Gaze upon these solecisms
that have actually appeared in magazines and newspapers—publications that I
would have thought employed editors schooled in the rudiments of the English
language, but apparently do not:
“A
central tenant of the University’s philosophy…”
“I
would of helped if I could of….”
“The
excitement left me unphased….”
“Put
a cube of beef bullion in two cups of water…”
“I
promised to forego chocolate…”
I used to be a
copyeditor for a daily newspaper, and believe me, if I had let one of these atrocities
see print, I would have been ridiculed mercilessly, and probably hooted off the
copy desk, by my colleagues. That was, of course, more than fifty years ago,
when copyeditors were expected to be omniscient (reporters, not so much).
It goes without saying,
or at least it should, that the correct words in each case are:
“tenet”
– Latin for “he holds,” from tenēre (“hold”),
meaning a principle or doctrine generally held to be true.
“would
have…could have…” – these are
known as “past modal” verbs and are followed by a past participle to indicate
action that did not take place but was possible.
“unfazed”
– from Old English fēsian (“drive away”), meaning
“disconcert, daunt.”
“bouillon”
– from French boillir (“boil”),
meaning a “clear seasoned soup.” Bullion,
meaning “gold or silver melted into bars,” is thought to be a conflation of
Middle French bille (“ingot”) and Anglo-French
buillon (“cauldron”).
“forgo”
– from Middle English forgān (“pass by”), meaning “do
without.” Although forgo should not be confused with forego, meaning “come before,” some
dictionaries now throw up their lexical hands in frustration and say, “Go ahead
and use the words interchangeably if you like.” Tch, tch.
There
once was a very sad gent
In
the cold, gray light of the dawn:
His
trouble was that he forewent
When
he clearly should have forgone.
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