by Bill Bryson
III
4
IV
5
V
6
VI
7
VII
8
VIII
9
IX
10
X
50
L
60
LX
90
XC
100
C
500
D
1,000
M
5,000
10,000
100,000
* * *
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND SUGGESTED READING
* * *
Throughout the text I have in general referred to the following books by the surname of the author, ignoring the contributions of those who revised the originals. Thus although Sir Ernest Gowers substantially revised A Dictionary of Modern English Usage in 1965, that book is referred to throughout the text as “Fowler.” References to “Gowers” are meant to suggest Gowers’s own book, The Complete Plain Words.
Aitchison, Jean. Language Change: Progress or Decay? London: Fontana, 1981.
American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000.
Austin, Tim, compiler. The Times Guide to English Style and Usage. London: Times Books, 1999.
Bernstein, Theodore M. The Careful Writer. New York: Free Press, 1995.
———. Dos, Don’ts and Maybes of English Usage. New York: Free Press, 1995.
Burchfield, R. W., ed. The New Fowler’s Modern Usage, third edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.
Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Encarta World English Dictionary. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999.
Evans, Bergen and Cornelia Evans. A Dictionary of Contemporary American Usage. New York: Random House, 1957.
Fieldhouse, Harry. Everyman’s Good English Guide. London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1982.
Fowler, E. G., and H. W. Fowler The King’s English, third edition. London: Oxford University Press, 1970.
Fowler, H. W. A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, second edition. Revised by Sir Ernest Gowers. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.
Gowers, Sir Ernest. The Complete Plain Words, second edition. Revised by Sir Bruce Fraser. Harmondsworth, England; Penguin, 1980.
Grimond, John. The Economist Pocket Style Book. London: Economist Publications, 1987.
———. New Words for Old. London: Unwin, 1980.
Howard, Philip. Weasel Words. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1978.
———. Words Fail Me. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.
———. A Word in Your Ear. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1985.
———. The State of the Language. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1986.
Hudson, Kenneth. The Dictionary of Diseased English. London: Papermac, 1980.
Jordan, Lewis, ed. The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage. New York: Times Books, 1976.
Manser, Martin H., ed. Good Word Guide. London: Bloomsbury, 2000.
Michaels, Leonard, and Christopher Ricks, eds. The State of the Language. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.
Morris, William and Mary Morris. Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage. New York: Harper & Row, 1975.
Newman, Edwin. Strictly Speaking. New York: Warner Books, 1975.
———. A Civil Tongue. New York: Warner Books, 1976.
Onions, C. T. Modern English Syntax, seventh edition. Prepared by B. D. H. Miller. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1971.
Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982.
Oxford English Dictionary, compact edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971.
Palmer, Frank. Grammar. New York: Viking Penguin, 1989.
Partridge, Eric. Usage and Abusage. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997.
Phythian, B. A. A Concise Dictionary of Correct English. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1979.
Potter, Simeon. Our Language. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1982.
Quirk, Randolph. The Use of English. London: Longmans, 1969.
Safire, William. On Language. New York: Avon, 1980.
———What’s the Good Word? New York: Avon, 1983.
Shaw, Harry. Dictionary of Problem Words and Expressions. New York: Pocket Books, 1985.
Shipley, Joseph T. In Praise of English: The Growth and Use of Language. New York: Times Books, 1977.
Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. London: Book Club Associates, 1983.
Siegal, Allan M., and William G. Connolly. The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, second edition. New York: Times Books/Random House, 1999.
Simon, John. Paradigms Lost: Reflections on Literacy and Its Decline. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1980.
Strunk, William, Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, third edition. New York: Macmillan, 1979.
Wallraff, Barbara. Word Court. New York: Harcourt, 2000.
Wood, Frederick T. Current English Usage, second edition. Revised by R. H. and L. M. Flavell. London: Papermac, 1981.
GLOSSARY
* * *
Grammatical terms are, to quote Frank Palmer, “largely notional and often extremely vague.” In “I went swimming,” for instance, swimming is a present participle; but in “Swimming is good for you,” it is a gerund. Because such distinctions are for many of us a source of continuing perplexity, I have tried to use most such terms sparingly throughout the book. Inevitably, however, they do sometimes appear, and the following is offered as a simple guide for those who are confused or need refreshing. For a fuller discussion, I recommend A Dictionary of Contemporary American Usage by Bergen and Cornelia Evans and A Concise Dictionary of Correct English by B. A. Phythian.
