The Cambridge Guide to Australian English Usage phần 10 pot

titbit or tidbit The first spelling is preferred in Australian and British English,the second in American English.. Note the case of loanwords like matrix and cicatrix, where the ending

thrash and thresh

though or although In spite of appearances, though is not to be thought of as simply a cut-down, informal version of although Admittedly there are sentences

like the following, in which either one could be used to mean “despite the fact that”:

Though the door is still intact, the lock needs attention.

Although the door is still intact, the lock needs attention.

The choice of although entails greater formality and emphasis.

Although most often occurs at the start of the sentence, and draws attention

to itself there Though is more flexible, appearing at the start and at the end of sentences, as well as in between It carries more variety of meanings than although.

In mid-sentence it becomes a synonym for but:

I wouldn’t stake my hopes on it, though I’d consider it a hopeful sign.

At the end of a sentence though is a synonym for ‘‘however”:

I wouldn’t stake my hopes on it though.

In that position it often serves to qualify the thrust of the previous statement

These uses of though have developed in informal talk, but they’re common

enough now in print, as the Right Word at the Right Time (1985) shows In databases

of written English, the use of though to mean “however” runs at about 8% of all

instances of the word

Other roles of though (but not although) are to combine with as and even in

compound conjunctions:

As though it had been commissioned, the sun began to shine.

Even though we were indoors, the sunshine seemed to brighten the conversation.

Note that even though seems more emphatic than either although or though, and

can draw extra attention to a concessive statement when it’s needed

Both though and although have alternative spellings in tho’/tho and

altho’/altho Unlike many abbreviations, they have no effect on the pronunciation

of the word, and they do tidy up the surplus letters In spite of this, neither

abbreviation has caught on generally (There was only 1 instance of tho in the

Australian ACE corpus.) The forms with apostrophe declare their informality, andthose without it are perhaps too different from the regular spelling Whatever thereasons, these eminently sensible forms are mostly confined to advertising and

technical writing, according to Webster’s English Usage (1989)—i.e to styles of

writing which are more independent of the standard conventions of English

thrash and thresh In Australian English these are two separate words, thrash meaning “beat” and thresh meaning “separate the grains of wheat from the ears that

contain them” Originally they were one and the same word “thresshe”, the variant

spelling with an a making its appearance in the sixteenth century The different

spellings were subsequently linked with the different strands of meaning But there

are signs of a return to the original situation, except that it’s thrash which is gaining

ground It sometimes replaces thresh when referring to harvesting, and it’s also the

one used for new figurative meanings, in:

The dog was thrashing about in the water and

Let’s thrash out this problem over lunch.

through With the meaning “from one end to another”, this word can be used inthe dimensions of either space or time Compare:

They walked through the park.

They worked through the night.

In such cases, through governs a noun which is a unit of space or time Those uses

of through are established worldwide.

A rather different use of through has developed in American English, in which

it links two words which specify the beginning and the end of a time period:

The gallery will be open Monday through Thursday.

Here through means “from Monday up to and including Thursday”—though it’s

a neater way of saying it, and it has the advantage of making it clear that the period

runs until the end of Thursday In Australian English when we say Monday to

Thursday, it’s not certain whether the period includes the whole of Thursday The

use of through to clarify the period is now widely recognised and understood

outside North America, and catching on in Australia

Note that the spelling thru is not generally used in documentary writing, even though it quite often appears on street signs (NO THRU ROAD), and in catalogues

and advertisements It renders the word simply and directly, and has everything torecommend it It was one of the set of words which major American institutions

such as the National Education Association and the Chicago Tribune tried to

establish, during nearly a century of spelling reform (See further under gh.) The

word thruway is a monument to the endeavor, but represented only by references

to the New York Thruway in the Australian ACE database There are no instances

of thru itself.

throwaway terms Because languages reflect the culture of the people who usethem, they also show something of their values and attitudes to others— those theyadmire and those for whom they have no respect Every language has expressions

like the English Chinese burn, Dutch courage, French leave and Mexican carwash,

which enshrine stereotyped criticism of the peoples concerned

Throwaway expressions have no factual basis, though they sometimes emerge in

a century when relations with another country are particularly vexed The Oxford

Dictionary (1989) notes that rivalry between the English and the Dutch in the

seventeenth century seems to have been the matrix for various phrases critical of

the Dutch, including Dutch auction, Dutch bargain, Dutch gold, Dutch treat and

Dutch uncle The phrases imply stereotypes of the Dutch as stingy and moralising.

Throwaway terms for the French tend to project them as licentious, witness French

tight or tightly

kiss, French letter and doing french Speakers of languages other than English return

the compliment To express what the English call French leave, there are expressions

in Italian, French and Norwegian which translate as “leave like an Englishman”

The prejudices and stereotypes embodied in throwaway terms are very

persistent, and it would be better for neighborly relations if they passed intooblivion Dictionaries too can do their bit by removing the capital letter from

throwaway terms, so that there’s no subconscious stimulus to read them as national

or geographical terms The fact that French Guiana comes just before French leave

in the headword list is no reason to insist on keeping the capital letter on the second

thru or through See through.

thus This has two roles, as:

1 a demonstrative adverb meaning “in this way”

2 a conjunct meaning “consequently”

Both uses of thus contribute to the cohesion of a piece of writing (see coherence

or cohesion) The second is particularly useful in argument, suggesting logical

connections between one statement and another Note that it is a conjunct rather

than a conjunction (see further under conjunctions section 3).

tic or tick These spellings serve to differentiate a medical word from several

others Tic is reserved for a convulsive motion by the muscles of the face, while tick

covers all of the following:

r the small bloodsucking insect

r the small sound made by a clock

r the small mark () used to check items off

r the cover of a mattress or pillow

Apart from those standard uses, tick is also found in informal idioms such as just a

tick ( = moment) and on tick (= credit).

The words spelled tick make a remarkable set of homonyms, and the fact that

several imply something small also suggests that there’s some sound symbolism at

work in the word See further under phonesthemes.

ticketed For the spelling of this verb, see t.

tidbit or titbit See titbit.

tight or tightly The first of these can be either an adjective as in a tight fist, or

an adverb, especially in informal idioms such as hold tight and sit tight It usually

follows the verb it modifies

Tightly is the regular adverb which expresses the firmness of a grip, as in clamped

tightly between the teeth, or the closeness of an arrangement, as in tightly packed congregation It can appear either before or after the verb, as in those examples See

further under zero adverbs.

tilde This accent is most familiar in Spanish and Portuguese, though it has

different functions in each In Spanish it only occurs with n, as in se ˜nor, to show

that it’s pronounced to rhyme with “tenure” rather than “tenor” In Portuguese it

appears with a and o to show that they are nasal vowels, whether as single sounds

or as the first vowel in a diphthong as in curac¸ ˜ao.

till or until In most contexts these are equally good, witness:

We’ll delay the discussion till you come.

We’ll delay the discussion until you come.

Until seems a little more formal, yet till is certainly not an abbreviated form of it Till was established centuries before until Both words can be used as prepositions

and conjunctions, in the dimensions of time and space

Two cautions to note with till/until:

1 to combine up with either of them (up till/up until) is strictly redundant,

though it’s occasionally used for special emphasis

2 there is no need or justification for ’til, when till stands in its own right and not

as a contraction of until.

timber or timbre These words mean quite different things and are not merely

different spellings for the same word like center/centre Timber is of course the

collective word for wood which has been harvested and sawn up for use inbuildings etc It originated in Old English as the word for “wood” or “woodenconstruction”

Timbre is the quality of sound made by a musical instrument, or the singing or

speaking voice It depends on the relative intensities of the overtones accompanyingthe fundamental It derives from the French word for a small bell A rare alternative

spelling for timbre is tamber, coined by British linguists in the 1920s to render the

sound of the French word

time In the Anglo-Saxon tradition, time of day was reckoned in terms of two

equal parts, with twelve hours before noon (am) and twelve before midnight (pm).

Questions about which of the threshold hours belong to which are discussed at the

entry for pm With the twenty-four hour clock, neither am nor pm are needed, and

the problem disappears altogether

For matters of historical time, see dating systems For geological time, see

geological eras and Appendix III.

For the use of the apostrophe in expressions such as six months time or one year’s

time, see under apostrophes section 2.

time zones Australia stretches 4000 kilometres from east to west, and is divided

into three time zones The eastern states (Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria

and Tasmania) work by Australian Eastern Standard Time; South Australia andNorthern Territory by Central Standard Time (half an hour behind Eastern

titlesStandard); and Western Australia by Western Standard Time (two hours behindEastern Standard).

Daylight saving adjustments are applied independently by each state to standardtime, and their sovereign right to decide when summertime begins and ends can

result, temporarily, in further time zones In March 2006 there were five time zones, when South Australia and Tasmania maintained daylight saving longer than

the rest

tingeing or tinging See -e section 1d.

-tion Many abstract nouns in English end this way, though strictly speaking the

-t belongs to the stem, and the suffix is -ion See further under -ation and -ion.

tipstaff The plural of this word is tipstaves according to the Macquarie

Dictionary (2005) and the major American dictionaries In Australian documents

on the internet (Google 2006) tipstaves outnumbered tipstaffs by more than 8:1.

