Bryson's Dictionary For Writers And Editors (v5.0) by Bill Bryson Read Free Book Online Page A

presidential memorial at Mount Rushmore; full name John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum.
    Bormann, Martin. (1900-1945) Nazi politician.
    born, borne. Both are past participles of the verb
bear,
but by convention they are used in slightly different ways.
Born
is limited to the idea of birth (“He was born in December”).
Borne
is used for the sense of supporting or tolerating (“She has borne the burden with dignity”), but is also used to refer to giving birth in active constructions (“She has borne three children”) and in passive constructions followed by “by” (“The three children borne by her…”).
    Borodin, Alexander (Porfiryevich). (1833-1887) Russian composer.
    borscht.
    Börse, Borsa, Bourse. Respectively German, Italian, and French for stock exchange.
    Bosch, Hieronymus. (c. 1450-1516) Dutch painter, born Hieronymus van Aken.
    bo’s’n, bosun, bo’sun are all abbreviations of boatswain, a naval officer; not to be confused with boson, a type of subatomic particle.
    Bosnia and Herzegovina/Bosnia-Herzegovina. Serbian republic, formerly part of Yugoslavia; capital Sarajevo.
    Bosporous, not
Bosph-
, for the strait separating Europe and Asia.
    BOSS. Bureau for (not
of
) State Security, former South African intelligence department.
    both. Three small problems to note:
    1.
Both
should not be used to describe more than two things. Partridge cites a passage in which a woman is said to have “a shrewd common sense…both in speech, deed and dress.” Delete
both
.
    2. Sometimes it appears superfluously: “…and they both went to the same school, Charterhouse” (
Observer
). Either delete
both
or make it “…they both went to Charterhouse.”
    3. Sometimes it is misused for
each
. To say that there is a supermarket on both sides of the street suggests that it is somehow straddling the roadway. Say either that there is a supermarket on each side of the street or that there are supermarkets on both sides. (See also EACH .)
    both…and. “He was both deaf to argument and entreaty” (cited by Gowers). The rule involved here is that of correlative conjunctions, which states that in a sentence of this type
both
and
and
should link grammatically similar entities. If
both
is followed immediately by a verb,
and
should also be followed immediately by a verb. If
both
immediately precedes a noun, then so should
and
. In the example above, however,
both
is followed by an adjective (
deaf
) and
and
by a noun (
entreaty
).
    The sentence needs to be recast, either as “He was deaf to both argument [noun] and entreaty [noun]” or as “He was deaf both to argument [preposition and noun] and to entreaty [preposition and noun].”
    The rule holds true equally for other such pairs: “not only…but also,” “either…or,” and “neither…nor.”
    Botswana. Southern African republic, formerly Bechuanaland; capital Gaborone. The people are Batswana (sing. and pl.).
    Botticelli, Sandro. (c. 1445-1510) Italian painter, born Alessandro di Mariano di Vannik Filipepi.
    bottleneck, as Gowers notes, is a useful, if sometimes overworked, metaphor to indicate a point of constriction. But it should not be forgotten that it is a metaphor and therefore capable of cracking when put under too much pressure. To speak, for instance, of “a worldwide bottleneck” or “a growing bottleneck” sounds a note of absurdity. Bottlenecks, even figurative ones, don’t grow, and they don’t encompass the earth.
    Boucicault, Dion. (1822-1890) Irish playwright; pronounced
boo'-see-ko.
    Boudicca (d. AD 62) is now the more common spelling for the Celtic queen traditionally known as Boadicea. Queen of the Iceni, she led an unsuccessful revolt against the Romans.
    bougainvillea.
    bouillabaisse. Not
-illi-.
    bouillon. Not
-ion.
Broth.
    bourgeois, bourgeoisie.
    Bourgogne. The French name for Burgundy.
    boustrophedon.