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- 344 punctuation
?????? Should - Should Not . . . . . . “Do you choose to run?” they asked.
Invest in a Computer ??????
A few others approve of this form:
All twelve question marks could not turn
that phrase into a proper question, such “Do you choose to run?,” they asked.
as “Should I, or should I not, invest in a
computer?” (Nor could the spacious hy- Some sentences may be followed ei-
phen or the sextet of dots contribute ther by question marks or by exclama-
anything, neither being bona fide punc- tion points, depending on the meaning
tuation.) to be conveyed. If an answer is sought:
“How common is that mistake?” If the
sentence is exclamatory or rhetorical:
C. Two opposing views
“How common is that mistake!”
Does a request or statement in the
The writer of a music textbook made
form of a question call for a question
a choice between the two marks, in de-
mark? Grammarians differ.
scribing Beethoven’s attitude toward
H. W. Fowler argued the affirmative.
Napoleon:
Among his examples: “Will you please
stand back?” and “Will it be believed
A conqueror himself—did he not once
that . . . ?”—presenting an incredible fact
declare, “I too am a king!”—he un-
of sizable length. Because each is in the
derstood the Corsican.
grammatical form of a direct question,
each should end with a question mark,
The author chose the exclamation point.
even though it is equivalent in sense to a
He attributed it to Beethoven, for it lies
request or statement.
within the quotation marks. Thus the
Theodore M. Bernstein took essen-
author’s question is left without punctu-
tially the opposite view, that no question
ation. It would have been preferable to
mark should be used when an answer is
omit the exclamation point and add a
not expected or when the writer is
question mark:
merely making a request. He gave as re-
spective examples: “May we have the
. . . Did he not once declare, “I too am
pleasure of hearing from you soon” and
a king”? . . .
“Would you please send us a duplicate
copy of your invoice.”
If the author knew that the exclamation
Fowler would stick question marks at
point was part of the quotation and
the end of those two. So would I. They
deemed it important, both marks could
look incomplete, and a writer of each
have appeared:
would want a response, though not a yes
or no answer. The Chicago Manual of
. . . Did he not once declare, “I too am
Style wants no question mark at the end
a king!”? . . .
of any “request courteously disguised as
a question.” But why give up the dis-
Note that the question mark follows the
guise—and the courtesy—prematurely?
closing quotation mark when the ques-
tion is that of the writer.
D. With other punctuation
When a question mark does not end a 10. Quotation marks
sentence, may a comma follow? Most Quotation marks are primarily used
authorities think not. They approve of to quote what people say or write.
this form: “Well, I’m not a crook.” / “Hail to thee,
- punctuation 345
blithe Spirit!” The words enclosed in A reader’s first impression is that “me”
the marks are expected to reproduce the refers to Mr. Dole. That interpretation
original words exactly; otherwise the would not fit the context, however. Inte-
marks should be omitted. Anything left rior quotation marks should have been
out is replaced by an ellipsis ( . . . ). See 5. inserted as follows:
Anything inserted goes in brackets [ ],
not parentheses ( ). See 7. “He said ‘Dave Keene called me a lap
A magazine is interviewing a painter. dog,’ ” said Mr. Dole. . . .
Amid a long paragraph devoted entirely
to a direct quotation of his, this sentence When a comma or period is needed at
appears: the end of a direct quotation, the con-
ventional American practice is to put it
inside the quotation marks. (“But,” he
She read me Malory’s “Le Morte
said——) This is done for an aesthetic
d’Arthur” and made it understand-
reason, whether or not the comma or pe-
able.
riod is part of the quotation. Some
choose, on logical grounds, to put it out-
The entire passage is enclosed, correctly, side the quotation marks unless it is part
by double quotation marks (“ ”). There- of the quotation. (“But”, he said——)
fore the marks around Le Morte That practice is common in Britain.
d’Arthur should be single quotation When a colon or semicolon is needed at
marks (‘ ’). If the magazine were pub- the end of a direct quotation, placing it
lished in London, instead of New York, after the closing quotation mark is gen-
the procedure would need to be re- erally favored by both nations (“. . . my
versed: single quotation marks would go land”; it is——), although a few publica-
on the outside, double quotation marks tions have rules to the contrary.
on the inside. It is wrong to put double A quotation that goes into more than
marks within double marks, or single one paragraph gets an opening quota-
marks within single marks. tion mark at the beginning of each para-
Customarily the names of long liter- graph; a closing quotation mark goes
ary, dramatic, or artistic works go in ital- only at the end of the entire quotation.
ics, also called italic type. This is it. These are typical mistakes: On an edito-
When that type is unavailable or not de- rial page, an isolated quotation is two
sired for some reason, it is not wrong to paragraphs long and the second para-
put the names in quotation marks in- graph lacks an opening quotation mark.
stead. (See Italic[s].) Elsewhere, an article begins by quoting
In quoting someone who is quoting three lines of a song in three paragraphs,
someone else, use double quotation of which the second and third lack open-
marks for the main quotation and single ing quotation marks.
quotation marks for the interior quota- We do not add quotation marks to the
tion. (In Britain reverse the procedure.) If examples that are set off typographically
the interior quotation marks are left out, in this book and so are obviously quota-
the meaning may be unclear, as in the tions (often the longer ones). We do add
following press passage. “He” refers to the marks to quotations that run in the
the vice president. main text, to words and phrases taken
from those quotations, and to typical
“He said Dave Keene called me a sentences that illustrate usage. In addi-
lap dog,” said Mr. Dole, referring to tion, quotation marks go around certain
one of his campaign aides. words or phrases to indicate that the en-
- 346 punctuation
closures, though used, are nonstandard B. Strong comma
or questionable. Examples are the entry Offering a stronger division than a
titles “AIN’T” and “LET’S DON’T.” comma, the semicolon is particularly
Newspaper copy editors in the United useful in dividing a sentence into cate-
States follow the British tradition in one gories when the sentence already has
respect: using single quotation marks for commas.
quotations in headlines. Even when a conjunction connects in-
(What Americans call quotation dependent clauses, a writer may choose
marks, the British call inverted commas, to put a semicolon between them to
a term that is not precise. In a traditional show the division clearly. It is particu-
type style, with curved quotation marks, larly desirable to do so when a clause
only the opening mark of a pair of single contains a comma or is lengthy. This is a
quotation marks looks like an inverted correct example from a book on world
comma [‘]. The closing mark looks like history:
an apostrophe, which can be described
To many authorities it appeared at
as an elevated comma [’]. Typewriters
first incredible that a sub-man with a
have straight, vertical quotation marks;
brain no larger than that of an ape
in this respect, most computers are no
could manufacture tools, crude in-
improvement.)
deed but made to a fairly standard
See also Quotation problems;
and recognizable pattern; but the
QUOTE and QUOTATION; Tense, 3;
newest evidence leaves little room for
THAT, 4.
doubt.
