TOADY

factors are the obvious necessity to put an end once & for all to the Turkish misrule over alien races, & the To assert & to put should clearly be of asserting & of putting. Discussion will be found under GERUND 3; but it may be added here that it is not difficult to account for this very common lapse, sequences apparently similar being familiar enough. There is, for instance, nothing against saying It was an impossibility to assert himself, or It is an obvious necessity to put an end; the difference is that to assert &c. & to put &c. are not there, as in the examples, adjectival appendages of impossibility & necessity, but the real subjects of the sentences, which might have run To assert himself was an impossibility, & To put an end to so-&-so is a necessity.

-N-, -NN-.

toco, -ko. no plural.

Usually spelt with c;

The

today, tomorrow, tonight. lingering of the hyphen, which is still usual after the to of these words, is a very singular picce of conservatism; it helps no-one to pronounce, it distinguishes between no words that without it might be confused, &, as the to retains no vestige of its original meaning, a reminder that the words are compounds is useless. Moreover, it is probably true that few people in writing ever dream of inserting the hyphen, its omission being corrected every time by those who profess the mystery of printing.

toffee. The successive forms seem to have been taffy, toffy, toffee; it may be guessed that the last is due to the influence of coffee, but it is now established.

together. All t. must be carefully distinguished from ALTOGETHER, often written instead of it.

toilet, -ette. The word should be

TOO

completely anglicized in spelling & sound (not -e'tte, nor twahle't). The verb, to wash, dress, &c., is chiefly U.S.; adj. & p.p. -eted, see -T-, -TT-. toilless. So written, but pronounced with two separate ls; see SKILLLESS s.f.

token. For synonyms see SIGN. By the same t., more by t., are phrases that probably those who know most about their meaning are least likely to use; the one thing clear is that, when they were part of everyday English, they did not mean what they are usually made to by those who now adorn their writings with them. See WARDOUR STREET.

toko. See Toco.

Toledo. Pl. -os; see -o(E)s 6. toll. For synonyms see TAX. tomato. Pl. -oes; see -0(E)s 1. Tommy. See SOBRIQUETS. tomorrow, to-m-. See TODAY. ton (fashion). See FRENCH words. ton (weight). Ton, the weight; tun, the cask, vat, & wine-measure. tondo. Pl. tondos, see -o(E)s 6; or tondi (-ē).

tone, v., makes -nable; see MUTE E. tonight, to-n-. See TODAY. tonneau. See FRENCH WORDS. tonsil makes tonsillitis; -LL-, -L-. tonsorial. A word used almost only in PEDANTIC HUMOUR. tonsure, v., makes -rable; MUTE E. too. 1. With passive participle. 2. Illogical uses.

1. With passive participles t. is subject to the same limitations, though the point has been less noticed, as VERY; the line, however, between the adjectival & the verbal p.p. is often hard to draw; in the following two quotations the addition of with &c. & in &c. to the participles turns the scale, & too much should have been written instead of too :-Belfast is too occupied with its own affairs, too confident of itself, to be readily stirred to any movement which would endanger its prosperity./But he was too engrossed in Northern Europe to realize his failure.

2. Illogical uses. These are very

TOUT COURT

See

tout court, tout ensemble. FRENCH Words. tow- & towing-. There is perhaps an impression that in the compounds (e.g. -boat, -line, -net, -path, -post, -rope) towing- is the correct form, & low- a slovenly modern abbreviation. But it appears from the OED that tow-boat & tow-line are the only forms recorded for boat & line (the latter 1719), & tow-rope is about a century older than towing-rope ; towing-path, however, is as much older than tow-path. There is in fact no reason for avoiding either form. Cf. wash(ing)-stand.

The

toward, towards, to vardly. adjectives toward (including the predicative use as in a storm is toward, i. e. coming) & towardly are pronounced to ́ard(li). The prepositions are best pronounced tōrd(z), but in recent use the influence of spelling is forcing toowor'd(z) on the half educated.

