Bryson's Dictionary For Writers And Editors (v5.0) (8 page)
brie.
(Not cap.) Cheese.
Brillat-Savarin, Anthelme.
(1755-1826) French gastronome.
Bristol-Myers Squibb.
U.S. pharmaceuticals company.
Britannia, Britannic,
but
Brittany
for the region (formerly a province) of France. The song is “Rule, Britannia,” with a comma.
British aristocracy,
or peerage, comprises, in descending order, the ranks duke, marquess, earl/countess, viscount, and baron/baroness. Male peers below the rank of duke may be referred to as Lord (i.e., the Earl of Avon may be called Lord Avon), and all peeresses may be referred to as Lady. However, not every lord is a peer. The eldest son of a duke, marquess, or earl, for instance, may use one of his father's minor titles as a courtesy title and call himself the Marquess of X or Earl of Y, but he is not a peer and is not allowed to sit in the House of Lords. Younger sons of dukes and marquesses may put
Lord
in front of their names: Lord John X. Their wives are then called Lady John X. Daughters of dukes, marquesses, and earls will similarly put
Lady
before their names: Lady Mary Y. Wives of other kinds of peers, and of knights and baronets, are referred to as Lady X or Lady Y; that is, their first names are not used. Sir John Blogg's wife is simply Lady Blogg, not Lady Mary Blogg. Life peers are people of distinction who are elevated to the peerage but whose titles die with them.
British Guiana.
Former name of the South American country now known as
Guyana.
British Honduras.
Former name of Belize.
British Indian Ocean Territory.
Group of 2,300 scattered islands in the Indian Ocean run as a British colony; principal island Diego Garcia.
Britten, (Edward) Benjamin.
(1913-1976) English composer; later Baron Britten of Aldeburgh.
Brobdingnag.
Not
-dig-.
Place inhabited by giants in
Gulliver's Travels.
broccoli.
Bronfman, Edgar M(iles).
(1929â) Canadian businessman.
Brontë, Anne
(1820-1849),
(Patrick) Branwell
(1817â1848),
Charlotte
(1816-1855), and
Emily (Jane)
(1818-1848): English literary family. Among their best-known works are Emily's
Wuthering Heights
, Charlotte's
Jane Eyre
, and Anne's
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
.
brontosaurus.
Not
bronta-.
Type of dinosaur.
Brooke, Rupert (Chawner).
(1887-1915) English poet.
Brookings Institution
(not
Institute
), Washington, D.C.; named after
Robert Somers Brookings
(1850-1932), American philanthropist.
Brooks, Van Wyck.
(1886-1963) American critic and historian.
brouhaha.
An uproar.
Brown v. Board of Education.
1954 landmark civil rights case in which the Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools were illegal. See also
PLESSY V. FERGUSON
.
brucellosis.
Disease of cattle.
Brueghel, Pieter, the Elder.
(c. 1520-1569) Not
-eu-
. Flemish painter and father of two others:
Pieter Brueghel the Younger
(1564-1638) and
Jan Brueghel
(1568-1625).
Bruges
(Fr.)/
Brugge
(Flemish). Historic city in northern Belgium.
Brummell, (George Bryan) Beau.
(1778-1840) Celebrated English dandy.
Brundtland, Gro Harlem.
(1939â) Norwegian prime minister (1981, 1986-1989, 1990-1996).
Bruneau-Jarbidge.
Site of historic supervolcano in Idaho.
Brunei.
Independent oil-rich state on Borneo; capital Bandar Seri Begawan. A native is a Bruneian.
Brunel, Isambard Kingdom.
(1806-1859) British engineer; son of
Sir Marc Isambard Brunel
(1769-1849), also an engineer.
Brunelleschi, Filippo.
(c. 1377-1446) Renaissance architect and sculptor.
Brunhild.
In Scandinavian sagas, she is a Valkyrie, or priestess, in a deep sleep. In Wagner's
Ring
cycle, the name is spelled
Brünnhilde.
