Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words - Bill Bryson [58]
optimum does not mean greatest or fastest or biggest, as is sometimes thought. It describes the point at which conflicting considerations are reconciled. The optimum flying speed of an aircraft is the speed at which all the many variables that must be taken into account in flying—safety, comfort, fuel consumption, and so on—are most nearly in harmony.
or has the grammatical effect of emphasizing the separateness of items rather than adding them together. If a grammarian offers you an apple, a pear, or a banana, he means that you may have one of them, not all three. Thus when or links two or more singular items in a sentence, the verb must always be singular. “It was not clear whether the President or Vice President were within hearing range at the time” (Chicago Tribune) should be “was within hearing range.” If that sounds stilted, you can flag the singularity by inserting either ahead of the phrase (“It was not clear whether either the President or the Vice President was within hearing range”), or, more simply still, you can change or to and, thus justifying the plural verb. For a full discussion, see NUMBER, 2.
oral, verbal. “The 1960 understanding . . . was a verbal understanding that was never written down” (New York Times). Because oral can apply only to the spoken word, it would have been a better choice here. Verbal, which can describe both spoken and written words, is more usefully employed to distinguish between words and gestures or between words and substance. In the example above, however, neither word is necessary. It would be enough to say, “The 1960 understanding was never written down.”
originally is often needlessly inserted into sentences where it conveys no additional information, as here: “The plans were originally drawn up as long ago as 1972” (Observer).
Orkney. The collection of Scottish islands is properly labeled Orkney or the Orkney Islands, but not the Orkneys. A native or resident is an Orcadian.
“Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do or die” is often heard but is wrong. The lines from Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade” are “Their’s not to reason why,/Their’s but to do and die.” Note that the closing words “do and die” give the lines an entirely different sense from “do or die.” Finally, it should be noted that Tennyson’s punctuation of theirs is irregular (see POSSESSIVES).
over. The notion that over is incorrect for more than (as in “over three hundred people were present at the rally”) is a widely held superstition. The stricture has been traced to Ambrose Bierce’s Write It Right (1909), a usage book teeming with quirky recommendations, many of which you will find repeated nowhere. There is no harm in preferring more than, but also no basis for insisting on it.
overly. “I didn’t wish to appear overly earnest, but I couldn’t help but wonder what was in the box” (Philadelphia Inquirer). Making over into overly is a little like turning soon into soonly. Adding -ly does nothing for over that it could not already do.
overweening. Arrogant or presumptuous expectations are overweening ones. There is no word overweaning.
“Ozymandias” for the sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1818). Not Oxy-.
P
paean, paeon, peon. A paean (alternative spelling pean) is a hymn or song of praise. A paeon is a metrical foot in classical poetry. A peon is a servant or peasant.
pail, pale. The first is a small bucket; the second means lacking color.
palate, palette, pallet. Palate has to do with the mouth and taste. Palette is the board used by artists. Pallet is a mattress, a machine part, or a wooden platform on which freight is placed.
pall-mall, pell-mell. The first was a game popular in the eighteenth century. A favored site for playing it later became the London street Pall Mall. For the act of moving crazily or in haste, the word is pell-mell. All versions of