The New Fowler's Modern English Usage, Revised Edition

shrivel | sice, size, syce 712
shrunken; her shrunken cheeks. The contrast
between the customary forms of the pa.
pple and ppl adj. is neatly brought out
by these examples from adjacent pages
of the 27 Feb. 1990 issue of the Guardian:
For the entire race the margin between them
has stretched and shrunk', Among the
shrunken white community which has steadied
at around 100,000 ... there are few
conspicuous signs of... racist attitudes.
Shrivel. The inflected forms are
shrivelled, shrivelling in BrE but frequently
shriveled, shriveling in AmE. See -LL-, -L-.
shy. The adj. makes shyer, shyest, shyly,
shyness, shyish. The verb makes shier (shying
horse). See DRIER; VERBS IN -IE, etc.
Siamese twins. This seems a suitable
term for pairs of words which are traditionally
linked by and or or and often
have the same meaning as each unit in
the pair (or a slightly strengthened one),
or are related in other formulaic ways.
Examples: (a) (used mostly for emphasis)
airs and graces, alas and alack, bag and
baggage, betwixt and between, bits and
piecesjbobs, fit and well, leaps and bounds,
lo and behold, rant and rave, in any shape
or form. These are in their nature tautological
but are not on that account made
unidiomatic. (b) Others are fixedcollocations,
either because one of the components
is used in an archaic sense and
would not now be understood by itself,
or because the combination has acquired
a meaning different from that of either
component alone. Examples: at someone's
beck and call, chop and change, fair and
square, fast and furious, hue and cry, kith
and kin, with all one's might and main, odds
because sic provides them with a neat
and compendious form of criticism. Examples:
I probably have a different sense of
and ends, part and parcel, go to rack and
ruin, no rhyme or reason, spick and span, (c) morality to [sic] most people—Alan Clark as
Others again consist not of synonyms reported in the Chicago Tribune, 2 June
but of associated ideas. Examples: MI 1994; Could she take the Tatler, Vanity Fair
and coo, bow and scrape, bright-eyed and and Health magazines that were laying (sic)
bushy-tailed, flotsam and jetsam, huff and around athome?—V. Grove, 1994 (reporting
puff, hum and haw, a lick and a promise, a Desert Island Discs interview with the
loud and clear, nuts and bolts, spit and polish, actress Britt Ekland); his [an inventor's]
thick and fast, ways and means. Or consist
of opposites or alternatives: cut and thrust,
fast and loose, hit and miss, hither and
thither, by hook or by crook, through thick
and thin, to and fro.
There are various other types of 'Siamese
twins' (or collocations), but the
examples cited above will perhaps suffice
to show that such linked phrases are a
significant feature of the language. See
COLLOCATION.
sibilants are FRICATIVES 'produced by
forcing the air stream through a grooveshaped
opening between the tongue and
the roof of the mouth, e.g. [s] in sin; [z]
in zoo; [J] in shop; [3] in pleasure' (Hartmann
and Stork, 1972).
sibling, an ancient word for a relative
(a sense obsolete by the end of the 15c),
was reintroduced by anthropologists in
the first decade of the 20c. with the
meaning 'each of two or more children
having one or both parents in common'.
It is for the most part restricted to scientific
writing, but is occasionally brought
into figurative or transferred use, e.g.
The line dividing the Kevin Street Sinn Fein
organisation and its terrorist sibling, the Provisional
IRA, is almost invisible—Daily Tél
1972.
sibyl(line). The spelling (not sybi-)
should be noted. Sibyl 'a prophetess' is
to be distinguished from the modern
Christian name Sybil.
sic, Latin for 'so, thus', is inserted
(within brackets) after a quoted word
or phrase to confirm its accuracy as a
quotation, or occasionally after the writer's
own word to emphasize it as giving
his deliberate meaning. It amounts to
Tes, he did say that', or 'Yes, I do mean
that, in spite of your natural doubts'.
It should be used only when doubt is
natural; but reviewers and controversialists
are tempted to pretend that it is,
crudely written notice declaring that it 'dose
[sic] the work of a press that would cost
£10,000'—Spectator, 1994.
sice, size, syce. For the six on dice,
sice is recommended (not size); for the
Indian groom, syce is recommended (not
sice); size, so spelt, is a gelatinous solution
used in glazing paper, etc.