| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. |
A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.
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Page 73
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| use altogether to mean “all told, in all”: Altogether, there were fifty people at the wedding. Most frequently, however, we use altogether as a synonym for entirely or completely: The researchers tried an altogether different approach this time. But we can also use it as a sentence adverb meaning “with everything considered, on the whole”: Altogether, I can understand why she took offense. | 1 |
anticipate
| | Some people hold that you should never use anticipate as a synonym for expect, as in We didn’t anticipate that it would take so long to drive across Ohio. They would restrict its use to situations in which advance action is taken either to forestall an occurrence (as in She anticipated her opponent’s next move) or to fulfill a desire (as in He anticipated my wish by making reservations at the Mexican restaurant). In earlier surveys, however, a majority of the Usage Panel accepted the use of anticipate to mean “to feel or to realize beforehand” and “to look forward to.” Thus by their lights it is OK to say They really anticipate the joys of homeownership or We’re anticipating a larger turnout at this year’s school fair. | 2 |
unanticipated
| | The word unanticipated, however, is not established as a synonym for unexpected. Seventy-seven percent of the Usage Panel rejected the sentence They always set aside a little extra food for unanticipated guests, inasmuch as guests for whom advance provision has been made cannot be said to be unanticipated, though they may very well be unexpected. | 3 |
antidote
| | Do you take an antidote to, for, or against something? In fact you can use any of these prepositions. Thus you can go to the movies as an antidote to boredom, be injected with an antidote for snakebite, or buy gold as an antidote against inflation. | 4 |
anxious
| | People have been using anxious as a synonym for eager for over 250 years, and for over 100 years language critics have been objecting to it. Objectors feel that anxious should be used only when the person it refers to is worried or uneasy about the upcoming event. By this thinking, it is OK to say We are anxious to see the strike settled soon but not We are anxious to see the new show of contemporary sculpture at the museum. The Usage Panel splits down the middle on this issue. Just 52 percent accept anxious in the second example. | 5 |
| So left to your own devices, what should you do? Using anxious to mean “eager” can have its own effectiveness, at least in colloquial discourse, since it adds emotional urgency to an assertion. It implies that the subject so strongly desires a certain outcome that frustration of that desire will lead to unhappiness. In this way, it resembles the informal adjective dying in sentences such as I’m dying to see your new baby. So use anxious when it fits your purpose. | 6 |
apparent
| | You might think that the meaning of a word like apparent would be, well, apparent. But language is never that easy. Used before a noun, apparent means “seeming”: For all his apparent wealth, Pat always had trouble paying the rent. Used after a form of the verb be, however, apparent can mean either “seeming” (as in His virtues are only apparent) or “obvious” (as in The effects of | 7 |
| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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