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THE BLACKLIST - Write It Right. A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults| Set Display | Please Turn On Your Virtual Bookmarks | Help Support This Site | Table of Contents | Ambrose Bierce |
Page 11 of 27
THE BLACKLIST - Write It Right. A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults
_Healthy_ for _Wholesome_. "A healthy climate." "A healthy occupation." Only a living thing can be healthy.
_Helpmeet_ for _Helpmate_. In Genesis Adam's wife is called "an help meet for him," that is, fit for him. The ridiculous word appears to have had no other origin.
_Hereafter_ for _Henceforth_. Hereafter means at some time in the future; henceforth, always in the future. The penitent who promises to be good hereafter commits himself to the performance of a single good act, not to a course of good conduct.
_Honeymoon_. Moon here means month, so it is incorrect to say, "a week's honeymoon," or, "Their honeymoon lasted a year."
_Horseflesh_ for _Horses_. A singularly senseless and disagreeable word which, when used, as it commonly is, with reference to hippophilism, savors rather more of the spit than of the spirit.
_Humans_ as a Noun. We have no single word having the general yet limited meaning that this is sometimes used to express--a meaning corresponding to that of the word animals, as the word men would if it included women and children. But there is time enough to use two words.
_Hung_ for _Hanged_. A bell, or a curtain, is hung, but a man is hanged. Hung is the junior form of the participle, and is now used for everything but man. Perhaps it is our reverence for the custom of hanging men that sacredly preserves the elder form--as some, even, of the most zealous American spelling reformers still respect the u in Saviour.
_Hurry_ for _Haste_ and _Hasten_. To hurry is to hasten in a more or less disorderly manner. Hurry is misused, also, in another sense: "There is no hurry"--meaning, There is no reason for haste.
_Hurt_ for _Harm_. "It does no hurt." To be hurt is to feel pain, but one may be harmed without knowing it. To spank a child, or flout a fool, hurts without harming.
_Idea_ for _Thought_, _Purpose_, _Expectation_, etc. "I had no idea that it was so cold." "When he went abroad it was with no idea of remaining."
_Identified with_. "He is closely identified with the temperance movement." Say, connected.
_Ilk_ for _Kind_. "Men of that ilk." This Scotch word has a narrowly limited and specific meaning. It relates to an ancestral estate having the same name as the person spoken of. Macdonald of that ilk means, Macdonald of Macdonald. The phrase quoted above is without meaning.
_Illy_ for _Ill_. There is no such word as illy, for ill itself is an adverb.
_Imaginary Line_. The adjective is needless. Geometrically, every line is imaginary; its graphic representation is a mark. True the text-books say, draw a line, but in a mathematical sense the line already exists; the drawing only makes its course visible.
_In_ for _Into_. "He was put in jail." "He went in the house." A man may be in jail, or be in a house, but when the act of entrance--the movement of something from the outside to the inside of another thing--is related the correct word is into if the latter thing is named. 
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