Common_Errors_in_English_usage

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http://www.bartleby.com/64/C001/050.html. Jack Lynch has some sensible comments on this issue: http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/p.html#prepend. The saying attributed to Winston Churchill rejecting the rule against ending a sentence with a preposition must be among the most frequently mutated witticisms ever. I have received many notes from correspondents claiming to know what the "original saying" was, but none of them cites an authoritative source. The alt.english.usage FAQ states that the story originated with an anecdote in Sir Ernest Gowers' Plain Words (1948). Supposedly an editor had clumsily rearranged one of Churchill's sentences to avoid ending it in a preposition, and the Prime Minister, very proud of his style, scribbled this note in reply: "This is the sort of English up with which I will not put." The American Heritage Book of English Usage agrees. The FAQ goes on to say that the Oxford Companion to the English Language (no edition cited) states that the original was "This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put." To me this sounds more likely, and eagerness to avoid the offensive word "bloody" would help to explain the proliferation of variations. A quick search of the Internet turned up an astonishing number. In this era of copyandpaste it's truly unusual to find such rich variety. The narrative context varies too: sometimes the person rebuked by Churchill is a correspondent, a speech editor, a bureaucrat, or an audience member at a speech and sometimes it is a man, sometimes a woman, and sometimes even a young student. Sometimes Churchill writes a note, sometimes he scribbles the note on the corrected manuscript, and often he is said to have spoken the rebuke aloud. The text concerned was variously a book manuscript, a speech, an article, or a government document. Here is just a sample of the variations circulating on the Net: 1. That is a rule up with which I will not put. 2. This is the kind of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put. 3. This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put. 4. Not ending a sentence with a preposition is a bit of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put. 5. That is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put 6. This is insubordination, up with which I will not put! 7. This is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put. 8. This is the sort of thing up with which I will not put. 9. Madame, that is a rule up with which I shall not put. One poor soul, unfamiliar with the word "arrant," came up with: "That is the sort of errant criticism up with which I will not put." Then there are those who get it so scrambled it comes out backward: 1. Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put. 2. Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which we will not put. 3.From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put. 4. Please
understand that ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I shall not put. I checked the indexes of a dozen Churchill biographies, but none of them had an entry for "prepositions." Ben Zimmer has presented evidence on the alt.usage.english list that this story was not originally attributed to Churchill at all, but to an anonymous official in an article in "The Strand" magazine. Since Churchill often contributed to "The Strand," Zimmer argues, it would certainly have identified him if he had been the official in question. It is not clear how the anecdote came to be attributed to Churchill by Gowers, but it seems to have circulated independently earlier. Beginning a sentence with a conjunction It offends those who wish to confine English usage in a logical straitjacket that writers often begin sentences with "and" or "but." True, one should be aware that many such sentences would be improved by becoming clauses in compound sentences; but there are many effective and traditional uses for beginning sentences thus. One example is the reply to a previous assertion in a dialogue: "But, my dear Watson, the criminal obviously wore expensive boots or he would not have taken such pains to scrape them clean." Make it a rule to consider whether your conjunction would repose more naturally within the previous sentence or would lose in useful emphasis by being demoted from its position at the head of a new sentence. Using "between" for only two, "among" for more The "tween" in "between" is clearly linked to the number two; but, as the Oxford English Dictionary notes, "In all senses, between has, from its earliest appearance, been extended to more than two." We're talking about AngloSaxon hereearly. Pedants have labored to enforce "among" when there are three or more objects under discussion, but largely in vain. Even the pickiest speaker does not naturally say, "A treaty has been negotiated among England, France, and Germany." Over vs. more than. Some people insist that "over" cannot be used to signify "more than," as in "Over a thousand batontwirlers marched in the parade." "Over," they insist, always refers to something physically higher: say, the blimp hovering over the parade route. This absurd distinction ignores the role metaphor plays in language. If I write 1 on the blackboard and 10 beside it, 10 is still the "higher" number. "Over" has been used in the sense of "more than" for over a thousand years. Feeling bad "I feel bad" is standard English, as in "This tshirt smells bad" (not "badly"). "I feel badly" is an incorrect hypercorrection by people who think they know better than the masses. People who are happy can correctly say they feel good, but if they say they feel well, we know
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Common Errors in English by Paul Br
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But you made a mistake yourself! We
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ABSORBTION/ABSORPTION Although it's
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ACCURATE/PRECISE In ordinary usage,
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ADVOCATE FOR/ADVOCATE When they are
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as believers do not need to be able
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captivity. There is no such word as
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(notice, no "N") and "auteur" (in f
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with each other. Your greatgrandm
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"This pizza is really expensive
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ARTIC/ARCTIC Although some brand na
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To "assure" a person of something i
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AVENGE/REVENGE When you try to get