adjective. A word that qualifies a noun or pronoun: “a brick house,” “a small boy,” “a blue dress.” Most adjectives have three forms: the positive (big), the comparative (bigger), and the superlative (biggest). Although adjectives are usually easy to recognize when they stand before a noun, they are not always so easily discerned when they appear elsewhere in a sentence, as here: “He was deaf” “I’m glad to be alive” “She’s awake now.” Adjectives sometimes function as nouns (the old, the poor, the sick, the insane) and sometimes as adverbs (a bitter cold night, a quick-witted man). The distinction between an adjective and an adverb is often very fine. In “a great book,” great is an adjective, but in “a great many books,” it is an adverb.
adverb. A word that qualifies (or describes) any word other than a noun. That may seem a loose definition, but, as Palmer says, the classification is “quite clearly a ‘ragbag’ or ‘dustbin,’ the category into which words that do not seem to belong elsewhere are placed.” In general, adverbs qualify verbs (badly played), adjectives (too loud), or other adverbs (very quickly). As with adjectives, they have the three forms of positive, comparative, and superlative (seen respectively in long, longer, longest). A common misconception is the belief that words that end in -ly are always adverbs. Kindly, sickly, masterly, and deadly, for example, are usually adjectives.
case. The term describes relationships or syntactic functions between parts of speech. A pronoun is in the nominative case (sometimes called the subjective) when it is the subject of a verb (“He is here”) and in the accusative (sometimes called the objective) when it is the object of a verb or preposition (“Give it to him”). Except for six pairs of pronouns (I/me, he/him, she/her, they/them, we/us, and who/whom) and the genitive (which see), English has shed all its case forms.
clause. A group of words that contains a true verb (i.e., a verb functioning as such) and subject. The sentence “The house, which was built in 1920, was white” contains two clauses: “The house was white” and “which was built in 1920.” The first, which would stand on its own, is ca
lled a main or principal or independent clause. The second, which would not stand on its own, is called a dependent or subordinate clause.
Sometimes the subject is suppressed in main clauses, as here: “He got up and went downstairs.” Although “and went downstairs” would not stand on its own, it is a main clause because the subject has been suppressed. In effect the sentence is saying, “He got up and he went downstairs.” See also PHRASE.
complement. A word or group of words that completes a predicate construction—that is, that provides full sense to the meaning of the verb. In “He is a rascal,” rascal is the complement of the verb is.
conjunction. A word that links grammatical equivalents, as in “The president and prime minister conferred for two hours” (the conjunction and links two nouns) and “She came yesterday, but she didn’t stay long” (the conjunction but links two clauses).
genitive. A noun or pronoun is in the genitive case when it expresses possession (my house, his car, Sally’s job). Although some authorities make very small distinctions between genitives and possessives, many others do not. In this book, I have used the term possessives throughout.
gerund. A verb made to function as a noun, as with the italicized words here. “Seeing is believing” “Cooking is an art” “Walking is good exercise.” Gerunds always end in -ing.
infinitive. The term describes verbs that are in the infinite mood (i.e., that do not have a subject). Put another way, it is a verb form that indicates the action of the verb without inflection to indicate person, number, or tense. There are two forms of infinitive: the full (to go, to see) and bare (go, see), often called simply “an infinitive without to.”
mood. Verbs have four moods:
1. The indicative, which is used to state facts or ask questions (I am going; What time is it?).
2. The imperative, which indicates commands (Come here; Leave me alone).
3. The infinite, which makes general statements and has no subject (To know her is to love her).
4. The subjunctive, which is principally used to indicate hypotheses or suppositions (If I were you…). The uses of the subjunctive are discussed more fully in the body of the book.
noun is usually defined as a word that describes a person, place, thing, or quality. Such a definition, as many authorities have noted, is technically inadequate. Most of us would not think of hope, despair, and exultation as things, yet they are nouns. And most of the words that describe qualities—good, bad, happy, and the like—are not nouns but adjectives. Palmer notes that there is no difference whatever in sense between “He suffered terribly” and “His suffering was terrible,” yet suffered is a verb and suffering a noun. There is, in short, no definition for noun that isn’t circular, though, happily, for most of us it is one part of speech that is almost always instantly recognizable.
object. Whereas the subject of a sentence tells you who or what is performing an action, the object tells you on whom or on what the action is being performed. In “I like you,” you is the object of the verb like. In “They have now built most of the house,” most of the house is the object of the verb built. Sometimes sentences have direct and indirect objects, as here: “Please send me four tickets” “I’ll give the dog a bath” (cited by Phythian). The direct objects are four tickets and a bath. The indirect objects are me and the dog. Prepositions also have objects. In the sentence “Give it to him,” him is the object of the preposition to.
participle. The participle is a verbal adjective. There are two kinds: present participles, which end in -ing (walking, looking), and past participles, which end in -d (heard), -ed (learned), -n (broken), or -t (bent). The terms present participle and past participle can be misleading because present participles are often used in past-tense senses (“They were looking for the money”) and past participles are often used when the sense is the present or future (“She has broken it” “Things have never looked better”). When present-tense participles are used as nouns, they are called gerunds.
