by Bill Bryson
Granada, Grenada. The first is the historic city in Spain, the second the Caribbean island state; capital St. George’s. They are pronounced respectively gr-nah-d and gr-nay-d.
Grand Coulee Dam, Columbia River, Washington.
granddad, granddaughter. Note -dd-.
Grand Guignol. High drama, constructed around a sensational theme. The term comes from the Théâtre du Grand Guignol in Paris, where such plays were in vogue in the last years of the nineteenth century.
grandiloquence, not -eloquence, for inflated speech.
grand jury. In U.S. law, a jury of up to twenty-three people empowered to decide whether enough evidence exists for a case to proceed against an accused person.
Grand Ole Opry.
Grasmere, Cumbria, England; site of Dove Cottage, home of the poet William Wordsworth.
gratia Dei. (Lat.) “By God’s grace.”
grazie. (It.) Thank you.
Great American Ball Park. Cincinnati baseball stadium, home of the Reds. Note Ball Park is two words.
Greater London, Greater Paris, etc. Cap. Greater.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina and Tennessee.
Greco, El. (1541–1614) Cretan-born Spanish painter; real name Domenikos Theotokopoulos.
Greeley, Horace. (1811–1872) American politician and journalist, founder of the New York Tribune (1841). The expression “Go west, young man” is frequently attributed to him, probably wrongly.
Greene, Graham. (1904–1991) British writer.
Greene, Nathanael. (1742–1786) American Revolutionary War general.
Greenstreet, Sydney. (1879–1954) British character actor.
Gregorian calendar is the type now in use in most of the world; named for Pope Gregory XII.
Grenada. Small island state in the Caribbean, capital St. George’s. Not to be confused with the Spanish city of Granada.
grenadier.
grenadine (lowercase) for the fabric and flavoring, but Grenadines (cap.) for the Caribbean island chain.
Grendel. Monster in Beowulf.
Gresham’s Law is that “bad money drives out good” attributed to Sir Thomas Gresham (1519–1579), British financier.
Greuze, Jean-Baptiste. (1725–1805) French painter.
Grey, Lady Jane. (1537–1554) Queen of England for ten days in 1553.
Grey, Zane. (1875–1939) American author.
Grey Friars for the Franciscan monks, but Greyfriars College, Oxford University.
greyhound.
Greylock, Mount. Massachusetts mountain.
Grieg, Edvard. (1843–1907) Norwegian composer.
grievous. Not -ious.
griffin is the usual spelling for a creature with an eagle’s head and wings and a lion’s body, but most dictionaries also accept gryphon.
Griffith-Joyner, Florence. (1959–1998) American sprinter.
grille is the usual spelling for the front part of a car or other metal grating, though grill is also acceptable.
Grimm, Brothers. Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm (1785–1863) and Wilhelm Carl Grimm (1786–1859), German writers and philologists.
grisly, gristly, grizzly. Occasionally and variously confused. The first means horrifying or gruesome. The second applies to meat that is full of gristle. The third means gray, especially gray-haired, and is a cliché when applied to old men.
Grisons, Graubünden are respectively the French and German names for a single Swiss canton.
grosbeak. Species of finch.
groschen. Former Austrian coin.
gros rouge. (Fr.) Ordinary red table wine.
gross domestic product, gross national product. Gross domestic product is everything produced by a nation during a given period except earnings from overseas. Gross national product is everything produced by a nation during a given period including earnings from overseas. In most contexts, the reader is entitled to an explanation of the difference.
Grosse Pointe, Michigan.
Grosz, George. (1893–1959) German-born American artist.
Grósz, Karoly. (1930–1996) Prime minister of Hungary (1987–1988).
grotto, pl. grottoes.
Group of Eight, or G8. Leading industrial nations that meet regularly to discuss economic and trading issues. They are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Grudzielanek, Mark. (1970–) American baseball player.
grueling.
gruesome.
Gruner + Jahr. German magazine publisher, part of Bertelsmann. Note the use of a plus sign instead of an ampersand.
gruyère cheese. But the Swiss town from which it takes its name is Gruyères.
GT. Gran Turismo.
Guadalajara. Cities in Spain and Mexico.
Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands; site of ferocious fighting in World War II.
Guadalupe, Guadeloupe. The cluster of islands in the Caribbean, which together form an overseas department of France, is Guadeloupe. Most other geographical features bearing the name, including a river and range of mountains in the southwestern United States, and towns or cities in California, Spain, Peru, and the Azores, spell it Guadalupe.
Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of. 1848 treaty in which Mexico ceded to the United States what would become the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, Texas, and Utah.
Guangdong, Guangzhou. Guangdong is the Chinese province formerly known as Kwantung. Its capital is Guangzhou, formerly Canton.
Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, site of U.S. naval base.
Guaragigna. African language.
guarantee, guaranty. Guarantee is generally used for the verb (“I guarantee a positive result”) and guaranty for the noun (“The TV is still under guaranty”), but most dictionaries allow a wide overlap of definitions. If in doubt, use guarantee.
Guatemala. Central American country; capital Guatemala City.
Guayaquil, Santiago de. Largest city in Ecuador.
Guernica. Spanish town near Bilbao, ancient capital of the Basques; its bombing by German aircraft in April 1937 during the Spanish Civil War was the subject of a celebrated painting by Picasso. The town’s full, formal name is Guernica y Luno, but this is seldom used and not necessary in most contexts.
guerrilla.
guesstimate is much overused and generally unnecessary in serious writing; all estimates are fundamentally guesses.
gueuze. Type of Belgian beer.
Guggenheim. The New York museum is formally the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Guggenheim Fellowships are awarded by the John S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
Guiana, Guyana. Some scope for confusion here, particularly if using old references. The name Guiana has at various times been attached to three contiguous territories on the Atlantic coast of northern South America. The westernmost, British Guiana, is now called Guyana. The central territory, Dutch Guiana, is now Suriname. The easternmost, an overseas department of France, remains French Guiana.
guillemet, guillemot. The first is the word for the chevron-like quotation marks [ « » ] used primarily in French and Spanish; pronounced gee-yuh-meh'. Not to be confused with the type of seabird known as a guillemot, pronounced gill'-a-mot.
guillotine.
guinea. (Not cap.) In Britain, a sum equivalent to one pound and one shilling or a coin of that value; no longer used.
Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea. They are separate countries, all in West Africa. Guinea was formerly French Guinea. Guinea-Bissau was formerly Portuguese Guinea. Equatorial Guinea was formerly Spanish Guinea.
Guinevere. Wife of King Arthur.
Guinness stout, Sir Alec Guinness (1914–2000), Guinness Book of World Records, etc.
Guizhou. Chinese province; formerly spelled Kweichow.
Gujurat. Indian state; capital Gandhinagar.
gunny sack.
Gunpowder Plot. Conspiracy among a group of English Catholics to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605.
gunwale. Not -whale. The topmost edge of the side of a sh
ip; pronounced gunnel and sometimes so spelled.
Guomindang. Chinese Nationalist Party, founded by Sun Yat-sen; formerly spelled Kuomintang. The syllable-dang contains the notion of party, so refer only to the Guomindang, not Guomindang Party.
Gurkha. (Cap.) Nepalese soldier in the British army.
guten Abend, but gute Nacht. German for “good evening” and “good night.” (The daytime salutations are guten Morgen for “good morning” and guten Tag for “good day.”)
Gutenberg, Johann. (c. 1400–1468) Born Johannes Gensfleisch; German credited with the invention of movable type.
Gutiérrez, Luis Vicente. (1953–) Democratic politician, U.S. representative from Illinois.
gutta-percha. Hard, rubbery substance produced from the latex of various tropical trees.
guttural. Not -er-.
Guyana. Formerly British Guiana. South American country; capital Georgetown.
Gwynedd. County of Wales; pronounced gwin'-neth.
Gwynn, Nell. (1605–1687) Born Eleanor Gwynne; actress and mistress of Charles II of England.
gynecology.
gypsy, pl. gypsies.
Hh
ha. is the abbreviation of hectare.
Häagen-Dazs. Ice cream.
Haakon VII. (1872–1957) King of Norway (1905–1957).
Haarlem, Netherlands, but Harlem, New York.
