End-of-year Book Sale + in terms of

in terms of 
Originally this expression was used to explain precise quantifiable relationships: “We prefer to measure our football team’s success in terms of the number of fans attending rather than the number of games won.” But it has for a long time now been greatly overused in all kinds of vague ways, often clumsily.

Here are some awkward uses followed by recommended alternatives:

“We have to plan soon what to do in terms of Thanksgiving.” (for)
“What are we going to do in terms of paying
these bills?” (about)
“A little chili powder goes a long way in terms
of spicing up any dish.” (toward)
“What do you like in terms of movies?”
(What kind of movies do you like?)

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Two books on sale through the end of December—just $12 for Common Errors in English Usage and $17 for Far from the Madding Gerund:

    

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We bid farewell to the podcast some time ago, but you may still listen to all the episodes you may have missed, including our 2017 Thanksgiving special.

Jew/Hebrew + New Blog Post by Paul Brians

Jew/Hebrew
These terms overlap but are often distinguished in usage. In the older portions of the Bible the descendants of Abraham and Sarah are referred to as “Hebrews.” Since the sixth century BCE Babylonian captivity and the return from exile, they have been known as “Jews,” a name derived from the dominant remaining tribe of Judah. Modern Jews are seldom referred to as “Hebrews” but the language spoken in the state of Israel today, based on ancient Hebrew, is “Modern Hebrew.” Although “Hebrew” has sometimes been used in a condescending or insulting manner to refer to modern Jews, it is not in itself an insulting term. However, it is normal when you have a choice to use “Jew” to refer both to people of the Jewish faith and to ethnic Jews, religious or not.

“Hewbrew” is a common misspelling of “Hebrew.” If you’re in the habit of ignoring names when they are flagged by your spelling checker, don’t ignore this one.



Paul Brians’ latest blog post discusses the language of anti-Semitism.
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We bid farewell to the podcast some time ago, but we covered this entry in Episode 50, “Commonly Confused Words, the PC Edition.”

Book Sale Continues + translucent/transparent/opaque + New Blog Post by Paul Brians

translucent/transparent/opaque 
Although technically anything that light can shine through is translucent, most writers now reserve this word for substances that don’t clearly display what is on the other side. A frosted window-pane, a thin rice-paper screen, or a sheet of tissue paper may be called “translucent.” A clear window or camera lens is transparent. “Sheer” fabric can be either translucent or transparent. Better check before you go out in public.

“Opaque” is the opposite of “translucent.” Anything solid through which light cannot pass is opaque.


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Paul Brians’ latest blog post sheds some light on a fascinating book by Alan Moore.
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Two books on sale this month, $15 each with free shipping:

    

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We bid farewell to the podcast some time ago, but if you could use more light these days, you might want to listen to “The Solstice and Celestial Terms.”

Book Sale Continues! Also, Paul Brians in The Washington Post + Scotch free/scot free

Trending now on the Internet is the medieval idiom “scot free,” which Donald Trump spelled out as “Scott Free” in a recent tweet. Meagan Flynn wrote up the whole story at The Washington Post, and in doing so cited Paul Brians’ Common Errors in English Usage, which remains on sale through the end of the year, lest you forget.

You may notice Flynn hyphenates the term (scot-free), while in the book it is not hyphenated. It turns out that there is no clear preference in edited work to hyphenate or not; this is a case where it can go either way. However, if you go by Webster’s, you will find it hyphenated.

Here is the entry from the book:

Scotch free/scot free
Getting away with something “scot free” has nothing to do with the Scots (or Scotch). The scot was a medieval tax; if you evaded paying it you got off scot free. Some people wrongly suppose this phrase alludes to Dred Scott, the American slave who unsuccessfully sued for his freedom. The phrase is “scot free”: no H, one T.


 

Further down in her article, Flynn notes that Jeremy Fowler of Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage has called this a “special kind of eponym eggcorn,” but when Flynn identifies an eggcorn as “a language error when someone’s usage is close but not quite correct,” she is off the mark. An eggcorn springs from a misunderstanding of the origin of a word or phrase, such as the ubiquitous “for all intensive purposes” in place of “for all intents and purposes,” where the user mishears the phrase and creates a different meaning, in this case believing purposes must somehow be intensive. An error like Trump’s is more like a plain old homonym error, or if you like, a special kind of eponym homonym.

If only Flynn had chosen to cite another book that is on sale this month:



. . . which features an “eggcorn” right on the cover, and has all the information you would ever need to help you define the term to perfection every time!

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We bid farewell to the podcast some time ago, but you may still listen to all the episodes you may have missed.