have been heard to say 'fullied.'
'He was out of funds.' Funds are not money in general, but sums of money or credit available for particular purposes.
'Taxation furnished the money.' A pauper may furnish a house if some one will provide the furniture, or the money to buy it. 'His flight furnishes a presumption of guilt.' It supplies it.
'The winds are generally high.' 'A fool is generally vain.' This misuse of the word appears to come of abbreviating: Generally speaking, the weather is bad. A fool, to speak generally, is vain.
Vulgar exceedingly.
This word, meaning polite, or well mannered, was once in better repute than it is now, and its noun, gentility, is still not infrequently found in the work of good writers. Genteel is most often used by those who write, as the Scotchman of the anecdote joked – wi' deeficulty.
It is not possible to teach the correct use of this overworked word: one must be bred to it. Everybody knows that it is not synonymous with man, but among the 'genteel' and those ambitious to be thought 'genteel' it is commonly so used in discourse too formal for the word 'gent.' To use the word gentleman correctly, be one.
'A genuine document,' 'a genuine surprise,' and the like.
'The soldier was given a rifle.' What was given is the rifle, not the soldier. 'The house was given a coat (
In this country goatee is frequently used for a tuft of beard on the point of the chin – what is sometimes called 'an imperial,' apparently because the late Emperor Napoleon III wore his beard so. His Majesty the Goat is graciously pleased to wear his beneath the chin.
If this is correct we should say, also, 'got dead' for died; one expression is as good as the other.
This has gone out of good use, though in such compounded words as begotten and misbegotten it persists respectably.
'A gratuitous assertion.' Gratuitous means without cost.
Used chiefly by newspaper reporters; as, 'He was subjected to a grueling cross-examination.' 'It was grueling weather.' Probably a corruption of grilling.
Eschew it; it is not English, is needless and bombastic. Leave it to those who call a political office a 'chair.' 'Gubernatorial chair' is good enough for them. So is hanging.
This is not defensible as an idiom, as those who always used it before their attention was directed to it take the trouble to point out. It comes of such contractions as he'd for he would, I'd for I would. These clipped words are erroneously restored as 'he had,' 'I had.' So we have such monstrosities as 'He had better beware,' 'I had better go.'
'He hails from Chicago.' This is sea speech, and comes from the custom of hailing passing ships. It will not do for serious discourse.
'I have got a good horse' directs attention rather to the act of getting than to the state of having, and represents the capture as recently completed.
A transposition of words hardly less surprising than (
'A healthy climate.' 'A healthy occupation.' Only a living thing can be healthy.
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 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.
Moon here means month, so it is incorrect to say, 'a week's honeymoon,' or, 'Their honeymoon lasted a year.'
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.