Brussels.
Capital of Belgium. In French, Bruxelles; in Flemish, Brussel.
brussels sprouts.
(No cap., no apos.)
Bryan, William Jennings.
(1860-1925) American lawyer, orator, and politician.
Bryant, William Cullen.
(1794-1878) American journalist, critic, and poet.
Brzezinski, Zbigniew K.
(1928â) Polish-born American academic and statesman.
BSE.
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, more commonly known as mad cow disease.
BST.
Bovine somatotropin, a genetically engineered hormone used to increase milk production in cows.
BTU.
British thermal unit, the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit.
Buccleuch.
Ancient British dukedom; pronounced
buck-loo
'
.
Bucharest.
Capital of Romania; in Romanian, Bucure
ti.
Buddenbrooks.
Novel by Thomas Mann (1901).
Buddha, Buddhist, Buddhism.
Buddleia.
Genus of shrub.
buenos dÃas
(for “good day” or “hello” in Spanish), but
buenas
(not
-os
)
noches
(“good night”) and
buenas tardes
(“good afternoon”).
buffalo.
The plural can be either
buffalo
or
buffaloes.
Bugatti.
Sports car.
Bujumbura.
Capital of Burundi.
Bulfinch, Charles.
(1763-1844) American architect.
Bulfinch's Mythology.
Subtitle of
The Age of Fable
by Thomas Bulfinch (1796-1867).
bull's-eye,
in the sense of a target.
Bulwer-Lytton, Edward.
(1803-1873) Also Baron Lytton, English writer and politician, celebrated for penning the classically bad opening line “It was a dark and stormy night” in his novel
Paul Clifford
(1830). The annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, for a mock bad opening line, is named in his honor.
bumf.
Assorted papers.
Bumppo, Natty.
Note
-pp-.
Hero of James Fenimore Cooper stories.
Bunche, Ralph (Johnson).
(1904-1971) American statesman; one of the founders of the United Nations. Awarded Nobel Peace Prize (1950).
Bundesbank.
Central bank of Germany.
Bundesrat, Bundestag.
The
Bundesrat
(Federal Council) is the upper house of the German parliament; the
Bundestag
(Federal Assembly) is the lower house.
Bundesrepublik Deutschland.
(Abbr. BRD.) Federal Republic of Germany.
Bundeswehr.
German armed forces.
Bunsen burner.
(One cap.)
Buoniconti, Nick.
(1940â) American football player.
buoy
is pronounced
boy,
not
boo-ee.
Think of
buoyant.
burgeon
does not mean merely to expand or thrive. It means to bud or sprout, to come into being. For something to burgeon, it must be new. Thus, it would be correct to talk about the burgeoning talent of a precocious youth, but to write of “the ever-burgeoning population of Cairo” is wrong. Cairo's population has been growing for centuries, and nothing, in any case, is ever-burgeoning.
bürgermeister.
(Ger.) Mayor.
Burgess, (Frank) Gelett.
(1866-1951) American humorist.
Burgundy.
Region of eastern France. In French, Bourgogne. The wine is
burgundy
(lowercase).
Burke and Hare.
Body snatchers and murderers in Edinburgh in the early nineteenth century; they were both named William.
Burkina-Faso.
Landlocked west African state, formerly Upper Volta; capital Ouagadougou. Natives are Burkinabe (sing. and pl.).
Burma, Myanmar.
The first is the former official name of the Southest Asian nation and the one now preferred by most publications and other informed users outside Burma.
Myanmar
was for a time used by many publications, but now its use is mostly confined to the country's government and institutions under its influence. Some authorities write
Burma/Myanmar
. The United Nations uses just
Myanmar
.
Burne-Jones, Sir Edward Coley.
(1833-1898) British painter and designer.
burnoose
(or
burnous
). A hooded Arab cloak.
Burnt-Out Case, A.
Novel by Graham Greene (1960).
burnt sienna.
Not
siena
.
burqa.
