danglers (5). Today: Acceptable Danglers, or Disguised Conjunctions. Any number of present participles have been used as conjunctions or prepositions for so long that they have lost the participial duty of modifying specific nouns. In effect, the clauses they introduce are adverbial, standing apart from and commenting on the content of the sentence. Among the …

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danglers (4). Today, Part A: Past-Participial Danglers. These are especially common when the main clause begins with a possessive — e.g.: “Born on March 12, 1944, in Dalton, Georgia, Larry Lee Simms’s qualifications . . . .” Barbara H. Craig, Chadha: The Story of an Epic Constitutional Struggle 79 (1988). (Simms’s qualifications were not born …

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danglers (3). Today: Present-Participial Danglers. Mispositioned words can cause grammatical blunders. The classic example occurs when the wrong noun begins the main clause — that is, a noun other than the one expected by the reader after digesting the introductory participial phrase. E.g.: “The newspaper said that before being treated for their injuries, General Mladic …

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danglers (1). So-called danglers are ordinarily unattached participles — either present participles (ending in “-ing”) or past participles (ending usually in “-ed”) — that do not relate syntactically to the nouns they are supposed to modify. That is, when the antecedent of a participle doesn’t appear where it logically should, the participle is said to …

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Miscellaneous Entries. revise; redact; recense. The first is the ordinary word. The second and third refer specifically to revising texts with close scrutiny. “Redact” = (1) to make a draft of; or (2) to edit. In American law, it is often used in the sense “to edit out or mask the privileged, impertinent, or objectionable …

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Denizen Labels (2). Today: U.S. States and Cities. The preferred names for residents of some places are not immediately obvious. Listed below are some of those terms that are associated with U.S. states and cities. USGPO refers to the U.S. Government Printing Office Manual of Style. Arkansas: Arkansan, Arkansawyer, Arkie. Connecticut: Nutmegger, Connecticuter (USGPO). Delaware: …

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exquisite. Part A: Pronunciation. The word is better pronounced with the first syllable accented /EK-skwiz-it/; in American English, however, stressing the second (/ek-SKWIZ-it/) is acceptable. Part B: Use. Although there is historical justification for using “exquisite” (= acute) in reference to pain, modern readers are likely to find this use macabre at best, for they …

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Denizen Labels (2). Today: U.S. States and Cities. The preferred names for residents of some places are not immediately obvious. Listed below are some of those terms that are associated with U.S. states and cities. USGPO refers to the U.S. Government Printing Office Manual of Style. Arkansas: Arkansan, Arkansawyer, Arkie. Connecticut: Nutmegger, Connecticuter (USGPO). Delaware: …

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Denizen Labels (1). Today: Generally. What do you call someone from . . . ? Often that’s not an easy question. Residents of Columbus, Ohio (or Georgia, Nebraska, or Indiana) are called “Columbusites.” But someone from the town of Columbus, Mississippi, is called a “Columbian.” Those inconsistencies can be confusing, but they’re usually undisputed within …

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Miscellaneous Entries. reverend. In denoting a member of the clergy, this term has traditionally been restricted to adjectival uses, as one newspaper acknowledged after being upbraided by a careful reader: “We referred correctly to the Rev. Wiley Drake, . . . but an inside subhead read, ‘The reverend says.’ Some dictionaries recognize reverend as a …

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couple (4). Today: With Words of Comparison. When “couple” is used with comparison words such as “more,” “fewer,” and “too many,” the “of” is omitted. In the sentence “I’d like a couple more shrimp,” “shrimp” is the direct object. It is modified by the adjective “more,” which in turn is modified by the adverbial phrase …

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couple (2). Today: For “a few.” As a noun, “couple” has traditionally denoted a pair. (As a verb, it always denotes the joining of two things.) But in some uses, the precise number is vague. Essentially, it’s equivalent to “a few” or “several.” In informal contexts this usage is quite common and unexceptionable — e.g.: …

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couple (1). Today: Number. “Couple” (= pair) is a collective noun like “team,” “company,” or “faculty.” As a rule, a collective noun in American English takes a singular verb unless the action is clearly that of the individual participants rather than collective. When two people form a couple, they may act as individuals or as …

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Miscellaneous Entries. retributive; retributory; *retributional; *retributionary. “Retributive” = of or characterized by retribution. E.g.: “But justice will be served if the settlement is preventive, not just retributive.” “The Cigarette Pact,” Boston Globe, 25 June 1997, at A20. “Retributory” has the added sense “causing or producing retribution.” E.g.: “Many of the investment banks . . . …

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salutary; *salutiferous; salubrious. “Salutary” = beneficial; wholesome. “Salutory”* is a common misspelling, especially in British English — e.g.: o “Fans of the gone-but-not-forgotten Butterflies should rush to see Wendy Craig in this salutory [read ‘salutary’] tale about how not to treat your relatives.” “Pick of the Day: Sleeping Beauty,” Independent, 19 Dec. 1995, at 10. …

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sailor; sailer. A “sailor” is one who sails — always in reference to a person. A “sailer” is a vessel or vehicle that sails, or that moves by the use of a sail — e.g.: “The second part of the project is to launch an operational solar sailer with eight sails to be tested in …

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said, adj. Legal writers formerly used this word as a supposedly more precise equivalent of “the,” “this,” “that,” “these,” or “those.” But as lawyers have generally learned that it isn’t any more precise — and, indeed, that it can lead to various technical problems — the term has become much less frequent. Still, some writers …

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sacrilegious. “Sacrilegious” (= violative of something sacred; profane) is so spelled. *”Sacreligious,” under the influence of “religious,” is a common misspelling — e.g.: “An appointment book, yes, a desk, no. It’s sacreligious [read ‘sacrilegious’].” Nathan Cobb, “Drawers of Our Lives,” Boston Globe, 27 Aug. 1995, Mag. §, at 9. Still another misspelling is *”sacriligious” — …

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Run-On Sentences (2). Today: The Distinction. The distinction between a true run-on sentence and a comma splice can be helpful in differentiating between the wholly unacceptable (the former) and the usually-but-not-always unacceptable (the latter). That is, most usage authorities accept comma splices when (1) the clauses are short and closely related, (2) there is no …

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