The adjectives in all senses are obsolescent, or at any rate archaic. Of the prepositions the -s form is the prevailing one, & the other tends to become literary on the one hand & provincial on the other.

towel makes -lled, -lling; -LL-, -L-.

town. T. clerk, t. council, t. hall, t. house, & t. talk, should all be written as two separate words without hyphens; see HYPHENS 3 B. For town-councillor, which should be hyphened, see TRADE-unionist.

toy, n. A toyshop or toy-shop is a shop where toys are sold; a child's mock shop, on the other hand, is a toy shop; see HYPHENS 3 B.

toy, v. For inflexions see VERBS IN -IE &c., 4.

trace, n. For synonyms see SIGN. trace, v., makes -ceable; sec MUTE E. trachea. Pronounce trake'a; pl. tracheae. The derived word in -itis is tracheitis (4 syl.), not trachitis. But the reaction of the many derivatives, such as tracheotomy & tracheoscopic, in which the relative stress on the first two syllables is reversed, has made trā ́kia a popular

pronunciation. See also FALSE

QUANTITY.

In

trade. Writing of compounds. Trade mark & trade union, no hyphens, see İn HYPHENS 3 B. trades(-)union (cf. swordsman, townsfolk, &c.) the question is not so simple, but, as that form is dying out, need not be answered. trade-unionist the hyphen, which would be wrong in trade union, is right, since -ist belongs not to union alone, but to the compound; cf. such words as bow-legged, never bow legged. In trade-wind the hyphen, though not obligatory (& not used in several of the OED quotations), is right if the stress is put, as the OED marks it, on trade.

trade, v., makes -dable; see MUTE E. trade-wind. See WIND, n.

tradition(al)ism, -ist. For the general question between such variants, see -IST. In this case the longer forms are usual, probably because the words are often opposed to rationalism, -ist, the form of which is fixed by ration's not having the necessary meaning.

traduce makes cible; see -ABLE 2. traffic, v., makes icked, -icker, -icking; see -C-, -CK-.

tragédienne. See COMEDIAN.

tragic(al). See -IC(AL). It may

almost be said that the longer form is, in serious use, dead; though the OED quotes it once or twice from modern writers in senses that it does not mark obsolete, in each of them tragic would have been the natural word. It survives, however, in playful use, often with a memory of the very tragicall mirth' of Pyramus & Thisbe in Midsummer Night's Dream. For tragic (or dramatic) irony, see IRONY, 2.

tragicomedy, tragicomic, &c. The forms are due to medieval Latin, & too old to be themselves corrected to tragico-comic &c. But such syncopations should be at least noted as irregular when opportunity offers, with a view to discouraging imitations. See pacifist in the article -IST.

TRAILERS

TRAILERS.

Under this name a few specimens are collected of the sort of sentence that tires the reader out by again & again disappointing his hope of coming to an end. It is noticeable that writers who produce trailers produce little else, & that where one fine example occurs there are sure to be more in the neighbourhood; the explanation probably is that these gentlemen have on the one hand a copious pen, & on the other a dislike (most natural, their readers must agree) to reading over what it may have set down. Whatever its cause, the trailer style is perhaps of all styles the most exasperating. Anyone who was conscious of this weakness might do much to cure himself by taking a pledge to use no relative pronouns for a year; but perhaps most of its victims are unconscious. This type of wicket is always trappy, one ball coming first on to the bat, with another hanging fire, which so frequently causes a catch to be given by the batsman playing too quickly, as Hallows appeared to do when caught & bowled by Macaulay, when he promised a good innings, in spite of being missed at fine leg from a ball which certainly should have been caught, since the ball was played & not hit off the legs.'/' For instance, we conquered the Zulus & by exercise of sovereign powers set up a lot of chieftains in place of Cetywayo;

then, under protest from the Treasury, withdrew our hand & let them stew until, in the midst of their anarchy, Boer emissaries & fillibusters found a fertile soil for intrigues, that ended in a cession to them of territory to be called the New Republic, recognition of which was first refused & then, after a long period of acrimonious contention, assented to; but not before many fine Zulus had been unnecessarily killed nor without some of the best of their agricultural land being lost to the tribe.'/' It is true that part of the traffic here is heavy, but at least the surface might

be conditioned by modern methods, even if the form of paving cannot well be altered, though I think it. ought to be-e. g., if Sydney Smith's suggestion as to the wood pavement problem perplexing an old vestry

Gentlemen, put your heads together, & the thing 's done "—is impracticable, there are now improved means open to a modern City Council, both in surface dressing, in hard woods, & even in macadam, by the use of slaglocally called dross-from the iron furnaces in Yorkshire, which makes the hardest & smoothest surface.'/

