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Contents
Preface vii
Overview of Contents and How to Access Them x
A to Z Entries 1–592
Appendix I International Phonetic Alphabet Symbols for
English Sounds 593
Appendix II Geological Eras 594
Appendix III Perpetual Calendar 1901–2008 595
Appendix IV International System of Units (SI Units) 596
Appendix V Interconversion Tables for Metric and
Imperial Measures 597
Appendix VI Selected Proofreading Marks 598
Appendix VII Formats and Styles for Letters, Memos and
E-mail 600
Appendix VIII Layout for Envelopes 602
Appendix IX Currencies of the World 603
Bibliography 604
v
Preface
The Cambridge Guide to English Usage is written for English-users in the
twenty-first century. It takes a fresh look at thousands of questions of style and
usage, embracing issues that are time-honored yet still current, as well as those
newly arising as the language continues to evolve. Some of these come with
electronic communication and online documentation, but there are numerous
others among the more than 4000 headwords in the book.
At the threshold of the third millennium, English is more diverse than ever in
all hemispheres. Research into “new Englishes” has flourished, supported by
journals such as English World-Wide, World Englishes and English Today.Atthe
same time, the quest for a single, international form for written communication
becomes more pressing, among those aiming at a global readership. This book is
designed to support both global and local communicators. It identifies
regionalized elements of usage, grammar and style, with systematic attention to
American and British English, and reference to Canadian, Australian and New
Zealand English as well. It allows writers to choose styles and usage appropriate
to their readership, according to how local or large it is. The local options help to
establish and affirm regional identity within, say, North America or Great
Britian. But communicating beyond those regions calls for reappraisal of the
options, putting a premium on those with the widest distribution worldwide,
ideally region-free. The Cambridge Guide to English Usage identifies
“international English selections” wherever they can be distilled out of the
alternatives available, and implements them on its own pages. It empowers
readers (as writers, editors, teachers, students) to choose and develop their own
style, for their particular purposes.
Many kinds of resource have been brought to bear on the style and usage
questions raised. The Cambridge Guide to English Usage is the first of its kind to
make regular use of large databases (corpora) of computerized texts as primary
sources of current English. Numerous examples of British usage have come from
the 100 million word British National Corpus (see BNC); and of American usage
from a subset of 140 million words of American English from the Cambridge
International Corpus (see CCAE). The corpora embody various kinds of written
discourse as well as transcriptions of spoken discourse – enough to show patterns
of divergence between the two. Negative attitudes to particular idioms or usage
often turn on the fact that they are more familiar to the ear than the eye, and the
constructions of formal writing are privileged thereby. Corpus data allow us to
look more neutrally at the distributions of words and constructions, to view the
range of styles across which they operate. On this basis we can see what is really
“standard,” i.e. usable in many kinds of discourse, as opposed to the formal or
informal. References to “formal” and “informal” within the book presuppose
that they lie above and below the broad band of everyday written communication,
and together form a three-point stylistic scale.
vii
Preface
The relative acceptability of a given usage can also be gauged by means of
population surveys. This involves the use of questionnaires on doubtful or
disputed usage in spelling, punctuation, the use of capital letters and certain
points of grammar. A series of six questionnaires called the “Langscape survey”
was published in English Today (1998–2001), with the support of the editor, Dr.
Tom McArthur. Hundreds of questionnaires from around the world were
returned by mail and fax, and through the Style Council website at Macquarie
University, where they were analyzed in terms of regional and sociolinguistic
trends. Results from Langscape are quoted in some of the book’s entries for their
insights into people’s willingness to embrace particular spellings or usages. They
are a litmus test of future directions.
Attitudes to usage often reflect what’s said in the relevant language authorities,
most notably the Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edition, 1989) for British
English, and Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (3rd edition, 1961,
reprinted 1986) for American English. These unabridged dictionaries remain
monuments to English language scholarship, to which we are all indebted.
Though their latest editions are not so recent, their positions tend to be
maintained in younger, abridged dictionaries, except where there are good
reasons to diverge, e.g. on neologisms or previously unrecorded usage. The New
Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate (2000) have
been used to update the verdicts of the unabridged dictionaries, where relevant;
and the Canadian Oxford Dictionary (1998) and the Macquarie Dictionary (3rd
edition 1997) are invoked for regional comparisons. Comparative reference is also
made to regional usage books, including Fowler’s Modern English Usage (1926;
and later editions by Gowers, 1965, and Burchfield, 1996); to the excellent
Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage (1989), Garner’s Modern American Usage
(1999), and Fee and McAlpine’s Canadian English Usage (1997). These secondary
sources contribute to the diversity of views on changing usage, and articulate
local reactions to worldwide innovations.