11. Semicolon
In that sentence, what follows the
comma is parenthetical; what follows
A. Weak period
the semicolon is a main thought, and the
Do not take the name literally. The
semicolon so indicates.
semicolon (;) is not half of the colon (:),
Not only clauses benefit from the
nor does it have anything to do with the
semicolon. It is needed to separate items
colon. At different times, the semicolon
in a series when any item is subdivided
acts as a weak period and a strong
by a comma. “The club elected George
comma.
Watkins, president; John Anthony, vice-
Just as a period does, the semicolon
president; and Theresa Jennings, secre-
can end a complete thought. However, it
tary-treasurer.”
links that complete thought—an inde-
The lack of semicolons jumbles the se-
pendent clause—with another, closely re-
ries below, from an autobiography.
lated in meaning or form. “Three men
Readers could have trouble associating
went to bat; three men went down
the names with the descriptions.
swinging.” / “Money itself is not a root
of evil; the love of money is.” / “He John Major greeted me, my executive
came; he saw; he conquered.” assistant, Colonel Dick Chilcoat, the
In that way, the semicolon performs British secretary of state for defense,
the linking function of a conjunction, Tom King, and my counterpart,
like and or but. A writer might choose to British chief of defense staff, Marshal
use no semicolon and instead insert a of the Royal Air Force Sir David
conjunction (“He came, he saw, and he Craig, in a sitting room at 10 Down-
conquered”) or to use neither and make ing Street.
each independent clause a separate sen-
tence. (“He came. He saw. He con- Replacing the first, third, and fifth com-
quered.”) mas with semicolons (and inserting the
- punctuation 347
after the sixth) would have made the writing. It is less suited to general prose
sentence more readily understandable. than the marks of punctuation discussed
in preceding sections.
C. Inconsistency The virgule is an alternative to a hori-
Newspapers are liable to be inconsis- zontal line in separating the two parts of
tent in their use of semicolons in a series, a fraction, such as 13/16. It replaces per
and this is an example: in such terms as miles/hour and feet/sec-
ond. In science and medicine, mg/km,
Among the Americans at the for instance, is an economical way to ex-
Moscow forum were Norman Mailer, press milligrams of dosage per kilogram
Gore Vidal and Bel Kaufman, the of body weight. When lines of poetry are
writers; John Kenneth Galbraith, the written in regular text, the virgule indi-
economist; Gregory Peck and Kris cates each new line: “On a battle-
Kristofferson, the actors; several sci- trumpet’s blast / I fled hither, fast, fast,
entists, including Frank von Hippel, a fast, / ’Mid the darkness upward cast.”
Princeton physicist, and more than a This book uses virgules to separate quo-
dozen businessmen. tations when they are run successively in
regular text.
After the third semicolon, the system The mark often represents or, notably
ends, permitting two chances for misun- in the term and/or, meaning either and or
derstanding. Literally the message con- or as the case may be. Lawyers make use
veyed is that “several scientists” include of it. A typical contract uses the term this
all those mentioned thereafter. Dismiss- way:
ing businessmen from the scientific
ranks, the reader could plausibly place Company and/or its insurer shall have
“a Princeton physicist” in a separate cat- the right to select counsel and to settle
egory. If patient, the reader might suc- any claim upon the terms and condi-
ceed in deciphering the confused list, tions it and/or its insurer deems satis-
maybe even in diagnosing the problem: a factory.
missing semicolon after “physicist.”
The writer is not to blame; an inexpli- A computer manual contains such
cable rule of his newspaper (shared by headings as “Paper Size/Type” and
various other papers) has instructed him “Short/Long Document Names,” in
to use a comma where the final semi- which the virgule presumably means ei-
colon belongs. But a comma does not ther and or or.
perform the function of a semicolon. If A computer program has an option
the writer, economist, actor, and scientist called “Move/Rename File,” in which
categories need to be separated from one the virgule substitutes for or. The pro-
another by semicolons, does not the sci- gram also has a table explaining that if
entist category need to be separated the user presses “Up/Down Arrow”
from the businessman category by a (meaning either the up arrow or the
semicolon? down arrow), the curser will move to
“The top/bottom of the screen” (mean-
12. Virgule ing the top or bottom of the screen re-
This / is a virgule (pronounced VUR- spectively).
gyool). It is also known as a slash or This \ is a back slash, or backslash; it
solidus (SOL-uh-duss). Sometimes it is is used for certain computer commands,
called a slant, diagonal, bar, or shilling. and so is the regular slash.
The mark has specialized uses, partic- In business, the mark in a combina-
ularly in technical, legal, and business tion like vice president/labor relations
- 348 pupil and student
can replace in charge of. For the general Students [range] from kindergartners
public, the full term is more widely un- to fifth graders. . . . The school . . .
derstandable. [encourages] students to think across
Virgules have been increasingly subject lines. . . . Students play with
used of late instead of traditional punc- board games and puzzles [and so on].
tuation and even instead of words. The
substitution may be no improvement: “Students” should have been pupils in
Take “secretary/treasurer” instead of each instance.
secretary-treasurer or “bacon/tomato A child attending school used to be
sandwich” instead of bacon-tomato called a scholar. Now a scholar usually is
sandwich. An original use of a virgule in an advanced academic specialist or a
lieu of a verbal description can even be person who is learned in the humanities.
ambiguous: Diners cannot be sure Sometimes a school child is described as
whether the virgule means and or or in a “a good scholar” or “a bad scholar.”
menu’s “steak/lobster plate.” Schoolboy and schoolgirl are sometimes
Some general writers seem to find used, less often than they used to be.
the virgule stylish. One dispenses with
commas and conjunctions to describe
PURPORT, PURPORTED. 1. An
someone as a “writer/painter/photogra-
pher” and later writes, “She has this odd verb. 2. Other uses.
phobia/quirk/fatal flaw. . . .”
1. An odd verb
PUPIL and STUDENT. An elemen-
Purport is a strange verb, for two rea-
tary-school child is a pupil. Anyone who
sons:
takes personal instruction from a teacher
also may be called a pupil. “Beethoven
was Haydn’s pupil.” • Although it has the form of an active
One who attends an institution of verb, it has the meaning of a passive
learning above elementary school is a verb. It means is—or are or was or
student. A student is also anyone who were—supposed (to be) or
studies or investigates a particular sub- represented (to be). The sense of is
ject, perhaps “a student of prehistory” etc. is built into purported, and
or “a student of the drug problem.” therefore is etc. should not be used
A news story said: with it. It is wrong to say, “The
signature on the letter is purported
The alleged victims [of abuse] were to be genuine.” Change “is
two boys, ages 3 and 4, both students purported” to purports.
at the S—— . . . Pre- & Elementary • Its subject normally is not a person.