Compare the two plural forms of staff, discussed under that heading.

tire or tyre See under tyre.

tiro or tyro Dictionaries diverge on which spelling to use for this Latin

loanword meaning a “novice” In classical Latin it was tiro, and this is the spelling

preferred in the Oxford Dictionary (1989) and other British authorities However

the immediate source of the word for English was medieval Latin where it was tyro,

and this is the preferred spelling in Webster’s (1986) and the Macquarie Dictionary

(2005) Because of its rarity there’s no pressure to settle the spelling one way or the

other (For other classical words spelled with both i and y, see under i/y.)

The plural of the word has also varied, though modern dictionaries recommend

the English plural tiros or tyros The Latin plural tyrones was last recorded in 1824.

titbit or tidbit The first spelling is preferred in Australian and British English,the second in American English The word is something of a mystery, but both

Bailey and Johnson record that tid could mean such things as “nice, delicate, tender, soft”, which seem to come closer to the meaning than tit, a “small animal or object”.

This suggests that the American tidbit is closer to the origin of the word Yet the British spelling titbit also dates from the eighteenth century.

titer or titre See -re/-er.

titles The titles of publications and creative works demand special treatment to

set them apart from ordinary strings of words This entry deals in turn with books,

journal articles, newspapers and magazines and audiovisual media For the titles used by people, see under forms of address.

1 Book titles are distinguished in print by italics, and in handwriting or typing by

underlining On the question of which words in the title to capitalise, all agree

that the first word must carry a capital letter, but after that there’s considerabledivergence Opinions range from minimal use of capitals to something like maximal:

a) capitalise nothing apart from any proper names:

For the term of his natural life

b) capitalise all nouns:

For the Term of his natural Life

c) capitalise all nouns and adjectives:

For the Term of his Natural Life

d) capitalise all nouns, adjectives, pronouns, verbs and adverbs (i.e everything

except function words):

For the Term of His Natural Life

Librarians and bibliographers work with minimal capitals (option (a)), yet options(b) to (d) are well established in literary tradition For many people there’s virtue in

using option (a) in lists and bibliographies (see further under bibliographies), but

using one of the other options for titles quoted in the course of a written discussion.Option (b) is quite sufficient whenever an italic typeface or underlining is used toset the title apart from the text in which it’s embedded

Note also that these options allow us to contrast the title and subtitle of a bookwith heavier and lighter capitalisation Thus any of the options (b) to (d) can beused for the main title, and option (a) for the subtitle, as in:

The Life and Times of the English Language: the marvellous history of the English tongue

The use of option (a) for the subtitle also settles a minor bone of contention overwhether to capitalise the first word of the subtitle or not The principle of minimalcapitals means lower case for everything (except proper names) in the subtitle, asshown above

2 The use of short titles (an abbreviated form of the book’s title) is on the increase.

They replace the Latin ibid etc in footnotes, and also appear in the main text in

second and subsequent allusions to a publication In both places, it’s helpful to have

more than minimal capitalisation (See further under short titles.)

3 Titles of journal articles The setting of the titles of scholarly articles varies from

journal to journal, reflecting the decisions and preferences of individual editors

An established style is to enclose the title of the article in quotation marks, and to

use italics (or underlining) for the name of the journal The more recent style doesaway with quotation marks, and simply uses typography to contrast the title ofthe article (in roman) with the name of the journal (in italics) Abbreviations for

the stock items in journal references (such as J for Journal) are increasingly used,

especially in the Vancouver style (See bibliographies section C.)

the Chicago Manual of Style and Butcher’s Copy-editing (2006).

5 Titles of radio and TV programs, feature films, sound recordings etc The titles of

these are capitalised, as for books Again it’s desirable to have more than minimalcapitalisation when the titles are cited amid running text, and options (b), (c) or (d)serve the purpose Quotation marks are sometimes used to distinguish the subunits

of a TV or radio series (as with individual poems in an anthology) Otherwise the

titles of audiovisual items are distinguished chiefly by the use of italics (see further under italics) For more details about citing audiovisual media, see under that

heading

titre or titer See -re/-er.

ti-tree or tea-tree See tea-tree.

to This small word is the focus of several usage questions about how it relates toverbs and to particular adjectives

1 To with verbs To is commonly thought of as an essential part of the infinitive of

English verbs, but it’s not necessarily so (see infinitives) For a discussion of the

so-called “split infinitive”, as in to really understand, see split infinitive.

To often serves as the link between quasi-auxiliaries or catenatives and the main

verb, as with:

dare to had to going to need to ought to try to want to

Note that the to is sometimes omitted with dare, need and ought, especially in

negative statements (see under those individual headings)

2 To after certain adjectives To has always been used after adjectives (and adverbs),

especially those which suggest likeness or closeness, for example:

adjacent to close to similar to near to

It also works with many kinds of words to suggest a particular orientation or relativeposition, as with:

amenable to averse to comparable to conducive to different to

oblivious to susceptible to

For some of those, the collocation with to is an alternative, but for others it’s the

only one used Those with a related verb (compare, differ) often have alternatives.

See further under compare, different and oblivious.

toboggan or sled See sled.

toilet or toilette

toilet or toilette When first borrowed into English in the seventeenth century

(as toilette), this French loanword referred to a cloth associated with dressing and

grooming Within the context of getting dressed it developed a number of other

meanings, almost all of which have been disabled since about 1900, because as toilet

it then became the standard word for a lavatory

The older and wider associations with dressing and grooming live on in

derivatives such as toilet bag, toilet set and toiletries, and in the occasional use

of toilette (with French pronunciation) to refer to personal ablutions In writing,

the French spelling helps to distance the word from the WC No longer is it possible

to say: She appeared in a blue toilet, as was said in the nineteenth century; and the

thought of a toilet being a “reception held while dressing” (an eighteenth century

usage) is unthinkable The word’s history is a living example of the operation of

language taboos See further under taboo words.

tolerance or toleration These abstract nouns both embody the verb

tolerate, but the first is the broader and more sympathetic word It implies a

characteristic willingness to give place to attitudes and practices other than one’s

own Tolerance also has some more technical meanings:

r in medicine and pharmaceutics: “capacity to endure”, as in low tolerance for

alcohol

r in engineering: “acceptable deviation from the specified dimensions”, as in the

measurements have tolerances of only 1 mm

Toleration is mostly used of a specific instance of tolerance, as in:

Don’t count on her toleration of his throwaway lines about Queenslanders.

It implies more strongly than tolerance that there are limits to what one would put

up with This is still so when it comes to religious toleration, which often suggests

the need to accept other religions because of their presence in the community, notthrough any desire to endorse them

Note that the negative form for both tolerance and toleration is intolerance.

ton, tonne or tun The word ton belongs to the imperial system of weights

and measures, and is the equivalent of 2240 lb The extended names gross ton or

long ton help to distinguish it from the short ton of 2000 lb, which is used in the

US (The latter is therefore sometimes called the “American ton” by outsiders.) The

tonne is a metric unit of mass equal to 1000 kg (See further under imperial system

The word tonnage relates to tons and the imperial system, and there’s not yet

an equivalent for tonnes in the metric system One could suggest tonneage, though

that goes against standard rules of English spelling (see -e section 1) Perhaps there’s

no need to worry about finding a term, because tonnage will simply become the

standard term relating to the metric tonne as the change to metrication completes

itself

topic The beginning of a sentence is its most important part Whatever is there isforegrounded for the reader as the ongoing focus of interest, whether it’s somethingtalked about in the preceding sentence(s), or a new focus of attention Compare:

A) James Rand had always wanted to go to Africa He had met Moroccans in Spain who seemed to exude the mystery of the dark continent He also knew there was business to be cultivated in Nigeria, and he could amuse himself with

a little big game hunting as recreation.

B) James Rand had always wanted to go to Africa But until things had settled

down in Nigeria, it wasn’t the place to look for business It wasn’t far from the big game hunting grounds however

Notice how version (A) seems to focus on JR the man himself, whereas version(B) is concerned with the location These different perspectives develop from thedifferent openings to the second and third sentences Both versions begin with a

statement about the man and the place, but (A) turns the spotlight on he, and (B)

on it Thus the focus of the passage, and what it foregrounds, is controlled by what

appears at the beginnings of sentences

1 Sentence positions The all-important first “slot” in the sentence is often referred

to as the topic The rest of the sentence is then known as the comment In these

terms the first sentence above is structured thus:

James Rand had always wanted to go to Africa.

Note that the topic position can be occupied by different grammatical items It’s

often a name, pronoun or noun phrase which is the grammatical subject of thesentence But it can also be an opening adverbial phrase or clause, as in sentencetwo of version (B):

But until things had settled down in Nigeria

Note also that the topic may be preceded by a conjunction/conjunct (in that case

but), which gives no substance but helps to show that the focus is changing In

closely argued writing the topic is quite often preceded by a conjunct and/or an

interpersonal cue such as perhaps, regrettably, which again helps to frame the topic

item for the reader

What happens in the comment slot (the latter part of the sentence) is less

important for information focus It does however serve to introduce information

topic sentences

which can be developed in the following sentence The reference to Africa in the

comment of the first sentence gives the writer a basis from which to develop

the subject and to refer to “Moroccans” in the second sentence (version A) and

“Nigeria” (version B), and then to “big game” in the third sentence

Note that some linguists replace the terms topic and comment with theme and

rheme respectively.

2 Topicalising phrases Because the topic position is so important, what goes there

should not be dictated by the routine grammar of the clause Ordinarily a clausebegins with its subject, as noted above; yet something else can be put ahead of it

to highlight the point at issue The phrase or clause which does that is known as

a topicalising phrase/clause In documentary writing there are stock topicalising

phrases which serve to alter the focus:

In a similar/later/larger study, JB found that .

