by Bill Bryson
complete. Partridge includes complete in his list of false comparatives—that is, words that do not admit of a comparison, such as ultimate and eternal (one thing cannot be “more ultimate” or “more eternal” than another). Technically, he is right, and you should take care not to modify complete needlessly. But there are occasions when it would be pedantic to carry the stricture too far. As the Morrises note, there can be no real objection to “This is the most complete study to date of that period.” Use it, but use it judiciously.
complete and unabridged. Though blazoned across the packaging of countless audio books, the phrase is palpably redundant. If a work is unabridged, it must be complete, and vice versa. Choose one or the other.
compos mentis. (Lat.) “Of sound mind.”
comprehensible.
compressor.
comprise. “Beneath Sequoia is the Bechtel Group, a holding company comprised of three main operating arms…”(New York Times). Not quite. It is composed of three main operating arms, not comprised of them. Comprised of is a common expression, but it is always wrong. Comprise means to contain. The whole comprises the parts and not vice versa. A house may comprise seven rooms, but seven rooms do not comprise a house—and still less is a house comprised of seven rooms. The example above should be either “a holding company comprising three main operating arms” or “composed of three main operating arms.”
conceived. “Last week, 25 years after it was first conceived…” (Time). Delete “first.” Something can be conceived only once. Similarly with “initially conceived” and “originally conceived.”
Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam.
condone. The word does not mean to approve or endorse, senses that are often attached to it. It means to pardon, forgive, overlook. You can condone an action without supporting it.
Coney Island, New York.
confectionery. Not -ary.
confidant (masc.)/confidante (fem.) for a person entrusted with private information.
Congo, confusingly, now applies to two neighboring nations in Africa. The larger of the two, which was called Zaire until 1997, now styles itself the Democratic Republic of the Congo; its capital is Kinshasa. Bordering it to the west is the much smaller Republic of the Congo; capital Brazzaville.
Congonhas–São Paulo International Airport, São Paulo, Brazil.
Congressional Medal of Honor, for the highest U.S. military honor, is not strictly correct. It is awarded by Congress, but its correct title is simply the Medal of Honor.
Congreve, William. (1670–1729) English playwright.
Connacht. Province of Ireland comprising five counties: Galway, Leitrim, Mayo, Roscommon, and Sligo.
Connelly, Marc. (1890–1980) American playwright. Full name: Marcus Cook Connelly.
Connemara. Galway, Ireland.
connoisseur.
ConocoPhillips. Oil company.
Conseco Fieldhouse, Indianapolis; home of the Indiana Pacers basketball team.
consensus. “General consensus” is a tautology. Any consensus must be general. Equally to be avoided is “consensus of opinion.” Above all, note that consensus is spelled with a middle s, like consent. It has nothing to do with census.
consols. Consolidated annuities, a stock market term.
Constance/Bodensee. (Ger.) Lake bounded by Switzerland, Germany, and Austria; the principal lakeside city is Constance in English and French, but Konstanz in German.
Constantinople. Former name of Istanbul.
consummate. As a term of praise, the word is much too freely used. A consummate actor is not merely a very good one but someone who is so good as to be unrivaled or nearly so. It should be reserved to describe only the very best.
contagious, infectious. Diseases spread by contact are contagious. Those spread by air and water are infectious. Used figuratively (“contagious laughter,” “infectious enthusiasm”), either is fine.
contemptible, contemptuous. Contemptible means deserving contempt. Contemptuous means bestowing it. A contemptible offer may receive a contemptuous response.
conterminous, coterminous. Sharing a common boundary.
continual, continuous. Although the distinction is not widely observed, or indeed always necessary, there is a useful difference between the two words. Continual refers to things that happen repeatedly but not constantly. Continuous indicates an uninterrupted sequence. However, few readers will be aware of this distinction, and the writer who requires absolute clarity will generally be better advised to use incessant or uninterrupted for continuous and intermittent for continual.