phrase. A group of words that does not have a subject and verb. “I will come sometime soon” consists of a clause (I will come) and a phrase (sometime soon). Phrases always express incomplete thoughts.
predicate. Everything in a sentence that is not part of the subject (i.e., the verb, its qualifiers and complements) is called the predicate. In “The man went to town after work,” The man is the subject and the rest of the sentence is the predicate. The verb alone is sometimes called the simple predicate.
preposition. A word that connects and specifies the relationship between a noun or noun equivalent and a verb, adjective, or other noun or noun equivalent. In “We climbed over the fence,” the preposition over connects the verb climbed with the noun fence. Whether a word is a preposition or a conjunction is often a matter of function. In “The army attacked before the enemy was awake,” before is a conjunction. But in “The army attacked before dawn,” before is a preposition. The distinction is that in the first sentence before is followed by a verb, whereas in the second it is not.
pronoun. A word used in place of a noun or nouns. In “I like walking and reading; such are my pleasures,” such is a pronoun standing for reading and walking. Pronouns have been variously grouped by different authorities. Among the more common groupings are personal pronouns (I, me, his, etc.), relative pronouns (who, whom, that, which), demonstrative pronouns (this, that, these, those), and indefinite pronouns (some, several, either, neither, etc.).
subject. The word or phrase in a sentence or clause that indicates who or what is performing the action. In “I see you,” the subject is I. In “Climbing steep hills tires me,” Climbing steep hills is the subject.
substantive. A word or group of words that performs the function of a noun. In “Swimming is good for you,” Swimming is a substantive as well as a gerund.
verb. Verbs can be defined generally (if a bit loosely) as words that have tense and that denote what someone or something is or does. Verbs that have an object are called transitive verbs—that is, the verb transmits the action from subject to an object, as in “He put the book on the table.” Verbs that do not have an object are called intransitive verbs, as in “She slept all night” in these the action is confined to the subject.
When it is necessary to indicate more than simple past or present tense, two or more verbs are combined, as in “I have thought about this all week.” Although there is no widely agreed term for such a combination of verbs, I have for convenience followed Fowler in this book and referred to them as compound verbs. The additional or “helping” verb in such constructions (e.g., have in the example above) is called an auxiliary.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BILL BRYSON’s bestselling books include A Walk in the Woods, I’m a Stranger Here Myself, In a Sunburned Country, Bryson’s Dictionary of Troublesome Words, A Short History of Nearly Everything (which earned him the 2004 Aventis Prize), and The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. Bryson lives in England with his wife.
ALSO BY BILL BRYSON
The Lost Continent
Mother Tongue
Neither Here nor There
Made in America
Notes from a Small Island
A Walk in the Woods
I’m a Stranger Here Myself
Bryson’s Book of Troublesome Words
Bill Bryson’s African Diary
A Short History of Nearly Everything
A Short History of Nearly Everything Illustrated Edition
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
Go to the Next Page to Read Chapter 7 from
Bill Bryson’s At Home
Coming in October 2010
An Excerpt from Bill Bryson’s At Home
THE DRAWING ROOM
I
If you had to summarize it in a sentence, you could say that the history of private life is a history of getting comfortable slowly. Until the eighteenth century, the idea of having comfort at home was so unfamiliar that no word existed for the condi
tion. Comfortable meant merely “capable of being consoled.” Comfort was something you gave to the wounded or distressed. The first person to use the word in its modern sense was the writer Horace Walpole, who remarked in a letter to a friend in 1770 that a certain Mrs. White was looking after him well and making him “as comfortable as is possible.” By the early nineteenth century, everyone was talking about having a comfortable home or enjoying a comfortable living, but before Walpole’s day no one did.
Nowhere in the house is the spirit (if not always the actuality) of comfort better captured than in the curiously named room in which we find ourselves now, the drawing room. The term is a shortening of the much older withdrawing room, meaning a space where the family could withdraw from the rest of the household for greater privacy, and it has never settled altogether comfortably into widespread English usage. For a time in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, drawing room was challenged in more refined circles by the French salon, which was sometimes anglicized to saloon, but both those words gradually became associated with spaces outside the home, so that saloon came first to signify a room for socializing in a hotel or on a ship, then a place for dedicated drinking, and finally, and a little unexpectedly, a type of automobile. Salon, meanwhile, became indelibly attached to places associated with artistic endeavors before being appropriated (from about 1910) by providers of hair care and beauty treatments. Parlor, the word long favored by Americans for the main room of the home, has a kind of nineteenth-century frontier feel to it, but in fact is the oldest word of all. It was first used in 1225, referring to a room where monks could go to talk (it is from the French parler, “to speak”), and was extended to secular contexts by the last quarter of the following century.
