The past participle of wreak is wreaked, as in boll weevils wreaked havoc on the US cotton industry. An alternative expression is wrought havoc, as in over-fishing has wrought havoc in some areas. Wrought is an archaic past tense of work and is not, as is sometimes assumed, a past tense of wreak. There is therefore no justification for the view, sometimes expressed, that wreaked is an incorrect form.
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Monthly Archives: November 2010
Whenever – English editing.
In its emphatic use (e.g. whenever shall we arrive?) the one – word form whenever may also be written as two words (whenever shall we arrive?). In its other senses , however, it must be written as one word: you can ask for help whenever you need it; I’ll do it at the weekend or whenever.
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Verbal – English editing.
Some people claim that the true sense of the adjective verbal is ‘of or concerned with words’, whether spoken or written (as in verbal abuse), and that it should not be used to mean ‘spoken rather than written’ (as in a verbal agreement). For this meaning it is said that the adjective oral should be used instead. In practice, however, verbal is well established in this sense and in certain idiomatic phrases (such as a verbal agreement) cannot be simply replaced by oral.
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Unthaw – English editing.
Logically, the verb unthaw should mean ‘freeze’, but in North America it means exactly the same as thaw (as in the warm weather helped unthaw the rail lines); because of the risk of confusion it is not part of standard usage. Unthawed as an adjective always means ‘still frozen’, but it is best avoidable because many contexts may be ambiguous.
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Worthwhile – English editing.
When the adjective worthwhile is used before the noun. (i.e. attributively) it is always written as one word: a worthwhile cause. However, when it stands alone and comes after the verb (i.e. when used predicatively) it may written as either one or two words: we didn’t think it was worthwhile or we didn’t think it was worth while.
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Thence – English editing.
Thence and from thence are both used to mean ‘from a place or source previously mentioned’, as in they intended to cycle on into France and thence home via Belgium; this is not a commodity which can be transported from thence. Some traditionalists maintain that ‘from’ in from thence is unnecessary, since the word already contains the idea of ‘from’, so that effectively you are saying ‘from from there’.
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Untouchable – English editing.
In senses relating to the traditional Hindu Caste system, the term untouchable and the social restrictions accompanying it were declared illegal in the constitution of India in 1949 and of Pakistan in 1953. The official term for ‘untouchables’ today is Scheduled Castes.
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Tribe – English editing.
In historical contexts, the word tribe is broadly accepted (the area was inhabited by Slavic tribes).However, in contemporary contexts, used to refer to a community living within a traditional society today, the word is problematic. It is strongly associated with past attitudes of white colonialists towards so-called primitive or uncivilized peoples living in remote, underdeveloped places. For this reason, it is generally preferable to use alternatives terms such as community, nation, or people.
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Titivate – English editing.
The verbs titillate and titivate sound alike but do not have the same meaning, and to use the wrong one could be unfortunate. Titillate is the commoner word and means ‘to stimulate or excite’, as in the press are paid to titillate the public. Titivate, on the other hand means ‘to adorn or smarten up’, as in she titivated her hair.
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Till – English editing.
In most contexts, till and until have the same meaning and are interchangeable. The main difference is that till is generally considered to be the more informal of the two and occurs less frequently than until in writing. Until also tends to be the natural choice at the beginning of a sentence: until very recently, there was still a chance of rescuing the situation. Interestingly, while it is commonly assumed that till is an abbreviated form of until (the spellings ‘till and ‘til reflect this), till is in fact the earlier form. Until appears to have been formed by the addition of Old Norse und ‘as far as’ at least several hundred years after till was first used.
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