Miscellaneous Entries.
signal, vb., makes "signaled" and "signaling" in American English, "signalled" and "signalling" in British English.
significance; signification. These should be distinguished. "Significance" = (1) a subtly or indirectly conveyed meaning; suggestiveness; the quality of implying; or (2) the quality of being important or significant. "Signification" = (1) the act of signifying, as by symbols; or (2) the purport or sense intended to be conveyed by a word or other symbol.
siliceous (= of, like, or containing silica) is the standard spelling. *"Silicious" is a variant.
*since . . . then mangles the syntax of a causal construction — e.g.: Since he was mad Saturday, then he should get even today. Greg Johnson, Its Expect the Unexpected at Buick Open, Grand Rapids Press, 10 Aug. 1997, at E1. The problem is remedied by omitting "then." Or the writer could have deleted "Since" and changed "then" to "so."
singlehanded, adv.; singlehandedly. When the word follows the verb, the preferred adverb is "singlehanded" {she did it singlehanded}. When the adverb precedes the verb, "singlehandedly" is called for {she singlehandedly brought the corporation back from the brink of bankruptcy}.
*Invariably inferior forms.
For information about the Language-Change Index, click here.
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Quotation of the Day: "Official language tends toward impressive elaboration. A large envelope becomes a brief case, a brief case a portfolio, a portmanteau. In official jargon food becomes nutritional intake, the poor are the underprivileged or those in lower income brackets. To mend or revive is to recondition, rehabilitate, reactivate." Louis Pound, "Contraction and Expansion," 72 Pubs. of the Modern Lang. Ass'n 8, 10 (Mar. 1956) (as quoted in The Ordeal of American English 138, 140 (C. Merton Babcock ed., 1961)).
