Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words - Bill Bryson [30]
Another problem worth noting occurs in this sentence: “Representatives have offered to produce the Sunday supplements on one fewer press than at present” (Times). Idiom, according to Bernstein, doesn’t allow “one fewer press.” You must make it either “one press fewer,” which is more grammatical, or “one less press,” which is more idiomatic.
filet mignon, but fillet for all other dishes and contexts.
filigree for intricate or delicate ornamentation.
finalize is still objected to by many as an ungainly and unnecessary word, and there is no arguing that several other verbs—finish, complete, conclude—do the job as well without raising hackles.
Finnegans Wake (no apostrophe) for the 1939 novel by James Joyce.
first, firstly. The question of whether one may write firstly or not when beginning a list of points constitutes one of the more inane but most hotly disputed issues in the history of English usage. De Quincey called firstly “a ridiculous and most pedantic neologism,” and the view has been widely echoed since, though what makes it so objectionable has never been entirely clear. Fowler, ever the cool head, should perhaps be allowed the final word on the matter: “The preference for first over firstly in formal enumerations is one of the harmless pedantries in which those who like oddities because they are odd are free to indulge, provided that they abstain from censuring those who do not share the liking.”
A separate problem with first is seen here: “The Bangladesh government reacted angrily when plans for blood tests were first announced” (Independent). With words like announced, reported, revealed, and (especially) conceived and created, first is nearly always superfluous, sometimes glaringly so, and should be removed.
first and foremost. Choose one.
flak. Often misspelled, as here: “Japanese women take a lot of flack from foreigners for their alleged docility” (Observer). The word, for what it is worth, is a contraction of the German Fliegerabwehrkanone (“antiaircraft gun”), which contains nineteen letters, not one of them a c. Flack is, however, the correct spelling for the slightly pejorative term for a publicist.
flammable, inflammable. It is an odd inconsistency of English that incombustible describes an object that won’t burn while inflammable describes an object that will. Because the meaning of inflammable is susceptible to misunderstanding, manufacturers and others who deal with combustible materials increasingly use the less ambiguous flammable. In other cases this might be considered a regrettable concession to ignorance, but it would be even more regrettable to insist on linguistic purity at the expense of human safety.
flank. “A Special Report on Finland tomorrow looks at the only Western nation that has to live with the Soviet Union as its neighbor on two flanks” (Times). Two points to note here. The first is that a thing can have only two flanks, so the usage above would be tautological if it weren’t inaccurate. The second point is that flanks fall on either side of a body. If I am flanked by people, they are to my left and right. Finland is flanked by the Soviet Union (or at least it was at the time the sentence appeared) and Sweden, and not by the Soviet Union alone, which lay to the east and south. For a similar error, see SURROUNDED.
flaunt, flout. The confusion over these two is so widespread that many dictionaries have granted them legitimacy as synonyms. To flaunt means to display ostentatiously, to show off. To flout means to treat with contempt, to disregard in a smug manner. I would submit that there is every reason for keeping these meanings distinct.
florescent, fluorescent. The first means in flower, the second radiating light.
flotsam and jetsam. In the perhaps unlikely event that you need to distinguish these two,