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concealing. It seems more likely th
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long this had been the custom and w
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the last word to "pail." The area o
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past tense of "bear": "My brother's
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"Breech" however, refers to rear en
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Side note: Britons laughed themselv
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weather, so we shouldn't be surpris
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not cast in stone." They may be inf
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lounge), resulting in the mispronun
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You cite the author in an endnote;
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trouble with commas if they deal wi
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CONCENSUS/CONSENSUS You might suppo
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COME WITH In some American dialects
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More on COULD CARE LESS" People who
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There are several words with Latin
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it just a goofy typo? DAMP SQUID/DA
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with short deadlines but not da
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degree" and "doctor of philosophy d
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substituting "do" for "due" (owing)
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established, if unusual. However, t
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applied to plans and activities, no
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Latin phrase exempli gratia. When y
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"burned/burnt" and "kneeled/knelt."
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You can pronounce the last two syll
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Originally these two words were syn
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An epigraph is a brief quotation us
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But when something happens only occ
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Something grows exponentially when
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Unfortunately, Star Trek has confus
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FIRSTABLE/FIRST OF ALL The odd word
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fortunate chance event. It is nonst
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FORBIDDING/FOREBODING/FORMIDABLE "F
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popularly as "Frankenstein's monste
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FUSHIA/FUCHSIA The flowers known as
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When "God" is the name of a god, as
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There are just two syllables in "gr
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safer using "disability" than "hand
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Heal is what you do when you get be
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A simple test is to substitute "us"
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HONE IN/HOME IN You home in on a ta
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(theoretically the width of a lette
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are expressing their own ignorance.
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of vague ways, often clumsily. Here
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"infamy." Humorists have for a coup
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INTERCESSION/INTERSESSION In theolo
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down to earth. Similarly in standar
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In electronics, a jack is a female
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JUDGEMENT/JUDGMENT In Great Britain
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might lead people to think of relax
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the standard spelling for those lit
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or "It feels like spring." In expre
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are less common now. LOGON/VISIT Yo
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spell his title with a double "L."
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MEDIOCRE Although some dictionaries
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AB "minus" 231. In the model name "
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"motherload" is a mistake which is
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people want to vomit, and it temper
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hilariously mistaken "nip it in the
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is singular, is the subject. If you
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OLDTIMER'S DISEASE/ALZHEIMER'S DI
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lose a shirt. Strictly speaking, "I
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ORIENTATE/ORIENT Although it is sta
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Some people derive the noun "paraly
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in the apartment." PAST TIME/PASTIM
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to "you peoples" indicated illitera
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PHANTOM/FATHOM Brianna exclaims con
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PLAYS A FACTOR/PLAYS A ROLE Some pe
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US from Hawaii. POPULACE/POPULOUS T
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part of a team. Don't write "preM
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law or doctrine: "The workers fough
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PUNDINT/PUNDIT "Pundit" is one of t
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quoted words and phrases within quo
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wrecked. If things are wrecked, the
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come, she's ravenous. REACTIONARY/R
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REDICULOUS/RIDICULOUS You may ridic
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the quality of being truly religiou
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Page 244 and 245: end justifies the meaning enervate
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