School. . . . A sentence like “He purported to tell
investigators the whole story” is
Three- and four-year-old “students”? It wrong. Changing “purported” to
was not explained just what they would professed, or another appropriate
or could be studying. Elsewhere a photo verb, corrects the sentence. (One
depicted a cluster of diminutive moppets may say, “Miranda purports to
for whom the designation of “Students protect a constitutional right.”
at the primary school in Portalesa, Although a subject may not be a
Brazil” hardly seemed fitting. And an ar- person considered as such, the
ticle about an Indiana elementary school subject here really is a thing, a legal
used the unsuitable noun a dozen times: rule named after a person.)
- putsch 349
PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. Mil-
The three excerpts below fall short on
both scores. Each uses “is” or “was” lions listening on radio and television
with “purport” and makes a person the heard a prosecutor in a murder case tell
subject. The first two are from books. the jury that he had read the Constitu-
tion the previous night and it said the
. . . Jackson is purported to have said, two victims had the right to liberty and
“John Marshall has made his deci- life and more: “It said they had a right to
sion; now let him enforce it.” the pursuit of happiness.” Not so.
Earlier, an anchor man wrongly stated
Wellington is purported to have writ- on a television network: “The Constitu-
ten to the British Foreign Office in tion guarantees us life, liberty, and the
London: “We have enumerated our pursuit of happiness.” Had he substi-
saddles, bridles, tents and tent poles.” tuted property for “the pursuit of happi-
ness,” he would have been right. The
A replacement for each “purported” true word would have been irrelevant
could be supposed or believed. In the for the prosecutor.
sentence below, from a news story, “pur- The Fifth Amendment to the United
ported” could be changed to professing States Constitution says that no person
or pretending. shall be deprived of “life, liberty, or
property” without due process of law.
Mr. Brucan said also that he had The Fourteenth Amendment echoes that
learned for the first time this after- principle, prohibiting any state from de-
noon that Mr. Munteanu was pur- priving any person of “life, liberty, or
porting to speak for the council on property” without due process of law.
Monday mornings. . . . The Constitution says nothing about
happiness or its pursuit.
2. Other uses The document that does mention it is
Purport is also a noun. It denotes the the Declaration of Independence, whose
supposed significance or meaning of second sentence reads:
something: “the purport of his speech
was that. . . .” Purported may be used as We hold these Truths to be self-
an adjective, meaning supposed. evident, that all Men are created
Purport and purported—verb, noun, equal, that they are endowed by their
and adjective—do not confirm or deny Creator with certain unalienable
the authenticity of anything (for exam- Rights, that among these are Life, Lib-
ple, a document or antique) but mildly erty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
question it. Without this element of
modest doubt, purport (ed) is not the While of historical, philosophical, and
word to use. literary interest, the Declaration of Inde-
Some people use “purport” (noun) pendence has no legal significance.
instead of purpose or purview. They do
PUSH. See ADVOCATE.
so either mistakenly, thinking that the
similarity of sound carries over to the
PUT. See INTO, 1.
meaning; or intentionally, seeking a
fancy synonym. That some dictionaries
PUTSCH. See REVOLT and REVO-
support the confusion should be no sur-
prise. LUTION.
- Q
Q-TIPS. See VASELINE. good” describe a superb show or a fairly
enjoyable one?
Quantities, measures. See AMOUNT Used strictly, quite means completely,
and NUMBER; Collective nouns, extremely, or really. Used informally or
3; FEWER and LESS; MANY and casually, it means somewhat, rather, or
MUCH; Numbers; Verbs, 3. considerably. In the casual vein, quite
followed by a or an can suggest an indef-
QUESTION. See Punctuation, 9B. inite number or amount (“quite a few”)
or something notable (“quite an array”).
Question mark. See Punctuation, 9. If quite is interpreted in the strict way,
“quite complete” is redundant and
QUIP, QUIPPED. An impromptu, “quite similar” is contradictory. Few
witty remark may be called a quip critics insist on strictness under informal
(noun). To make it is to quip (verb, in- circumstances. In a more formal con-
transitive). text, a vague quite can be deadwood.
It is probably rare that real wit or hu- A book uses it strictly at first:
mor needs to be labeled as such, but the
press seems to disagree. In typical fash- The viola is not an outsize violin. Its
ion, a reporter added “he quipped” to a proportions are quite different and its
judge’s remark, about how people mis- tone is quite distinctive.
pronounced his name; and a columnist
quoting a talk by a mayor explained that Then casually. See whether “quite”
one remark was made “jokingly” and makes any useful contribution here:
another was “quipped.” None of the
quotations displayed recognizable wit or There are quite a number of falla-
humor, and the labels failed to rescue cies regarding musical design which
them. Crack(ed), gag(ged), jest(ed), and need to be exploded.
joke(d) are among the terms that have
Quotation marks. See Punctuation,
been so used.
10; Quotation problems.
QUITE. This adverb can be ambigu-
Quotation problems. 1. Accuracy
ous: “He was quite truthful.” Was he
scrupulously truthful or just generally and inaccuracy. 2. Inconsistency in per-
so? “The place is quite big.” Is it im- son and tense. 3. Unnecessary quotation
mense or just sizable? Does “quite marks. 4. When is the quotation over?
350 q-tips
- quotation problems 351
1. Accuracy and inaccuracy Court has said that it can be libelous—
Quotations, particularly direct quota- that is, false and defamatory—if it “re-
tions—those in quotation marks—are sults in a material change in the meaning
supposed to present what people have conveyed by the statement” (1991).
said or written. But not all writers and For the misquoting of sayings, see
editors are scrupulous about quotations. Clichés; THAT and WHICH, 4. See also
A linguistics professor in Arizona LIBEL and SLANDER.
compared twenty-four newspaper arti-
cles with tape recordings of interviews, 2. Inconsistency in person and tense
meetings, and speeches. Only 8 percent Quotation marks are presumed to en-
of 132 quoted sentences came out com- close the exact words that someone has
pletely right. Most were compatible with used. The exact words quoted in this
the original, but some were dead wrong: passage from a historical book are un-
“People from Spain” turned into “Mexi- likely to have been uttered:
cans” and “He has so impressed all five
of us” became “He has so impressed us A Senator . . . was so overwhelmed by
as interim county manager.” Stories the implications of the crisis that he
written by reporters who used tape “feels that the Executive has not gone
recorders were not more accurate than so far as to justify” the attack on Pen-
those by reporters who just took notes. sacola.
