Bryson's Dictionary For Writers And Editors (v5.0) (12 page)

consols.
Consolidated annuities, a stock market term.

Constance/Bodensee.
(Ger.) Lake bounded by Switzerland, Germany, and Austria; the principal lakeside city is Constance in English and French, but Konstanz in German.

Constantinople.
Former name of Istanbul.

consummate.
As a term of praise, the word is much too freely used. A
consummate
actor is not merely a very good one but someone who is so good as to be unrivaled or nearly so. It should be reserved to describe only the very best.

contagious, infectious.
Diseases spread by contact are
contagious.
Those spread by air and water are
infectious
. Used figuratively (“contagious laughter,” “infectious enthusiasm”), either is fine.

contemptible, contemptuous.
Contemptible
means deserving contempt.
Contemptuous
means bestowing it. A contemptible offer may receive a contemptuous response.

conterminous, coterminous.
Sharing a common boundary.

continual, continuous.
Although the distinction is not widely observed, or indeed always necessary, there is a useful difference between the two words.
Continual
refers to things that happen repeatedly but not constantly.
Continuous
indicates an uninterrupted sequence. However, few readers will be aware of this distinction, and the writer who requires absolute clarity will generally be better advised to use
incessant
or
uninterrupted
for
continuous
and
intermittent
for
continual.

contrary, converse, opposite, reverse.
Contrary
describes something that contradicts a proposition.
Converse
applies when the elements of a proposition are reversed.
Opposite
is something that is diametrically opposed to a proposition.
Reverse
can describe any of these. For the statement “I love you,” the opposite is “I hate you” the converse is “You love me” the contrary would be anything that contradicted it: “I do not love you,” “I have no feelings at all for you,” “I like you moderately.” The reverse could embrace all of these meanings.

conurbation
does not describe any urban area, but rather a place where two or more sizable communities have sprawled together, such as Pasadena–Los Angeles–Long Beach in California or Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Haarlem-Utrecht in the Netherlands.

convener.
Not
-or.
One who convenes.

convince, persuade.
The words are not quite the same. You
convince
someone that he should believe, but
persuade
him to act. It is possible to persuade a person to do something without convincing him of the correctness or necessity of doing it. A separate distinction is that
persuade
may be followed by an infinitive, but
convince
may not. Thus the following is wrong: “The Soviet Union evidently is not able to convince Cairo to accept a rapid cease-fire.” Make it either “persuade Cairo to accept” or “convince Cairo that it should accept.”

coolly.

Cooper, James Fenimore.
(1789–1851) American writer.

Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum,
New York.

Copland, Aaron.
(1900–1990) American composer.

Copley, John Singleton.
(1737–1815) American painter.

Coppola, Francis Ford.
(1939–) American film director.

Corbière, (Édouard Joachim) Tristan.
(1845–1875) French poet.

Corbusier, Le.
Pseudonym of Charles Édouard Jeanneret (1887–1965), Swiss architect and city planner.

Corcoran Gallery of Art,
Washington, D.C.

cord, chord.
A
cord
is a length of rope or similar material of twisted strands; a
chord
is a group of musical notes. You speak with your vocal cords.

corduroy.

CORE.
Congress of (not
for
) Race Equality, U.S. civil rights organization.

Coriolis effect.
The tendency of winds of deflect to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere as a consequence of Earth's spin.

Corneille, Pierre.
(1606–1684) French playwright.

Cornouaille, Côte de,
France.

Coronado, Francisco Vásquez de.
(c. 1500–1554) Spanish explorer of the New World.

Corot, Camille.
(1796–1875) French painter.

Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Correggio, Antonio Allegri da.
(1494–1534) Italian painter.

corrigible.
Capable of being corrected or improved.

corruptible.

cortege.
(No accents.)

Cortes.
Legislative assembly of Spain, but see next entry.

Cortés/Cortéz, Hernando/Hernan.
(1485–1547) Spanish conqueror of Aztecs.

coruscate.
Not
-rr-.
Glittering, dazzling, as in “coruscating wit.”

Così fan tutte.
Opera by Mozart (1790).

cos lettuce.

Costa-Gavras, (Henri) Constantin.
(1933–) Film director.

Côte d'Azur.
The French Riviera.

coterminous, conterminous.
Sharing a common boundary.

cotoneaster.
Type of shrub.

Cotten, Joseph.
(1905–1994) Film actor.

Cottian Alps.
Section of Alps between France and Italy.

couldn't of.
“‘Couldn't of got it without you, Pops,' Parker said…” (
New Yorker
). As a shortened form of “couldn't have,”
couldn't of
does unquestionably avoid the clumsy double contraction
couldn't've
, a form not often seen in print since J. D. Salinger stopped writing. However, I would submit that that does not make it satisfactory. Using the preposition
of
as a surrogate for
've
seems to me simply to be swapping an ungainly form for an illiterate one. If
couldn't've
is too painful to use, I would suggest simply writing
couldn't have
and allowing the reader's imagination to supply the appropriate inflection.

coulee.
Ravine.

council, counsel.
The first is a deliberative body (city council); the second applies to contexts involving the giving of advice or guidance (marriage counselor).