From a historical/theoretical point of view, the problem

For other examples, see under dangling participle.

Other ways of getting something into topic position are:

r using the passive It puts the spotlight on the object of the verb instead of thesubject Compare:

The Moroccans embodied all the mystery of the dark continent.

All the mystery of the dark continent was embodied in the Moroccans he met.

r using cleft sentences: see under that heading.

topic sentences These are the sentences that signal what a paragraph is to be

about See under paragraphs.

tormentor or tormenter Dictionaries always give first preference to

tormentor, but the major ones also present tormenter as an acceptable alternative.tornado, hurricane or cyclone See cyclone.

torpedo For the plural, see under -o.

torturous or tortuous The first word has torture in it, and torturous means

“causing pain and distress”, as in:

He suffered a torturous death from lung cancer.

The second word tortuous means “twisting, winding”, and so is often found in the

phrase a tortuous path In fact both words could be applied to a grueling bushwalk

on a narrow and difficult track

In figurative use, especially in relation to an argument, tortuous is more likely

and more common as a way of saying that what’s said was complicated and hard

to follow (That is, unless the words uttered were very distressing to the hearer, in

which case it would be torturous.) The two words are often confused, and if there’s

town names

any risk of misunderstanding, they should be replaced: tortuous with “convoluted” and torturous with “excruciating”.

total of Which should it be:

A total of 34 soldiers was recruited.

A total of 34 soldiers were recruited.

Traditional grammar would insist on the first, arguing that the verb has to agree

with total The alternative view is that the second sentence is also possible, either

(1) because total works as a collective noun, or (2) because total of works as a

numerical phrase like a lot of or a number of, which normally take plural verbs See

further under agreement section 4.

totaled or totalled Whether to double or not to double the l is discussed

at -l/-ll-.

toto See in toto.

tour de force This French phrase means literally “feat of strength” In English

it usually refers to a feat of technical skill, as in:

The soprano’s high trills were a tour de force.

The phrase can be used admiringly, but it often implies that what was done wasspectacular rather than having particular artistic or intellectual value

tout de suite In English this is usually taken to mean “at once, immediately”,while in French it means “following straight on” Thus it’s open to the same kind

of ambiguity as momentarily as to how soon the intended action will actually take

place (See momentous or momentary.)

The phrase is sometimes pronounced in English as “toot sweet”, but is not to be

mistaken for the Italian tutti frutti “all fruits”, a confection or icecream made with

a variety of fruits

toward or towards The choice between these is simply a matter of where

you live In Australia and Britain people generally plump for towards, whereas

in North America it’s toward The difference is most marked in Britain however, where according to corpus evidence towards outnumbers toward by more than

20:1 In Australia the ratio is more like 7:1, while in the US it’s the reverse: 1:7 in

favor of toward.

Note that the word is a preposition, and therefore a different case from the

adjectives/adverbs ending in -ward(s) See further under -ward or -wards.

toweling or towelling For the choice between these, see -l/-ll-.

town names Australia’s towns and suburbs are often named after places andpeople elsewhere, but with some inconsistencies in the spelling You might wonder

for instance why it’s Moonie in Queenland, Mooney Mooney in New South Wales,

toxemia or toxaemia

and Moonee (Ponds) in Victoria Unless you look closely at the Postcode Book, you

may not notice the numerous interstate differences, including the following:

Armadale VIC Armidale NSW

Balaclava VIC Balaklava SA

Berridale NSW Berriedale TAS

Boolaroo NSW Booleroo SA

Branxholm TAS Branxholme VIC

Currajong QLD Kurrajong NSW

Dimboola VIC Dimbulah QLD

Forest TAS Forrest VIC, WA

Forestdale QLD Forrestdale WA

Girraween NSW Girrawheen WA

Leichardt VIC Leichhardt NSW

Montagu TAS Montague VIC

Nerrena VIC Nerrina VIC

Paterson NSW Patterson VIC

Ranelagh TAS Raneleigh VIC

Rocklea QLD Rockley NSW

Surry Hills NSW Surrey Hills VIC

Teatree TAS Ti Tree NT

Woodforde SA Woodford NSW, QLD, VIC

York Town TAS Yorketown SA

Note also the divergent treatment of names involving Mac: see Mac or Mc.

toxemia or toxaemia See under ae/e.

trachea The plural is discussed under -a section 1.

trademarks When first created, trademarks and tradenames are jealously

guarded commercial property, which can only be used by the company thatowns them Yet the company might rejoice to hear their product name become

a household word If your fortunes depend on hoover, it says something aboutthe success of the brand if people use the word to refer to any vacuum cleaner onthe market For language watchers it shows that the word is becoming generic andmerits a place in the dictionary

trans-The point at which a word moves from being a tradename to being a generic

word is in one sense a matter of law Unpleasant law suits have been fought over

what was considered by one party to be a protected tradename, and by the other to

be common lexical property Dictionaries are sometimes invoked to show whether

or not the word is generic, and can find themselves in the gun for including words

which began life as tradenames Their defense is to say that such words would not

be in the list if they were not already generic, and to note at the same time that the

word originated as a trademark A surprising number of household words began

life as trademarks, including:

biro crimplene daks doona fibro kleenex laundromat levis

masonite plasticine polaroid primus technicolor thermos

There are many more

A listing of current Australian trademarks can be found at

<www.ipaustralia.gov.au>

Newspapers and mass-circulating magazines are more often challenged over the

use of a tradename than dictionaries They are vulnerable because they also contain advertising, and editorial use of tradenames may be seen as promoting one product

at the expense of others Most newspapers take no risks therefore, and urge their

journalists to avoid trademarks altogether by means of a paraphrase, e.g “sticking

plaster” instead of bandaid Their other strategy when the word cannot be avoided

(as in verbatim quotes) is to capitalise it, which helps to show that it’s a unique,proper name and not being used carelessly Yet the effect can be quite unfortunate,

witness: It was just a Bandaid solution to the agricultural problem, according to

the minister The use of the capital letter invites a literal rather than figurative

interpretation of bandaid A way out in this case would be to put quote marks

round “bandaid solution”

traffic For the spelling of this word when it serves as a verb, see -c/-ck-.tranquilliser, tranquillizer or tranquilizer Either the first or secondspelling may be found in Britain, and the second or third in the US In Australia

the most common spelling is the first, reflecting the general preference for -ise(r) over -ize(r), and the tendency to follow British practice in doubling a final l before adding endings The use of double ll seems particularly misguided in this case, since

it’s not usually indulged before -ise (Compare equalise, totalisator, and see further under -l/-ll-.) The British spelling is probably influenced by tranquillity, where the

difference in stress justifies the double l The ideal spelling for Australians would

be tranquiliser, though it has yet to be listed in dictionaries.

trans- This Latin prefix meaning “across, through” comes to us in a large number

of loanwords, especially verbs, but also adjectives and related nouns:

transcendent and transcendental

transfer transfigure transform translate translucent transmigrate transmit transcribe transparent transpose

In modern English the prefix has mostly helped to create geographical adjectives

Following trans-Atlantic (1779) came:

transalpine trans-Andean trans-Canadian transcontinental trans-Pacific transpolar trans-Siberian

An exceptional example where trans- is used more figuratively is transsexual For the spelling of tran(s)sexual and tran(s)ship, see under -s/-ss-.

transcendent and transcendental In common usage either of these may

be used to mean “surpassing ordinary standards or limits”, though they have

few applications in everyday life Transcendental is most familiar in the phrase

transcendental meditation, a profound yet fully conscious state of relaxation

deeper than sleep, which is reached by a technique derived from Hinduism In

western philosophy transcendental is used in reference to a particular style of argumentation, whereas transcendent refers to that which is beyond experience.

In Christian theology transcendent is the term used to express the idea of a divinity existing beyond the created world Still in the realms of the abstract, transcendental

is used in mathematics to describe a number which cannot be produced or expressed

by algebraic operations

transexual or transsexual See under -s/-ss.

transferable, transferrable or transferrible The first spelling ispreferred in all dictionaries, though the pronunciation it implies (with stress on the

first syllable) is not the most common The second spelling with two rs (suggesting

stress on the second syllable) is also registered in the larger dictionaries as analternative Only the largest dictionaries record the third, rather latinate spelling,but by their evidence it is archaic

Compare inferable.

transferer or transferor The spelling with -er is the one to use for general purposes, whereas the one with -or is for legal uses Webster’s Dictionary (1986) registers yet other spellings with two rs: transferrer/transferror, which accord well

with common pronunciation (with stress on the second syllable) but are rarely seen

transfers Words and compounds often acquire new roles and meanings by being

transferred from one grammatical class to another Shakespeare made it happen in

the much quoted It outherods herod; and a striking modern example can be seen in: The concept has been Laura Ashleyed The grammatical process is no stranger

than the one we accept in sentences like the following:

They were short-changed at the restaurant.

