Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words - Bill Bryson [61]
plus. “The end of the holiday season plus the fact that London banks remained closed were cited as factors contributing to the quiet trading day” (Associated Press). Plus is a preposition, not a conjunction, and therefore does not influence the number of the verb. Two and two are four, but two plus two is four. The example above should say “was cited as a factor,” or plus should be changed to and.
populace, populous. The first describes a general population. The second means heavily populated.
pore, pour. Occasionally pour appears where pore is intended. As a verb, pore means to examine carefully (“She pored over the documents”) or, more rarely, to meditate. Pour indicates a flow, either literally (“He poured the water down the drain”) or figuratively (“The rioters poured through the streets”).
position. Often a pointer to verbosity. “They now find themselves in a position where they have to make a choice” (Daily Telegraph) would be immeasurably better as “They now have to make a choice.”
possessives. Problems with possessives are discussed in some detail in the Appendix under APOSTROPHE, but three especially common faults are worth mentioning here.
1. Failure to put an apostrophe in the right place. This is particularly frequent with words like men’s, women’s, and children’s, which all too often appear as mens’, womens’, and childrens’.
2. Failure to put in an apostrophe at all. This practice—spelling the words mens, womens, and childrens and so on—is particularly rife among retailers. It is painful enough to behold there, inexcusable elsewhere.
3. Putting an apostrophe where none is needed. Possessive pronouns—his, hers, ours, theirs, and so on—do not take an apostrophe. But sometimes one is wrongly inserted, as here: “I don’t think much of your’s” (Independent headline).
See also “OURS IS NOT TO REASON WHY . . .”
possible is wrongly followed by may in constructions such as the following: “It is possible that she may decide to go after all” (Daily Telegraph). Make it either “It is possible that she will decide to go after all” or “She may decide to go after all.” Together the two words are redundant and unnecessary.
postmeridian, post meridiem. The first means related to or happening in the afternoon. The second, also pertaining to the period after noon, is the Latin term better known to most of us as the abbreviation P.M. Note the different terminal spellings.
practical, practicable. Anything that can be done and is worth doing is practical. Anything that can be done, whether or not it is worth doing, is practicable.
practice, practise. “U.S. usage . . . spells both noun and verb practise, as with license” (Fieldhouse, Everyman’s Good English Guide). That is a common misconception outside North America. In the United States, practice is in fact always spelled with a c: practice, practiced, practicing. In British usage, the noun is spelled practice (“Practice makes perfect”) and the verb practise (“You must practise your piano lessons”). See also LICENCE, LICENSE.
precautionary measure is a common phrase but can nearly always be shortened simply to precaution.
precipitant, precipitate, precipitous. All three come from the same root, the Latin praecipitare (“to throw headlong”). Precipitous means very steep: cliff faces are precipitous. Precipitant and precipitate both indicate a headlong rush and are almost indistinguishable in meaning, but precipitant tends to emphasize the abruptness of the rush and precipitate the rashness of it. The most common error is to use precipitous to describe actions (“his precipitous departure from the Cabinet”). Precipitous can describe only physical characteristics.
precondition, preplanning, prerecorded, etc. Almost always redundant. “A lot of headaches can be avoided with a little careful preplanning” (Chicago Tribune). All planning must be done in advance. Pre- adds nothing to its meaning and should be deleted, as it should have been in these examples: “There are,