Few American journalists know short-
hand. Delivering a speech in the Senate, he
Inaccurate quotations may represent probably did not say “I feels.” He is
unintentional error, inadequate skill or more likely to have said “I feel.” Even
memory, lack of respect for quotation so, the sentence shifts awkwardly from
marks, doctoring of statements suppos- past tense to present tense. The non-
edly to improve them, or outright fabri- quoted and quoted parts need to fit to-
cation. The Columbia Journalism gether:
Review quoted three New York re-
porters who admitted making up quota-
[Example:] A Senator was so over-
tions. Instead of interviewing parents
whelmed by the implications of the
whose children had died, “I made the
crisis that he said, “I feel that the Ex-
quotes up,” one said. Another put words
ecutive has not. . . .”
in the mouth of a baseball manager. A
third pretended to quote a bystander at a
If the exact words of the speaker are un-
parade. Six others knew of imaginary
certain (perhaps the author is quoting a
quotations in newspapers and maga-
contemporary account of the speech in
zines.
the third person), it is best to omit the
A writer or editor is not obligated to
quotation marks:
quote anyone directly. A quotation that
is important enough to use but improper,
[Example:] A Senator was so over-
too long, poorly worded, or otherwise
whelmed by the implications of the
unsuitable as it is may be reworded, in
crisis that he said he felt that the Exec-
whole or part, without quotation marks.
utive had not. . . .
Editors have been known to put such in-
direct quotations in quotation marks. It
is a hazardous practice. See also Pronouns, 7 (end); Subjunc-
Deliberately altering a quotation can tive, 3 (teen-age lingo); Tense, 3; THAT,
not only be unethical: the Supreme 4.
- 352 quote and quotation
3. Unnecessary quotation marks the speaker’s own words have resumed,
Quotation marks are often used un- especially if they cannot see him. Even to
necessarily. When nobody is being a viewing audience, the transition may
quoted, the marks can cast doubt upon a not be obvious if the speech is read from
word or phrase. Four examples follow. a paper or a prompting screen.
QUOTE and QUOTATION. Quote
[Magazine:] First we’ll separate the
volunteers into two groups: a treat- is properly a verb (transitive and intran-
ment group and a “control” group. sitive). To quote is to repeat someone’s
words, usually acknowledging that they
[Newsletter:] Our goal at any given are another’s words. You might quote a
time is to strive continually to be “the sentence, quote (a passage from) a book,
best”. quote (words of) Shakespeare or the
pope, or quote from a magazine or a
[Notice at a bank:] . . . we will close speech, saying “I quote.”
our “teller counter service” at 5 p.m. Although it may pass in informal
speech, using the verb as a noun is not
[Picture captions in an ad for a cos- appropriate in more formal media: “A
metic surgeon:] “NOSE” BEFORE . . . frontispiece quote set the tone: ‘All
“NOSE” AFTER wholesome food is caught without a net
or a trap.’ ” / “Drexel liked the quote so
Control is a legitimate word, and the much that one of its investment bankers
best is a legitimate phrase; neither framed it.” / “Reporters simply go out
needed quotation marks. The marks did and lazily round up quotes to fit the poll
not express confidence in the bank ser- results. . . .”
vice. And there was no doubt that a The newspaper, news service, and
woman pictured in the surgeon’s ad had news magazine quoted above should
a nose. (The second example follows a have used the noun quotation or quota-
closing quotation mark with a period, in tions. Use of “quote” to mean quota-
British style, although the publication is tion, or “quotes” to mean quotations or
American. See Punctuation, 10. See also quotation marks, is part of the jargon of
CONTINUAL[LY] and CONTINU- editors, reporters, and writers.
OUS[LY].) The jargon includes “unquote,” often
used by speakers in lieu of end of quota-
4. When is the quotation over? tion. It was created as an economical
A congressman made a speech in form in telegrams from news correspon-
which he read a quotation. As heard on dents, not as a bona fide word.
the radio, the quotation seemed to go on A book publisher protested on na-
and on. Finally it became plain that he tional television that a magazine had
had finished his quoting but failed to say published a derogatory “misquote” and
“end of quotation” or “so said ———” that to do so was sloppy. A neater word
or “the words of ———” or even the is misquotation.
dubious “unquote.” (See QUOTE and Occasionally a quotation is accompa-
QUOTATION.) nied by an incomplete phrase, in this
Whichever term is chosen, a speaker manner: “ ‘It’s not true,’ the Governor
who quotes someone or something was quoted.” It should be “was quoted
should indicate when the quotation has as saying.”
ended, unless it is well known and short. See also Punctuation, 10; Quotation
Otherwise listeners may not know when problems.
- R
RACE and NATIONALITY. 1. 2. Races of the U.S.A.
The difference. 2. Races of the U.S.A. 3. Citizens of the United States share a
Who is colored? common nationality while comprising
many national origins and several races.
Three leading racial divisions of the
1. The difference
world are represented in this country:
Race (noun) has often been mixed up
the Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mon-
with other terms, including nationality.
goloid. Members of the first two groups
Race is a category of mankind distin-
are commonly known as white or black,
guished by physical characteristics that
respectively (nouns or adjectives), al-
are genetically transmitted, such as skin
though nobody has skin that is really
color, shape of head, type of hair, and fa-
white or black. They are informal terms
cial features. Nationality concerns the
and need not be capitalized.
nation one belongs to and is based on
A somewhat more scientific alterna-
politics, geography, or culture. Racial
tive to white is Caucasian, though tech-
and national (adjectives) mean pertain-
nically there are brown-skinned Cauca-
ing to, or based on differences in, race or
sians. The corresponding term for black
nationality. A newspaper confused the
is Negro, which fell out of popularity in
terms:
the late sixties but survives in the United
Negro College Fund. (The word should
All along the border the population always be capitalized and pronounced
is a strange mix of people and like KNEE-grow, even though Webster’s
tongues: Polish, German, Czech, Third Dictionary enters “negro” and
Hungarian, Romanian, Ukrainian condones the rather derogatory NIG-
and Russian—typical of the racial ruh. Eighteen of its entries use “nigger.”
mix that Russia has throughout its Insulting terms of that sort appear with
far-flung country. the qualification “usu. taken to be offen-
sive.”) Black, which had been consid-
“Polish, German, Czech,” etc. do refer ered derogatory, became the accepted
to “people and tongues,” that is, nation- word. In the eighties African-American
alities and languages. None of them are caught on as a formal term. It has less
racial groups, so they are not “typical of utility, covering only Americans; it
the racial mix” in Russia, which extends would not include, say, a black Con-
to the Orient and does contain different golese. Nor would it include a natural-
races. ized American who was one of the
race and nationality 353
- 354 rack and wrack
nearly 200 million nonblack natives of black. A large headline over a newspaper
Africa. story about suburban minorities an-
Mongoloid or Mongolian to denote a nounced “Greener Pastures for People of
racial division that includes Chinese, Color.” An article in another paper
Japanese, Koreans, Mongolians, Ti- about a tribute to Jackie Robinson re-
betans, and others is usually restricted to ferred to the “obvious presence of such
scientific writing. Yellow used to be the people of color. . . . ” Users of that term
popular adjective, even though no one is should explain why they do not regard
really yellow. It was supplanted by Ori- any tint of pinkish tan as a color.
