Bryson's Dictionary For Writers And Editors (v5.0) (42 page)

Sydney,
New South Wales, Australia.

syllabub
(or
sillabub
). Type of dessert.

symbiosis.
A relationship that benefits both parties.

Synge, J. M.
(for John Millington). (1871–1909) Irish playwright.

synonym.

syphilis.
Not
-ll-.

syphon
is acceptable, but
siphon
is generally preferred.

Szczecin,
Poland; formerly Stettin.

Szechwan/Szechuan.
Former spellings for the Chinese province that is now spelled
Sichuan;
the cuisine of the region, however, remains known in English by either of the earlier spellings.

Szilard, Leo.
(1898–1964) Hungarian-born American physicist.

Szymborska, Wislawa.
(1923–) Polish author; awarded Nobel Prize for Literature (1996).

Tt

tableau,
pl.
tableaux.

table d'hôte.
Set meal at a fixed price.

tablespoonfuls.

tabula rasa.
(Lat.) A blank slate, the mind at birth.

tachycardia.
Abnormally fast heartbeat.

taffeta.
Fabric.

tagliatelle.
Type of pasta.

Taipei.
Capital of Taiwan.

Taittinger champagne.

Taiwan.
Formerly Formosa; officially the Republic of China, though that title is seldom used outside Taiwan itself.

Tajik
for the language,
Tajikistani
for something that is from or of Tajikistan.

Taj Mahal.
Celebrated mausoleum at Agra, India.

Takashimaya Company Limited.
Leading Japanese retail group.

Takeshita, Noburu.
(1924–2000) Japanese prime minister (1987–1989).

Taklimakan.
Chinese desert.

Tale of a Tub, A.
(Not
The
.) Satire by Jonathan Swift (1704).

Tales of Hoffmann, The.
Opera by Jacques Offenbach (1881).

Taliban
(or
Taleban
). Sunni Muslim insurgent force in Afghanistan.

Tallahassee.
Capital of Florida.

Tallahatchie.
River in Mississippi.

Tallinn.
Capital of Estonia.

Talmud.
Sacred Hebrew writings, the main body of laws for Judaism, comprising two parts: the Mishna, containing the laws themselves, and the Gemara, containing later commentaries and elaborations.

Tamaulipas,
Mexico.

tambourine.
Percussion instrument.

Tamburlaine the Great.
Play by Christopher Marlowe; the Mongol conqueror himself is now usually spelled
Tamerlane
(1336–1405).

tameable.

Tammany Hall.
Fraternal society of the Democratic Party in New York.

tam-o'-shanter.
Scottish cap, named after the hero in the Burns poem “Tam o'Shanter.”

T'ang
(or
Tang
). Chinese dynasty, ruled 618–907.

Tanguy, Yves.
(1900–1955) French-born American painter.

Tantalus.
In Greek mythology, a son of Zeus for whom food and drink forever move out of reach whenever he tries to attain them.

Tanzania.
African nation formed by the merger of Tanganyika and Zanzibar in 1964; capital Dodoma.

Taoiseach.
The prime minister of Ireland; pronounced “tea-sock.”

taradiddle
(or
tarradiddle
). Nonsense.

tarantella.
Type of Neapolitan dance. Not to be confused with
tarantula,
the type of spider.

Tar Heels
(two words) for people and things associated with North Carolina, and for the sporting teams of the University of North Carolina.

tariff.

tarpaulin.

tartar.
A sauce; dental plaque.

Tartar.
Intractable, violent person; member of a Turkic-speaking people in central Asia.

Tartuffe.
Play by Molière (1664).

Tashkent.
Capital of Uzbekistan.

TASS.
Short for Telegrafnoye Agenstvo Sovyetskovo Soyuza, Soviet news agency; now called ITAR-TASS News Agency.

Tate Gallery,
the London art museum, now consists of four separate branches: Tate Britain and Tate Modern in London, and Tate Liverpool and Tate St. Ives in the provinces.

tattoo.

Taufa'ahau Tupou IV.
(1918–2006) King of Tonga (1965–2006).

tautology, redundancy, pleonasm, solecism.
Although various authorities describe various shades of distinction between the first three words, those distinctions are generally slight and frequently contradictory. Essentially all three mean using more words than necessary to convey an idea. Not all repetition is inexcusable. It may be used for effect, as in poetry, or for clarity, or in deference to idiom. “OPEC countries,” “SALT talks,” and “HIV virus” are all technically redundant because the second word is already contained in the preceding abbreviation, but only the ultra-finicky would deplore them. Similarly, in “wipe that smile off your face,” the last two words are tautological—there is no other place a smile could be—but the sentence would not stand without them. Finally,
solecism
describes any violation of idiom or grammar. Redundancies, tautologies, and pleonasms are all solecisms.

taxiing
for the act of moving a plane into position.

taxonomy.
The science of classification of organisms.

Tay-Sachs disease.
Genetic disorder that affects the nervous system.

Tbilisi.
Formerly Tiflis; capital of Georgia.

Tchaikovsky, Peter Illich.
(1840–1893) Russian composer.

Teamsters, International Brotherhood of.
Trade union.

Teatro alla Scala.
Formal name of the Milan opera house commonly called La Scala.

Technicolor.
(Cap.)

tectonics.
Not
tech-;
study of the structure and movement of Earth's crust.

Te Deum.
Latin hymn.

tee-hee.
The sound of laughter.

teetotaler.

Tegucigalpa.
Capital of Honduras.

Tehachapi Mountains,
California.

Tehran.
Capital of Iran.

