Some Pointed Remarks About Usage
And now, at this particular point in time, I’d like to take a break from the Verbal Advantage vocabulary to discuss several important questions of usage.
Hold on a minute! Did your verbally advantaged ear catch anything unseemly or untoward in that last sentence? (By the way, untoward, pronounced uhn-TORD, means improper or inappropriate.) Did you find anything objectionable or erroneous? (Erroneous, pronounced i-ROH-nee-us, means wrong, mistaken, based on error.)
As you may already have guessed, the boo-boo occurs right off the bat in the phrase “and now, at this particular point in time.” That major Bozo no-no has the dubious distinction of being not only outrageously verbose but also a triple redundancy.
In the second edition of the Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage (1985), William and Mary Morris astutely point out that during the Watergate investigation in the 1970s, “the phrase at that point in time, used by numerous witnesses before the committee, became an instant cliché. Although used in seriousness by those testifying, it was mocked by the public.”
People in the 1970s may have mocked the phrase at that point in time, but time passes, memories fade, and by the 1990s this redundancy had become part of the national vocabulary. Today you will hear educated speakers everywhere say “at the present time,” “at this point in time,” and “at this particular point in time” when what they mean and what they should say is “at present,” “at this point,” “at this time,” or simply “now.”
And now—not “at this point in time,” but now—let’s take a look at some commonly confused words. First, let’s make sure you recall the distinction between continual and continuous, which we discussed earlier under incessant (word 22 of this level). One means happening again and again at short intervals; the other means uninterrupted, unceasing. Do you remember which means which? Continuous implies an uninterrupted state or activity; continual means occurring over and over at short intervals: “Education is a continuous, lifelong process.” “He finally gave in to their continual demands.” “His continual interruptions gave her a continuous headache.”
At the beginning of this level we also discussed the word puerile (keyword 2). Do you remember what it means? Does it mean childish or childlike—or both? No, it doesn’t mean both, because careful speakers and writers distinguish between childish, which means immature, silly, foolish, and childlike, which means simply like a child, characteristic of a child. Childlike suggests the favorable qualities of childhood, such as innocence and trust, whereas childish suggests the negative qualities, such as silliness and stubborness. Childish and puerile are synonyms.
Now, what about the difference between immigrate (IM-i-GRAYT) and emigrate (EM-i-GRAYT)? Do they both mean to leave a country and settle in another? Yes, they do, but they differ in their emphasis and direction. The im- in immigrate means “into,” and the word means literally to go into a new country, migrate in. The initial e- in emigrate is short for ex-, which means “out”; to emigrate means to leave or go out of one’s country, migrate out. Immigrate is followed by the preposition to. You immigrate to a country, go into it to resettle. Emigrate is followed by the preposition from. You emigrate from a country, go out of it, leave it to settle in another. When you emigrate from your native country you immigrate to another. An emigrant is a person who emigrates from his native country to another country; he immigrates to the country in which he will resettle. When the emigrant settles in a new country, he becomes an immigrant to it.
Our last pair of commonly confused words is eminent (EM-inent) and imminent (IM-i-nent). The trouble begins with their pronunciation: imminent begins with im-, like immigrate and imitate. Eminent begins with em-, like emigrate and emulate. Be sure to clearly say imminent and eminent. Now for their meanings. Imminent means about to happen, impending; an imminent event is about to happen; it’s threatening to occur. Eminent implies loftiness, superiority, or distinction. An eminent person is renowned, distinguished, superior to others; eminent deeds rise above average deeds, and therefore are remarkable, noteworthy; the right of eminent domain refers to the superior right of government to take over private property for public use.
Now—and by that I mean now, not “at this point in time”— let’s clarify the meanings and proper application of three commonly misused words: transpire (tran-SPYR), condone (kunDOHN), and promiscuous (pruh-MIS-kyoo-us).
You have probably often heard transpire used as a synonym of happen or occur, as in “He wondered what would transpire next,” or “They told us what had transpired while we were gone.” This usage, though widespread, is unacceptable to many careful writers and speakers who know the precise meaning of the word. Since the mid-eighteenth century transpire has meant to leak out, become known, come to light, pass from secrecy into common knowledge. When you ask “What transpired while I was gone?” you are not asking what happened but rather what became known, what came to light. When you say the newspaper story described all that transpired, you are not saying merely that it told what happened but rather what passed from secrecy into public knowledge.
This precise meaning of transpire is useful and should be protected. Transpire used as a synonym for happen is pretentious. Save transpire for when you mean to pass from secrecy into knowledge, come to light, become known: “When the facts about the Watergate scandal transpired, the public realized that the phrase ‘at that point in time’ was just an equivocal and pompous way of saying ‘now.’”
And now let’s consider the word condone. How would you use the word? Can you think of a synonym for it? Recently condone has come to be used as a synonym for approve or accept, when the proper meaning of the word is to excuse, pardon, forgive, overlook a fault or offense. Properly, when you condone what someone says you pardon or forgive it, and when you condone someone’s behavior, you excuse or overlook it.
And now let’s undress the word promiscuous. In recent years it has been used to mean having sexual relations with numerous partners, and now many people think that is the only meaning of the word. That is not the case, however; the traditional and precise meaning of promiscuous is indiscriminate, unselective, haphazard. This narrowing of the meaning of promiscuous to apply only to a lack of discrimination in sexual relations is a result of dropping the modifier “sexually” from the phrase “sexually promiscuous.” Sexually promiscuous means indiscriminate in one’s choice of sexual partners. But promiscuous by itself has no inherent sexual connotation; it simply means characterized by a lack of discrimination or careful selection. One’s choice of friends, one’s taste in food, or one’s career decisions all can be promiscuous, indiscriminate, haphazard.
Promiscuous is a close synonym of miscellaneous. Whereas miscellaneous suggests a throwing together of different kinds, promiscuous suggests a complete lack of arrangement and selection. Both a miscellaneous collection and a promiscuous collection are varied, composed of different elements. A miscellaneous collection, however, may be well-organized. A promiscuous collection is put together randomly, with no thought for selection or arrangement.
