Saturday, February 27, 2010

English Usage - bated breath - English editing.

It is a common mistake to write baited breath instead of bated breath. The first written example of the original phrase is in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, and bate is a shortened version of abate.
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Friday, February 26, 2010

English Usage - basis - English editing.

It is very common for basis to be included in phrases describing how often something happens: on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, and so forth. Unless the word is really required in a technical context, e.g. inspection of the facility is carried out on the basis of a weekly rota, ordinary time adverbs such as weekly or daily, or a phrase such as every week can easily and more economically be used instead: I do it weekly.
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Thursday, February 25, 2010

English Usage - barely - English editing.

Barely, like scarcely, should normally be followed by when, not than, to introduce a subsequent clause; he had barely reached the door when he collapsed.
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Wednesday, February 24, 2010

English Usage - barbecue - English editing.

The spelling barbeque with -que at the end comes from combining the standard spelling barbecue with the abbreviation Bar-B-Q, and from spelling as you speak. Though listed as an alternative in some dictionaries, barbeque is the best avoided.
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Tuesday, February 23, 2010

English Usage - Bantu - English editing.

The word Bantu became a strongly offensive term under the old apartheid regime in South Africa, especially when used to refer to a single individual. In standard current use in South Africa the term black or African is used as a collective or non-specific term for African peoples. The term Bantu has, however, continued to be accepted as a neutral ‘scientific’ term outside South Africa to refer to the group of languages and their speakers collectively.
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Thursday, February 18, 2010

English Usage - balk, baulk - English proofreading.

However this verb is spelled, it is usually pronounced so that you can hear the letter I (/bawlk/). Some older British speakers may pronounce it without the I. The spelling without u is now the more common one in all varieties of English.
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Wednesday, February 17, 2010

English Usage - bacterium - English editing.

Bacteria is the plural form, from Latin, of bacterium. Like any other plural it should be used with the plural form of the verb: the bacteria causing salmonella are killed by thorough cooking, not the bacteria causing salmonella is killed by through cooking. However, general unfamiliarity with the form bacterium means that bacteria is often mistakenly treated as a singular form, as in the second example above.
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Tuesday, February 16, 2010

English Usage - backward - English editing.

1.In their adverbial uses backward and backwards are interchangeable in meaning: the car rolled slowly backward and the car rolled slowly backwards. Backward is mainly used in US English, but even there backwards is more common, as the Oxford English Corpus reveals. As an adjective, on the other hand, the standard form is backward rather than backwards: uses such as a backwards glance would generally be considered incorrect.
2.To describe a person with learning difficulties as backward is nowadays offensive.
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Monday, February 15, 2010

English Usage - awhile - English editing.

The adverb awhile as in we paused awhile should be written as one word. The noun phrase, meaning ‘a period of time’, should be written as two words, especially when preceded by a preposition: Margaret rested for a while; we’ll be there in a while.
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Saturday, February 13, 2010

English Usage - author - English editing.

Some people object to the verb author as in she has authored several books on wildlife. It is well established, though, especially in North America.
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Friday, February 12, 2010

English Usage - Australoid - English editing.

The term Australoid belongs to a set of terms introduced by 19th century anthropologist attempting to categorize human races. Such terms are associated with outdated notions of racial types, and so are now potentially offensive and best avoided.
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Thursday, February 11, 2010

English Usage - aural - English editing.

The word aural (‘relating to the ears or the sense of hearing’) and oral (‘spoken rather than written’) are both pronounced as /aw-ruhl/ in Received Pronunciation, which is sometimes a source of confusion. However, although a distinctive pronunciation for aural has been proposed, namely / ow-ruhl/, it is very little used.
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Wednesday, February 10, 2010

English Usage - assurance - English editing.

In life insurance, a technical distinction is made between assurance and insurance. Assurance is used of policies under whose terms a payment is guaranteed, either after a fixed term or on the death of the insured person; Insurance is the general term, and is used in particular of policies under whose terms a payment would be made only in certain circumstances (e.g. accident or death within a limited period).
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Tuesday, February 9, 2010

English Usage - Asiatic.

The standard and accepted term when referring to individual people is Asian rather than Asiatic, which can be offensive. However, Asiatic is standard in scientific and technical use, for example in biological and anthropological classification.
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Monday, February 8, 2010

English Usage - as far as - English editing.

Using as far as to specify something, as in the phrase, as far as the money, you can forget it, is well established in American usage and is a useful shorthand for the older as far as . . . is/are concerned. Nevertheless, many more conservative British speakers are likely to object to it, so it is best avoided with a British audience.
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Saturday, February 6, 2010

English Usage - as well as.

A verb following as well as should be singular if the noun or pronoun that precedes as well as is singular: their singing as well as acting is exemplary. This is because the addition (here, the phrase as well as acting) is regarded as an aside and not as part of the main sentence. This is in contrast to what would happen if as well as were replaced by and.
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Friday, February 5, 2010

English Usage - as - English editing.

For a discussion of whether it is correct to say:
he’s not as shy as I rather than he’s not as shy as me
or
I live in the same street as she rather than I live in the same street as her.
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Wednesday, February 3, 2010

English Usage - artefact - English Editing.

Artefact, ‘a product of human art or workmanship’ comes from the Latin arte factum, ‘made by art’. The spelling with the letter e is much the more common in British English. In American English, artifact, corresponding to pronunciation rather than etymology, is the preferred form, but would be looked on unfavourably in most of the circles in Britain in which such a word would be used.
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Tuesday, February 2, 2010

English Usage - appraise, apprise.

The verb appraise is frequently confused with apprise. Appraise means ‘to assess’, as in a need to appraise existing techniques, or ‘to value’, as in have the gold watch appraised by an expert. Apprise means ‘to inform’ and is often used in the construction apprise someone of something, as in psychiatrists were apprised of his condition. People often incorrectly use appraise rather than apprise, as in once appraised of the real facts, there was only one person who showed any opposition.
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Monday, February 1, 2010

English Usage - anyone.

The one-word form anyone is not the same as the two-word form any one, and the two forms cannot be used interchangeably. Anyone means ‘any person or people’, as in anyone who wants to can attend. Any one means ‘any single (person or thing)’, as in no more than twelve new members are admitted in any one year.
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