A Dictionary of Cont..

authoritative 48
had thought they alone could do that to
attempt to call attention to it would burden
the language. See also man of letters.
authoritative; authoritarian. That which is
nuthoritative has the sanction or weight of
authority; or it has the air of authority; it is
peremptory, dictatorial. Authoritarian is favoring
the principle of subjection to authority,
opposing the principle of individual :freedom.
Or it can be one who so favors or opposes.
auto; automobile. As a noun auto is less heard
now than it used to be. It has been almost
completely replaced by car. One hears it in
adjectival uses (the auto industry) but this is
almost shop-talk and in even semi-formal contexts
automobile is used.
autograph. See signature.
automaton. The plural is automatons or automatn.
autumn; autumnal. In the United States autumn
is formal or poetic for the third season of the
year. In England it is the usual word. Of the
two adjectival forms, autumn, in the general
usage, is more informal (autumn fruits, autumn
flowers, aufumn days). Autumnal is more
formal and poetic, is applied more to figurative
extensions, and seems, possibly because of its
poetic associations, to suggest the more sombre
aspects of autumn (The tumult of thy mighty
harmonies/ Will take from both a deep,
autumnal tone).
auxiliary verbs. English has two simple tenses.
One form, such as he walks, shows that we
are talking about the present; and the other,
such as he walked, shows that we are talking
about what is no longer present. (See present
tense and past tense.) All other distinctions
are expressed in verbal phrases. When it suits
us we can also turn these simple tenses into
phrases by using a form of the verb do, as in
he does walk and he did walk.
The last element in a verbal phrase is an
infinitive or participia1 form of a meaningful
verb. The preceding elements have no independent
meaning but add refinements to the
total statement. These preceding elements are
called auxiliaries. The first auxiliary always
shows tense and person, as in he has walked,
they are walking. Any intervening elements are
infinitive or participial forms of an auxiliary
verb, as in he will hnve been walking. Grammatically,
the verb forms following an auxiliary
are exactly like the object of a transitive
verb or the complement of the verb to be.
(See participles and infinitives.)
The principal auxiliary verbs are: be, have,
do, will and would, shall and should, can and
could, may and might, must. The verbs need
and dare are also listed as auxiliaries by some
grammarians.
The word ought and the word used function
like auxiliary verbs, as in he ought to know
and he used to know, but the fact that they
require the preposition to after them puts them
grammatically in a different class. That is,
technically ought and used are independent
verbs and a following verb, such as know, is
really the object of the preposition to. This is
not an important difference. Some grammarians
treat these words as auxiliaries and some do
not. Similarly the verb let and the verb get
in some of its uses serve the purpose of auxiliaries,
as in let’s start soon and I’ve got to
finish this first. But they are not always classified
as such. (See the individual words.)
avenge; revenge; vengeance; vengeful. Vengeance
is retributive punishment (Lord God, to whom
vengeance belongeth) and the verb that goes
with it is to avenge. We avenge the wrong
done another and the suggestion of disinterestedness
and wild justice that this conveys has
given the word an exaIted connotation. We
revenge ourselves for a wrong done to us and
here noun and verb are the same-revenge.
But since in exacting revenge men make themselves
judge and executioner, thus violating a
fundamental principle of justice, and since we
are inclined to exaggerate the wrongs done to
us and to feel that no penalty is too severe
for those who have offended us, revenge has
connotations of violence and cruelty.
The words are often confused because the
feelings and the situations are often confused.
Men frequently seek revenge under the guise
of vengeance and champion another whose
wrongs are similar to their own.
Vengeful has very little of the idea of seeking
justice in it. It has come to mean vindictive,
persistent in seeking revenge.
There is a fine use of the word revenge in
King Lear (Act III, Scene 5) when the haughty
and ferocious Duke of Cornwall, hearing that
the old Earl of Gloucester has befriended the
sick and distracted Lear, says: I will have my
revenge ere I depart his house. Now no wrong
has been done Cornwall. He has nothing whatever
to avenge or revenge. He has indicated
that Lear is to suffer the consequences of his
obstinacy and the vaIue of the word is its
revelation of the fact that he chooses to regard
an act of kindness towards one who is in his
displeasure as a deliberate wrong against him,
something to be revenged!
avenue; street. An nvenue was originally the
approach to a country seat, bordered with
trees planted at regular intervals, and in
England it is still felt that a street is not an
avenue unless it is tree-lined.
In America the term is used to describe a
major thoroughfare, with or without trees and
increasingly without. In many American cities
avenues and streets run at right angles to each
other; if the streets run east and west, the
avenues will run north and south. This has
exasperated visiting philologists, but the untutored
natives find the practice a convenience
and are likely to persist in it.
avenue, explore every. Since an avenue is, strictly,
a broad, straight, tree-lined approach to a
country house and, by extension, a main
thoroughfare of a city, it is hard to conceive
of anything less suitable for exploration. Yet
avenues are “explored” every day and some