Bryan A. Garner

Sesquipedality (3). Today: A Synthesis of Style. The problem remains: to what extent is it advisable to use big words? The Fowler brothers generally thought it inadvisable: “Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched.” H.W. Fowler & F.G. Fowler, The King’s English 14 (3d ed. 1931). But “prefer” raises an important question: how strong is …

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Sesquipedality (2). Today: Traditional Approaches. Hard words have a legitimate literary tradition. English has inherited two strains of literary expression, both deriving ultimately from ancient Greek rhetoric. On the one hand is the plain style now in vogue, characterized by unadorned vocabulary, directness, unelaborate syntax, and earthiness. (This style is known to scholars as Atticism.) …

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Sesquipedality (1). Today: Generally. Sesquipedality is the use of big words, literally those that are “a foot and a half” long. Although the English language has an unmatched wealth of words available for its users, most of its resources go untapped. The Oxford English Dictionary contains more than 600,000 words, yet even highly educated people …

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Miscellaneous Entries. Seattleite; *Seattlite. The first is the standard spelling; the second is a variant form. seaworthy. One word — not hyphenated. second-guess, v.t. Hyphenated thus. secretariat (= the position or quarters of a secretary) is the standard spelling. *"Secretariate" is a variant. secretary is pronounced /SEK-ruh-tair-ee/ — not /SEK-uh-tair-ee/. secrete = (1) to hide; …

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series. Though serving as a plural when the need arises, “series” is ordinarily a singular {the series is quite popular}. But it is also a noun of multitude, so that phrases such as “a series of things” take a plural verb — e.g.: o “A series of motivational meetings were held in the early evening.” …

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seraph. “Seraph” (/SER-uhf/), referring to a six-winged angel, has two plurals: a Hebrew one (“seraphim”) and a native English one (“seraphs”). “Seraphim” is about six times as common in print, and it sometimes even appears alongside the anglicized plural for “cherub” — e.g.: “Her ‘Angels’ is a similar exposition, where the angelic hierarchy (angels, seraphim, …

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Miscellaneous Entries. schizophrenic; schizoid. Each of these words can function as both adjective (= characterized by schizophrenia) and noun (= a person with schizophrenia). But both words are most often adjectives, and “schizophrenic” is the more common term. If any difference exists, it’s that a “schizoid” (or “schizoid personality”) is someone who is seclusive, shut …

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Miscellaneous Entries. scan is ambiguous: it may mean either (1) “to examine carefully, scrutinize,” or (2) “to skim through, look at hurriedly.” In American English, as it happens, sense 2 now vastly predominates. That usage may be bolstered by the ubiquitous electronic scanner, which contributes to the idea of haste. scarcely any is sometimes mistakenly …

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Sentence Adverbs. Sentence adverbs qualify an entire statement rather than a single word in the sentence. A sentence adverb does not resolve itself into the form “in a ___ manner,” as most adverbs do. Thus, in “Happily, the bill did not go beyond the committee,” the introductory adverb “happily” conveys the writer’s opinion on the …

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sensational; sensationalistic. “Sensational” answers to “sensation” (excitement) and may mean either “awesome” {a sensational performance by the orchestra} or “commanding attention” (in the sense, actually, of “awful”) {the sensational O.J. Simpson trial}. “Sensationalistic” (= overblown; distorted to shock the emotions), answering to “sensationalism,” always carries strongly negative connotations — e.g.: “Print media are being just …

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*self-complacent. *"Self-complacent" is redundant, "complacent" being sufficient — e.g.: o “You will remind the self-complacent [read ‘complacent’] to stop and think of their fellow men.” Joe Fitzgerald, “Unsung Heroes Suffer While Pols Play Budget Games,” Boston Herald, 11 Jan. 1996, at 18. o “In the end, . . . his approach strikes one as limited …

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Miscellaneous Entries. save and except is a fairly common but unjustifiable redundancy — e.g.: “LifeCo is ‘basically prepared to go forward with obtaining a final judgment of foreclosure save and except for the fact [read ‘except’]’ that it does not yet have a complete list of tenants renting space in the garage.” Alex Finkelstein, “LifeCo, …

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*self-admitted. *"Self-admitted," like *”self-confessed,” is a redundancy — e.g.: o “Hawkes is a self-admitted [read ‘an admitted’] toy buff.” Amy Wu, “Toycrafter Sales Spinning Up,” Rochester Democrat & Chron., 21 Dec. 2002, at D9. o “He’s commercially successful — selling just about everything he paints — and a self-admitted [read ‘self-described’ or delete ‘self-admitted’] happy …

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self-addressed stamped envelope. Though sometimes condemned, this phrase is now firmly entrenched in American English (especially in the abbreviated form SASE). “Self-addressed” isn’t merely “addressed by oneself,” but commonly means “addressed for return to the sender.” The prefix “self-” prevents vagueness: an envelope that’s merely addressed could be addressed to anybody. How should one pronounce …

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seldom. Because this word is an adverb as well as an adjective, the nonword *"seldomly" is never (not merely seldom) needed — e.g.: o “Hogan was a man so focused that he seldomly [read ‘seldom’] noticed what was going on around him.” Jeff Babineau, “Hogan’s Legacy,” Orlando Sentinel, 3 Aug. 1997, at C4. o “There, …

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Language-Change Index. The third edition of Garner’s Modern American Usage reflects several new practices. Invariably inferior forms, for example, are now marked with asterisks preceding the term or phrase, a marking common in linguistics. The most interesting new feature is the Language-Change Index. Its purpose is to measure how widely accepted various linguistic innovations have …

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Miscellaneous Entries. salvage, n. ; selvage. “Salvage” = (1) the rescue of property (as at sea or from fire); or (2) the discovery and extraction of something valuable or useful from rubbish. “Selvage” = the edging of cloth. sanguine, in the sense “optimistic, confident,” is sometimes confounded with “sanguinary” (= [1] involving bloodshed; or [2] …

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segue. “Segue” is a noun (meaning “a seamless transition”) and an intransitive verb (meaning “to transition smoothly”). (It’s also a transitive verb, but only in music.) The misspelling *"segway" (except in the trademarked company name) is particularly embarrassing — e.g.: o “[Barack Obama] applauded the work of junior Joe Pearson, of Barrington, who works under …

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see / saw / seen. So inflected. Using the past tense for the past participle, and vice versa, is typical of dialect. Usually these errors occur only in reported speech — e.g.: o “‘If I was [read ‘had been’] here on time, I would have saw [read ‘seen’] what happened and the guy or gal …

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