Type of enveloping dress worn by Muslim women when in public to preserve their modesty. Also spelled
burkha, burka, burqua.
Burtts Corner,
New Brunswick, Canada.
Burundi.
African republic; capital Bujumbura.
Buryatiya.
Russian republic.
Bury St. Edmunds,
Suffolk, England. (No apos.)
Bury
is pronounced
berry
.
bus, buses, bused, busing
are words relating to a form of transportation and should not be confused with
buss, busses,
etc., meaning kiss(es).
but
used negatively after a pronoun presents a problem that has confounded careful users for generations. Do you say, “Everyone but him had arrived” or “Everyone but he had arrived”? The authorities themselves are divided.
Some regard
but
as a preposition and put the pronoun in the accusativeâi.e.,
me, her, him
, or
them
. So just as we say, “Give it to her” or “between you and me,” we should say, “Everyone but him had arrived.”
Others argue that
but
is a conjunction and that the pronoun should be nominative (
I, she, he,
or
they
), as if the sentence was saying, “Everyone had arrived, but he had not.”
The answer perhaps is to regard
but
sometimes as a conjunction and sometimes as a preposition. Two rough rules should help.
1. If the pronoun appears at the end of the sentence, you can always use the accusative and be on firm ground. Thus, “Nobody knew but her” “Everyone had eaten but him.”
2. When the pronoun appears earlier in the sentence, it is almost always better to put it in the nominative, as in “No one but he had seen it.” The one exception is when the pronoun is influenced by a preceding preposition, but such constructions are relatively rare and often clumsy. Two examples might be “Between no one but them was there any bitterness” and “To everyone but him life was a mystery.” See also
THAN
(3).
Buthelezi, Mangosuthu.
(1928â) South African politician, founder of Inkatha Freedom Party.
BWIA.
British West India Airways; not
Indian
or
Indies
.
byte.
In computing, a unit of eight bits.
Cc
ca.
(Lat.) is the abbreviation for
circa
, meaning about or approximately; often
c.
In either case, it is customary to put a period after it.
cacao.
The tree from whose seed cocoa and chocolate are made.
caddie, caddy.
A
caddie
is a golfer's assistant; a
caddy
is a container or small casket. The affectionate term for a Cadillac is
Caddy.
Cadmean victory.
One that leaves the victor ruined. See also
PYRRHIC VICTORY
.
caduceus.
Staff with two winged serpents wrapped around it.
Caedmon.
(fl. seventh c.) English poet.
Caerphilly cheese.
(In Welsh, Caerffili.)
caesarean
, not
-ian
, remains the preferred spelling for the form of childbirth properly known as a
Caesarean section,
as well as for references to Roman emperors named Caesar.
caesar salad.
(Not cap.)
Cage, Nicolas.
(1964â) American actor; not
Nicholas
, though his birth name was Nicholas Coppola.
cagey
(pref.),
cagy
(alt.).
Caius,
the Cambridge college, is formally
Gonville and Caius College.
Caius is pronounced
keys.
Cajun.
(Cap.) Native of traditionally French-speaking region of Louisiana; derived from
Acadian
.
calamine lotion.
Calaveras County,
California, is the scene of the Mark Twain story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.”
Calcutta,
the Indian city, is now officially
Kolkata;
until the new name is fully established, the use of both on first reference is advisable.
Calderón, Felipe.
(1962â) President of Mexico (2006â).
Calderón de la Barca (y Henao), Pedro.
(1600â1681) Spanish playwright.
calico,
pl.
calicoes.
caliper.
Callicrates.
(fl. fifth c.
BC
) Greek architect, co-designer (with Ictinus) of the Parthenon.
calligraphy
is an art. The science of studying written text is graphology.
Callimachus.
(fl. third c.
BC
) Greek scholar.
calliope.
Fairground steam-organ, named after Calliope, the Greek muse of epic poetry.
callous, callus.
The first means insensitive, the second is a thickening of the skin.
