by Bill Bryson
calamine lotion.
Calaveras County, California, is the scene of the Mark Twain story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.”
Calcutta, the Indian city, is now officially Kolkata; until the new name is fully established, the use of both on first reference is advisable.
Calderón, Felipe. (1962–) President of Mexico (2006–).
Calderón de la Barca (y Henao), Pedro. (1600–1681) Spanish playwright.
calico, pl. calicoes.
caliper.
Callicrates. (fl. fifth c. BC) Greek architect, co-designer (with Ictinus) of the Parthenon.
calligraphy is an art. The science of studying written text is graphology.
Callimachus. (fl. third c. BC) Greek scholar.
calliope. Fairground steam-organ, named after Calliope, the Greek muse of epic poetry.
callous, callus. The first means insensitive, the second is a thickening of the skin.
Calmann-Lévy. French publisher.
Caltech (one word) is the common name for the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
Calypso. Nymph who delayed Odysseus for seven years on his way home from Troy.
camaraderie.
Cambodia has been variously known in recent decades as the Khmer Republic, Democratic Kampuchea, and the People’s Republic of Kampuchea, but in 1989 it resumed its historical name of Cambodia.
Cambridgeshire. English county.
Camden Yards. Baseball stadium, home of Baltimore Orioles; formally it is Oriole Park at Camden Yards.
camellia for the flower. Not camelia.
Camembert. (Cap.) Soft French cheese and the village in Normandy for which it is named.
Cameroon/Cameroun. The first is the English spelling; the second is the French (and local) spelling for the West African republic formerly called the Cameroons. Its capital is Yaoundé.
Camisards. French Calvinists disaffected by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1703).
camisole.
Camorra. Mafia-type secret society of Naples.
Campagna di Roma. Countryside around Rome.
campanile. Bell tower.
can, may. Can applies to what is possible and may to what is permissible. You can drive your car the wrong way down a one-way street, but you may not. Despite the simplicity of the rule, errors are common, even among experts. Here is William Safire writing in the New York Times on the pronunciation of junta: “The worst mistake is to mix languages. You cannot say ‘joonta’ and you cannot say ‘hunta.’” But you can, and quite easily. What Mr. Safire meant was that you may not or should not or ought not.
Canada is a dominion, comprising ten provinces (Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Saskatchewan) and three territories (Yukon, Northwest, and Nunavut); capital Ottawa.
Canaletto. (1697–1768) Venetian artist, real name Giovanni Antonio Canal.
Canandaigua Lake, New York.
canard. A ridiculous story or rumor. “Gross canard” is a cliché. The French satirical magazine is Le Canard Enchaîné.
Canary Islands. Island group off northwest Africa; they are not a colony but are part of Spain; in Spanish, Islas Canarias.
Cancún. Mexican resort.
candelabrum (or candelabra), pl. candelabra (or candelabras). Note not candle-.
Candlemas. The Feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary; February 2.
Canetti, Elias. (1905–1994) Bulgarian-born British writer; awarded Nobel Prize for Literature in 1981.
canine.
canister.
cannabis.
Cannae. Site of battle in southern Italy where Hannibal routed the Romans.
canneloni.
Cannizzaro, Stanisloa. (1826–1910) Italian chemist.
cannon, canon. A cannon is a gun. Canon is an ecclesiastical title; a canon is a body of religious writings or the works of a particular author.
cannonball. (One word.)
cannot help but is an increasingly common construction, and perhaps now may be said to carry the weight of idiom, but it is also worth noting that it is both unnecessarily wordy and a little irregular. “You cannot help but notice what a bad name deregulation has with voters” would be better (or at least more conventionally) phrased as either “You cannot help notice…” or “You cannot but notice…”
canoodle.
canopy.
Canova, Antonio. (1757–1822) Italian sculptor.
cant, jargon. Both apply to words or expressions used by particular groups. Cant has derogatory overtones and applies to the private vocabulary and colloquialisms of professions, social groups, and sects. Jargon is a slightly more impartial word and usually suggests terms used in a particular profession.
cantaloupe.