contrary, converse, opposite, reverse. Contrary describes something that contradicts a proposition. Converse applies when the elements of a proposition are reversed. Opposite is something that is diametrically opposed to a proposition. Reverse can describe any of these. For the statement “I love you,” the opposite is “I hate you” the converse is “You love me” the contrary would be anything that contradicted it: “I do not love you,” “I have no feelings at all for you,” “I like you moderately.” The reverse could embrace all of these meanings.
conurbation does not describe any urban area, but rather a place where two or more sizable communities have sprawled together, such as Pasadena–Los Angeles–Long Beach in California or Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Haarlem-Utrecht in the Netherlands.
convener. Not -or. One who convenes.
convince, persuade. The words are not quite the same. You convince someone that he should believe, but persuade him to act. It is possible to persuade a person to do something without convincing him of the correctness or necessity of doing it. A separate distinction is that persuade may be followed by an infinitive, but convince may not. Thus the following is wrong: “The Soviet Union evidently is not able to convince Cairo to accept a rapid cease-fire.” Make it either “persuade Cairo to accept” or “convince Cairo that it should accept.”
coolly.
Cooper, James Fenimore. (1789–1851) American writer.
Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, New York.
Copland, Aaron. (1900–1990) American composer.
Copley, John Singleton. (1737–1815) American painter.
Coppola, Francis Ford. (1939–) American film director.
Corbière, (Édouard Joachim) Tristan. (1845–1875) French poet.
Corbusier, Le. Pseudonym of Charles Édouard Jeanneret (1887–1965), Swiss architect and city planner.
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
cord, chord. A cord is a length of rope or similar material of twisted strands; a chord is a group of musical notes. You speak with your vocal cords.
corduroy.
CORE. Congress of (not for) Race Equality, U.S. civil rights organization.
Coriolis effect. The tendency of winds of deflect to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere as a consequence of Earth’s spin.
Corneille, Pierre. (1606–1684) French playwright.
Cornouaille, Côte de, France.
Coronado, Francisco Vásquez de. (c. 1500–1554) Spanish explorer of the New World.
Corot, Camille. (1796–1875) French painter.
Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Correggio, Antonio Allegri da. (1494–1534) Italian painter.
corrigible. Capable of being corrected or improved.
corruptible.
cortege. (No accents.)
Cortes. Legislative assembly of Spain, but see next entry.
Cortés/Cortéz, Hernando/Hernan. (1485–1547) Spanish conqueror of Aztecs.
coruscate. Not -rr-. Glittering, dazzling, as in “coruscating wit.”
Così fan tutte. Opera by Mozart (1790).
cos lettuce.
Costa-Gavras, (Henri) Constantin. (1933–) Film director.
Côte d’Azur. The French Riviera.
coterminous, conterminous. Sharing a common boundary.
cotoneaster. Type of shrub.
Cotten, Joseph. (1905–19
94) Film actor.
Cottian Alps. Section of Alps between France and Italy.
couldn’t of. “‘Couldn’t of got it without you, Pops,’ Parker said…” (New Yorker). As a shortened form of “couldn’t have,” couldn’t of does unquestionably avoid the clumsy double contraction couldn’t’ve, a form not often seen in print since J. D. Salinger stopped writing. However, I would submit that that does not make it satisfactory. Using the preposition of as a surrogate for ’ve seems to me simply to be swapping an ungainly form for an illiterate one. If couldn’t’ve is too painful to use, I would suggest simply writing couldn’t have and allowing the reader’s imagination to supply the appropriate inflection.
coulee. Ravine.
council, counsel. The first is a deliberative body (city council); the second applies to contexts involving the giving of advice or guidance (marriage counselor).
