Bryan A. Garner

Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: Miscellaneous Entries.

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Miscellaneous Entries. right, adj. ; righteous; rightful. These terms are sometimes confused. “Right” = correct, proper, just. “Righteous” = morally upright, virtuous, or law-abiding. This term has strong religious connotations, often of unctuousness. “Rightful” = (1) (of an action) equitable, fair {a rightful solution}; (2) (of a person) legitimately entitled to a position {the rightful …

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Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: hara-kiri.

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hara-kiri. “Hara-kiri” (Jap. “belly-cutting”) is often misspelled in various ways, including “hari kari,” “hari-kari,” and “hiri kiri” — e.g.: o “‘Hiri kiri [read ‘Hara-kiri’] squeeze!’ I yelled. . . . To which an Asian gentleman seated to my right turned, nodded and said, ‘Very good, very good.’” Mike Downey, “Now It Seems Winning Is Also …

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Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: facility.

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facility. This word is surplusage in phrases such as “jail facility” and “museum facility” — e.g.: “Airports that aren’t well-served by airline clubs or that don’t have major hotel facilities [read ‘hotels’] nearby will put in conference rooms of their own, he predicted.” Carol Smith, “Companies Meet Each Other at the Airport,” L.A. Times, 20 …

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Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: entomology; etymology.

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entomology; etymology. “Entomology” is the study of insects. “Etymology” is the study of word origins or, more usually, the derivation of a given word. The two words are occasionally confounded — e.g.: o “Fly fishermen must also study the etymology [read ‘entomology’] of insects, what they [read ‘insects’] look like, how they move, so they …

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Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: effect; affect.

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effect; affect. “Effect” (= to bring about) is often misused for “affect” (= to influence, have an effect on). The blunder is widespread — e.g.: o “Opponents say it would effect [read ‘affect’] only a small number of people — in New York an estimated 300 criminals a year — and would have little effect …

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Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: Miscellaneous Entries.

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Miscellaneous Entries. rewind / rewound / rewound. So inflected. *"Rewinded" is an infrequent error — e.g.: “Scenes can be freeze-framed and advanced, rewinded [read ‘rewound’] and fast-forwarded with the push-button precision of CD audio or laser disc players.” Steve Persall, “To DVD or Not to DVD?” St. Petersburg Times, 19 Feb. 1999, at 20. Language-Change …

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Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: danglers (6).

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danglers (6). Today: Ending Sentences with Danglers. Traditionally, grammarians frowned on all danglers, but during the 20th century they generally loosened the strictures for a participial construction at the end of a sentence. Some early-20th-century grammarians might have disapproved of the following sentences, but such sentences have long been considered acceptable: o “Sarah stepped to …

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LawProse Lessons #69 & #70

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LawProse Lesson #69 How should point headings be formatted?ANSWER: Please attend to this. Ideally, they’re complete sentences that are single-spaced, boldfaced, and capitalized only according to normal rules of capitalization — that is, neither all-caps nor initial caps. Even if court rules require headings to be double-spaced, all the other rules nevertheless apply. All-caps headings betoken …

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Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: danglers (5).

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danglers (5). Today: Acceptable Danglers, or Disguised Conjunctions. Any number of present participles have been used as conjunctions or prepositions for so long that they have lost the participial duty of modifying specific nouns. In effect, the clauses they introduce are adverbial, standing apart from and commenting on the content of the sentence. Among the …

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Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: danglers (4).

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danglers (4). Today, Part A: Past-Participial Danglers. These are especially common when the main clause begins with a possessive — e.g.: “Born on March 12, 1944, in Dalton, Georgia, Larry Lee Simms’s qualifications . . . .” Barbara H. Craig, Chadha: The Story of an Epic Constitutional Struggle 79 (1988). (Simms’s qualifications were not born …

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Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: danglers (3).

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danglers (3). Today: Present-Participial Danglers. Mispositioned words can cause grammatical blunders. The classic example occurs when the wrong noun begins the main clause — that is, a noun other than the one expected by the reader after digesting the introductory participial phrase. E.g.: “The newspaper said that before being treated for their injuries, General Mladic …

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Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: danglers (2).

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danglers (2). Today: The ubiquity of danglers. Despite the sloppiness of danglers in general, they have been exceedingly common even among grammarians. For example, a biographical entry on Lindley Murray (1745-1826), the best-selling grammarian of the early 19th century, condemned his participial habits: “In spite of his proverbial credit as an authority, his own style …

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Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: danglers (1).

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danglers (1). So-called danglers are ordinarily unattached participles — either present participles (ending in “-ing”) or past participles (ending usually in “-ed”) — that do not relate syntactically to the nouns they are supposed to modify. That is, when the antecedent of a participle doesn’t appear where it logically should, the participle is said to …

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Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: Miscellaneous Entries.

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Miscellaneous Entries. revise; redact; recense. The first is the ordinary word. The second and third refer specifically to revising texts with close scrutiny. “Redact” = (1) to make a draft of; or (2) to edit. In American law, it is often used in the sense “to edit out or mask the privileged, impertinent, or objectionable …

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Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: Denizen Labels (2).

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Denizen Labels (2). Today: U.S. States and Cities. The preferred names for residents of some places are not immediately obvious. Listed below are some of those terms that are associated with U.S. states and cities. USGPO refers to the U.S. Government Printing Office Manual of Style. Arkansas: Arkansan, Arkansawyer, Arkie. Connecticut: Nutmegger, Connecticuter (USGPO). Delaware: …

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Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: exquisite.

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exquisite. Part A: Pronunciation. The word is better pronounced with the first syllable accented /EK-skwiz-it/; in American English, however, stressing the second (/ek-SKWIZ-it/) is acceptable. Part B: Use. Although there is historical justification for using “exquisite” (= acute) in reference to pain, modern readers are likely to find this use macabre at best, for they …

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Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: Denizen Labels (2).

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Denizen Labels (2). Today: U.S. States and Cities. The preferred names for residents of some places are not immediately obvious. Listed below are some of those terms that are associated with U.S. states and cities. USGPO refers to the U.S. Government Printing Office Manual of Style. Arkansas: Arkansan, Arkansawyer, Arkie. Connecticut: Nutmegger, Connecticuter (USGPO). Delaware: …

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Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: Denizen Labels (1).

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Denizen Labels (1). Today: Generally. What do you call someone from . . . ? Often that’s not an easy question. Residents of Columbus, Ohio (or Georgia, Nebraska, or Indiana) are called “Columbusites.” But someone from the town of Columbus, Mississippi, is called a “Columbian.” Those inconsistencies can be confusing, but they’re usually undisputed within …

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