He buttonholed me in the corridor.

transient or transitoryThe conversion of nouns and noun compounds to verbs has fostered innumerablenew usages since the Middle English period, when the number of distinctiveinflections for all classes of words was reduced to the small number we knowtoday Many of those produced by Shakespeare are now unremarkable elements

of the English language Modern examples are quickly assimilated, such as thefollowing, all from the first half of the twentieth century:

audition contact date debate feature package page pressure

process service

The reverse process, by which verbs are converted into nouns, is also common

enough The following are all very old transfers of this kind:

aim contest fall hunt laugh lift look move push reject ride scan shudder sneeze split

Adjectives also lend themselves to conversion, and have generated new verbs allthrough the history of English Examples from the thirteenth, fourteenth andfifteenth century include:

black blind blunt brown calm crisp dim dirty empty equal humble secure treble

Even comparative adjectives can become verbs, witness better and lower.

All those examples show that English permits and even encourages such

transfers Some English-users nevertheless react to new transfers, especially cases

where nouns work as verbs, as with action, impact, interface and profile for example.

Those four are by now widely used, and are not examples of the most objectionablekind, where the writer hasn’t taken the trouble to find the right form of word forthe job:

The agriculture document was vocabularied so as to obstacle-course the project for the would-be understander.

A concentrated collection of ad hoc transfers like that is enough to make anyone

shudder, and we might note that examples involving words of more than twosyllables seem extra awkward But the shift of one and two-syllabled words fromone class to another goes on unnoticed all the time, without people turning a hair

Note that the linguistic name for transfers or conversions of words from one

grammatical class to another is zero derivation (because the word changes class

without any derivational suffix See further under suffix.)

tranship or transship See under -s/-ss-.

transient or transitory These both mean that something will not linger In

their connotations however they differ, since transitory can have a certain elegiac

melancholy about it, as in the transitory freshness of youth Transient is more matter

of fact about the brevity of things, and transient visitors are simply “short-term”

ones

transitive and intransitive

transitive and intransitive In traditional grammar these words identify an

aspect of the way verbs work A transitive verb is one with a direct object as the focus of the action it expresses, as with pick (a team) or send (a letter) Intransitive

verbs are ones without an object, such as appear and vanish But many verbs can

be used either transitively or intransitively, witness:

They flew me to Darwin The bird flew away.

She boiled the kettle The kettle boiled.

Note that verbs in the passive are automatically regarded as transitive, because

they involve using the object of a verb as the subject Compare:

A messenger was dispatched to Rome (passive/transitive)

They dispatched a messenger to Rome (active/transitive)

Reflexive verbs are also regarded as transitive, because of the reflexive pronounswhich function as their objects:

She drove herself to the airport.

Note that in all the examples so far the verb has one object and is therefore

monotransitive Compare ditransitive verbs, which have both indirect and direct

objects in that order (see object section 2).

1 Transitivity extended Certain other kinds of verbs are transitive by virtue of the

noun clause which is their normal object Typically they are verbs which express a

mental or verbal process, such as say, think etc See for example;

I know he’ll do well.

The idea of transitivity is also extended by some grammarians to verbs which take

an infinitive, because they regard the infinitive as a noun, and as the object of the

verb (See further under verbal nouns.) This makes like a transitive verb in the

following construction:

They liked to swim after work.

The alternative analysis is to regard to swim as a complement of the catenative verb

like, and the verb phrase is then intransitive.

2 Phrasal and prepositional verbs can be difficult to categorise in terms of transitivity.

Compare:

He can’t live down his past.

He lives down the road.

Grammarians associated with the Longman Grammar (1999) and the Cambridge

Grammar (2002) would regard live down in the first sentence as a transitive

verb—down being a particle closely linked with the verb, rather than prefacing

the following noun, as in the second sentence, where it’s a preposition

tri-3 Copular verbs also challenge the transitive/intransitive distinction, as in I feel

uneasy They are usually felt to have more in common with intransitive verbs,

because the item after the verb is not its object but a complement for the subject

(See further under copular verbs.)

Note also that in spite of the problems in applying traditional notions of

transitivity, the terms transitive and intransitive persist in dictionaries Recent

grammars such as the Longman Grammar (1999), the Cambridge Grammar (2002) and Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar (2004) take seriously the need

to reanalyse the concept of transitivity for English

transitory or transient See transient.

transparence or transparency When referring to a photographic image,

only transparency will do Either word can be used for the abstract noun that describes the quality of being transparent, though even there transparency is more

common

transsexual or transexual See under -s/-ss-.

transship or tranship See under -s/-ss-.

traveled or travelled, traveler or traveller, traveling or travelling The choice between these is discussed under -l/-ll-.

travelogue or travelog See under -gue/-g.

tread The regular past forms of this verb are trod (past tense) and trodden (past participle) The form trod is sometimes used instead of trodden:

He’s trod his muddy shoes on the new carpet.

Examples of this usage have been on record since the sixteenth century, and it’s anaccepted variant in Australia

treasonable or treasonous These are equivalent, though treasonable is the

one for most purposes It serves in law, as in treasonable offence, as well as in

ordinary usage, as a general synonym for “traitorous” The use of treasonous

has steadily declined, and even to Fowler (1926) it was largely a poetic word

Dictionaries confirm the trend by crossreferencing the less common treasonous to treasonable.

treble or triple See triple.

tri- This Latin prefix for “three” is found in common words such as:

triangle tricycle trident trifecta triplet tripod

Yet it also plays a vital part in scientific words, in chemistry:

trichloride trioxide tritium trinitrotoluene (TNT)

trialed or trialled, trialing or trialling

and in medicine:

triceps tricuspid trinodal trivalve

Tri- appears in time words like trimonthly and triweekly, where it means

“happening every three months/weeks” In the same way triennial means “every three years” Note however that tricentennial is actually less common than

tercentenary as the word for “three hundredth anniversary”, even though it matches

up better with bicentennial/bicentenary.

The prefix tri- appears with a shortened vowel in words such as trilogy, trinity

and trivial Note that the last word is probably connected with trivium, the

three-part curriculum that was the foundation level of medieval schooling

trialed or trialled, trialing or trialling Working as a verb is still

relatively new for trial, and the spelling is unstable The Macquarie Dictionary (2005) recommends the spellings with two ls, in keeping with British practice on verbs ending in l Yet a search of Australian documents on the internet (Google 2006) found the more regular spelling trialed in about 40% of all instances of the

word See further under -l/-ll-.

triceps For the plural see under biceps.

trillion For the value of this number, see under billion.

triple or treble Both these are modern forms of the Latin triplus, which comes

to us direct in triple, and as treble via Old French and Middle English Both words

can now work as adjectives, nouns or verbs, though from the evidence of Englishdatabases there are some differences in the use of each Overall British English

prefers treble, using it as noun, verb and adjective, while triple works the same way

in American English Australian usage has something each way: in the ACE corpus

both words are found as verbs, though there are three instances of treble to one of triple, and triple alone appears as adjective and noun The tendency here is to give

more roles to triple and fewer to treble.

Writers who use both words sometimes maintain a distinction made by Fowler

(1926), that treble means something has become three times as great as a known

reference point, e.g Costs have trebled since 1980; whereas triple means “consisting

of three parts or difference entities” as in triple alliance or triple jump Yet the

Australian Oxford (2004) and the Macquarie Dictionary (2005) both allow that

triple can mean “(become) three times as great”.

For musicians, however, the two words still stand far apart Treble refers to the

highest voice part in a musical score, and to instruments whose range corresponds

to it, such as the treble recorder Triple refers to musical rhythm in which there are

three beats to a bar (as in a waltz), which contrasts with duple and quadruple timesignatures (as in a march)

troop or troupe, trooper or trouper

triumphant or triumphal The first of these expresses a personal feeling

of triumph, as in She was triumphant after winning the contract Triumphal has

ceremonial overtones, as in a triumphal arch or triumphal march.

trivia This Latin loanword is the plural of trivium, a word used in medieval

schooling for the lower or elementary curriculum In modern English trivia means

“petty details”, though the largest dictionaries allow that it may be construed as

either plural or singular: all these trivia/all this trivia Webster’s English Usage

(1989) finds the two patterns about equally common The use of trivia with singular agreement seems not to have raised as much angst as data and media (see under

those headings)

-trix This is sometimes thought of as a feminine suffix, because it identifies

the feminine gender in pairs like aviatrix/aviator Strictly speaking however, the operative ending is -ix, since the t and r belong to the stem Either way it appears in very few other words in English, only executrix and testatrix, which are confined to

law and do not undermine women’s opportunities more generally Compare -ess.

Note the case of loanwords like matrix and cicatrix, where the ending is a

reminder of the fact that they have both Latin and English plural forms See further

under -x.

trolley or trolly These spellings once served to distinguish a type of lace

(trolly) from a four-wheeled vehicle (trolley) But the former is now hardly known, and so trolly is beginning to be reused as a simple variant for trolley in reference

to supermarket vehicles etc., according to Oxford Dictionary (1989) citations.

trompe l’oeil This French phrase means literally “deceive the eye” It refers to

a type of painting which creates the illusion of three dimensional space as hyperrealart does; or to interior decor which suggests spatial features which are not there,such as painted panels which make a passage seem longer or a room look larger

troop or troupe, trooper or trouper Both words are derived from

French troupe an “organised group of people”, but usually associated with different

activities A troupe is a group of actors or entertainers, as in a troupe of street

theatre artists, though just occasionally this is written as troop The spelling troop

is usually reserved for an organised unit of boy scouts, or to a subdivision of a

cavalry regiment In military usage, the plural troops refers to the whole body of

soldiers, not particular units within it

The distinction between troupe and troop carries over to trouper and trooper Trouper refers to a member of an entertainment group, and trooper to either a

cavalryman or a mounted policeman The first is proverbially a committed andexperienced performer, the second the archetypal champion at swearing Compare:

He carried on like a trouper.