Calmann-Lévy.
French publisher.
Caltech
(one word) is the common name for the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
Calypso.
Nymph who delayed Odysseus for seven years on his way home from Troy.
camaraderie.
Cambodia
has been variously known in recent decades as the Khmer Republic, Democratic Kampuchea, and the People's Republic of Kampuchea, but in 1989 it resumed its historical name of Cambodia.
Cambridgeshire.
English county.
Camden Yards.
Baseball stadium, home of Baltimore Orioles; formally it is
Oriole Park at Camden Yards.
camellia
for the flower. Not
camelia
.
Camembert.
(Cap.) Soft French cheese and the village in Normandy for which it is named.
Cameroon/Cameroun.
The first is the English spelling; the second is the French (and local) spelling for the West African republic formerly called the Cameroons. Its capital is Yaoundé.
Camisards.
French Calvinists disaffected by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1703).
camisole.
Camorra.
Mafia-type secret society of Naples.
Campagna di Roma.
Countryside around Rome.
campanile.
Bell tower.
can, may.
Can
applies to what is possible and
may
to what is permissible. You can drive your car the wrong way down a one-way street, but you may not. Despite the simplicity of the rule, errors are common, even among experts. Here is William Safire writing in the
New York Times
on the pronunciation of
junta
: “The worst mistake is to mix languages. You cannot say âjoonta' and you cannot say âhunta.'” But you can, and quite easily. What Mr. Safire meant was that you may not or should not or ought not.
Canada
is a dominion, comprising ten provinces (Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Saskatchewan) and three territories (Yukon, Northwest, and Nunavut); capital Ottawa.
Canaletto.
(1697â1768) Venetian artist, real name Giovanni Antonio Canal.
Canandaigua Lake,
New York.
canard.
A ridiculous story or rumor. “Gross canard” is a cliché. The French satirical magazine is
Le Canard Enchaîné
.
Canary Islands.
Island group off northwest Africa; they are not a colony but are part of Spain; in Spanish,
Islas Canarias
.
Cancún.
Mexican resort.
candelabrum
(or
candelabra
), pl.
candelabra
(or
candelabras
). Note not
candle-.
Candlemas.
The Feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary; February 2.
Canetti, Elias.
(1905â1994) Bulgarian-born British writer; awarded Nobel Prize for Literature in 1981.
canine.
canister.
cannabis.
Cannae.
Site of battle in southern Italy where Hannibal routed the Romans.
canneloni.
Cannizzaro, Stanisloa.
(1826â1910) Italian chemist.
cannon, canon.
A
cannon
is a gun.
Canon
is an ecclesiastical title; a canon is a body of religious writings or the works of a particular author.
cannonball.
(One word.)
cannot help but
is an increasingly common construction, and perhaps now may be said to carry the weight of idiom, but it is also worth noting that it is both unnecessarily wordy and a little irregular. “You cannot help but notice what a bad name deregulation has with voters” would be better (or at least more conventionally) phrased as either “You cannot help notice⦔ or “You cannot but notice⦔
canoodle.
canopy.
Canova, Antonio.
(1757â1822) Italian sculptor.
cant, jargon.
Both apply to words or expressions used by particular groups.
Cant
has derogatory overtones and applies to the private vocabulary and colloquialisms of professions, social groups, and sects.
Jargon
is a slightly more impartial word and usually suggests terms used in a particular profession.
cantaloupe.
Canton,
China, is now normally referred to by its Pinyin name, Guangzhou. It is the capital of Guangdong Province, formerly Kwantung.
Cantonese
is still used to describe the food of the region, however.
Canute.
(c. 995â1035) King of England, Norway, and Denmark; sometimes spelled
Cnut
.
canvas, canvass.
The first is the fabric; the second is a verb meaning to solicit, especially for votes.
Cape Canaveral,
Florida; called Cape Kennedy from 1963 to 1973.
Capek, Karel.
(1890â1938) Czech author.
