. See pair of twins.
twist around one’s little finger. To say of one
who seems to have complete domination lover
another that he can twist him around his Little
jinger is to employ a hackneyed expression.
tycoon is the transliteration into English of a
Chinese term meaning “great prince.” The term
was employed in Japan, from 1603 to 1867, as a
title to describe the shogun of Japan to foreigners.
Shogun was a Japanese term, originating in
the eighth century, describing the commander in
chief in their wars against the Ainu. In later
Japanese history tycoon was applied to a member
of a quasi-dynasty, holding the real power
though parallel to the imperial dynasty, which
was theoretically and ceremonially supreme.
In the twentieth century, largely due to its use
in the Lute publications, tycoon has become an
American term (meant to be gay and informal) to
describe a businessman having great wealth and
525
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power, an industrial magnate (One tycoon on
Robinson Street had paved the thoroughfare in
front of his house with blocks of marble. There
was something indecent about this new pose. It
was a little too much like the tycoon who spends
the first part of his life sucking and crushing and
the last part giving away dimes and Benjamin
Franklin’s advice).
type of. The singular form type of and the plural
form fypes of may each be followed by either a
singular or a plural noun. Bertrand Russell, for
example, speaks of a type of relation, u type of
relations, the types of relation, and the types of
relations. Type is always followed by a singular
verb, and types by a plural verb, regardless of
the form of the noun used. In this respect type of
does not follow the pattern of kind of and sort
of.
In the United States type is sometimes used
immediately before a noun, in the sense of type
of, as in this type car, that type person. This
construction does not appear in written English
but is too widespread in speech to be called anything
but standard. See nouns as adjectives.
typesetter; compositor. Typesetter is an exclusively
American term to describe one who sets or
composes type. The American alternative term,
less common than typesetter, is compositor,
which is the term used in England.
typhoon. See cyclone.
typical. See average.
typist is one who operates a typewriter. In England
the word typist also carries the older sense
of one who uses type, a printer, a compositor.
typographic; typographical. These adjectives are
synonyms meaning pertaining to typography or
printing. Typographical is more common (The
proofreader marked all of the typographical
errors). In common use they are often substituted
for stenographic or typewriting (Whenever
he had been away from his typewriter for a few
days he noticed that he made an unusual number
of typographical errors when he began to type
again).
tyrannic; tyrannical. Tyrannic is rarely used and
tyrannical is generally preferred as the adjective
meaning arbitrary or despotic, despotically cruel
or harsh, severely oppressive (He liked to blame
most of the faults and misfortunes of his life on
a tyrannical father).
ugly as sin. Though sin is repulsive to the vir- is to employ a badly worn metaphor. The figure
tuous, she is highly attractive to the wicked. is drawn from Hans Christian Andersen’s story
But aside from any such argument, ugly ILS sin of the duck that hatched a swan’s egg among her
is a clichC. own and regarded the cygnet, which eventually
ugly duckling. To refer to an unattractive or became a beautiful swan, with dislike because it
seemingly stupid child that turns out to be a was so ugly. The application is a natural one
handsome or talented adult as an ugly duckling but it has been overdone.