Haas, Ernst. (1921–1986) Austrian-born photographer.
Haas-Lilienthal House, San Francisco.
habeas corpus. (Lat.) “Deliver the body” writ requiring that a person be brought before a court. Its purpose is to ensure that prisoners are not unlawfully detained.
habits. Take care not to write of someone’s “customary habits” or “usual habits” and the like. Habits are always customary and always usual. That is, of course, what makes them habitual.
habitué (masc.), habituée (fem.).
Habsburg. Use Hapsburg.
Hadid, Zaha. (1950–) Iraqi-born British architect.
Haeckel, Ernst. (1834–1919) German naturalist.
Hågatña. Capital of Guam; formerly Agana.
Haggai. (fl. sixth c. BC) Hebrew prophet; also the book of his prophecies in the Old Testament.
haggis. Scottish dish.
Hague, The. (Cap. T.) In Dutch, Den Haag or ’s Gravenhage; seat of government of the Netherlands (though Amsterdam is the capital).
hail, hale. Hale means robust and vigorous, or to drag or forcibly draw (as in “haled into court”), in which sense it is related to haul. Hail describes a greeting, a salute, or a downpour (as in “hailstorm” or “hail of bullets”). The expressions are hale and hearty and hail-fellow-well-met.
Haile Selassie. (1892–1975) Emperor of Ethiopia (1930–1936, 1941–1974).
Hainault. District of London.
hair’s breadth, hairbreadth. Either is fine.
hajj. A pilgrimage to Mecca; one who has made the pilgrimage is a hajji.
haka. Maori war dance widely associated with New Zealand rugby appearances.
Hakluyt, Richard. (c. 1553–1616) English geographer; pronounced hak'-loot.
halberd. A combined spear and battle-ax, carried by a halberdier.
Halberstam, David. (1934–2007) American author and journalist.
Haleakala National Park, Maui, Hawaii.
halibut.
halitosis.
hallelujah.
Hallé Orchestra, Manchester, England.
Halley, Edmond. (1655–1742) Not Edmund. English astronomer; he did not discover the comet named after him, but rather predicted its return.
Halloween, in preference to Hallowe’en.
halo, pl. halos.
Hamelin. City in Germany (in German, Hameln), source of the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
Hamlisch, Marvin. (1944–) American composer.
Hammarskjöld, Dag. (1905–1961) Swedish statesman, secretary-general of the United Nations (1953–1961), awarded Nobel Peace Prize posthumously (1961).
Hammerstein, Oscar, II. (1895–1960) American dramatist and lyric writer, known for his collaborations with Jerome Kern and Richard Rodgers.
Hammett, (Samuel) Dashiell. (1894–1961) American writer of detective fiction.
Hammonasset River, Connecticut.
Hammurabi. (fl. eighteenth c. BC) Babylonian king, codifier of laws.
Hamtramck. Suburb of Detroit; pronounced ham-tram-ick.
Handel, George Frideric. (1685–1759) German composer, born Georg Friedrich Händel.
handicraft, handiwork. Not handy-.
Haneda Airport, Tokyo.
hangar, not -er, for the place where aircraft are stored.
hanged, hung. People are hanged; objects are hung.
Hangzhou. Chinese city, capital of Zhejiang Province, formerly Hangchow.
Hannover. German spelling for Hanover.
Hansard, not Hansard’s, is the unofficial name of the record of proceedings in Britain’s parliament, equivalent to America’s Congressional Record. Formally, it is The Official Report of Parliamentary Debates, but that title is almost never used even on first reference.
Hansen’s disease. Alternate name for leprosy.
hansom cab.
Hantuchova, Daniela. (1983–) Czech tennis player.
Hanukkah is the most widely used spelling.
haole. Hawaiian term for a Caucasian person.
Hapsburg. Austrian imperial family; in German, Habsburg.
hara-kiri is the correct spelling for the ritual form of suicide involving disembowelment. In Japan, it is normally known as seppuku.
Harald V. (1937–) King of Norway (1991–).
harangue, tirade. Each is sometimes used when the other is intended. A tirade is always abusive and can be directed at one person or at several. A harangue, however, need not be vituperative, but may merely be prolonged and tedious. It does, however, require at least two listeners. One person cannot, properly speaking, harangue another.