He swore like a trooper.

However the Oxford Dictionary (1989) shows that the more familiar spelling

trooper is sometimes used where we might expect the other, as in “a fine trooper”.truism This is a word to be wary of In technical usage, a truism is a tautology,

i.e a self-validating statement, like: A triangle has three sides But the word is also

commonly used to refer to a self-evident truth, one which requires no proof Assuch it may be either an axiom, or worse, a platitude—so obvious that it does not

bear uttering This last possibility makes truism an unreliable word, and one to

avoid if you want to stress the fundamental truth or factuality of something, as in:

It’s a truism that homosexual behavior exposes people to AIDS.

With truism embedded in it, the statement runs the risk of either being thought

pretentious, or to mean that you think the observation is superfluous Either wayyou need to express the thought in other words

trumpet For the spelling of this word when used as a verb, see under t.try to or try and Try to is standard English and acceptable anywhere Try and often replaces it in informal promises and instructions, as in:

I’ll try and keep in touch with her.

Try and come soon.

Though try and is often criticised as illogical, it seems to express a supportive

attitude, as Fowler (1926) noted It therefore has a particular interpersonal role toplay, which may be as important in certain kinds of writing as in speech It probablyhas no place in institutional writing, hence the censure often applied to it

Note that the use of try and is always associated with try itself, and no other

parts of the verb We cannot use and after tries, trying or tried (And cannot replace

to in He tries to make the best of it.)

Some style guides warn against using try and in negative statements, perhaps

because Fowler did Yet a negative instruction like Don’t try and crack hardy over

it sounds natural enough, and with its supportive implications it may be more

appropriate than Don’t try to in some contexts.

tsar or czar See under czar.

tumor or tumour See under -or/-our.

tun or ton See ton.

tunneled or tunnelling See -l/-ll-.

turbid or turgid Writing which fails to communicate may be turbid (muddy, unclear, confused) or turgid (inflated, pompous), or both When trying to identify

the problem, you need to know which, although generalised criticism of a styleoften conflates the two Our ability to separate them is hampered by the fact that

neither is much used now in its essential physical sense: turbid in reference to a

tyre or tire

liquid with particles stirred up in it, and turgid as “swollen” Either way, plain English is needed as an antidote to turbid and turgid writing.

turfs or turves The choice of plurals is discussed under -f/-v-.

turnover lines Tumover(s) is the editorial term used in Australia and Britain

for line(s) which run on to the next one In the US they are known as runover lines After a paragraph indent turnovers are of course set flush left But in an index

or the stub of a table, turnovers go the other way and are normally indented 1 em

from the left alignment in an index, or the left margin in a table (See indexing and

tables.) In captions to pictures, the turnovers may be aligned on the left, indented,

or even centred

twingeing or twinging The choice between these is discussed under -e

section 1d

-ty This masquerades as an English suffix in abstract nouns such as:

casualty certainty cruelty frailty loyalty safety

All of those have closely related adjectives from which they might seem to bederived In fact the nouns were borrowed ready-made from French, and none have

been formed independently in English Compare -ity.

type of For questions of agreement relating to this phrase, see under kind of.typhoid or typhus Typhoid means “typhus-like” and is a reminder that these two different diseases have similar symptoms, and that typhus was the one first

identified

Typhus was the name given in 1759 by de Sauvages to a severe and often fatal

infection, characterised by (among other things) great lassitude and the eruption ofreddish spots It was associated with crowded human habitations, such as camps,

hospitals, jails and ships, hence some of the earlier names for it: camp fever, jail

fever The disease is now better understood, as an infection from micro-organisms

transmitted by fleas and lice in crowded places

Typhoid fever has similar febrile symptoms, and was not distinguished from typhus until the mid-nineteenth century Its source is a dangerous bacillus in

contaminated food or drink, which causes severe intestinal inflammation andulceration—again often fatal

typhoon, tornado or cyclone See cyclone.

tyre or tire In Australian and British English, these two spellings are used to

distinguish the rubber shock-absorber round the rim of a wheel (tyre) from the verb meaning “exhaust” (tire) In American English tire serves for both meanings The words are quite separate in origin Tire meaning “exhaust” goes back to Old

English, whereas tyre is a contracted form of attire, a loanword from French At

tyro or tiro

first this word referred to any kind of wheel covering, and could mean the metalrim on a cartwheel Later they were made of wood or cork The use of rubberwas a byproduct of nineteenth century colonialism, and the first inflatable rubber

tyre was patented in 1890 All through this time, the word could be spelled either

tire or tyre, and the spelling tire was endorsed by the Oxford Dictionary, and by

Fowler in the 1920s However the spelling tyre was the one used in the patent,

and subsequently taken up in Britain as the twentieth century evolved It has noetymological justification, but appeals to those who prefer that homophones shouldnot be homographs as well The grammar of the two words serves to keep them

apart however, and Americans do without tyre, at no obvious cost to their industrial

development

tyro or tiro See tiro.

U and non-UNo other letter of the alphabet has the touch of class that now goes

with U In the late 1950s it acquired unforgettable social and linguistic significance as

the letter/symbol for “upper class”, and especially for the speech habits of the Britisharistocracy Class differences in speech had certainly been recognised before in

Shaw’s Pygmalion which dramatised the contrast between the language of the upper

crust and the working class U and non-U are a little different in that they focus on

the differences between upper and middle class: differences in pronunciation andthe choice of words, as well as greetings and modes of address The following aresome of the different word choices made by the two groups:

writing paper notepaper

The U list comprises traditional expressions, whereas those in the non-U list are

often more recent French loans In comparison with the older words they perhapshave a certain air to them—that slight pretension that goes with French words and

spellings elsewhere (See further under frenchification.)

The terms U and non-U were coined by Alan Ross in an academic article

published in 1954 They might never have caught on but for the reprinting of the

article two years later in a small anthology of essays titled Noblesse Oblige, edited

by Nancy Mitford Since then the language has of course moved on, and some of

Ross’s non-U words have eclipsed their U equivalents The terms U and non-U

have been extended to refer to social conventions, not just linguistic behavior, and

to ones which may not be linked with class Thus non-U can mean something like

“unfashionable”, as in Skivvies are definitely non-U for our children, especially in

Australia where it’s unclear who might constitute the upper class

The idea that people’s use of words reveals something of their identity is as old

as the word shibboleth (see under that heading) Since the 1950s the connections

between language and society have been the subject of systematic research, and

U-ey or U-ie

social dialects are now considered as important in the total picture of language

variation as geographical dialects See further under dialect.

U-ey or U-ieThe colloquial abbreviation for U-turn is very much an Australian

invention, though the term itself is known in other parts of the English-speakingworld Like many a colloquialism, it has only recently made its appearance in

print, and the spelling is not yet standardised Citations in the Australian National

Dictionary (1988) are mostly for U-ey (apart from odd ones for Uy and youee) The Macquarie Dictionary (2005) also lists U-ie, which is the usual spelling for informal

abbreviated words of this type See further under -ie/-y.

UKThese days UK stands for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern

Ireland The “United Kingdom” wasn’t built in a day, but over centuries by strategictreaties England and Wales were united by treaty in 1536, and Scotland joined in

1707 to form Great Britain The so-called “Act of Union” brought the whole of

Ireland into the “United Kingdom” in 1801, but in 1921 the south of Ireland (Eire)regained its independence, and now only Northern Ireland remains

The abbreviation UK is useful shorthand on envelopes and wherever space is at

a premium In phrases like UK government the abbreviation is more accurate than

“British government” would be in the same place, though the latter is preferred inofficial documents The abbreviation needs no stops because it’s in upper case See

further under abbreviations.

ukulele or ukeleleThe first spelling represents exactly the two Hawaiian

words for a popular musical instrument Surprisingly they are uku “flea” and

lele “jumping” The second spelling is a variant which shows how our common

pronunciation of the word turns the second vowel into a schwa (see under that heading) Dictionaries all give preference to ukulele, yet ukelele is to be found in

some well-respected musical references

ulnaFor the plural of this word, see -a section 1.

UlsterSee under Irish.

ult.This Latin abbreviation was once used regularly in business letters:

Thank you for your letter of 23 ult.

It stood for ultimo mense “last month”; and it contrasted with inst (instante mense

“this month”) and prox (proximo mense “next month”) All three smack of older

styles of correspondence Modern letter writers give the name of the month, as in:

Thank you for your letter of 23 August.

See further under commercialese.

ultimatumFor the plural of this word, see under -um.

ultraIn Latin ultra was an adverb and preposition meaning “beyond” In modern

English it works as a prefix for various adjectives, with the meaning “beyond the

range of”, as in ultrasonic and ultraviolet Some scientific formations of this kind have become household words, witness UHT milk (“ultra-heat-treated”), and the

UHF wave band which means “ultra-high frequency” But in common words ultra

often means “extremely or very”, as in ultrafashionable and ultramodern.

Ultra can also be used as an independent adjective, as in:

They were voting with the ultra conservatives.

Its use as a noun for “one who goes to extremes” can be seen in:

Punks are the ultras of counterfashion.

