Miscellaneous Entries.
junta; junto. Of Spanish origin, “
junta” (= a political or military group in power, esp. after a coup d’état) is pronounced either /HOON-tuh/ or /JUHN-tuh/. It is much more common in American English than its altered form, “
junto” /JUHN-toh/, which has undergone slight differentiation to mean “a self-appointed committee having political aims.” Ernest Gowers wrote that “
junto” “is an erroneous form” (
Modern English Usage 319 (2d ed. 1965)), but it appears frequently in British English where an American would write “
junta” — e.g.: “Even so, a compliant civilian government may not be easy for the deeply unpopular
junto to achieve.” “Myanmar: Deja Vu,”
Economist (Am. ed.), 16 Jan. 1993, at 34.
jurisprudent, n.;
jurisprude. “
Jurisprudent,” though appearing to be an adjective, is a noun meaning “a jurist” or “a learned lawyer.” “
Jurisprude,” not recorded in the
OED, is listed in
Webster’s 3d International as a back-formation from “
jurisprudence” with the meaning “a person who makes ostentatious show of learning in jurisprudence and the philosophy of law or who regards legal doctrine with undue solemnity or veneration.” The word deserves wider currency, but not without recognition of its pejorative connotations.
juror ought to be distinguished from “
potential juror” or “
veniremember.” The difference is that a “potential juror” or “veniremember” hasn’t yet been selected to sit on the jury, but is merely in the pool of people who might be selected; a “
juror” is one who has been empaneled on a jury.
jury. In American English, this is a collective noun and therefore takes a singular verb {the jury has spoken}. To emphasize the individual members of the jury, we have the word “
jurors” {the jurors have spoken}. In British English, however, it is common to see a plural verb with “
jury” {the jury have spoken}, just as with other collective nouns.
For information about the Language-Change Index click
here.
Quotation of the Day: “But all the fun’s in how you say a thing.” Robert Frost, “The Mountain” (as quoted in Eugene S. McCartney,
Recurrent Maladies in Scholarly Writing 59 (1953)).