Issues of editorial style are also treated comparatively, to allow readers to
position themselves relative to American or British style, as articulated in the
Chicago Manual of Style (15th edition 2003) and the Oxford Guide to Style (2002).
Reference is also made to Editing Canadian English (2nd edition 2000) by the
Editors’ Association of Canada, to the Australian government Style Manual (6th
edition 2002), and to the New Zealand style manual Write, Edit, Print (1997). Those
resident in non-English-speaking countries can forge a synthesis of regional
styles appropriate to their readerships.
Grammatical cruxes of usage are discussed with reference to modern
grammars such as the Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (1985),
the Introduction to Functional Grammar (1985; 1994) and especially the Longman
Grammar of Spoken and Written English (1999). The latter is explicitly
corpus-based, using data from the Longman corpus of over 40 million words in
six registers, to complement or extend the data derived from the BNC and CCAE,
mentioned above. The Cambridge Guide to English Usage aims to bridge the gap
between traditional and modern grammar, and uses terminology from both (e.g.
mood and modality) as entry points to discussing grammatical questions.
Elements of discourse analysis are also discussed, for example information focus
and sentence topic, as aids to writing and editing.
viii
Preface
Apart from its large range of primary and secondary sources, The Cambridge
Guide to English Usage draws on the findings of numerous linguistic researchers,
named within the text and in the bibliography. Their contributions to our
understanding of the intricacies of the English language are legion. Many are
corpus linguists associated with the ICAME group (International Computer
Archive of Modern English), who have progressively developed the uses of
corpora for linguistic description with each new generation of corpus. Other
European and American linguists who have contributed greatly to this book are
the distinguished consultants named on p. ii, whose careful reading of the MS has
enhanced its relevance to different parts of the English-speaking world.
The Cambridge Guide to English Usage also owes much to undated and
undatable discussions with colleagues and friends at Macquarie University, in
the Linguistics department and associated with the Macquarie Dictionary.To
Professor Arthur Delbridge, the foundation Professor of Linguistics and
Editor-in-chief of the Dictionary who connected me with both, I owe a particular
debt of gratitude. Others who provided invaluable support for the publication of
the prototype Cambridge Australian English Style Guide (1995) were Dr. Robin
Derricourt (formerly of Cambridge University Press, Australia), and Hon. Justice
Michael Kirby (of the High Court of Australia). In the preparatory stages of The
Cambridge Guide to English Usage, I was fortunate to be a visiting professor at
the Englisches Seminar of the University of Z ¨urich, which gave me access to their
excellent BNC search tools and experience of teaching at a European university.
Many thanks are due to those at Cambridge University Press (UK) who saw the
project through from first to last: Adrian du Plessis, Kevin Taylor and Dr Kate
Brett, and my copy-editor Leigh Mueller. Back home in Australia my warmest
thanks go to my family, to Fliss, Greg, and especially to John, for his unfailing
love and support.
Pam Peters
ix
Overview of Contents and How to Access Them
The alphabetical list in this book contains two kinds of entries: those which deal
with general topics of language, editing and writing, and those dealing with
particular words, word sets or parts of words. An overview of many general
entries is provided on the opposite page. The particular entries, focusing on
issues of usage, spelling and word form, are too numerous to be shown there, and
simply take their places in the alphabetical list. But for many questions, either
general or particular entries would lead you to the answer you’re seeking, and
the book offers multiple access paths via crossreferences.
Let’s say you are interested in where to put the full stop in relation to a final
bracket or parenthesis. Any of those terms (full stop, bracket, parenthesis) would
take you to the relevant discussion under brackets. In addition the general entry
on punctuation presents a list of all the entries dealing with individual
punctuation marks, for both words and sentences.