In both these uses, and some of the compound adjectives, ultra carries the value

judgement “excessive” This meaning seems to have originated in the French loan

ultrarevolutionary, first recorded in 1793, and is latent in many nonscientific words

which have been coined with ultra- since then.

ultra viresThis Latin phrase means “beyond the powers (of)” It represents thejudgement that a particular issue is beyond the legal power and authority of aperson, committee or institution to deal with

Compare it with intra vires meaning “within the powers (of)”, which affirms

that the issue in hand is within the jurisdiction of the authority concerned

-umThis ending on a word of two or more syllables is usually a sign that it’s aLatin loanword, as for:

aquarium atrium colloquium compendium condominium consortium crematorium curriculum emporium encomium equilibrium forum fulcrum gymnasium honorarium mausoleum maximum medium memorandum millennium minimum moratorium ovum podium referendum rostrum sanatorium sanctum serum solarium spectrum stadium stratum symposium ultimatum vacuum

The key question is their plurals, whether they should be Latin ones with -a or English ones with -ums, or perhaps either Overall, the more the word appears in everyday use, the more likely it is to take the English plural, as with aquariums,

compendiums, condominiums, emporiums, gymnasiums, moratoriums, serums, ultimatums, vacuums Those which most often appear in scholarly or institutional

contexts make more use of their Latin plurals, e.g curricula, memoranda and

millennia These tendencies were the general preferences of respondents to an Australian Style survey (1998–9), though between 20% and 35% preferred English

plurals even for words in the latter group A few scholarly words ending in

-um are always found with Latin plurals, namely addenda, corrigenda, desiderata,

errata.

Some words ending in -um always have English plurals, notably flowers and

plants such as:

capsicum chrysanthemum delphinium geranium nasturtium

as well as a miscellany of other everyday words:

album asylum conundrum harmonium museum nostrum pendulum premium quorum vademecum vellum

The reasons why these make their plurals only in the English way are intertwinedwith their individual histories; but in general terms it’s because they do not havestraightforward connections with Classical Latin nouns

Note finally that for some words the Latin and English plurals mean differentthings:

r mediums—the means or material for doing something; spiritualist links with

the supernatural

media—channels of communication, especially mass communication:

particular materials or techniques of art

r stadiums— sports grounds

stadia— stages of a disease.

umlautThis accent consists of two strokes which in German and Swedish areplaced above a back vowel to show that it is pronounced further forward in the

mouth than the same vowel without umlaut So the first syllable of the German

H ¨utte “hut” and Hut “hat” sound a little different, rather like the difference between

“Hugh” and “who”

Umlauts also appear in some other languages such as Hungarian, but loanwords

from there are so few that their use of the umlaut is unfamiliar German loanwords

such as Fr ¨aulein and F ¨uhrer are however seen occasionally in English with their

umlauts When the umlaut is unavailable in English typing and printing fonts, an e

is sometimes inserted after the umlauted vowel as a substitute Our normal spelling

of muesli embodies this practice, whereas in (Swiss) German it’s m ¨usli.

Like other accents, the umlaut marks a word or name as being not English—

which is no doubt why umlauts are sometimes sprinkled freely on names which are worth more if they look foreign Australian wine labels such as Rhin¨e Kell¨er (with umlauts on the wrong vowels) probably hope to price themselves up with

imported wines

Compare dieresis.

un-Negative words are created very freely in English with this prefix Most simply

it means “not”, as in adjectives such as:

unable uncertain uncommon unfit unjust untidy unusual unwilling

When attached to a verb, un- reverses the action expressed in it, as in:

uncover undo undress unleash unload unlock untie unwind

underlay or underlie

Note however that in both unfurl (= “furl”) and unloosen (= “loosen”), un- has

zero value

In longer adjectives, especially those ending in -able, un- is tending to replace

the Latin negative prefix in- So unescapable is more and more used instead of

inescapable etc See further under in-/un-.

unattached participleSee dangling participle.

unaware or unawaresUnaware is usually an adjective, though occasionally

it appears as an adverb Compare:

Unaware of what was going on behind, the speaker carried on.

They were caught unaware by the strike.

Unawares is only ever an adverb, used without modification:

They came upon the snake unawares.

The use of unawares seems however to be declining, and only survives with a

handful of verbs, including catch, come upon and take.

unconscious or subconsciousSee under subconscious.

under-This English prefix has both physical and figurative functions It means:

1 “below or underneath”, as in undercarriage, underground, undermine,

Under- combines freely with both English and Latin/French words, and with

nouns, verbs and adjectives

underhand or underhandedThe first is the usual form of the word meaning

“crafty, deceptive”:

The company used underhand methods to save money at their employees’ expense.

Just occasionally underhanded is used with that same meaning, though the extra

syllable is unnecessary and adds nothing

Note also the use of underhand in ball games such as tennis and squash, to refer to a stroke which begins below the shoulder And that underhanded is used

in American English to mean “short of staff” It thus becomes a synonym for

shorthanded.

underlay or underlieUnderlay is most commonly a noun, which underlie

never is But as verbs they can be confused One way to distinguish them is to note

that underlay involves putting a layer under something, whereas underlie means

being that layer or foundation for something else Compare:

Before finishing the collar she underlaid it with stiffening.

A layer of sand underlies the topsoil.

Note that the past participle of underlay is underlaid, while that of underlie is

underlain.

understatementProvided your readers know what you’re referring to,

understatement can be as effective as overstatement in drawing attention to it For

example, if you have been severely reprimanded by someone, you could say that Xhad “come down like a ton of bricks on you” But if others know X’s style, it may

be just as effective—and more amusing—to say that “X told you how to improve

yourself” Understatement suggests restrained judgement, whereas overstatement

implies a willingness to dramatise or exaggerate things

See further under figures of speech.

undertone or overtoneSee overtone.

undiscriminatingSee under discriminating or discriminatory.

undistributed middleUsing the undistributed middle term in a syllogism is

a logical fallacy See fallacies section 2.

undoubtedly, indubitably and doubtlessAll these are adverbs whichaim to banish the reader’s doubts, and therefore have an interpersonal role to play

in writing (see interpersonal).

Of the three, undoubtedly is the most forceful and widely used Indubitably is also a strong word, but it can only be used in very formal styles Doubtless is less

strong, and perhaps a little old-fashioned now Compare:

He will doubtless appear in a few minutes.

He will no doubt appear in a few minutes.

Note that because doubtless is established as an adverb, there’s strictly no need

for doubtlessly Dictionaries do however recognise it, and its existence suggests the discomfort people feel with zero adverbs Doubtlessly can never be misread as an

adjective, whereas doubtless could.

unexceptional or unexceptionableSee under exceptional.

uni-The Latin prefix for “one” is found in everyday English words such as

uniform, unilateral and unisex It appears in scientific words such as unidirectional, unipolar and univalve The same prefix is the first component in unanimous and unanimity, and it’s integrated into loanwords such as: unify, union, unit and unity

whose meanings focus on “oneness”

Compare mono-.

uninterestedSee under disinterested.

Union JackIn Australia this is usually taken as the name of the British nationalflag of red, white and blue, which represents the union of England, Wales, Scotlandand Northern Ireland The pattern combines the cross of St George (for England),

of St Andrew (for Scotland), and of St Patrick (for Ireland) Its official name is the

“Union flag”, but it acquired the name “jack” long ago from being flown on thejack staff at the bows of British sailing ships

uniqueThis word has received an extraordinary amount of critical attention, withvarious rights and wrongs made to hang on its use In its primary and historicalsense, the word singles something out as the only one of its kind:

Sydney’s Opera House is a unique building.

In this absolute sense, the word cannot be qualified by words such as more, most

or very By implication, there are no degrees of uniqueness Yet Fowler (1926) and others argued that some modifiers such as almost, really, truly and absolutely

could be used with it, because they focused on whether the state of uniqueness

had actually been achieved Fowler also allowed that quite unique was possible, provided you were using quite as an intensifier rather than as a hedge word (See

further under quite.)

All this debate turns on the idea that unique has an absolute meaning, yet this

very point is also not to be taken for granted For one thing it may be impossible

to know whether something is the only example of its kind; for another the word

is often uttered amid a certain amount of hype which tends to devalue it Modern

dictionaries and style guides all recognise that unique is these days used to mean

such things as “outstanding”, “remarkable” and “unusual”—some reporting itwithout comment, others saying that it’s a “loose” application of the word, orone objected to by some people

Now if we allow that words change and expand their range of meaning in the

course of time, this is just what’s happening with unique With its extended meaning,

it can reasonably be qualified by words such as more, most and very, and they in fact

show that it’s not being used in an absolute sense Those who regret that unique is

changing in this way should take comfort from the fact that they can still express

the absolute meaning by other words such as sole.

units of measurementThe SI system is discussed at metrication, and set out in full in Appendix IV For imperial weights and measures, see under that

heading Note that the symbols representing units of measurement in either system

do not take stops See further under abbreviations.

unlessThis word helps to introduce clauses that express a negative condition

Thus it’s often equivalent to if not, as in:

Unless it snows, we’ll move house tomorrow.

