Miscellaneous Entries.
redemptive; *redemptory; redemptional. “Redemptive” = tending to redeem, redeeming. “Redemptory”* is a needless variant. “Redemptional” = of or pertaining to redemption.
red tape. Lawyers and government officials formerly used red ribbons (called “tapes”) to tie their papers together. Gradually during the 19th century, these red ribbons came to symbolize rigid adherence to time-consuming rules and regulations. Writers such as Scott, Longfellow, and Dickens used the term “red tape,” and now it has become universal. But its origins are widely forgotten.
reducible. So spelled — not “reduceable.”*
reemerge, like many other words in which the vowel ending the prefix is also the first letter of the word proper, was once hyphenated — but no longer.
reenactment. No hyphen.
reenter; reentry. These terms are now solid.
reestablish, formerly hyphenated, no longer is.
*Invariably inferior forms.
For information about the Language-Change Index click here.
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Quotation of the Day: “If an author has no style, he will never be a writer. But if he has a style, a language of his own, then there’s hope for him as a writer. Then one can discuss the other aspects of his work.” Anton Chekhov (as quoted in Konstantin Fedin, “Notebook,” in Maxim Gorky, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Alexei Tolstoy, and Konstantin Fedin on the Art and Craft of Writing 256, 257 (Alex Miller trans., 1972).