Countess Cathleen, The. Not Kath-. A play by William Butler Yeats (1899).
country, nation. It is perhaps a little fussy to insist too strenuously on the distinction, but strictly country refers to the geographical characteristics of a place and nation to the political and social ones. Thus the United States is one of the richest nations but largest countries.
coup de grâce. A decisive blow.
coup d’état, pl. coups d’état.
coup de théâtre. Dramatic turn of events.
couple. The idea, fiercely adhered to in some quarters, that couple must always be singular is both pointless and unsupported by wider authority. When a couple are thought of as separate individuals (“The couple were apprehended in different counties” “The couple have been living apart since 1999”), the plural is always to be preferred.
couple of. The second word is required in sentences like “Can I borrow a couple of dollars?” To drop the “of” is a common but nonetheless grating illiteracy in any but the most casual writing.
courgette. French and British name for the vegetable known to Americans as zucchini.
Courmayeur, Italy; Alpine resort.
court-martial. (Hyphen.) The plural is courts-martial (though some authorities now accept court-martials).
Court of Session. The supreme court of Scotland.
Court of St. James’s is the place to which ambassadors are posted in Great Britain. Note the apostrophe and second s.
Cousy, Bob. (1928–) American basketball player.
Covarrubias, Miguel. (1902–1957) Mexican artist.
Cowper, William. (1731–1800) English poet; pronounced cooper.
Cozzens, James Gould. (1903–1978) American author.
crackerjack, Cracker Jack. The first is an old slang term for something good; the second is the popular candied popcorn.
crass means stupid and grossly ignorant to the point of insensitivity and not merely coarse or tasteless. A thing must be pretty bad to be crass.
Cratchit, Bob. Character in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.
Crécy, Battle of (1346).
Creekmur, Lou. (1927–) American football player.
crème brûlée. Literally “burnt cream” custard dessert.
creole, pidgin. A pidgin is a simplified and rudimentary language that springs up when two or more cultures come in contact. If that contact is prolonged and generations are born for whom the pidgin is their first tongue, the language will usually evolve into a more formalized creole (from the French for “indigenous”). Most languages that are commonly referred to as pidgins are in fact creoles.
crêpes suzette. (Not cap.) When crepes is used on its own in most circumstances the circumflex may be dropped.
crescendo is not a climax or conclusion. It is the movement toward a conclusion. Properly, it should be used only to describe a gradual increase in volume or intensity.
Cressida, Troilus and. Play by Shakespeare (c. 1601). The poem by Geoffrey Chaucer is “Troylus and Criseyde.” In Boccaccio’s Il Filostrato the spelling is Criseida.
crevasse, crevice. A crevasse is a deep fissure, particularly in thin ice; a crevice is a narrow and generally shallow fissure.
Crèvecoeur, J. Hector St. John. (1735–1813) Born Michel Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur; French-born American essayist.
cri de coeur. (Fr.) An impassioned plea.
crime passionnel. (Fr.) A crime motivated by sexual jealousy.
crisis, pl. crises.
criterion, pl. criteria.
Croat, Croatian. The first describes the people of Croatia; the second is a more general adjective (“a Croatian city”).
Croce, Benedetto. (1866–1952) Italian writer, philosopher, and politician.
crocheted, crocheting.
Crockett, Davy. (1786–1836) American frontiersman and politician.
Croesus. Last king of Lydia (reigned 560–546 BC); byword for wealth.
Cro-Magnon. Early form of Homo sapiens, named after a hill in France.
Crome Yellow for the 1921 novel by Aldous Huxley. Not Chrome.
Cronos. In Greek mythology, a Titan dethroned by his son Zeus; equivalent to the Roman god Saturn. Sometimes spelled Kronos (esp. in UK).
crony.
Crowley, Aleister. (1875–1947) English writer and diabolist.
Crufts Dog show. (UK)
Cruikshank, George. (1792–1878) English cartoonist and illustrator.
cruzeiro. Principal unit of currency of Brazil; from 1986 to 1990 it was the cruzado.
Cry, the Beloved Country. Note comma. Novel by Alan Paton (1948).
CSA Czech Airlines. National airline of Czech Republic.