Countess Cathleen, The.
Not
Kath-.
A play by William Butler Yeats (1899).

country, nation.
It is perhaps a little fussy to insist too strenuously on the distinction, but strictly
country
refers to the geographical characteristics of a place and
nation
to the political and social ones. Thus the United States is one of the richest nations but largest countries.

coup de grâce.
A decisive blow.

coup d'état,
pl.
coups d'état.

coup de théâtre.
Dramatic turn of events.

couple.
The idea, fiercely adhered to in some quarters, that
couple
must always be singular is both pointless and unsupported by wider authority. When a couple are thought of as separate individuals (“The couple were apprehended in different counties” “The couple have been living apart since 1999”), the plural is always to be preferred.

couple of.
The second word is required in sentences like “Can I borrow a couple of dollars?” To drop the “of” is a common but nonetheless grating illiteracy in any but the most casual writing.

courgette.
French and British name for the vegetable known to Americans as zucchini.

Courmayeur,
Italy; Alpine resort.

court-martial.
(Hyphen.) The plural is
courts-martial
(though some authorities now accept
court-martials
).

Court of Session.
The supreme court of Scotland.

Court of St. James's
is the place to which ambassadors are posted in Great Britain. Note the apostrophe and second
s.

Cousy, Bob.
(1928–) American basketball player.

Covarrubias, Miguel.
(1902–1957) Mexican artist.

Cowper, William.
(1731–1800) English poet; pronounced
cooper
.

Cozzens, James Gould.
(1903–1978) American author.

crackerjack, Cracker Jack.
The first is an old slang term for something good; the second is the popular candied popcorn.

crass
means stupid and grossly ignorant to the point of insensitivity and not merely coarse or tasteless. A thing must be pretty bad to be crass.

Cratchit, Bob.
Character in Dickens's
A Christmas Carol
.

Crécy, Battle of
(1346).

Creekmur, Lou.
(1927–) American football player.

crème brûlée.
Literally “burnt cream” custard dessert.

creole, pidgin.
A
pidgin
is a simplified and rudimentary language that springs up when two or more cultures come in contact. If that contact is prolonged and generations are born for whom the pidgin is their first tongue, the language will usually evolve into a more formalized
creole
(from the French for “indigenous”). Most languages that are commonly referred to as pidgins are in fact creoles.

crêpes suzette.
(Not cap.) When
crepes
is used on its own in most circumstances the circumflex may be dropped.

crescendo
is not a climax or conclusion. It is the movement toward a conclusion. Properly, it should be used only to describe a gradual increase in volume or intensity.

Cressida, Troilus and.
Play by Shakespeare (c. 1601). The poem by Geoffrey Chaucer is “Troylus and Criseyde.” In Boccaccio's
Il Filostrato
the spelling is
Criseida
.

crevasse, crevice.
A
crevasse
is a deep fissure, particularly in thin ice; a
crevice
is a narrow and generally shallow fissure.

Crèvecoeur, J. Hector St. John.
(1735–1813) Born Michel Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur; French-born American essayist.

cri de coeur.
(Fr.) An impassioned plea.

crime passionnel.
(Fr.) A crime motivated by sexual jealousy.

crisis,
pl.
crises.

criterion,
pl.
criteria.

Croat, Croatian.
The first describes the people of Croatia; the second is a more general adjective (“a Croatian city”).

Croce, Benedetto.
(1866–1952) Italian writer, philosopher, and politician.

crocheted, crocheting.

Crockett, Davy.
(1786–1836) American frontiersman and politician.

Croesus.
Last king of Lydia (reigned 560–546
BC
); byword for wealth.

Cro-Magnon.
Early form of
Homo sapiens,
named after a hill in France.

Crome Yellow
for the 1921 novel by Aldous Huxley. Not
Chrome
.

Cronos.
In Greek mythology, a Titan dethroned by his son Zeus; equivalent to the Roman god Saturn. Sometimes spelled
Kronos
(esp. in UK).

crony.

Crowley, Aleister.
(1875–1947) English writer and diabolist.

Crufts Dog show.
(UK)

Cruikshank, George.
(1792–1878) English cartoonist and illustrator.

cruzeiro.
Principal unit of currency of Brazil; from 1986 to 1990 it was the
cruzado
.

Cry, the Beloved Country.
Note comma. Novel by Alan Paton (1948).

CSA Czech Airlines.
National airline of Czech Republic.

Csonka, Larry.
(1946–) American football player.

C-Span, C-Span 2.
Cable television networks; the initials are short for Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network.

Cucamonga,
California, became
Rancho Cucamonga
in 1977 when it amalgamated with the neighboring communities of Alta Loma and Etiwanda.

Cuchulain.
Warrior hero of Irish mythology; pronounced
koohoo'-lin.

cuckoo.

cueing.

cul-de-sac.
(Hyphens.) Pl.
cul-de-sacs.

Culloden, Battle of.

Culpeper,
Virginia.

Culzean Castle,
Scotland; pronounced
kuh-lane'.