Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words - Bill Bryson [72]
stupefied, stupefaction. All too often misspelled, as here: “The 57-year-old evangelist denies four charges of rape and three of administering a stupifying drug” (Independent). Don’t confuse the spelling with stupid. A similar erroneous exchange of i for e often happens with liquefy and liquefaction and rarefy and rarefaction.
subjunctives. The subjunctive, one of the four moods of verbs, has been slipping from use in English for decades. It is the mood seen in sentences like “Although he die now, his name will live forever.” Though once very common, it scarcely features in English now except in three types of construction. These are:
1. In certain stock phrases: be that as it may, far be it from me, so be it, as it were, God forbid, and many others. These are well established as idioms and normally cause no trouble.
2. In expressions involving suppositions or hypotheses: “If I were you, I wouldn’t go”; “If she were in my position, she’d do the same thing,” etc. These are the most problematic form of the subjunctive for most users and are discussed at some length under WILL, WOULD and IF.
3. Following verbs of command or request. Interestingly, this problem scarcely exists in the United States or Canada, where this form of the subjunctive has never lost its currency, but it is endlessly encountered in Britain at all levels of writing—to such an extent that a foreign visitor could well conclude that sentences such as those that follow are correct in British usage. (They are not. In each, I have given the correct form of the verb in brackets.) “The Senate has now rewritten the contract insisting that the Navy considers [consider] other options” (Daily Mail); “OPEC’s monitoring committee has recommended that the cartel’s output ceiling remains [remain] unchanged” (Observer); “No wonder the Tory Party turned him down as a possible candidate, suggesting he went away [go away] and came back [come back] with a better public image” (Guardian). It might help to imagine placing a should just before the problem verb (e.g., “suggesting he should go away”). Gowers in fact points out that such sentences would be better in British usage if should were inserted in every instance. It certainly wouldn’t hurt.
substitute should be followed only by for. You substitute one thing for another. If you find yourself following the word with by or with or any other preposition, you should choose another verb.
successfully is another of those words that often creep unnecessarily into sentences, as here: “Japanese researchers have successfully developed a semiconductor chip made of gallium arsenide” (Associated Press). They could hardly have unsuccessfully developed one. Delete successfully.
supersede is one of the most frequently misspelled words. Those who habitually make it supercede may take some comfort in knowing that the word caused just as much trouble to the ancient Romans, who often could not decide between superseder and supercedere. Supercede was an acceptable variant in early English usage, but no longer.
Suriname, Surinam. Confusion still sometimes arises concerning the name of this small South American country. The Encarta World English Dictionary, for instance, calls it Suriname under its main entry but labels it Surinam on a map elsewhere in the same volume. The spelling Surinam can now safely be regarded as historic and Suriname as the preferred modern spelling. The Suriname River and Suriname toad also take the modern spelling.
surrounded. “Often shrouded by fog and surrounded on three sides by surging seas, the gray stone lighthouse looms like a medieval keep” (Time magazine); “. . . and, to their dismay, they found that they were now completely surrounded by water” (Outside magazine). The first usage is wrong, the second superfluous. If you are not fully encircled, you are not surrounded. Surrounded should be changed in the first example to cut off or bordered, and completely should be deleted from the second.
T
Tallinn for the capital of Estonia.
Taoiseach for the Prime Minister of Ireland.