Cape Town
(two words), South Africa.
Cape Verde.
Atlantic island nation off African coast; capital Cidade de Praia.
capital, capitol.
Capitol
always applies to a building, usually the place where legislatures gather in the United States. It is always capitalized when referring to the domed building in Washington, D.C., housing the U.S. Congress. The rise on which the U.S. Capitol stands is Capitol Hill. In all other senses,
capital
is the invariable spelling.
Capitol Reef National Park,
Utah; not
-al.
Capodichino International Airport,
Naples, Italy.
cappuccino,
pl.
cappuccinos.
carabinieri,
not
cari-,
for the Italian security force roughly equivalent to the French gendarmerie. Like gendarmes, carabinieri are soldiers employed in police duties. They are separate from, and not to be confused with, the state police (
polizia statale
in Italian), who also deal with criminal matters.
Carabinieri
is a plural; a single member of the force is a carabiniere. See also
GENDARMES
.
Caracalla, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.
(186â217) Roman emperor.
Caracci, Lodovico
(1555â1619),
Agostino
(1557â1602), and
Annibale
(1560â1609), family of Italian painters.
carafe.
A container, especially for wine or water.
Caraqueño.
A person from Caracas, Venezuela.
carat, caret, karat.
A
carat
is the unit of measurement used by jewelers; a
caret
is an insertion mark (^) associated with proofreading; a
karat
is a measure of the purity of gold.
Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi/Amerighi da.
(c. 1569â1609) Italian painter.
caraway seeds.
carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide.
Carbon dioxide
is the gas people exhale;
carbon monoxide
is the highly poisonous gas associated with car exhausts.
carburetor.
carcass.
Carcassonne.
Walled city in southern France.
cardamom.
A spice.
cardinal numbers, ordinal numbers.
Cardinal numbers
are those that denote size but not rank: one, two, three, etc.
Ordinal numbers
are those that denote position: first, second, third, etc.
CARE.
International charity, short for Cooperative for American Relief Everywhere. Originally the
R
stood for Remittances and the
E
for Europe.
careen, career.
Occasionally confused when describing runaway vehicles and the like.
Careen
should convey the idea of swaying or tilting dangerously. If all you mean is uncontrolled movement, use
career
.
caret,
not
carat
, for the insertion mark (^) associated with proofreading. See also
CARAT, CARET, KARAT
.
cargoes.
Caribbean.
Cariboo Mountains,
Canada; part of the Rockies.
caricature.
CARICOM.
Short for
Caribbean Community,
regional trade organization.
carillon.
Carioca.
(Cap.) Colloquial name for a person or persons from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Carisbrooke Castle,
Isle of Wight, England.
Carl XVI Gustaf.
(1946â) King of Sweden (1973â).
Carlyle Group.
Investment company.
Carlyle Hotel,
New York City.
Carlyle, Thomas.
(1795â1881) Scottish historian.
Carmichael, Hoagy.
(1899â1981) American songwriter; full name
Hoagland Howard Carmichael
.
Carnap, Rudolf.
(1891â1970) German-born American philosopher.
Carnarvon, Lord.
(Formally George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, Earl of Carnarvon) (1866â1923) English archaeologist, co-discoverer with Howard Carter of the famous tomb of Tutankhamun in Egypt.
Carnegie Institute,
Pittsburgh, but
Carnegie Institution,
Washington, D.C.
Carnoustie,
Scotland, site of famous golf course.
carom.
Carothers, Wallace (Hume).
(1896â1937) American scientist and inventor of nylon.
carotid arteries.
carpaccio.
Thinly sliced beef, named for
Vittore Carpaccio
(c. 1460âc. 1526), Italian painter.
carpal tunnel syndrome.
carpe diem.
(Lat.) “Seize the day,” make the most of the present.
Carpentaria, Gulf of,
Australia.
Carrantuohill.
Highest mountain in Ireland (31,414 feet), in Macgillicuddy's Reeks, County Kerry.