Miscellaneous Entries.
Wednesday is pronounced /WENZ-day/ or /WENZ-dee/. But some precisians want to — and do — say /WED-nuhz-day/, which is simply incorrect. The first “-d-” has long been silent.
weight, vb.; weigh. “For purposes of calculating the scores, the questions are weighted for their difficulty.” Should the word be “weight” or “weigh”? The answer is that “weight” (= to give value or assign importance to) is correct. To “weigh” something is to ascertain its weight (literally or metaphorically), not to establish it arbitrarily.
weird. So spelled.
welder. So spelled — not *”weldor.”
well, when forming an adjective with a past-participial verb, is hyphenated if placed before the noun (e.g., “a well-known person,” “a well-written book”), but it’s typically not hyphenated if the phrase follows what it modifies (e.g., “a person who is well known,” “a book that is well written”).
well-being is hyphenated, not spelled as one word.
*Invariably inferior form.
For information about the Language-Change Index click here.
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Quotation of the Day: “‘Please your Majesty,’ said the Knave, ‘I didn’t write it, and they can’t prove I did: there’s no name signed at the end.’ ‘If you didn’t sign it,’ said the King, ‘that only makes the matter worse. You must have meant some mischief, or else you’d have signed your name like an honest man.'” Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) (as quoted in Kenneth S. Rothwell, Questions of Rhetoric and Usage 135 (1971)).