Csonka, Larry. (1946–) American football player.
C-Span, C-Span 2. Cable television networks; the initials are short for Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network.
Cucamonga, California, became Rancho Cucamonga in 1977 when it amalgamated with the neighboring communities of Alta Loma and Etiwanda.
Cuchulain. Warrior hero of Irish mythology; pronounced koohoo'-lin.
cuckoo.
cueing.
cul-de-sac. (Hyphens.) Pl. cul-de-sacs.
Culloden, Battle of.
Culpeper, Virginia.
Culzean Castle, Scotland; pronounced kuh-lane'.
cumbrous. Not -erous.
cuneiform. Wedge-shaped writing.
cupful, pl. cupfuls.
cupola.
Curaçao. Island in the Netherlands Antilles. The liqueur produced there is spelled the same but lowercased.
curettage. A surgical scraping procedure using a curette.
curette. A surgical instrument.
Curie, Marie. (1867–1934) Polish-born French physicist. Joint winner with her husband, Pierre Curie, and Henri Becquerel, of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903, she was also awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1911. Born Marie Sklodowska.
curlicue.
Curragh Incident. A near-mutiny in 1914 by British officers stationed at the Curragh, near Dublin, who refused to fire on civilians. A curragh is also a type of small boat.
current, currently. When there is a need to contrast the present with the past, current has its place, but all too often it is merely an idle occupier of space, as in these two examples from a single article in Time magazine: “The Government currently owns 740 million acres, or 32.7% of the land in the U.S…. Property in the area is currently fetching $125 to $225 per acre.” The notion of currency is implicit in both statements, as it is in most other sentences in which current and currently appear. Currently should be deleted from both. (The second sentence could be further improved by changing “is fetching” to “fetches.”)
curriculum vitae. Another name for a résumé.
Curtiss aircraft. Named after Glenn Curtiss (1878–1930), American inventor and aviator.
Curtiz, Michael. (1888–1962) Hungarian-born American film director; born Mihály Kertész.
curtsy. Not -ey.
curvaceous. Not -ious.
cut back is generally tautological, as here: “Losses in the metal stamping division have forced the group to cut bac
k production.” More succinct to say “have forced the group to cut production.”
cyanosis. Turning blue from lack of oxygen.
cyclamen.
cymbal. Percussion instrument.
Cynewulf. (fl. eighth c.) Anglo-Saxon poet.
Cyrillic alphabet. Alphabet widely used for Slavonic languages. It is named after St. Cyril, who is popularly credited with its invention. Some of the characters vary slightly between Russian, Bulgarian, and other languages.
cystic fibrosis. Genetic disease.
cystitis.
Dd
Dachau. Town near Munich, site of infamous concentration camp in World War II.
Dadullah, Mullah. (1966–2007) Afghan Taliban commander; sometimes called Dadullah Akhund.
Daedalus. In Greek mythology, father of Icarus and builder of the Labyrinth; but the character in the works of James Joyce is Stephen Dedalus and the pseudonym used by the Italian author Umberto Eco is also Dedalus.
daguerreotype. Early photographic process, named after Louis Daguerre (1789–1851), French painter and photographer.
Dahomey. Former name of Benin.
Dai-Ichi Kangyo. Japanese bank.
Dáil Éireann. Lower house of Irish parliament; pronounced doyle air-ran.
DaimlerChrysler AG. German car manufacturer, separated in 2007 into Daimler AG and Chrysler Holding.
daiquiri.
Dalai Lama. The high priest of Tibet.
d’Alembert, Jean Le Rond. (1717–1783) French mathematician.
Damariscotta. Town and lake in Maine.
Danaë. Mother of Perseus in Greek mythology.
danke schön. (Ger.) “Thank you very much.”
d’Annunzio, Gabriele. (1863–1938) Italian writer and adventurer.
danse macabre. Not dance. From the French for “a dance of death.” The plural is danses macabres.