| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. |
A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.
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Page 70
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| is perfectly acceptable. In some metaphorical uses, as in writing about food, for tends to predominate: Lamb has a distinct affinity for red wines. In chemical contexts, for is the preposition of choice: the blood’s affinity for oxygen, a dye with an affinity for synthetic fabrics. | 1 |
| You might want to avoid using affinity as a simple synonym for liking since a majority of the Usage Panel in an earlier survey rejected the sentence Her affinity for living in California led her to reject a chance to return to New York. Nevertheless, the more sophisticated tone inherent in this use of affinity can lend an archness to certain contexts, as is evident when Barbara Tuchman writes of Kaiser Wilhelm’s “affinity for coarse physical jokes practiced upon his courtiers.” | 2 |
affirmative
| | The expressions in the affirmative and in the negative are thought to come from military aviation, where pilots use affirmative and negative as synonyms for yes and no in radio transmissions. The idea is that the longer words are less likely to get lost in static. But when used in ordinary contexts, such as She answered in the affirmative, these expressions almost always sound pompous. She answered yes would be more acceptable even at the most formal levels of style. | 3 |
agenda
| | It is true that Cicero would have used agendum to refer to a single item of business before the Roman Senate, with agenda as its plural. But in Modern English agenda is used as a singular noun to denote the set or list of such items, as in The agenda for the meeting has not yet been set. If a plural of agenda is required, the form should be agendas: The agendas of both meetings are exceptionally varied. | 4 |
aggravate
| | Aggravate need not be an aggravating word. It comes from the Latin verb aggravare, which has two meanings: “to make heavier,” that is, “to add to the weight of,” and “to annoy,” “oppress,” “burden.” When some people nowadays claim that aggravate should mean only “to make worse” and not “to irritate,” they ignore not only an English sense in use since the 17th century but also one of the original Latin ones. | 5 |
alibi
| | You may be glad you have an alibi if you’re hauled into court, but you may not want one if you’re merely called on the carpet. When used as a noun in its nonlegal sense of “an excuse,” alibi splits the Usage Panel in half. Forty-nine percent accept it in the sentence He always had a ready alibi for the quality of his service. When alibi is used as an intransitive verb meaning “to make excuses,” as in If you must alibi, at least try to be convincing, it is unacceptable to 72 percent of the panel. | 6 |
all
| | all that
| | The construction all that is used informally in questions and negative sentences to mean “to the degree expected,” as in I know it won an Oscar, but the film is not all that exciting. In an earlier survey, the Usage Panel rejected the use of this construction in formal writing. | 7 |
| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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