ental. Then Asian took over (its syn- Here is a paradox, brought up by a
onym, Asiatic, is offensive to some), even physics professor and later by the host of
though the Indian subcontinent and the a radio talk show: From the standpoint
Middle East are part of the Asian conti- of physics, black is colorless, being the
nent and Japan is not. absence of light, while white contains all
Indian has long been used to refer to frequencies of light. Therefore, if any
any aboriginal group of the Americas. Its people were literally black, they would
use is said to date back to Columbus, be devoid of color; and if any people
who mistook San Salvador Island for In- were literally white, they would be as
dia. Those in the United States are Amer- colored as anyone could get.
ican Indians. In recent years that term
RACK and WRACK. In writing that
has come to trouble some people (mainly
non-Indians—many American Indian “the Palestinian uprising . . . had
groups call themselves that), who foster wracked the occupied lands since 1987,”
“Native American” as a synonym. Users did a writer mean to say that it had ru-
of that term exclude most native-born ined them? Probably the right word
Americans and several indigenous peo- would have been racked, without the w.
ples under the American flag: Aleuts, Es- To rack (verb, transitive) is literally to
kimos, Hawaiians (see Hawaii), torture (someone) on the rack; more
Samoans, and aboriginal inhabitants of broadly to torture or torment with phys-
other U.S. island possessions. American ical or mental pain, or to strain, espe-
Indians used to be commonly considered cially by violence or oppression. The
the red race, although of brown skin, not rack was a medieval instrument for tor-
red. turing people by stretching their bodies.
In summary, styles in racial designa- Two expressions are racked with pain
tion come and go, and few of them make (or illness etc.) and rack one’s brains (or
total sense. See also 3. memory etc.).
It suffices to use a term that many To wrack (verb, transitive) is to de-
members of a group prefer. Not all mem- stroy, ruin, or wreck (something). It is
bers agree on any given term. archaic and poetic. Wrack (noun) is vio-
lently caused damage or destruction, or
3. Who is colored? wreckage of a ship cast ashore. The main
The term “colored” is nearly obsolete, use of the noun nowadays is in the ex-
though it survives in the National Asso- pression (to bring to) wrack and ruin.
ciation for the Advancement of Colored Think of wreck, which also has a w.
People. It is odd that some who would Rack and wrack are pronounced the
consider it backward to call someone a same. They come from separate Middle
“colored” person now have no qualms English words, which in turn may be
about calling him a person “of color.” It traced to separate Middle Dutch words.
can be a euphemism for nonwhite or for See also WREAK and WRECK.
- range, true and false 355
RAGAMUFFIN. An obituary of a and relaxation tours, inside and outside
rather prosperous “bag lady” quoted an the kingdom.” Reporting from Arabia, a
acquaintance: “She looked like a little newspaper got the expression R and R
rag muffin, like she didn’t have a dime to right but its meaning wrong. It is not
her name.” “rest and relaxation.” Neither is it “rest
Ragamuffin is the term, and it has and recreation,” a popular interpreta-
nothing to do with muffins. It does have tion.
something to do with rags. The word By U.S. Army regulations, it stands
comes from Ragamoffyn, the name of a for rest and recuperation. That is the def-
demon in a fourteenth-century religious inition of R & R in all the U.S. armed
play, Piers Plowman, attributed to services, the Dictionary of Military Ab-
William Langland. Demons often were breviations says.
described as ragged, in the sense of Another general writes in an autobi-
shaggy. ography:
At first ragamuffin referred to a man
who was disreputable as well as ragged. Soon after I joined the headquar-
It came to describe any poorly clothed ters staff, I flew to Hong Kong for rest
and dirty person. Now it is usually re- and recreation. For some GIs, R and
served for an ill-clothed, unkempt, or R in this indulgent city meant wall-to-
dirty child. wall sex. For others, Hong Kong
meant a shopping spree.
RAIN, REIGN, and REIN. See Ho-
mophones. An enumeration of his purchases fol-
lows.
RALLY. Was a TV panelist’s use of ral-
lies right? “When he sees one of his
Range, true and false. 1. As a noun,
friends is in trouble, he rallies around
numerical and other senses. 2. As a verb,
that person.”
numerical sense; RANGE or RANG-
The verb was right. The preposition
ING used. 3. RANGING implied. 4.
was wrong. Make it “he rallies to that
Stale expression: “EVERYTHING
person.” Two meanings of the verb rally
FROM.”
(intransitive) were mixed up. It can
mean to come to help, the meaning the
1. As a noun: numerical and other
panelist intended; or it can mean to get
senses
together for a common purpose, some-
The numerical sense is what mainly
thing one person cannot do: “Let’s rally
concerns us first. In statistics a range is
round the flag, boys.”
the difference between the highest and
The same verb can also mean to re-
lowest in a set of figures. If the highest is
cover from a setback (“The patient ral-
15 and the lowest is 5, the range is 10.
lied” or “Stocks rallied on Wall Street”)
In ordinary use, it is the extent to
or, in tennis, to exchange several strokes.
which a series of numbers vary: “The
Rally (transitive) means to call together
price range is $10 to $20.” / “The range
for a common purpose (“He rallied his
in their ages is 13 to 17.”
troops”) or to bring back to activity
An appraiser said of an antique chair,
(“She rallied her strength”).
“We would value it to be in the $3,000
range.” As he used it, “range” had no
RAN and RUN. See Tense, 5A, B.
meaning. No other figure was given.
R AND R. A U.S. Army general “said Range would be meaningful if he had
he was trying to arrange ‘R and R,’ rest placed the value, for instance, “in the
- 356 range, true and false
$2,000-to-$4,000 range.” The value of a a bottom. It is clear how they vary. But
single figure can be expressed in many what is the nature of the limits in the ex-
ways; for instance, “We would value it ample below, and in what way do items
at about $3,000.” vary within them?
A range (noun) can also be an extent
or scope of activity or existence (“the They [items auctioned] ranged from
range of our weapons” / “the range of unpublished pinup-style photographs
possibilities”), a region in which an ani- of Marilyn Monroe, taken in 1945,
mal or plant lives (“the range of this before she became a movie star, to a
species”), an open area for livestock gold record awarded the Beatles in
(“home on the range”), a place for the 1964 for the million-selling single “I
test firing or flying of weapons or rockets Want to Hold Your Hand.”
(a rifle range, a missile range); or the
variation in pitch of a musical instru- From the context, we cannot say that the
ment or voice (“She has a range of three items “ranged” in age or “ranged” in
octaves”). value between the photographs and the
record. Then what was the essence of the
2. As a verb, numerical sense; RANGE limits and how did the items range
or RANGING used within them? We can only guess.
In a numerical sense, the verb range To complicate the guessing game,
(used intransitively) is strictly expressed writers will often add a third supposed
in the following pair of examples: limit, or more.
Women’s cycles also tend to be less ex- . . . For months the company had con-
pensive than men’s, ranging from sidered more than 200 new names,
$1,000 to $4,000. . . . ranging from U.S.S.A. and Amcor to
Maxus.
