| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. |
A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.
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Page 111
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| stitute for available English words such as interest, fascinate, or puzzle, but it now appears to be well established. Seventy-eight percent of the Usage Panel accepts it in the sentence The special-quota idea intrigues some legislators, who have asked a Washington think tank to evaluate it, whereas only 52 percent accepted it in a 1968 survey. | 1 |
intuit
| | The use of intuit as a verb is well established, but some object to it. Only 34 percent of the Usage Panel accepts it in the sentence Dermot often intuits my feelings about things long before I am really aware of them myself. People often attribute this lack of acceptance to the verb’s status as a back-formation from intuition, but in fact the verb has existed as long as other back-formations, such as diagnose and donate, that are now wholly acceptable. The source of the objections most likely lies in the fact that the verb is often used in reference to more trivial sorts of insight than would be permitted by a full appreciation of the traditional meaning of intuition. In this connection, a greater percentage of the panel, 46 percent, accepts intuit in the sentence Mathematicians sometimes intuit the truth of a theorem long before they are able to prove it. | 2 |
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enthuse. | 3 |
ironic
| | In its nonliterary uses, irony often refers to a perceived incongruity between what is expected and what actually occurs, especially if what actually occurs thwarts human wishes or designs. People sometimes misuse the words ironic, irony, and ironically, applying them to events and circumstances that might better be described as simply coincidental or improbable, in that the events suggest no particular lessons about human vanity or folly. Thus 78 percent of the Usage Panel rejects the use of ironically in the sentence In 1969 Susan moved from Ithaca to California where she met her husband-to-be, who, ironically, also came from upstate New York. Some panelists noted that this particular usage might be acceptable if Susan had in fact moved to California in order to find a husband, in which case the story could be taken as exemplifying the folly of supposing that we can know what fate has in store for us. By contrast, 73 percent accepted the sentence Ironically, even as the government was fulminating against American policy, American jeans and videocassettes were the hottest items in the stalls of the market, where the incongruity can be seen as an example of human inconsistency. | 4 |
irregardless
| | Irregardless is a word that many people mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. The word was coined in the United States in the early 20th century, probably from a blend of irrespective and regardless. Perhaps this is why some critics insist that there is “no such word” as irregardless, a charge they would not think of leveling at a nonstandard word with a longer history, such as ain’t. Since people use irregardless, it is undoubtedly a word. But it has never been accepted in Standard English and is usually changed by editors to regardless before getting into print. | 5 |
| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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