Tehuntepec, Isthmus of.
Narrowest part of Mexico.

Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre.
(1881–1955) French scientist, priest, and philosopher.

Telefónica.
Spanish telecommunications company.

Telemachus.
In Greek mythology, the son of Odysseus and Penelope.

Telstar.
Communications satellite.

temblor,
not
trem-,
for an earthquake.

temporary respite
is redundant; all respites are temporary.

tempus fugit.
(Lat.) “Time flies.”

tendentious.
Biased.

Tenerife,
Canary Islands.

Tennyson, Alfred, Baron.
(1809–1892) English poet; poet laureate (1850–92); known as Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Tenochtitlán.
Aztec capital on site of modern Mexico City.

Teotihuacán.
Site of ancient Mexican city.

tepee.
Not
tee-;
North American Indian tent.

tequila.

tera-.
Prefix meaning 1 trillion.

Terence.
Properly
Publius Terentius Afer
(c. 190–159
BC
); Roman comedy writer.

teriyaki.
Japanese marinated meat dish.

terminus,
pl.
termini/terminuses.

terracotta.

terra firma.
Dry land.

terra incognita.
(Lat.) Unknown territory.

terrazzo.
Stone flooring material.

terrine.
An earthenware bowl, and the food prepared in it.

Tesla, Nikola.
(1857–1943) Croatian-American scientist and inventor.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles.
Novel by Thomas Hardy (1891).

tetchy.
Touchy, ill-tempered.

tête-à-tête.

Tevere.
Italian name for the Tiber River.

Tewkesbury,
Gloucestershire, England; but
Tewksbury,
Massachusetts.

TGV.
Train à Grande Vitesse, high-speed French train.

Thackeray, William Makepeace.
(1811–1863) English novelist.

thalassic.
Pertaining to the sea.

thalassocracy.
Dominance of the seas.

than.
Three small but common problems need noting.

1. In comparative constructions
than
is often wrongly used, as here: “Nearly twice as many people die under 20 in France than in Great Britain” (cited by Gowers). Make it “as in Great Britain.”

2. It is wrongly used after
hardly
in sentences such as this: “Hardly had I landed at Liverpool than the Mikado's death recalled me to Japan” (cited by Fowler). Make it “No sooner had I landed than” or “Hardly had I landed when.”

3. It is often a source of ambiguity in sentences of the following type: “She likes tennis more than me.” Does this mean that she likes tennis more than I do or that she likes tennis more than she likes me? In such cases, it is better to supply a second verb if it avoids ambiguity, e.g., “She likes tennis more than she likes me” or “She likes tennis more than I do.”

Thanksgiving Day.
Fourth Thursday in November in the United States, second Monday in October in Canada.

that (as a conjunction).
Whether you say “I think you are wrong” or “I think that you are wrong” is partly a matter of idiom but mostly a matter of preference. Some words usually require
that (assert, contend, maintain
) and some usually do not (
say, think
), but there are no hard rules. On the whole, it is better to dispense with
that
when it isn't necessary.

that, which.
To understand the distinctions between
that
and
which
it is necessary to understand restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses. A nonrestrictive, or nondefining, clause is one that can be regarded as parenthetical: “The tree,
which had no leaves
, was a birch.” The italicized words are effectively an aside and could be deleted. The real point of the sentence is that the tree was a birch; its leaflessness is incidental. A restrictive, defining clause is one that is essential to the sense of the sentence. “The tree
that had no leaves
was a birch.” Here the leaflessness is a defining characteristic; it helps us to distinguish that tree from other trees. In correct usage
that
is always used to indicate restrictive clauses and
which
to indicate nonrestrictive ones. Restrictive clauses should never be set off with commas and nonrestrictive clauses always should.

“Their's not to reason why,/Their's but to do and die”
are the correct lines and original (but incorrect then too) punctuation from Tennyson's “Charge of the Light Brigade.”

Theophrastus.
(c. 372–286
BC
) Greek philosopher.

therapeutic.

Thermopylae.
A pass in Greece between the mountains and the sea, used throughout history as an invasion route.

Thermos.
(Cap.)

Theron, Charlize.
(1975–) South African–born actress.

thesaurus,
pl.
thesauri/thesauruses.

thesis,
pl.
theses.

Thimphu.
Capital of Bhutan.

thingamabob, thingamajig.

thinking to oneself,
as in “I thought to myself: ‘We're lost,'” is always tautological; there is no one else to whom one can think. Delete “to myself.” Similarly vacuous is “in my mind” in constructions like “I could picture in my mind where the offices had been.”

thinness, thinnest.

Third World.
(Caps.)

Thirty Years/Years' War.
(1618–1648) War between Catholic and Protestant factions fought principally in Germany.

Thomas, Dylan.
(1914–1953) Welsh poet.

Thomson, Bobby.
(1923–) Not
Thomp-.
Scottish-born American baseball player who hit a celebrated home run to give the New York Giants the National League pennant in 1951.

thorax,
pl.
thoraces/thoraxes.

Thoreau, Henry David.
(1817–1862) American naturalist, poet, and writer.

Thornburgh, Dick.
(1932–) Republican U.S. politician, governor of Pennsylvania (1979–87), and U.S. attorney general (1988–1991).

Thorndike, Dame Sybil.
(1882–1976) English actress.

thorny.
Not
-ey.

though, although.
The two are interchangeable except as an adverb placed after the verb, where only
though
is correct, and with the expressions
as though
and
even though
, where idiom precludes
although.

Threadneedle Street, Old Lady of.
Nickname for the Bank of England.