The Communities’ list of languages
to foster ranges from Ladin, a neo- Do U.S.S.A. and Amcor together consti-
Latin spoken by about 30,000 moun- tute some limit? Or is Amcor some no-
tain Italians, to Catalan, which has table landmark on the way to Maxus? If
around 7 million speakers. the names extended, say, from “Amcor
to Zilch,” the range would be clear. Now
Used in that manner, to range means to it is muddy.
vary within specified limits, or extremes. Extra limits may appear on the “to”
The limits may be, for example, prices of side:
$1,000 and $4,000; about 30,000 and 7
million speakers; 147 and 160 pounds; These [problems] have ranged from
first and sixth grades; Maine and high costs to traffic problems, a lack
Florida; adagio and vivace—or more of police cooperation, antiquated
subjective ones: equipment and a dearth of studio
space.
Chicken dishes range from satisfy-
ing—morsels sautéed with garlic and Or the limits may be equally divided be-
wine—to dreadful, such as the special tween the “from” and “to” sides:
chicken with sausage and peppers in a
gelatinous sauce. . . . The company began a program to
teach workers English—a step also
The limits in that sentence are “satisfy- taken by many other employers rang-
ing” and “dreadful.” There is a top and ing from nursing homes and resort
- range, true and false 357
hotels to insurance companies and Since East Germany’s founding, ad-
manufacturers. vancing in the party hierarchy has
meant access to a variety of privileges
Or any extra one may get its own “to”: denied average citizens.
Taking part . . . are prominent At this point, a phrase like These have
church figures from many countries, included or Among these have been
ranging from top Vatican officers to would be useful. Instead, the old “range
evangelist Billy Graham to the Arch- from” device is trotted out (in the wrong
bishop of Canterbury. tense and with other peculiarities).
If things or people “range,” ask how? These ranged from special housing,
The last five preceding examples, from special stores where higher quality
press articles, leave us wondering. The goods and foodstuffs were sold at
monstrous sentence below, from a book, lower prices to party members and
seems to give the reader five pairs of lim- Western goods could be ordered by
its to puzzle over. What makes any of mail, freedom to travel abroad, as
them a “range”? well as use of Western luxury cars.
As one examined the impressive range
By the end of the sentence, the beginning
of Nixon’s initiatives—from his ap-
of the sentence is forgotten. We are never
propriation of the war-making power
told what anything ranges to.
to his interpretation of the appointing
power, from his unilateral determina- 3. RANGING implied
tion of social priorities to his unilat- The word “range” or “ranging” often
eral abolition of statutory programs, is left out but implied by “from . . .
from his attack on legislative privilege to . . . ,” as in this sentence from a schol-
to his enlargement of executive privi- arly book:
lege, from his theory of impoundment
to his theory of the pocket veto, from The eighteenth century was an age of
his calculated disparagement of the dictionaries—dictionaries of all kinds,
cabinet and his calculated discrediting from horsemanship to mathematics.
of the press to his carefully organized
concentration of federal management How do “all kinds” of dictionaries go
in the White House—from all this a “from horsemanship to mathematics”?
larger design ineluctably emerged. Dictionaries normally go from A to Z.
What if one could not examine that He used references from Michael
“range,” because its limits were hope- Jackson to the Sundance Kid. . . .
lessly obscure? Then, I guess, the larger
design would not ineluctably (inevitably) Why those two? Or does it mean that he
emerge. (the president) quoted Michael Jackson
If what follow “from” and “to” are referring to the Sundance Kid?
arbitrary, if it is not obvious how things
or people “range” within them, the de- Vice Mayor Han Boping told a
vice has no reason for being. Often it can news conference that prices of 1,800
easily be replaced by a term like such as non-staple foods from canned goods
or including or among them and a series to steamed dumplings will rise.
of examples. Such usage would have
suited the second sentence of the news- If any government decreed that “foods
paper passage below. from canned goods to steamed
- 358 rape
dumplings shall rise in price,” there Within a twelve-day period, six writ-
would be chaos in the land. ers (three on one newspaper) wrote:
Three variations follow.
. . . A long list of speakers criticized
His commercial work . . . has ap- everything from the party leadership
peared in reproduction in just about to the organization of the conference.
every graphic form imaginable, from
billboards and calendars to album . . . Correspondents prepare stories on
covers and playing cards. everything from Soviet tank battal-
ions to the roots of the Russian Or-
He [Aristotle] wrote on almost all thodox church.
subjects, from physics to literature,
from politics to biology. They are factories producing every-
thing from industrial ceramics to toys.
Would it make any less sense if the first ...
said “billboards and album covers to
calendars and playing cards” and the . . . Contracts . . . have been put on
second said “from physics to politics, hold temporarily, as have purchases of
from literature to biology”? everything from magazine and news-
paper subscriptions to television sets,
Almost all seeds of economic impor- recreation equipment, lawn mowers
tance to man—from corn to cabbage and furniture.
to cowpeas—sit frozen in the Na-
tional Seed Storage Laboratory’s New age . . . [is] a catchall category
room-sized freezer vaults. encompassing everything from alter-
native life styles and alternative thera-
The function of the third “to” and pies to tarot cards and books about
whether only those seeds beginning with abductions by aliens in flying saucers.
c are deemed of economic importance to
man are among the questions raised by The special airlift aboard the C-5As
that journalistic aberration. also brought equipment and sup-
plies—everything from photocopiers
4. Stale expression: “EVERYTHING to desks, from crockery to light bulbs.
FROM” ...
Once upon a time, a writer wrote a
sentence like this: Meanwhile a U.S. president said in an
address:
They dined on everything from cru-
dites to cream puffs. These microcomputers today aid the
design of everything from houses to
It did not make sense—could you list cars to spacecraft.
“everything” between them?—but it was
cute. “Everything from . . . to . . .” got to That should cover everything.
be a cliché, no longer cute and still sense-
less. A variation might appear; according
RAPE. See Crimes, 1.
to a dictionary of English usage, jazz
“used attributively . . . may be applied to
anything from language to stockings”
“RARELY EVER.” See (-)EVER, 6.
(but not to words from a to k and t to z?).
- realtor, realty 359
RASSLE, RASSLING. See WRES- deed, serving as an intensive: “It has
TLE, WRESTLING and RASSLE, really been a pleasure.” Advertising
RASSLING. makes liberal use of it. A pants maker
has a farmer say: “They fit really good,
RATHER. See KIND OF, 4; THAN, feel really comfortable, and work really
2D. hard.” It does not use really wrong, just
puffily. (What is bad is “good.” See
RAVIOLI. Ravioli are stuffed, cooked GOOD and WELL.)
casings of noodle dough, usually square. Those with modest vocabularies find
Upon consuming some for dessert (not the word useful, sometimes in tandem.
customarily the course in which they are In a radio program, a restaurant re-
served), a restaurant reviewer wrote that viewer said about a cheese cake: “It’s
the “exquisite apricot raviolis and really really light. It’s really really good.”
poppy-seed ice cream invariably hook The phrase not really can be meaning-
you for a revisit.” Drop the s in “ravio- ful, contrasting reality with semblance:
lis.” The noun ravioli already is plural. It “It’s not really a lake that you see. It’s a
comes from an Italian dialect in which mirage.” It can also be misleading ver-
ravioli is the plural of raviolo, meaning biage: Jack asks, “Has the package ar-
little turnip. rived?” Jill replies, “Not really.” All she
Inasmuch as people do not commonly may mean is no, but the response can
buy, cook, or even eat just one of them, sound equivocal.
the singular is not needed often. If it is See also FACT, 4 (reality, in reality,
needed, a piece of ravioli is preferable to etc.).
