Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words - Bill Bryson [67]
“Rime of the Ancient Mariner, The,” not Rhyme, for the poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
rottweiler for the breed of dog. Note two t’s, one l.
row to hoe. As well as being dangerously close to cliché, the phrase is subject to a curious form of transliteration, as here: “It could change your life forever—a hard enough road to hoe” (HQ magazine). As a moment’s thought should confirm, it would be an odd road indeed that is hoed.
S
saccharin, saccharine. The first is an artificial sweetener; the second means sugary.
sacrilegious. Sometimes misspelled sacreligious on the mistaken assumption that religious is part of the word. It isn’t.
Sahara. “His intention is to cross the Sahara Desert alone” (San Francisco Chronicle). Sahara means desert, so the common expression Sahara Desert is clearly redundant.
St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, but St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge.
St. James’s. See COURT OF ST. JAMES’S.
St. Kitts-Nevis is the common name for the Caribbean state formally known as the Federation of St. Christopher and Nevis.
salutary. Not -tory. For a discussion of its usage, see HEALTHY, HEALTHFUL, SALUTARY.
Salvadoran, not -ean, for a person or thing from El Salvador.
Sam Browne, not Brown, for the type of belt worn diagonally across the chest.
sanatorium, sanitarium. Both are somewhat archaic terms for institutional retreats designed to improve or restore people’s health. They can be treated as synonyms, though clearly you should stick to one form or the other in any particular piece of writing. Note that the first is spelled sana-, the second sani-.
sandal for the type of shoe. Not sandle.
sanitary. Not -tory.
Sara Lee, not Sarah, for the U.S. food company.
Sauterne, Sauternes. The first is a sweet French wine; the second is the village in Gironde from which it comes.
savoir-faire, savoir-vivre. Both are French, of course. The first indicates social grace, the second good breeding.
Sca Fell and Scafell Pike are neighboring but separate mountains in the English Lake District. The latter is the highest eminence in England, at 3,206 feet.
scarves, scarfs. Either is correct for the plural of scarf.
scary. Not -ey.
Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam.
schwa, not schwah, for the phonetic symbol () representing an indeterminate unstressed sound akin to “uh,” as with the second and fourth vowel sounds of memorandum (i.e., mem--ran-dm).
scrutiny, scrutinize. To scrutinize something means to look at it with particular attentiveness. Thus qualifying words like close or careful are nearly always superfluous, as here: “But for all the good he did, Roosevelt did much that wouldn’t bear close scrutiny” (Boston Globe). Delete close and the sentence loses not only a word but also an aura of cliché.
Bernstein, who often cautioned against the solecism, actually commits it himself in The Careful Writer when he says, “Under close scrutiny, many constructions containing the word ‘not’ make no sense.” In the same volume he unwittingly underlines the point by urging writers to “scrutinize thoughtfully every phrase that eases itself almost mechanically onto the paper.” Had he followed his own advice, he no doubt would have omitted thoughtfully there.
scurrilous, which is most often encountered in the expression a scurrilous attack, does not mean disreputable or specious, though those senses are often intended. It means grossly obscene or abusive. An attack must be exceedingly harsh to be scurrilous.
second largest and similar comparisons often lead writers astray: “Japan is the second largest drugs market in the world after the United States” (Times). Not quite. It is the largest drugs market in the world after the United States, or it is the second largest drugs market in the world. The sentence above could be fixed by placing a comma after world.
Securities and Exchange Commission, not Securities Exchange Commission, for the body that regulates U.S. stock markets.
seismograph, seismometer, seismogram. Occasionally, and perhaps understandably, confused. A seismometer is a sensor placed in the ground