The positive equivalents to unless are the compound conjunctions in case and

provided that.

unlikeFor the problems posed by this word in negative sentences, see the final

note on like or as.

unloose or unloosenSee under loose.

unpractical or impracticalSee under practical.

unsanitary or insanitary Both are perfectly acceptable, though somemodern dictionaries seem to lend weight to the second by giving a separate entry

to insanitary, and simply treating unsanitary in a block entry on words prefixed

with un-.

unsatisfied or dissatisfiedSee dissatisfied.

unshakable or unshakeableSee under -eable.

until or tillSee till.

upper caseFor the origins of the name, see under lower case For the use of upper case/capital letters, see capital letters.

upward or upwardsSee under -ward.

urban or urbaneThe first of these adjectives means simply “associated with

the city”, as in urban transport or urban development The second word urbane

implies a social style which is smooth and sophisticated, a sense which embodiesthe stereotyped contrast between the manners of city dwellers and those of lesspolished country people

In the sixteenth century, the two words were simply spelling variants for the samemeaning But the meaning “sophisticated” developed in the seventeenth century,

and the spelling urbane has since been attached to it.

urethraThe plural is discussed under -a section 1.

URLWhether you pronounce this with one syllable or three, it’s the uniform

resource locator—or universal resource locator—by which you track down sources

of information on the internet

When quoting a(n) URL or email address, some writers enclose it in a pair ofchevrons, while others give it extra space or set it on a fresh line, and use the space

as terminator instead of a full stop Compare:

Information available at <www.m-w.com> This site was last updated Information available at www.m-w.com

This site was last updated

-usBoth methods ensure that there’s no confusion with the punctuation associatedwith the carrier text.

Longish URLs that take the visitor deep inside a website can be handled in either

of those ways When run on straight after the carrier sentence, the URL may need

to be divided at the end of the line, in which case the break is made after the forwardslashes or any other punctuation mark within the address:

Information can be downloaded free of charge from

<http://www.askasia.org/image/maps/india4.htm>

Hyphens should never be used to mark the break in the address

-usThis ending is very often found on Latin loanwords, and often means that theirplurals need special attention They come from several Latin declensions, and theirLatin plurals are still used extensively in writing, though often replaced by Englishplurals in speech

1 Many -us words are from the Latin second declension or modeled after it Examples

include:

abacus agapanthus antechinus bacillus cactus crocus focus fungus gladiolus hibiscus incubus narcissus nucleus papyrus radius

ranunculus stimulus streptococcus stylus syllabus terminus uterus

In Latin the regular pattern was for the -us ending to become -i in the plural

(stimulus >stimuli), and this often happens in English too The Latin plural is

occasionally replaced by the regular English one (stimuluses), especially for the names of flowers and plants e.g cactuses But the English plural involves a

concentration of sibilants at the end of the word, and this may explain why Englishplurals have been slower to catch on with this group of Latin loans than with others,

such as those ending in -um In an Australian survey (1998–9), only stylus and

syllabus were voted English plurals by more than 70% of respondents The English

plural is however the only one for -us words whose grammar or contemporary

meaning is independent of classical Latin, such as bonus, chorus, campus, circus and

virus.

Note that the plural for genius depends on the intended meaning (see genius).

2 A small number of -us words come from the fourth Latin declension, where the

plural was spelled the same way as the singular (it was a zero plural) English

loanwords from this group include:

apparatus census f(o)etus hiatus impetus nexus prospectus sinus status

All these words are given regular -s plurals in English, and only apparatus is

occasionally found with its Latin zero plural They should never be given plurals

in -i, as if they were members of the second declension.

USA or US

3 An even smaller group of -us words are from the Latin third declension Their

plurals have a characteristic inflection with -ra, and a preceding change of vowel The three commonest loanwords involved are corpus, genus and opus which become

corpora, genera and opera respectively All three are informally given English

plurals: corpuses, genuses and opuses.

4 Some -us words are not Latin nouns at all, and so are not heirs to any Latin plural

suffix They include ignoramus, minus, omnibus and rebus, which can only be given English plurals: ignoramuses, minuses, omnibuses and rebuses Most scholars prefer

to give English plurals also to words whose source material is Greek rather than

Latin, as with thesaurus, as well as hippopotamus, octopus and platypus (see under

those headings)

USA or USThough USA is the formal abbreviation for the United States

of America, it’s now very often reduced to US The reduced abbreviation is

actually more common than the fuller one, and occurs more than twice as often

in the Australian ACE database, especially as an adjective in phrases such as US

government and US president This use of US is strictly speaking more accurate than

using “American” in the same phrases, because American refers rather loosely to

the whole continent, not the United States themselves (see further under America).

The abbreviation US is often used informally for the noun as well, as in

going to the US next year The usage is widespread in newspapers and everyday

writing, though in formal documents it’s replaced by “the United States (ofAmerica)”

No stops are needed in either USA or US, because they are in upper case See further under abbreviations.

For the reasons just discussed, US has been used rather than USA in this book.

usable or useableWith these two there’s no question that usable is to be

preferred It appears as the first spelling in all modem dictionaries; and it was

preferred by the Oxford Dictionary (1989) both because of the larger number of

citations for it, and the fact that it embodied one of the standard spelling rules of

English, the dropping of e before a suffix beginning with a vowel (see -e section 1) Usable also corresponds better with usage.

usage or useThe first of these is sometimes no more than an inflated substitutefor the second, as in:

The usage of public transport has declined in the last two decades.

In such cases the verbal noun use would be preferable to the more abstract usage Usage comes into its own as a reference to a prevailing linguistic or social habit.

Compare the roles of the two words in:

Common usage now sanctions the use of different than.

utilise or use

As that example shows, use needs postmodification, to specify what is being used, whereas usage has enough intrinsic meaning to stand on its own.

useable or usableSee usable.

used to This verb phrase is a curious remnant of an older idiom It refers to acustom or habit, as in:

We used to sleep in every morning.

The expression is fixed in the past tense, and as with other fringe auxiliaries there’ssome uncertainty as to how its negative works Should it be:

We used not to get up early (This makes it an auxiliary, which takes the negative

itself.)

We didn’t use to get up early (This makes it a lexical verb, which needs an

auxiliary to precede the negative.)

The first of those constructions is preferred by more than 2:1 in Australian

documents on the internet (Google 2006), and perhaps didn’t use seems rather

strange since there’s no longer an infinitive “use” pronounced to rhyme with

“loose” Many more writers therefore make it didn’t used to, although it too seems unsatisfactory because it doubles the past tense marking According to Webster’s

English Usage (1989), didn’t use to is usual and correct in American English; and

it’s also preferred in Britain, according to the Comprehensive Grammar of English (1985) Both regard didn’t used to as dubious.

When it comes to phrasing questions with used to, there are the same alternatives:

Used you to get up early?

Did you use(d) to get up early?

The second construction: did you use is overwhelmingly preferred to used you to

in British and American English, and in Australian English as well Yet Collins’s

research (1979) showed Australians’ discomfort with the infinitive use to as well,

and an inclination to avoid it by means of paraphrase The following are some ofthe alternatives for construing the question above:

Did you get up early when you were younger?

Did you make a habit of getting up early?

Were you used to getting up early?

USSRSee Russia.

utilise or useMost of the time utilise seems to appear as a heavyweight substitute for use, as in:

If the fax machine fails, would you utilise the telephone.

There’s little justification for utilise when it only serves to make the statement

sound more important

utilise or use

Yet for some writers utilise still connotes something more than use, i.e the

implication that a resource has been turned to good account, and used in a profitable,effective or ingenious way:

They utilised the water of the nearby creek to cool the engine.

This subtle extra dimension of utilise is unfortunately jeopardised by pretentious

use of it elsewhere

-v-/-f The letters v and f are alternatives in some verbs which derive from older

English nouns ending in -f or -fe, e.g knifed/knived The words are all ones which

as nouns have v in their plural forms (see further under -f/-v-) The use of v or f

sometimes affects the meaning, as shown in the table below

loaf “shape like loaf” loaved/loafed

roove “secure with a washer” rooved

The v/f option once applied also to adjectives such as elvish/elfish and wolvish/

wolfish But in contemporary English the spellings with f are more common, and

those with v are regarded in all dictionaries as secondary alternatives.

vacation This word has yet to become the standard word for “holiday” inAustralia, as it is in US We still speak in terms of “holiday pay”, and “going onholiday” Yet tourist pamphlets increasingly try to tempt us with “a dream vacation

on Hayman Island”, or with the line “Why not a vacation in the Maldives?” This

still tends to link vacation with expensive and fashionable long-distance holidays,

rather than the annual break from work

In some Australian institutions however, vacation certainly refers to a significant

break in the working year In law it refers to the intermission in the legal year, and the

long vacation is part of the regular calendar in universities and colleges No doubt

this institutional use of vacation will combine with fashionable use to spread the

word

vaccinate See under inoculate.

vacuity or vacuousness The first of these is the established abstract noun,

on record since the sixteenth century, with a range of meanings from physical

emptiness to absence of mind or purpose Vacuousness is the ad hoc noun from

vacuous, recorded only sporadically since the seventeenth century Citations in the Oxford Dictionary (1989) show it being more often used figuratively, to refer to

lack of mental engagement or sense of direction

vacuum The plural of this word is discussed under -um.

vademecum This Latin phrase means literally “go with me” It has been usedsince the seventeenth century to refer to portable reference manuals on subjects asdiverse as theology and theatre, opera and archeology etc etc

vagary Until about a century ago, this could mean a physical “wandering orrambling” But for centuries it has also been used more figuratively to mean adigression in a discourse, and to capricious conduct This last meaning is often

enshrined in plural use of the word, as in the vagaries of the money market Note that when vagaries refers to erratic patterns of thought or speech, its

meaning overlaps with “vagueness”, as in:

We couldn’t follow the vagaries of that senile mind.