“a ravioli.” Spaghetti, a plural word,
REALTOR, REALTY. Realtor is
should be treated similarly.
pronounced REE-ul-tur. Realty is pro-
RAZE. See DEMOLISH. nounced REE-ul-tee. In the three quota-
tions, from television and telephone,
REALLY. The adverb really deserves those words are transcribed as heard:
respect. It has a real meaning: actually, in “We lobbied the Board of REAL-a-
fact, in reality, in truth. Instead, it was turs.” / “Today REAL-a-tur Bill Adams
treated as an empty locution in a Sunday has more business than he can handle.” /
travel article about a place in Thailand. “Hello, this is Carl ——— of ———
REAL-a-tee.”
It’s another world really—a misty,
A Realtor is a particular type of real
mountainous and mysterious land of
estate broker, one who is an active mem-
hill tribes, rice paddies, superb arti-
ber of a real estate board affiliated with
sans, opium, flowers and beautiful
the National Association of Real Estate
women even Thais find remote and
Boards.
enchanting.
As a trademark, Realtor ought to be
Adding “really” to an obviously untrue capitalized, although some dictionaries
statement ruined what would have been and newspapers give it in lower case. Of-
a passable metaphor. Another world ten we do not know whether a writer or
really is a quarter-million miles away at speaker is using the designation the strict
the closest and not yet a topic for travel way or loosely as a synonym for real es-
writers. Besides, is any of the enumer- tate broker. The difference can be signifi-
ated features too exotic for the world we cant, inasmuch as an objective of the
all know? (See also PADDY.) association is the protection of the public
Informally, really can substitute for in- from dishonest practices.
- 360 reason
Taken from the noun realty, meaning Omitting “the reason . . . is” from that
real estate, or landed property, Realtor sentence (rather than inserting another
was coined by C. D. Chadbourn, of that) is best. “. . . They have been taught
Minneapolis, and adopted by the associ- that so few Germans intervened . . . be-
ation in 1916. cause. . . . ” (The colon is unnecessary.)
REASON. 1. Adding “BECAUSE.” 2. The reason the prominent land-use
Other redundancies. 3. “SIMPLE . . .”; lawyer withdrew . . . was because of
“IT STANDS TO. . . . ” 4. Superfluous his potential conflict of interest.
“REASONS”?
Leave out either “because of” or “The
1. Adding “BECAUSE” reason . . . was.” The latter correction
Because means for the reason that. begins, “The prominent land-use lawyer
“The reason is [or “was”] because . . .” withdrew . . . because of. . . . ”
says, in effect, “The reason is [or “was”]
for the reason that. . . . ” Four newspa- The main reason the tabloids no
pers provide six examples. longer deal with . . . disturbing sub-
jects is because 90 percent of those
The third reason for doubting re- buying the tabloids are women. . . .
ports of successes is because changes
in the way cancers are recorded may “The main reason . . . is that . . .” or
be exaggerating the apparent gains in “The tabloids no longer deal with . . .
survival rates. disturbing subjects mainly because. . . . ”
President Bush said during his cam-
She said one reason that Sonrise paign for reelection:
wanted to list her as the general man-
ager was because she is a woman. The reason we’re going to win is
because the American people have a
In that pair, change each “because” to clear choice. . . .
that: “The third reason . . . is that
changes . . .” / “. . . One reason . . . was He was wrong—in the way he said it
that she. . . . ” and also, as it turned out, in what he
said.
The reason she no longer smokes it, See also BECAUSE.
she said, is because as a lawyer in the
public eye the penalties against her 2. Other redundancies
would be complicated by political Why primarily means for what reason
considerations. or the reason for which. Therefore a case
can be made against pairing “reason”
Either change “because” to that or leave with why. It is like saying “the reason for
out “the reason . . . is.” The latter correc- the reason for which.” An example
tion begins, “She no longer smokes it, comes from a television forum.
she said, because. . . . ”
That’s one of the reasons why Dole
. . . They have been taught: that the might have plateaued out a bit.
reason so few Germans intervened to
stop the Holocaust is because the vast “Why” can be replaced with that: “That’s
majority of Germany [sic] knew noth- one of the reasons that Dole. . . . ”
ing about it. Often there is a choice. If you prefer
- rebut and refute 361
to use the reason, it can be accompanied Nor can we read any Indo-
by that. “What is the reason that you European writings, for the simple rea-
sent me a new bill?” (not “the reason son that not a scrap exists.
why”). / “Tell me the reason that she left
so soon” (not “the reason why”). If you Although the explanation is “simple” in
prefer to use why, “the reason” has no its brevity, the fact presented may not be
place: “Why did you send me a new obvious to the reader. Later the book
bill?” / “Tell me why she left so soon.” says:
Dictionaries differ on this point, and so
do grammarians. While some consider English grammar is so complex and
“the reason why” redundant, some oth- confusing for the one very simple rea-
ers call it an accepted colloquialism with son that its rules and terminology are
a long history. But inasmuch as the phrase based on Latin—a language with
is not essential to the expression of any which it has precious little in com-
thought, it can easily be discarded (except mon.
in quoting those who have used it).
In his poem “The Charge of the Light This time the reason, though twice as
Brigade,” Alfred Lord Tennyson may long as the last one, is “very simple”; but
have unwittingly encouraged the use of the information is no more obvious.
the phrase by writing: “Theirs not to Another dubious expression is “It
make reply, / Theirs not to reason why, / stands to reason.” With “that” added, it
Theirs but to do and die.” Note that he introduces the writer’s or the speaker’s
used reason as a verb, meaning to think opinion. It will sit well with the readers
through logically; not in the question- who agree with the opinion. To others, it
able way, as a noun, meaning explana- can appear arrogant.
tion or justification. See also OF COURSE, 3.