He deals also with Pemba Island, infested by hereditary wizards who are addicted to anthropophagy & theriomorphosis in the intervals of selling charms to natives to keep off thieves & to thieves to enable them to become invisible that they may the better plunder the natives.'/ 'It may be that the modification of our Free Trade principles to a sufficient form of Fair Trade will be all that is necessary to prevent the final decline, which probably the pinch of the last few years has prevented from setting in from a previous run of prosperity, which, by causing the easy realization of fine old businesses under the seductive lines of Limited Liability, has resulted in the "Super man" being eliminated in favour of a joint control in which the divergence of opinion among Directors with little personal interest has prevented a uniformity & continuity of policy absolutely essential in the management of any business with widespread interests.'/' But, so far as I could see, nobody carried away burning candles to rekindle with holy fire the lamp in front of the ikon at home, which should burn throughout the year except for the short time it is extinguished in order to receive anew the light that is relit every year throughout the Christian world by Christ's victory over death.'

traipse. See TRAPES.

TRAIT

trait. The final is sounded in America, but still usually silent in England. For synonyms, see SIGN. traitress. FEMININE DESIGNATIONS. trammel makes-lled, -lling; -LL-,-L-. tranquil makes -illest, -illity, -illize, -illy ; see -LL-, -L-, 2. Mis-spellings are very common, esp. tranquility, wrong even on U.-S. principles.

transact makes transactor; see -OR. transcendence, -cy. See -CE, -CY. transcendent(al). These words, with their many specialized applications in philosophy, are for the most part beyond the scope of this book; but there are popular uses in which the right form should be chosen. 1. The word that means surpassing, of supreme excellence or greatness, &c., is transcendent, & the following is wrong-The matter is of transcendental importance, especially in the present disastrous state of the world. See LONG VARIANTS for similar pairs. 2. The word applied to God in contrast with IMMANENT is transcendent. 3. The word that means visionary, idealistic, outside of experience, &c., is transcendental. 4. The word applied to Emerson & his religio-philosophical teaching' is transcendental.

transcribe makes -bable; MUTE E. transfer. Noun tra'nsfer, verb transfer', see NOUN & VERB; transferred, -erring, -errer, see -R-, -RR-; but transferable, see CONFER(R)ABLE ; & transference, transferee, & transferor. Of transferrer & transferor, the first is the general agent-noun, a person or mechanism that passes something on, & the second a legal term for the person who conveys his property to another, the transferee.

transfuse makes -sible; sec-ABLE 2. transgress makes transgressor; -OR. tranship, transship, trans-ship. To all who do not happen to have been reconciled by familiarity to the short form it presents itself as an odd sort of monster, which they start by pronouncing tră'nship cf.) transom), & do not at once connect

with shipping. And they have at any rate the justification, however little they may be aware of it, that there are no other words in which trans is curtailed to tran when it is prefixed to a word of English & not Latin origin like ship. The full & indisputably better form trans-ship is accordingly here recommended; but the OED accepts tranship, saying only less commonly trans-ship'. Generations of clerks have saved themselves trouble & nearly made away with the s & the hyphen; of 28 OED quotations, including those for tran(s-)shipment, nine only show s-s or ss-nine & the right against nineteen & the wrong.

translate makes -table, see MUTE E; & -tor, see -OR.

transliterate makes -rable, see -ABLE 1 ; & -tor, see -OR.

translucence, -cy. See -CE, -CY. translucent. See TRANSPARENT. transmit makes itted, -itter, -itting, see -T-, -TT-; & -issible or -ittable, see -ABLE 2. For inflexions see

transmogrify. VERBS IN IE &c., 6.

transom makes transomed; -M-,-MM-. transparence, -ency. The second is the usual form. The first is marked rare in the OED; & indeed, in its only two -ence quotations that are as late as 1800 euphony plainly accounts for the avoidance of -cy :Motive may be detected through the transparence of tendency./Adamantine solidity, transparence, & brilliancy.

transparent, & the synonyms diaphanous, pellucid, translucent. Transparent is the general word for describing what is penetrable by sight (lit. or fig.) or by light, & it can be substituted for any of the others unless there is some point of precision or of rhetoric to be gained. All three synonyms have the rhetorical value of being less common than transparent, & therefore appear more often in poetical writing. As regards precision, the following definitions of the words' narrower