Questions of grammar are accessible through traditional terms such as noun
and verb, clause and phrase, and traditional labels such as dangling participle
or split infinitive . . . though the entries may lead you on to newer linguistic
topics such as information focus and modality. Aspects of writing and
argument (when is it OK to use I? what does it mean to beg the question?) are
discussed under their particular headings, but can also be tracked down through
more general ones such as impersonal writing and argument.
If your question is about current use of a word such as hopefully, or a pair
such as alternate and alternative,orgourmet and gourmand, the discussion
is to be found under those headwords. When it’s a question of spelling, e.g.
convener or convenor, the individual entry may answer it, and/or direct you on
to another (-er/-or) where a whole set with the same variable part is dealt with.
In the same way, the entry -ize/-ise discusses the alternative spellings of
countless verbs like recognise/recognize, although there are too many to enter
alphabetically. The key spelling entries are listed under spelling sections 2 and 3,
in case you’re unsure what heading to look under. Alternative plural forms can
be located via the entry on plurals.
As in the text above, the use of boldface means that the word is entered as a
headword, and it identifies all crossreferences at the end of entries. Within any
entry, further instances of the headword(s) are often boldfaced to draw attention
to strategic points about them. Words related to the headword(s) or derived from
them are set in italics, as are all examples.
♦
Abbreviations used in the body of the text are explained at their alphabetical
place.
x
Overview of Contents and How to Access Them
STYLE AND STRUCTURE OF WRITING
WORDS
EDITORIAL STYLE
GRAMMAR
E-mail
Inverted pyramid
Letter writing
Narrative
Reports
Summary
WRITING FORMS
Antonyms
Euphemisms
Folk etymology
Hyponyms
Synonyms
Collocations
Near-but-not-identical words
Reciprocal words
WORD MEANINGS &
SENSE RELATIONS
USAGE DISTINCTIONS
Argument
Beg the question
Coherence or cohesion
Deduction
Fallacies
Information focus
Introductions
Paragraphs
Topic sentences
ARGUMENT & STRUCTURE
OF DISCOURSE
Commercialese
Digital style
Impersonal style
Jargon
Journalese
Plain English
Technologese
SPECIAL STYLES
American English
Australian English
British English
Canadian English
International English
New Zealand English
South African English
Standard English
VARIETIES OF ENGLISH
Analogy
Aphorism
Figures of speech
Irony
Metaphors
Oxymoron
Personification
Symbols
Understatements
RHETORICAL DEVICES
Acronyms and initialisms
Affixes, prefixes, suffixes
Compounds
Past tense
Plurals
Proper names
Zero forms
Abbreviations
Audiovisual media
Bibliographies
Dating systems
Indexing
Lists
Prelims
Proofreading
Referencing
Titles
Agreement
Dangling participles
Double negatives
First person
Modality
Nonfinite clause
Restrictive clause
Split infinitive
Whom
Adjectives
Adverbs
Conjunctions
Determiners
Interjections
Nouns
Prepositions
Pronouns
Verbs
Ageist language
Disabled
Miscegenation
Nonsexist language
Racist language
Apostrophes
Brackets
Bullets
Colon
Comma
Dashes
Full stop/period
Hyphens
Question marks
Quotation marks
Semicolon
Accents
Capital letters
Dates
Headings
Indention
Italics
Numbers and
number style
FORMS OF WORDS
Alternative spellings: ae/e i/y -ize/-ise l/ll oe
-or/-our -re/-er yze/yse
Spelling rules: -c/-ck- ce/-ge -e -f >-v- -o
-y > -i-, doubling of final consonant, i before e
SPELLING
EDITORIAL TECHNIQUE
GRAMMATICAL ISSUES WORD CLASSES
INCLUSIVE
LANGUAGE
PUNCTUATION TYPOGRAPHY
Clichés
Emoticons
Foreign phrases
Four-letter words
Geographical names
Intensifiers
SPECIAL EXPRESSIONS
xi
A
@
This is a symbol in search of a name. English-speakers
call @ the “at sign,” which will do while it serves as
the universal symbol of an e-mail address. Its shape is
also used along with other emoticons to represent
expressions of the human face (see emoticons). But
its resemblance to animals emerges through ad hoc
names in other languages. In Danish, it’s seen as the
“elephant’s trunk,” and in Chinese as “little mouse.”
Russian has it as “little dog,” Swedish as “cat’s foot,”
and Dutch as “monkey’s tail.” The best consensus is
for “snail,” which provides a name for @ in French,
Italian, Hebrew and Korean.
