Bryson's Dictionary for Writers and Editors - Bill Bryson [31]
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