A Dictionary of Cont..

The word way is sometimes used without the
article a to mean “far off ,” as in way down upon
the Swanee river. This is a Scottish idiom. It is
acceptable in the United States but not in England,
where away is required, as in away down
the river, a hundred miles or more.
The sutlix -ways (but not the sufTix -way) may
be added to a noun to show direction, as in edgeways,
endways, sideways. Both forms, -way and
-ways, are used in adverbs of manner, as in nnyway
and anyways. Some grammarians hold that
words expressing manner should not have the s
ending, but should be anyway, someway, and so
on. This restriction is not observed in literary
English, but the forms without s are generally
preferred in the United States today.
wny; weigh. Under way is the correct expression
to mean in motion, or moving along, as a ship
that has weighed anchor and is moving on her
course (We got under way at midnight and by
sunrise were in position to bombard the coastal
defenses). Weigh, when applied to an anchor,
has the highly specialized meaning of to lift or
raise. Many people use under weigh, being apparently
of the impression that it has something
to do with weighing anchor. But while a ship
cannot be under way until she has weighed
anchor, she may weigh anchor and yet not get
under way. The term is no less incorrect when
used figuratively (as in Now that he had a
project under weigh his spirits rose).
we. The word I does not actually have a plural.
We means “I and others” rather than “more
than one I.” Who the others are is sometimes
vague. When necessary we can make it specific
by adding words, as in we the people or we here
present.
We is sometimes used to mean a single individual.
One form of this is called the modest we.
Here a person uses a plural form in order not to
call attention to himself as an individual. This
device is sometimes silly, but it is very old and
is found even in classical Latin.
There is also a royal we. At one period in
history the Roman empire was governed by two
or three men who ruled together and issued joint
proclamations, using a plural form. Later, smaller
rulers used the same form because they were
speaking for themselves and a body of advisors.
In this way the plural became associated with
the highest authority and was eventually used by
single, independent rulers as a sign of royalty.
In English the old form ourselj, and not the
modern plural form ourselves, is used in referring
to a royal we, as in we will ourselj take time
to hear your cause.
The editorial we is often a true plural. That is,
a writer often uses we to mean himself and his
associates or himself and his readers. When he
does, he will also use the plural form ourselves,
as in we ourselves believe. When the form ourself
is used here, as in we oztrselj believe, the
editorial we slides into the royal we and becomes
pompous.
Finally, there is a we that is only used in
speaking to very young children or adults who
weasel
are sick. Here we actually means you, as in how
are we feeling today? and can’t we operz our
mouth a little wider? This might be called the
patronizing we, or the humiliating we.
For when to use we rather than us, see snbjective
pronouns.
weak verbs. See strong verbs.
weaker sex. To refer to women as the weaker sex
is to employ a tedious -and questionablebanality.
weakness. See fault.
weal. See wale.
wealthy. See rich.
wear. The past tense is wore. The participle is
worn. A participle wore, as in had wore, is heard
but is standard only as a term in sailing, where
it means a particular way of bringing a ship
about.
Wear may be followed by an adjective describing
what wears, as in it wore thin. It may
also be followed by an adverb describing the
wearing, as in it wore well.
wear and tear, especially when used as a mere
intensive for wear, is hackneyed.
wear one’s heart upon one’s sleeve. As a term
for making an ingenuous display of one’s feelings
and hence, one’s affections being known, to
be vulnerable to slights and scorns, to wear one’s
heart upon one’s sleeve is a clich& The expression
is taken from one of Iago’s early speeches
in Othello when, boasting to the gullible Roderigo,
he says that he is not what for his own
purposes he seems to be, For when my outward
action doth demonstrate/ The native act arzd
figure of my heart/ In compliment extern, ‘tis
not long after/ Bzct I will wear my heart upon
my sleeve/ For daws to peck at.
wearied; weary; wearisome. Weary is now simply
a synonym for tired. It is slightly bookish. Wearied
still retains a little of the older idea of being
exhausted with exertion, worn out of strength or
patience. Wearisome has now almost exclusively
the sense of “tedious.” See also tired.
weasel. Figurative uses of weasel are apparent11
an American phenomenon. A weasel is a cunning,
sneaking fellow who models his behavior
on the sinuous animal. Weasel words mean intentionally
ambiguous statements. The image is
not, as commonly assumed, of words that can
glide, as a weasel glides, out of their seeming
meaning. It is a better figure than that. It is
based on the weasel’s habit of sucking eggs. And
a weasel word is one which, by equivocal qualification,
sucks all the real meaning out of the
word to which the hearer or reader has attached
significance. The phrase seems to have been
coined by Stewart Chaplin in an article in
Century Magazine in 1900 and popularized by
Theodore Roosevelt in a speech delivered at St.
Louis in 1916. Roosevelt said, “One of our defects
as a nation is a tendency to use what have
been called ‘weasel words.’ When a weasel sucks
an egg, the meat is sucked out of the egg; and
if you use a ‘weasel word’ after another there is
nothing left of the other.”
Weasel is used colloquially as a verb, mean-