Bryson's Dictionary for Writers and Editors - Bill Bryson [16]
bonsoir. (Fr.) Good evening, but bonne nuit for good night.
bon vivant, bon viveur. The first is a person who enjoys good food; the second a person who lives well.
Book-of-the-Month Club.
Boonyaratglin, Gen. Sonthi. (1946–) Leader of military coup in Thailand in 2006; on second reference he is Gen. Sonthi.
Boorstin, Daniel. (1914-2004) American historian.
Bophuthatswana. Former South African black homeland; capital Mmabatho. Reintegrated into South Africa in 1994.
bordellos.
Borders Books and Music. (No apos.)
Borghese. Noble Italian family.
Borgia, Rodrigo. (1431-1503) Pope Alexander VI, father of Cesare Borgia (1476-1507) and Lucrezia Borgia (1480-1519).
Borglum, Gutzon. (1871-1941) American sculptor, designer of the presidential memorial at Mount Rushmore; full name John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum.
Bormann, Martin. (1900-1945) Nazi politician.
born, borne. Both are past participles of the verb bear, but by convention they are used in slightly different ways. Born is limited to the idea of birth (“He was born in December”). Borne is used for the sense of supporting or tolerating (“She has borne the burden with dignity”), but is also used to refer to giving birth in active constructions (“She has borne three children”) and in passive constructions followed by “by” (“The three children borne by her…”).
Borodin, Alexander (Porfiryevich). (1833-1887) Russian composer.
borscht.
Börse, Borsa, Bourse. Respectively German, Italian, and French for stock exchange.
Bosch, Hieronymus. (c. 1450-1516) Dutch painter, born Hieronymus van Aken.
bo’s’n, bosun, bo’sun are all abbreviations of boatswain, a naval officer; not to be confused with boson, a type of subatomic particle.
Bosnia and Herzegovina/Bosnia-Herzegovina. Serbian republic, formerly part of Yugoslavia; capital Sarajevo.
Bosporous, not Bosph-, for the strait separating Europe and Asia.
BOSS. Bureau for (not of) State Security, former South African intelligence department.
both. Three small problems to note:
1. Both should not be used to describe more than two things. Partridge cites a passage in which a woman is said to have “a shrewd common sense…both in speech, deed and dress.” Delete both.
2. Sometimes it appears superfluously: “…and they both went to the same school, Charterhouse” (Observer). Either delete both or make it “…they both went to Charterhouse.”
3. Sometimes it is misused for each. To say that there is a supermarket on both sides of the street suggests that it is somehow straddling the roadway. Say either that there is a supermarket on each side of the street or that there are supermarkets on both sides. (See also EACH.)
both…and. “He was both deaf to argument and entreaty” (cited by Gowers). The rule involved here is that of correlative conjunctions, which states that in a sentence of this type both and and should link grammatically similar entities. If both is followed immediately by a verb, and should also be followed immediately by a verb. If both immediately precedes a noun, then so should and. In the example above, however, both is followed by an adjective (deaf) and and by a noun (entreaty).
The sentence needs to be recast, either as “He was deaf to both argument [noun] and entreaty [noun]” or as “He was deaf both to argument [preposition and noun] and to entreaty [preposition and noun].”
The rule holds true equally for other such pairs: “not only…but also,” “either…or,” and “neither…nor.”
Botswana. Southern African republic, formerly Bechuanaland; capital Gaborone. The people are Batswana (sing. and pl.).
Botticelli, Sandro. (c. 1445-1510) Italian painter, born Alessandro di Mariano di Vannik Filipepi.
bottleneck, as Gowers notes, is a useful, if sometimes overworked, metaphor to indicate a point of constriction. But it should not be forgotten that it is a metaphor and therefore capable of cracking when put under too much pressure. To speak, for instance, of “a worldwide bottleneck” or “a growing bottleneck” sounds a note of absurdity. Bottlenecks, even figurative ones, don’t grow,