Canton, China, is now normally referred to by its Pinyin name, Guangzhou. It is the capital of Guangdong Province, formerly Kwantung.
Cantonese is still used to describe the food of the region, however.
Canute. (c. 995–1035) King of England, Norway, and Denmark; sometimes spelled Cnut.
canvas, canvass. The first is the fabric; the second is a verb meaning to solicit, especially for votes.
Cape Canaveral, Florida; called Cape Kennedy from 1963 to 1973.
Capek, Karel. (1890–1938) Czech author.
Cape Town (two words), South Africa.
Cape Verde. Atlantic island nation off African coast; capital Cidade de Praia.
capital, capitol. Capitol always applies to a building, usually the place where legislatures gather in the United States. It is always capitalized when referring to the domed building in Washington, D.C., housing the U.S. Congress. The rise on which the U.S. Capitol stands is Capitol Hill. In all other senses, capital is the invariable spelling.
Capitol Reef National Park, Utah; not -al.
Capodichino International Airport, Naples, Italy.
cappuccino, pl. cappuccinos.
carabinieri, not cari-, for the Italian security force roughly equivalent to the French gendarmerie. Like gendarmes, carabinieri are soldiers employed in police duties. They are separate from, and not to be confused with, the state police (polizia statale in Italian), who also deal with criminal matters. Carabinieri is a plural; a single member of the force is a carabiniere. See also GENDARMES.
Caracalla, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. (186–217) Roman emperor.
Caracci, Lodovico (1555–1619), Agostino (1557–1602), and Annibale (1560–1609), family of Italian painters.
carafe. A container, especially for wine or water.
Caraqueño. A person from Caracas, Venezuela.
carat, caret, karat. A carat is the unit of measurement used by jewelers; a caret is an insertion mark (^) associated with proofreading; a karat is a measure of the purity of gold.
Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi/Amerighi da. (c. 1569–1609) Italian painter.
caraway seeds.
carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide. Carbon dioxide is the gas people exhale; carbon monoxide is the highly poisonous gas associated with car exhausts.
carburetor.
carcass.
Carcassonne. Walled city in southern France.
cardamom. A spice.
cardinal numbers, ordinal numbers. Cardinal numbers are those that denote size but not rank: one, two, three, etc. Ordinal numbers are those that denote position: first, second, third, etc.
CARE. International charity, short for Cooperative for American Relief Everywhere. Originally the R stood for Remittances and the E for Europe.
careen, career. Occasionally confused when describing runaway vehicles and the like. Careen should convey the idea of swaying or tilting dangerously. If all you mean is uncontrolled movement, use career.
caret, not carat, for the insertion mark (^) associated with proofreading. See also CARAT, CARET, KARAT.
cargoes.
Caribbean.
Cariboo Mountains, Canada;
part of the Rockies.
caricature.
CARICOM. Short for Caribbean Community, regional trade organization.
carillon.
Carioca. (Cap.) Colloquial name for a person or persons from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Carisbrooke Castle, Isle of Wight, England.
Carl XVI Gustaf. (1946–) King of Sweden (1973–).
Carlyle Group. Investment company.
Carlyle Hotel, New York City.
Carlyle, Thomas. (1795–1881) Scottish historian.
Carmichael, Hoagy. (1899–1981) American songwriter; full name Hoagland Howard Carmichael.
Carnap, Rudolf. (1891–1970) German-born American philosopher.
Carnarvon, Lord. (Formally George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, Earl of Carnarvon) (1866–1923) English archaeologist, co-discoverer with Howard Carter of the famous tomb of Tutankhamun in Egypt.
Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, but Carnegie Institution, Washington, D.C.
Carnoustie, Scotland, site of famous golf course.
carom.
Carothers, Wallace (Hume). (1896–1937) American scientist and inventor of nylon.
carotid arteries.
carpaccio. Thinly sliced beef, named for Vittore Carpaccio (c. 1460–c. 1526), Italian painter.
carpal tunnel syndrome.
carpe diem. (Lat.) “Seize the day,” make the most of the present.
Carpentaria, Gulf of, Australia.