The temptation to find “vague” in vagaries is all the stronger because common

pronunciation now puts the stress on the first syllable The older pronunciationwith stress on the second syllable did not lend itself to this coincidence ofideas

vagina For the plural, see -a section 1.

valency or valence The first has been the usual Australian spelling of thisscientific word The second is on the increase here because of the use of textbooksfrom North America, where it’s the standard spelling Some interchange between

them also results from the common vacillation between -ncy and -nce in such pairs.

(See further under -nce/-ncy.)

Note also valance, a quite independent word now mostly known in the context

of soft furnishings It refers to a hanging piece of drapery which covers the upperpart of a window, or the lower part of a piece of furniture In earlier motoring

valance was also the name for a cover over the wheel of a car, which reduced drag

and prevented mud splashing up

valiant or valorous Both mean “brave or courageous” but there’s a stylistic

difference Valorous is the more formal word, and the one used in official

recognitions of bravery, as in military and police awards for valorous conduct.

Valiant comes up in everyday references, and can be used of moral and political

courage, as in:

He was a valiant campaigner for conservation issues.

valor or valour For the choice between these, see -or/-our.

vapor or vapour

valuable and invaluable Note that these are not antonyms Invaluable is not the reverse of valuable (i.e “having no value”) but rather “extremely valuable”—

so much so that you can’t put a price on it Put another way, something which is

invaluable is more than just valuable The word which works as an antonym for

both valuable and invaluable is valueless If there’s any doubt about them, priceless

is a safe synonym for invaluable, and worthless (or valueless) for the opposite.

van and von In Dutch and German these are unremarkable particles meaning

“from” They quite often appear as the first element in proper names, as in Van

Gogh and Von Trapp, and in English the question arises as to whether they should

bear capital letters or not The style for famous historical personages can be settled

by reference to a dictionary of biography, whereas that for someone with whomwe’re corresponding should be checked against previous letters and email or thetelephone directory The general trend is for such names to acquire a capital on the

Van/Von in English (see under capital letters, section 1).

The names raise further questions when it comes to indexing In principle,

their place depends on whether the particle is capitalised or not, so that van Dam would be alphabetised with the Ds and Van Dam with the Vs Yet this is rather

unpredictable and mysterious for English speakers who are unaware that van and von are merely particles There’s therefore good reason to group such names all

together under V, as happens in Australian telephone directories At V itself, the

individual’s preference for a capital letter or not is shown (This is comparable to

the usual practice for names beginning with Mac or Mc See further under that heading.) A crossreference at the other point in the index where the van/von name

might otherwise appear would help also

Van Diemen’s Land The name Van Diemen’s Land was given to Tasmania

in 1642 by Abel Tasman, in honor of the then governor of the Dutch East Indies

The governor’s name was less flatteringly built into Vandemonia (with the play

on “pandemonia”), as an unofficial designation for Tasmania as a penal colony

Records in the Australian National Dictionary (1988) show that Vandemonia was never greatly used, though the closely related Vandemonian had some currency as

the adjective for things Tasmanian, and its non-Aboriginal inhabitants Tasmaniabecame the official name in 1855

Vancouver style This is a type of number referencing system developed in the

late 1970s and used especially in biomedical journals (see referencing section 4).

The numbers may be italicised (in parentheses, square brackets or superscripted)

to set them apart from the line of text Clusters of references are permitted e.g

[1,4] The Vancouver style entails a number of conventions to compress the details

of a reference See further under bibliographies section C.

vapor or vapour The choice between them is discussed under -or/-our.

variety in writing

variety in writing Variety is vital for writing to keep the reader with you.Even a shortish piece of writing is a relatively long monologue to direct at a reader,and if the style is pedestrian and repetitious, readers are likely to switch off Writersneed therefore to consciously vary their style, by such things as:

r varying the form of their sentences, both in length and structure (see sentences)

r varying their choice of words by looking for synonyms (see synonyms)

r varying the word forms they choose (see under -ation and nominal)

This incidentally helps to vary both the vocabulary and the shape of sentences

vegetarian or vegan Both vegetarians and vegans maintain a meat- and

fish-free diet, but the vegan takes vegetarian principles much further and avoids eating

any animal produce, including eggs, milk, butter and cheese Vegetarian diets have ofcourse been obligatory at various times and seasons in earlier centuries, and in other

cultures But the idea of voluntary vegetarianism contrasting with the omnivorous

eating habits of others seems to arise with the first record of vegetarian in 1839 Vegan first appears in 1944.

veld or veldt Modern dictionaries almost all prefer the shorter spelling, in line

with usage in South Africa itself Veldt is still used outside South Africa, and it

represents the original Dutch word as well as common pronunciation

venal or venial See venial.

vendor or vender These spellings both date from the last decade of the

sixteenth century Vendor originated in law and still represents the role of anyone who disposes of property by sale Vender is the ordinary spelling for one who sells things, often in the street But it runs second to vendor in all modern dictionaries

and databases, perhaps because the verb vend on which it’s based is so rare The adjective found in vending machine is the most familiar member of the verbal

set

vengeance or revenge See revenge.

venial or venal The spelling marks the crucial difference between that which

is pardonable (venial) and that which involves bribery (venal) Compare:

She had the disarming but venial habit of plying him with questions.

A venal police force is the first symptom of the breakdown of law and order.

Both adjectives have their own abstract nouns: veniality and venality, where once again the i in the second syllable makes a big difference in meaning.

Note that because a venial sin is forgivable, it can be atoned by prayer and other

good works In theological terms it’s the opposite of a “mortal sin”, i.e one whichmeans spiritual death and condemns the soul to hell

verb phrase

venturous or venturesome, adventurous or adventuresome

All these are recognised in modern dictionaries as words meaning “daring, or

ready to take risks” Venturous has been put to good use in many of the classics

of English literature, yet dictionary crossreferencing suggests that venturesome and adventurous are now the primary members of each pair Database evidence

in Australia and elsewhere shows that adventurous is rather more common than venturesome: the ratio was 5:1 in the ACE corpus.

veranda or verandah Both spellings are recognised yet the first and shorter

one is given priority in all dictionaries It was preferred by the Oxford Dictionary

(1989), probably because it was closer to the word’s etymology in the Portuguese

and Hindi word varanda But Oxford citations show that verandah was popular

in the nineteenth century (perhaps because the final h linked it with maharajah and

Anglo-India); and this preference continues in contemporary Australia In internet

documents (Google 2006) instances of verandah outnumber those of veranda by

about 4:1

verb phrase This means different things in different grammars

1 In traditional grammar verb phrase meant the finite verb of a clause when it

consisted of more than one word:

was playing

was being played

will have been played

would have been being played

The verb phrase has a main verb (playing/played) as its head, and the first of the

accompanying auxiliaries marks the verb’s tense (See auxiliary verbs.)

2 In modern grammars the term verb phrase is given extended applications It

refers to simple finite verbs as well as compound ones like the examples in section

1; and it’s also applied to the nonfinite verb phrase Nonfinite verb phrases may

also be simple or compound, and constructed with either infinitives or participles

(i.e with be/being or have/having), as in the following:

You saw her buy it I wanted to buy it.

I’d like to have bought it It had stopped ticking.

He’ll get it repaired I saw it being worked on.

Thus, many English clauses contain nonfinite verbs to complement the finite ones,and the syntactic implications are still being analysed in modern grammars, such

as the Comprehensive Grammar of English (1985), the Longman Grammar (1999), and the Cambridge Grammar (2002).

3 In transformational-generative grammars the term verb phrase comes close to

meaning the “predicate” of a clause A sentence is said to consist of an NP+ VP, i.e

a noun phrase which is the subject, and a verb phrase which includes not only the

verb but also its object (also a noun phrase), and/or any adverbial phrases attached:

Sentence

The assistant put the clock on the counter

(V) (O) (A) subject verb object adverbial (prep phr)

(S)

Because the idea of the verb phrase has developed so considerably in recent decades,

it’s vital to know which analysis is being used before entering into discussions aboutits role

verbal The more you deal with language, the more ambiguous this word seems

It can mean:

1 “spoken” (as opposed to “written”) as in a verbal agreement

2 “in words” (as opposed to pictures) as in communicate by verbal rather than

visual means

3 “using verbs” (rather than nouns) as in verbal style (see further under nominal).

Much of the time verbal is used in the first of those senses, and this is the one

enshrined in its use as a verb in Australian English It referred to a police procedure

in which comments offered by a prisoner were recorded and presented in court,often as evidence against him The inflected forms of the verb are often printed

as verballed/verballing, though there’s strictly no need to double the l (See under

doubling of final consonant.)

In ordinary contexts the ambiguity of verbal presents no problems, especially

in standard idioms such as verbal agreement But in discussing language itself,

precision is important, and linguists prefer to paraphrase the word: with

“spoken/oral” for the first sense above; “using words” for the second sense; and

“using verbs” for the third,

verbal nouns These are nouns which embody the action or process of a verb.They take various forms including:

r the suffix -ing (see further under gerunds)

r abstract suffixes such as -ation, -ity and –ment

r no suffix at all (see further under transfers)

Note that using too many abstract verbal nouns creates a nominal style which may

be undesirable (see under nominal).

Note also that some grammarians regard infinitives as verbal nouns, because

they seem to function in the same way as -ing forms Compare:

They were famished but declined to eat uncooked meat.

They were famished but declined eating uncooked meat.