♦
On quoting e-mail addresses, see under URL.
aoran
Which should it be?
a hotel or an hotel
a heroic effort or an heroic effort
a RAF training course or an RAF training
course
a $8 ticket or an $8 ticket
A single rule resolves all such queries: a is used before
words beginning with a consonant, and an before
those beginning with a vowel. This is
straightforwardly applied in a doctor, a receptionist
and an astronaut, an engineer. But note that the rule
depends on the sound not the spelling. We write a
union, a unique gift and a once-in-a-lifetime experience
because the words following the article actually begin
with a consonant sound (the “y” sound in the first two
cases, and the “w” sound in the third). The same
principle makes it an hour, an honor, and an honest
man. The word following the indefinite article begins
with a vowel sound.
When writing abbreviations, the choice between a
or an again depends on the pronunciation of the first
letter. So a US Marine and a Unesco project are quite
regular, as are an MP and an HB pencil.Any
abbreviation beginning with F, L, H, M, N, R, S or X
takes an, because of the way those letters are
pronounced. The effect is exploited in advertising for
a brand of beer, where the use of A (rather than AN)
shows how to pronounce the ambiguous brandname:
I CAN FEEL A XXXX COMING ON
AUSTRALIANS WOULDN’T GIVE A XXXX
FOR ANYTHING ELSE
Preceded by A, the brandname must be read as “four
ex” not as “exexexex.” It nudges readers away from the
unprintable or socially unacceptable interpretation of
the word, while no doubt capitalizing on it.
Similar principles hold for writing sums of money.
Pronounce them and they select a for a
£12 shirt and
an for an $80m. loan, taking the cue from the number
(which is said first) rather than the currency symbol
(which is written first).
Despite all that, certain words beginning with h are
made exceptions by some writers and speakers. They
would preface hotel and heroic with an rather than a,
despite pronouncing the h at the start of those words.
Other polysyllabic words beginning with h will be
given the same treatment, especially if their first
syllable is unstressed. In both American and British
English the words historic, historical and historian are
the most frequent of these exceptional cases, but the
tendency goes further in Britain, by the evidence of
matching databases (LOB and Brown corpora).
They show that British writers use an to preface
adjectives such as habitual, hereditary, heroic,
horrific, hypothetical, hysterical (and their adverbs)
as well as the noun hotel. There are far fewer
examples in the American data, and the only
distinctive case is herb, which is commonly
pronounced without h in the US (though not in the
UK or elsewhere). The King James bible (1611) records
the use of an with other monosyllabic words, as in an
host and an house, though they are supposed to go
with h-less pronunciations, formerly much more
common.
Over the centuries h has been an uncertain quantity
at the beginnings of words in many European
languages. Most words beginning with h lost it as they
passed from Latin into French and Italian. The Latin
word hora meaning “hour” became French heure
(pronounced “err,” with no h sound) and also the
Italian ora, without an h even in the spelling. English
retains an h in the spelling of hour but not in the
pronunciation. The process also shows up in the
contrasting pronunciations of heir (an early English
loan from French) and hereditary (a Renaissance
borrowing direct from Latin), which embody the same
Latin stem. Spelling pronunciation has revived the h
in
some French loanwords like heritage and historian
(those well used in English writing); while others such
as hour, heir, hono(u)r are h-less, in keeping with
French pronunciation. Classical loanwords (apart
from honorary, honorarium, honorific) have settled on
pronunciations with the h sounded; and they
complement the many basic Anglo-Saxon words such
as here, how, him and hair, home, honey in which h is
pronounced. (See further under h.)
Nowadays the silent h persists in only a handful of
French loanwords (heir, honest, hono(u)r, hour and
their derivatives), and these need to be preceded by
an.Theh of other loans like heroic, historical and
hypothesis may have been silent or varied in earlier
times, leaving uncertainty as to whether an was
required or not. But their pronunciation is no longer
variable and provides no phonetic justification for an.
Its use with them is a stylistic nicety, lending
historical nuances to discourse in which tradition
dies hard.
♦
For the grammar of a and an, see articles.
♦
For the presence/absence of a/an in (1) journalistic
introductions, see journalism and journalese; and
in (2) titles of books, periodicals, plays etc., see under
the.
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