Some English words are often used in ways that are contentious among writers on usage and prescriptive commentators. The contentious usages are especially common in spoken English, and academic linguists point out that they are accepted by many listeners. While in some circles the usages below may make the speaker sound uneducated or illiterate, in other circles the more standard or more traditional usage may make the speaker sound stilted or pretentious.
For a list of disputes more complicated than the usage of a single word or phrase, see English usage controversies.
Abbrev. | Dictionary | Further details |
---|---|---|
AHD4 | The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language | 4th Edition |
AHD5 | The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language | 5th Edition, 2013, online |
CHAMBERS | Chambers 21st Century Dictionary | 2006 |
COD11 | Concise Oxford English Dictionary | 11th Edition |
COED | Compact Oxford English Dictionary | Lexico |
ENCARTA | Encarta World English Dictionary | online |
FOWLER | The New Fowler's Modern English Usage | Revised 3rd Edition (1998) |
MAU | Garner's Modern American Usage | 3rd Edition (2009) |
M-W | Merriam-Webster | online |
OED | Oxford English Dictionary | online |
RH | Random House Unabridged Dictionary | 2006; on Dictionary.com |
Those who insist that unique cannot be modified by such adverbs as more, most, and very are clearly wrong: our evidence shows that it can be and frequently is modified by such adverbs. [129]
The identity of the longest word in English depends on the definition of a word and of length.
A split infinitive is a grammatical construction in which an adverb or adverbial phrase separates the "to" and "infinitive" constituents of what was traditionally called the "full infinitive", but is more commonly known in modern linguistics as the to-infinitive. In the history of English language aesthetics, the split infinitive was often deprecated, despite its prevalence in colloquial speech. The opening sequence of the Star Trek television series contains a well-known example, "to boldly go where no man has gone before", wherein the adverb boldly was said to split the full infinitive, to go. Multiple words may split a to-infinitive, such as: "The population is expected to more than double in the next ten years."
Pussy is a term used as a noun, an adjective, and—in rare instances—a verb in the English language. It has several meanings, as slang, as euphemism, and as vulgarity. Most commonly, it is used as a noun with the meaning "cat", "coward", or "weakling". In slang usage, it can mean "vulva or vagina" and less commonly, as a form of synecdoche, meaning "sexual intercourse with a woman". Because of its multiple senses including both innocent and vulgar connotations, pussy is often the subject of double entendre.
Webster's Dictionary is any of the English language dictionaries edited in the early 19th century by Noah Webster (1758–1843), an American lexicographer, as well as numerous related or unrelated dictionaries that have adopted the Webster's name in his honor. "Webster's" has since become a genericized trademark in the United States for English dictionaries, and is widely used in dictionary titles.
This is a list of American words not widely used in the United Kingdom. In Canada and Australia, some of the American terms listed are widespread; however, in some cases, another usage is preferred.
Pumpernickel is a typically dense, slightly sweet rye bread traditionally made with sourdough starter and coarsely ground rye. It is sometimes made with a combination of rye flour and whole rye grains.
A syllabus or specification is a document that communicates information about an academic course or class and defines expectations and responsibilities. It is generally an overview or summary of the curriculum. A syllabus may be set out by an examination board or prepared by the tutor or instructor who teaches or controls the course. The word is also used more generally for an abstract or programme of knowledge, and is best known in this sense as referring to two catalogues published by the Catholic Church in 1864 and 1907 condemning certain doctrinal positions.
Despite the various English dialects spoken from country to country and within different regions of the same country, there are only slight regional variations in English orthography, the two most notable variations being British and American spelling. Many of the differences between American and British/English in the Commonwealth of Nations date back to a time before spelling standards were developed. For instance, some spellings seen as "American" today were once commonly used in Britain, and some spellings seen as "British" were once commonly used in the United States.
In morphology and lexicography, a lemma is the canonical form, dictionary form, or citation form of a set of word forms. In English, for example, break, breaks, broke, broken and breaking are forms of the same lexeme, with break as the lemma by which they are indexed. Lexeme, in this context, refers to the set of all the inflected or alternating forms in the paradigm of a single word, and lemma refers to the particular form that is chosen by convention to represent the lexeme. Lemmas have special significance in highly inflected languages such as Arabic, Turkish, and Russian. The process of determining the lemma for a given lexeme is called lemmatisation. The lemma can be viewed as the chief of the principal parts, although lemmatisation is at least partly arbitrary.
Oxford spelling is a spelling standard, named after its use by the Oxford University Press, that prescribes the use of British spelling in combination with the suffix -ize in words like realize and organization instead of -ise endings.
Irregardless is a word sometimes used in place of regardless or irrespective, which has caused controversy since the early twentieth century, though the word appeared in print as early as 1795.
Hopefully is an adverb which means "in a hopeful manner" or, when used as a disjunct, "it is hoped". Its use as a disjunct has prompted controversy among advocates of linguistic purism or linguistic prescription.
A pistol is a type of handgun, characterised by a barrel with an integral chamber. The word "pistol" derives from the Middle French pistolet, meaning a small gun or knife, and first appeared in the English language c. 1570 when early handguns were produced in Europe. In colloquial usage, the word "pistol" is often used as a generic term to describe any type of handgun, inclusive of revolvers and the pocket-sized derringers.
This list comprises widespread modern beliefs about English language usage that are documented by a reliable source to be misconceptions.
Comprised of is an expression in English that means "composed of". This is thought by language purists to be improper because to "comprise" can already mean to "be composed of". By that definition, "comprised of" would be ungrammatical as it implies "composed of of". However, another widely accepted definition of to "comprise" is to "compose", hence the commonly accepted meaning of "comprised of" as "composed of".
However, amidst is more popular in British English or literary, formal writing. Amid tends to be the preferred choice for American English.
Among is more common in American English, while amongst used almost exclusively in British English.
begging the question does not mean "evading the issue" or "inviting the obvious questions," as some mistakenly believe. The proper meaning of begging the question is "basing a conclusion on an assumption that is as much in need of proof or demonstration as the conclusion itself." The formal name for this logical fallacy is petitio principii. Following are two classic examples: "Reasonable men are those who think and reason intelligently." Patterson v. Nutter, 7 A. 273, 275 (Me. 1886). (This statement begs the question, "What does it mean to think and reason intelligently?")/ "Life begins at conception! [Fn.: 'Conception is defined as the beginning of life.']" Davis v. Davis, unreported opinion (Cir. Tenn. Eq. 1989). (The "proof"—or the definition—is circular.)
Sorting out exactly what beg the question means, however, is not always easy—especially in constructions such as beg the question of whether and beg the question of how, where the door is opened to more than one question. [...] But we can easily substitute evade the question or even raise the question, and the sentence will be perfectly clear, even though it violates the traditional usage rule.
Use only when listing all the component parts of a whole, e.g., "Benelux comprises Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg." Do not write "comprised of." If listing only some components use "include," e.g., "The European Union includes Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg."
The widely accepted rule is to use farther when being literal and discussing a physical distance, as in "He went farther down the road." Further is used when discussing a more symbolic distance or to discuss a degree or extent, as in "I wanted to discuss it further, but we didn't have time."