“The reason why . . . is because” com-
pounds the redundancy. Example: “The 4. Superfluous “REASONS”?
reason why I can’t go to work today is “I am resigning for personal reasons”
because of my back injury.” Omit “The is a satisfactory sentence.
reason why” and “is.” “The staff is being reduced for econ-
Other redundant “reason” phrases omy reasons” is less satisfactory. Unlike
are “the reason is due to” and “the rea- personal, an adjective, economy is a
son is on account of.” Examples: “The noun; and although a noun can serve as
reason for the price increase is due to an adjective if it has to, “for reasons of
higher costs” (omit either “The reason economy” would be a more normal ex-
for” or “due to”) and “The reason that pression. Moreover, reasons is not essen-
the game was called was on account of tial; the sentence makes sense without it.
rain” (omit either “The reason that . . . A comparable example: “We are
was” or “on account of”). keeping this information confidential for
national security reasons.” Better:
3. “SIMPLE . . .”; “IT STANDS TO . . . ” “. . . for reasons of national security.”
“For the simple reason that” is a ques- Still better: “. . . for national security.”
tionable phrase. It may be unnecessary (Our concern here is only style, not sub-
for those who find the reason obviously stance.)
simple. Yet the “simple” can offend
REBUT and REFUTE. To rebut is
someone who did not know the reason,
implying “You’re a dope for not know- to oppose a statement or argument with
ing this.” A book on language says: contrary evidence or argument. “The
- 362 recommit
Reflexive pronouns. See Pronouns,
chair will allow the lady five minutes to
rebut the gentleman’s statement.” Using 3, 4, 5.
rebut (verb, transitive and intransitive;
REFLEX, REFLEXIVELY. See IN-
pronounced rih-BUT) does not imply a
judgment of who is right or wrong. STINCT.
To refute something is to prove it
RE-FORM and REFORM. See Punc-
wrong or false. “The Ptolemaic theory of
Earth as the stationary center of the uni- tuation, 4D.
verse was refuted by Copernicus and
REFUTE. See REBUT and REFUTE.
Galileo.” Using refute (verb, transitive;
pronounced rih-FYOOT) declares in ef-
REGARDLESS. When we consider
fect that the original statement, belief, or
allegation has been proven wrong or that generations of teachers have been
false. An almanac misused the word: instructing youngsters that regardless is
correct and “irregardless” is incorrect,
The “character issue” stemmed from even illiterate, it is somewhat surprising
allegations of infidelity, which Clinton to find an occasional educated person
ultimately refuted in a television inter- using the substandard word.
view in which he and Hillary avowed A physician said on a television news
their relationship was solid. program, “We’re obligated to do that
biopsy irregardless of the physical find-
It may reasonably be said that he rebut- ings.” Of course regardless was the word
ted the allegations but not that he “re- to use.
futed” them. In that interview, he denied A minister said on a radio talk show,
a woman’s statement that they had en- about a sectarian movement in the news,
gaged in an affair. Six years later, in “We have to voice our opinion, irregard-
sworn testimony, he admitted having less of some of the positive things that
had an affair with the woman. are going on.” Regardless.
“Irregardless” should be shunned for
RECOMMIT. See COMMIT. good reason. It has two negatives. The
prefix, “ir-,” tends to cancel out the suf-
RECORD. “You’re well on your way fix, “-less.” See Double negative.
today to setting new records,” a televi- Nowadays regardless is commonly
sion quizmaster told three contestants, used as an adverb. Often, with of follow-
who had amassed substantial scores. ing, it means without regard for or in
If records will be set, we can assume spite of. This sentence is typical: “I will
they will be “new” records. One might have it regardless of the high cost.” It
speak of a new record when comparing would not be wrong to end that sentence
it with an old record. with regardless if the high cost was un-
“All-time record” is often redundant, derstood from the context.
although it might be apt in contrast Regardless as an adjective is found in
with, say, “a modern-day record” or “a old literature. It might mean showing no
record for the century.” regard, heedless, or careless; for exam-
ple, “With a book he was regardless of
RE-CREATION and RECRE- time” (Pride and Prejudice by Jane
ATION. See Punctuation, 4D. Austen). It might also mean paid no re-
gard, that is, no notice or attention; or
REDUNDANCY, REDUNDANT. shown no regard in the sense of consid-
See Tautology. eration or respect.
- remuneration and renumeration 363
REGULATION, STATUTE, and RELATE. To relate, as a transitive
LAW. Although a governmental regu- verb, is to tell (“She related an anec-
lation and a statute both have the force dote”) or to bring into a reasonable as-
of law, they should not be confused, as sociation (“He related ancient history to
they were in an article: current events”).
As an intransitive verb meaning to
. . . A Federal Communications have a connection or relationship (to
Commission regulation . . . says any- something), relate goes back about four
one in a region where an area code centuries. (“The critic eye . . . examines
overlay exists is required to dial the bit by bit: How parts relate to parts, or
area code for all local calls. . . . It is they to whole”—Pope.) What is rather
not surprising that Nynex is itself new, and questionable, is the popular
seeking relief from an onerous statute. adoption of a jargonistic use of the in-
transitive relate. To psychologists and
If it is an FCC regulation, it is not a social workers, it has meant to get along,
statute. The first is a rule issued by a interact, have similar ideas, and so on.
public administrative agency. The sec- (“Alice does not relate well with her
ond is a law enacted by Congress or a classmates.”)
state legislature and approved by the A newspaper column described an er-
president or a governor. A statute may roneous change made in an author’s
present the basic principles of a law and work and commented, “Not pointing
leave the fine details—regulations—to a any fingers, but your columnist can re-
particular agency. late.” To end there, without indicating
The Food and Drug Administration the relationship, is to be parsimonious
adopted a regulation (to be enforced by with information.
states) that required identification for to-
REMAP. To map an area, feature, or
bacco purchasers looking younger than
journey is to represent it or chart it on a
twenty-seven. A newspaper reported the
map. To remap it is to map it again. It is
news without telling of a new regulation.
a word that the general public has little
The text called it an FDA “crackdown.”
need for. Headline writers need it as a
The headline said, “Teen Smokers Strike
synonym for reapportion or reappor-
Out Under New Law.” Neither was
tionment.
wrong in essence, but neither was pre-
It has slopped over into the bodies of
cise.
articles. A political report said state sen-
To speak of a law is customarily to
ators of one party wanted “to keep the
speak of a statute, rather than a regula-
legislative primary in June, when the
tion. There are both federal and state
new remap plan would be ready” (rather
laws; a municipal law is called an ordi-
than switch to March and run in old dis-
nance.
tricts, favoring the other party).
Law or the law may be used in a gen-
Except for headlines, there is no ex-
eral sense to mean the official rules that
cuse for remap instead of reappor-
govern people. The law of the United
tion(ment). The two are not the same; as
States consists of the Constitution, acts
any cartographer knows, changing a
of Congress, treaties, and court rulings.
map need have nothing to do with
The law of each state is its constitution,
changing the distribution of legislative
legislative acts, and court rulings.
seats.
Regulation may be used in a general
REMUNERATION and RENU-
sense to mean governmental direction or
MERATION. During an investiga-
control (e.g., “regulation of utilities”).
nguon tai.lieu . vn