Harare. Capital of Zimbabwe, formerly called Salisbury.
harass, harassment. Note one r, two s’s.
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. (No commas.) Former name of U.S. publisher now known as Harcourt Inc.
Hardie, Keir. (1856–1915) British socialist politician, one of the founders of the Labour Party.
hardiness.
Harding, Warren G(amaliel). (1865–1923) Twenty-ninth U.S. president (1921–1923).
harebrained, harelipped. Not hair-.
Hare Krishna. Religious movement.
Hargreaves, James. (c. 1720–1778) English inventor of the spinning jenny.
hark, but hearken.
Harland and Wolff. Northern Irish shipbuilding company.
HarperCollins Publishers. Formerly Harper & Row.
Harper’s Bazaar. Fashion magazine.
Harpers Ferry, West Virginia (no apos.).
Harper’s Magazine.
harridan. Bad-tempered old woman.
Harriman, Averell. (1891–1986) Politician and diplomat; full name William Averell Harriman.
Harrods. (No apos.) London department store.
Harte, Bret. (1836–1902) American writer and editor; born Francis Brett Harte.
hartebeest, not beast, for the African antelope.
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Atlanta.
harum-scarum.
Harvard Business School is formally the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, though in most contexts the formal title is unnecessary.
Harvard University, but Harvard College Observatory.
Harz Mountains, Germany. Not Hartz.
Hasid, pl. Hasidim; Hasidic (adj.). Jewish sect.
Hasselblad for the Swedish cameras.
hausfrau. (Ger.) Housewife; pl. hausfrauen.
Haussmann, Boulevard, Paris; named after Baron Georges Eugène Haussmann (1809–1891), who led the rebuilding of the city.
haute couture. (Fr.) High fashion.
Havel, Václav. (1936–) Czech playwright and
reformist politician.
Havre de Grace, Maryland.
Hawaiian Islands. The eight principal islands are Hawaii, Maui, Oahu, Kauai, Molokai, Lanai, Niihau, and Kahoolawe.
Haw-Haw, Lord. Nickname of William Joyce (1906–1946), American who made propaganda broadcasts for Germany in World War II.
Hawker Siddeley (no hyphen) for the British aviation company.
Hawksmoor, Nicholas. (1661–1736) English architect.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. (1804–1864) American writer. (But hawthorn for the tree or shrub.)
Haydn, Franz Joseph. (1732–1809) Austrian composer.
Hazlitt, William. (1778–1830) English essayist and critic.
healthy, healthful, salutary. Some authorities maintain that healthy should apply only to those things that possess health and healthful to those that promote it. Thus we would have “healthy children,” but “healthful food” and “healthful exercise.” There is no harm in observing the distinction, but also little to be gained from insisting on it. Salutary has a wider meaning than the other two words. It too means conducive to health, but can also apply to anything that is demonstrably beneficial (“a salutary lesson in etiquette”).
“Hear, hear!” is the exclamation of British parliamentarians, not “Here, here!”
Hebrew, Yiddish. The two languages have almost nothing in common except that they are spoken primarily by Jewish people. Yiddish (from the German jüdisch, “Jewish”) is a modified German dialect and thus a part of the Indo-European family of languages. Hebrew is a Semitic tongue and therefore is more closely related to Arabic. Yiddish writers use the Hebrew alphabet, but the two languages are no more closely related than, say, English and Swahili.
Hebrides. Group of islands off the west coast of Scotland, divided between the Inner Hebrides and Outer Hebrides; also called Western Isles. Pronounced heb'-rid-eez.
hectare. (Abbr. ha.) 10,000 square meters; equivalent to 2.47 acres.
hecto-. Prefix meaning 100.
Hedda Gabler. Not -bb-. Play by Henrik Ibsen (1890).
Heeger, Alan J. (1936–) American scientist, awarded Nobel Prize for Chemistry (2000).
Heep, Uriah. Character in Dickens’s David Copperfield.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. (1770–1831) German philosopher.
hegira. (In Arabic, hijrah.) The flight of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina on July 16, 622, used as the starting point for the Muslim era.