Carrantuohill. Highest mountain in Ireland (31,414 feet), in Macgillicuddy’s Reeks, County Kerry.
Carrara. Town in Tuscany, Italy, and the fine white marble quarried nearby.
Carrasquel, Chico. (1928–2005) Venezuelan baseball star, played mostly for Chicago White Sox.
Carrefour. French supermarket group.
Carroll, Diahann. (1935–) American singer and actress.
Carroll, Lewis. Pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832–1898).
cartel describes not just any alliance of businesses but one designed to maximize prices; unless a negative connotation is desired, avoid the word.
Carter Barron Amphitheatre, Washington, D.C. Note that Amphitheatre is spelled -re.
Carthusian.
Cartier-Bresson, Henri. (1908–2004) French photographer.
cartilage.
Carton, Sydney. Principal character in Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities.
Caruso, Enrico. (1874–1921) Italian tenor.
Cary, Joyce. (1888–1957) British author; full name Arthur Joyce Lunel Cary.
caryatid. In architecture, a female form used as a supporting pillar.
Casablanca, Morocco.
Casals, Pablo. (1876–1973) Spanish cellist.
Casanova (de Seingalt), Giovanni Jacopo/Giacomo. (1725–1798) Italian adventurer.
cashmere.
Cassamassima, The Princess. Novel by Henry James (1886).
Cassandra. In Greek mythology, she was given the power of prophecy by Apollo but doomed never to be believed. The name is now used as a synonym for any prophet of doom.
Cassatt, Mary. (1845–1926) American impressionist painter.
cassava. Root crop widely grown in Africa and parts of Asia and South America; also known as manioc, yuca, or tapioca.
Cassavetes, John. (1930–1989) American actor and director.
cassette.
Cassiopeia. A constellation in the northern hemisphere named for the mother of Andromeda in Greek mythology.
cassowary. Flightless bird.
castenets. Spanish rhythm instruments.
caster, castor. The first is the spelling for a wheel on a chair; the second is the spelling of the oil or bean.
Castile. Area of northern Spain; in Spanish, Castilla. The name appears in two Spanish regions: Castilla–La Mancha and Castilla-León.
Castlereagh, Robert Stewart, Viscount. (1769–1822) British statesman.
castrato. Castrated soprano; pl. castrati.
casus belli. (Lat.) Act that gives rise to war.
catalyst is not just any agent of change, but one that hastens change without becoming changed itself.
catamaran.
catarrh.
cater-corner. Not catty-corner.
Catharine’s College, St., Cambridge University, England, but St. Catherine’s College, Oxford.
CAT scan. Short for computerized axial tomography.
Catullus, Gaius Valerius. (c. 84–c. 55 BC) Roman poet.
Caudillo. (Sp.) “Leader” title assumed by General Francisco Franco of Spain.
cauliflower.
cause célèbre.
caveat emptor. (Lat.) “Let the buyer beware.”
caviar.
Cawley, Evonne Goolagong. (1951–) Australian tennis star.
Cayenne. Capital of French Guiana.
CBC. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
CBS. Columbia Broadcasting System.
CCCP. Abbreviation in the Cyrillic alphabet of Soyuz Sovyetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), former USSR.
Ceau¸sescu, Nicolae. (1918–1989) President of Romania (1967–89); pronounced chow'-chess-coo.
cedilla. Mark [,] placed under a c to indicate that it is pronounced in French as an s, in Turkish as ch, and in Portuguese as sh.
ceilidh. (Gaelic) A gathering for music and dancing; pronounced kay'-lee.
Cela, Camilo José. (1916–2002) Spanish novelist, awarded Nobel Prize for Literature (1989).
celebrant, celebrator. The first is the term for persons taking part in religious ceremonies. Those who gather for purposes of revelry are celebrators.
celibacy does not, as is generally supposed, indicate abstinence from sexual relations. It means only to be unmarried, particularly if as a result of a religious vow. A married person cannot be celibate, but he may be chaste.
Cellini, Benvenuto. (1500–1571) Italian sculptor, goldsmith, and author.
