Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words - Bill Bryson [66]
rendezvous is the spelling for both the singular and the plural.
repel, repulse. Not to be confused. Repulse means to drive back: “The army repulsed the enemy’s attack.” It should not be confused with repulsive, meaning to cause repugnance. Repel is the word for causing squeamishness or distaste: “The idea of eating squid repelled her.”
replica. Properly, a replica is an exact copy, built to the same scale as the original and using the same materials. To use the word when you might better use model, miniature, or copy is always inexact and sometimes faintly preposterous, as here: “One of the museum’s more eccentric displays is a replica of the Taj Mahal made entirely from toothpicks” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch).
respite. “Even Saudi Arabia’s assurance that it would not cut oil prices provided no more than a temporary respite” (Daily Telegraph). The expression is common but redundant. A respite can only be temporary. Brief respite is also common and also nearly always redundant. Respite, incidentally, rhymes with cesspit, not with despite.
responsible. Though some may find the stricture a trifle pedantic, it is perhaps worth noting that a few authorities continue to hold that responsibility for events can lie only with people and not with things. Poor maintenance might be responsible for a fire, but lightning could not be. Lightning could cause a fire or ignite a fire, but it could not properly be said to be responsible for it.
restaurateur. I recently watched a food program, on a cable network devoted to food programs, in which the presenter repeatedly referred to the proprietor of a restaurant as a “restauranter.” If you don’t know it already, note now that there is no n in restaurateur.
restive. Originally the word meant balky, refusing to move or budge, but through confusion it has come to be used more and more as a synonym for restless. Most dictionaries now recognize both senses, but if the word is to have any special value, it should contain at least some suggestion of resistance. A crowd of protesters may grow restive upon the arrival of mounted police, but a person sitting uncomfortably on a hard bench is better described as restless.
revert back is commonly seen and always redundant: “If no other claimant can be found, the right to the money will revert back to her” (Daily Telegraph). Delete back.
re- words. Somewhat mystifyingly, many publications show a formidable resistance to putting hyphens into any word beginning with re-. Yet often the presence or absence of a hyphen can usefully and immediately denote a difference in meaning, as between recollect (remember) and re-collect (collect again), or between recede (withdraw) and re-cede (give back again, as with territory). My advice, for what it is worth, is always to insert a hyphen if you think it might reduce the chance of even momentary misunderstanding.
Richter scale for the standard measure of earthquake magnitudes. It is named for Charles Richter of the California Institute of Technology, who invented it in the 1930s. The scale increases at a rate that is exponential rather than linear, making each level of increment vastly greater than most people realize. According to Charles Officer and Jake Page in Tales of the Earth, a magnitude 8.3 earthquake is 50 times stronger than a magnitude 7.3 quake and 2,500 times stronger than a magnitude 6.3 quake. In practical terms, this means that Richter magnitudes are largely meaningless to most readers and comparisons involving two or more Richter measurements are totally meaningless. It is considerate to the reader to provide, wherever possible, some basis of comparison beyond the bare Richter numbers. It is also worth bearing in mind that the Richter scale measures only the magnitude of an earthquake at its point of origin and says little or nothing about the degree of devastation