Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: Miscellaneous Entries

supervise is occasionally misspelled *"supervize" — e.g.: “And when any out-of-state parolee is under New Hampshire’s jurisdiction, it is the Granite State’s parole board [that] supervizes [read ‘supervises’] parole.” Pat Grossmith, “Humphrey’s Criminal Record Wasn’t Shared Between Region’s States,” Union Leader (Manchester, N.H.), 19 Oct. 1994, at 4. supervisory; supervisorial. “Supervisory” = of or relating to supervision. “Supervisorial” = of or relating to a supervisor. supine. Because the word means “lying on one’s back,” the phrase *"supine on (one’s) back" is a redundancy — e.g.: “Evans was to be laid supine on his back [read ‘supine’] as all four limbs were strapped with leather binds to a bed.” Joe Domanick, “How California Failed Kevin Evans,” L.A. Times, 26 Aug. 2001, Mag. §, at 10. supplely, adv. (= in a supple manner), is better than “supply,” which causes a miscue by suggesting the noun or verb spelled that way. E.g.: “Her three-octave voice, supplely roaming from a lower register to breathy soprano, blasted through a pounding eight-man combo.” Jan Stuart, “Basia’s Siren Songs,” Newsday (N.Y.), 16 Nov. 1994, at B9. *Invariably inferior forms. For more information about the Language-Check Index click here. ——————– Quotation of the Day: “Making oneself a writer involves as much discipline as any other art or vocation or profession. In the writing art-profession there are, I think, three aspects of this discipline worth considering. The first and probably the most important one is production discipline, making one’s self write whether one feels like it or not. The second is revision discipline; the third, rejection-slip discipline.” Anne Hamilton, How to Revise Your Own Stories vii (1946).
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