The New Fowler's Modern English Usage, Revised Edition

prolific I pronouncedly 628
nutrition to severely handicapped newborn
babies and people in irreversible
vegetative states. It is contrasted with
the term pnxhoice, applied particularly
to those who support a woman's right
to choose to have an abortion. A prochoice
Catholic is an oxymoron, declared a
San Diego bishop in 1989. Others saw
the matter in less clear-cut terms: e.g.
the oversimplified and cosmetized banners of
pro-life and pnxhoice—C. Grobstein in Bull.
Amer. Acad. Arts & Sri., May 1990. Both
terms came into common use in the
1970s, joining some slightly earlier
terms of a similar kind, e.g. antx-abort\on\
pro-abortion, right-to-lifelright-to-die. The debates
continue.
prolific. 1 The adj. is in common use,
but there is no consensus about the
choice of a corresponding noun. The possibilities
are prolificacy (first recorded, according
to the OED, in 1796), prolificalness
(i860), prolificity (1725), and prolificness
(1698). Perhaps the first and the last are
the least uncomfortable, but substitutes
such as fertility, fruitfulness, and productiveness
are usually better solutions to
the problem.
2 Prolific is properly applied to someone
or something that produces (offspring,
literary works, paintings, etc.) in
great abundance. It is less safely applied
to what is produced, as in His works, which
are prolific, include many which have been
translated into English (read (very) numerous).
prologue. Another example of a word
showing a 20c. change of preference in
the length of the stem vowel. The OED
(1909) gave /'prolog/ as its first choice.
Now all UK dictionaries give only
/'praulDg/. The word is often spelt prolog
in AmE. Whether written as prologuize or
prologize, the (rare) corresponding verb
('to write or speak a prologue') retains
its hard /g/ and its (long) diphthongal
sound in the first syllable.
promenade. Pronounce /-aid/, not /-eid/.
In AmE, /-eid/ is the dominant pronunciation.
Promethean. Stressed on the second
syllable: /pra'mi:0ian/. See also HERCU­
LEAN.
prominence (first recorded, according
to the OED, in 1598) has virtually driven
out its rival prominency (1645)- See -CE,
-CY.
promiscuous. Its minor 19c. colloquial
use to mean 'carelessly irregular, casual,
random' (e.g. I walked in ... just to say
goodmornin', and went, in a promiscuous
manner, up-stairs, and into the back room—
Dickens, 1837) is being forced out of the
language by its dominant sense '(of a
person) having frequent and diverse
sexual relationships, esp. transient ones'.
promise (verb). In the sense 'assure,
assert confidently' (i.e. not expressing a
future undertaking, etc.), promise is used
only in the spoken language, and only
then in the phr. I promise you. Examples:
Why that's nothing more than a trick of the
candlelight, Rosanna. I promise you, there's
no blood on the crucifix—Islands (NZ), 1985;
They were some bozo individuals, I promise
you—New Yorker, 1986; 'Hey, you're making
that up.' 'No, it's true, I promise you.'—M. du
Plessis, 1989 (SAfr.); (Hannah) You mean
the game books go back to Thomasina's time?
(Valentine) Oh yes. Further ... really. I promise
you. I promise you—T. Stoppard,
1993. The use is recorded in the OED with
15-19C. examples.
promisor. Thus spelt in legal language,
but -er in ordinary use.
promissory. So spelt, not -isory. The
stress falls on the first syllable.
prone. In the sense 'disposed or liable,
esp. to a bad action, condition, etc. (is
prone to bite his nails)' (COD, 1990), prone
is possibly being ousted by any of the
following adjectives: apt, inclined, liable,
likely. The OED provides abundant historical
evidence, however, from the 14c. onward
for expressions such as prone to
lechery, prone to idolatry, prone to meditation,
(with a to-infinitive) prone to worship false
gods, prone to err, prone to receive the faith,
none of which sounds unnatural. And
the 20c. has produced a crop of formations
of the type accident-prone, violenceprone,
drought-prone, etc. So the word may
not after all be heading for extinction
in the sense and constructions given
above. Cf. SUPINE.
pronounceable. Thus spelt. See -ABLE,
-IBLE 2.
pronouncedly has four syllables. See
-EDLY.