Celsius, centigrade. (Abbr. C.) Interchangeable terms referring to the scale of temperature invented by Anders Celsius (1701–1744), a Swedish astronomer. To convert Celsius to Fahrenheit, multiply the Celsius temperature by 1.8 and add 32, or use the table in the Appendix.
cement, concrete. The two are not interchangeable. Cement is a constituent of concrete, which also contains sand, gravel, and crushed rock.
cemetery. Not -ary.
Cenozoic era. The present geological era, beginning about 65 million years ago. In earlier periods it was sometimes also spelled Caenozoic or Cainozoic.
centavo. A monetary unit in many countries of South and Central America equivalent to one one-hundredth of the country’s main unit of currency; pl. centavos.
center around. Center indicates a point, and a point cannot encircle anything. Make it “center on” or “revolve around.”
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta. Federal institution that deals with matters of public health. Note the plural Centers. It is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
centrifugal/centripetal force. Centrifugal force pulls away from; centripetal force draws toward.
Cephalonia. Greek island in the Ionian chain; in Greek, Kephallinia.
Cerberus. In Greek mythology, a three-headed dog that stood guard over the gates to the underworld.
Ceres. Roman goddess of grain, identified with the Greek goddess Demeter.
CERN. Originally Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire, now the Organisation Européenne pour la Recherche Nucléaire, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, based in Geneva, Switzerland.
Cervantes, (Saavedra) Miguel de. (1547–1616) Spanish author.
c’est la guerre. (Fr.) “That’s the way of war.”
Cévennes. Mountains in southern France.
Ceylon. Former name of Sri Lanka.
Cézanne, Paul. (1839–1906) French impressionist painter.
cf. Confer. (Lat.) “Compare” used in cross-references.
Chablais. Region of Haute-Savoie, France.
Chablis. French village and white burgundy wine (also cap.).
chacun à son goût. (Fr.) “Each to his own taste.”
chacun pour soi. (Fr.) “Everyone for himself.”
chador. Large piece of cloth worn by some Muslim women, which is wrapped around the body to leave only the face exposed; pl. chadors.
chaebol. Korean business conglomerate; pl. same.
chafe, chaff. To chafe means to make sore or worn by rubbing (or, figuratively, to annoy or irritate). To chaff means to tease good-naturedly.
chaffinch. Type of bird.
Chagall, Marc. (1889–1985) Russian-born French artist.
chagrined.
chaise-longue, pl. chaises-longues.
Chakvetadze, Anna. (1987–) Russian tennis player.
Chaliapin, Feodor (Ivanovich). (1873–1938) Russian opera singer.
challah (or chalah or hallah). Type of Jewish bread.
Chalon-sur-Saône, Châlons-en-Champagne, Chalonnes-sur-Loire, France.
Chamberlain, Sir (Joseph) Austen. (1863–1937) British politician, awarded Nobel Peace Prize (1925); son of Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914), also a politician; half brother of (Arthur) Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940), British prime minister (1937–1940).
Chamberlain, Wilt. (1936–1999) American basketball player.
Chambers’s Encyclopaedia.
chameleon.
chamois. The plural is also chamois, for both the antelope and the cloth for wiping cars.
Champagne. Region of France, formally Champagne-Ardenne; the wine is champagne (no cap.).
champaign. An open plain.
Champaign, Illinois.
Champaigne, Philippe de. (1602–1674) French painter.
Champigny-sur-Marne. Suburb of Paris.
Champlain, Samuel de. (1567–1635) Founder of Quebec.
Champollion, Jean François. (1790–1832) French Egyptologist who helped decipher the hieroglyphics on the Rosetta Stone.
Champs-Élysées, Paris.
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Post in the British Cabinet that has no formal duties, enabling the holder to take up special assignments for the prime minister.
Chancellorsville, battle of. Note -orsv-. Battle in the Civil War.
Chandigarh. Indian city laid out by Le Corbusier.
Chang Jiang (Pinyin)/Yangtze River. If you use the Pinyin spelling (as many users now do) you should make at least passing reference to the Yangtze, as that name is much more widely known in the English-speaking world.
