Bryson•s Dictionary for Writers and Editors

Walloon / weasel � 357
Walloon. A French-speaking Belgian, but Wallonia for the region.
Wal-Mart. Discount stores group. The company’s full name is Wal-
Mart Stores Inc.
Walpurgis Night (or Walpurgisnacht). The night of April 30, when
witches were once thought to gather.
Walton, Izaak. (Not Isaac.) (1593–1683) English biographer and naturalist.
Wampanoag. Native American group, part of the Algonquin
people.
Warszawa. The Polish spelling of Warsaw.
Wassermann test. Blood test for syphilis, named after German bacteriologist
August von Wassermann (1866–1925).
wasteland is one word, but the poem by T. S. Eliot is “The Waste
Land.”
wastrel. Good-for-nothing person.
“Water, water, everywhere,/“Nor any drop to drink” are the lines from the
Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem “The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner.”
Waterston, Sam. (Not -son.) (1940–) American actor.
Watteau, Jean-Antoine. (1684–1721) French painter.
Watusi. African people.
Waukegan, Illinois.
Waugh, Evelyn. (1903–1966) English novelist.
waver, waiver. The first means to hesitate; the second is the relinquishment
of a claim.
Waverley Station, Edinburgh, Scotland.
wavy. Not -ey.
way, shape, or form. Choose one.
WCTU. Women’s Christian Temperance Union.
Wealth of Nations, The, by Adam Smith; formally it is entitled Inquiry
into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776).
weasel.