| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. |
A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.
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Page 92
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elicit / illicit
| | You may elicit guffaws if you confuse these two. Elicit is a verb meaning “to bring or draw out something that is latent or potential,” as in Duke Ellington elicited some amazing sounds from his band. By extension you can elicit a truth or principle, as from a discussion or inquiry. Elicit can also mean “to call forth a reaction,” of which a guffaw is a good example. Illicit, on the other hand, is an adjective meaning “unlawful,” as in money acquired by illicit means. | 1 |
empower
| | If you haven’t been told that you are empowered lately, don’t worry. Someone will tell you soon. The verb empower has become a buzzword in recent years, and its meaning seems to get vaguer with each use. Today teachers are empowering students to think for themselves. Computers empower us to become explorers on the information frontier. Women are empowering each other as professionals by using the services of other women. Politicians are empowering us to, well, have less to do with them. | 2 |
| The word empower is not new, having arisen in the mid-17th century with the legalistic meaning “to invest with authority, authorize.” Shortly thereafter it began to be used with an infinitive in a more general way meaning “to enable or permit.” Both of these uses survive today but are being overpowered by the word’s use in politics and pop psychology. | 3 |
| Its modern use probably comes from the civil rights movement, which sought political empowerment for its followers. The word got taken up by the women’s movement and its appeal has not flagged, as this 1992 quote from Karen Henry testifies: “We need freedom from male domination and male-defined standards, so that we can create the fullness of our own lives, based on empowered choices.” The word has also come to be used by politicians across the political spectrum. | 4 |
| Whether you feel empowered or not, should you use the verb empower? It depends on the context, at least in the opinion of the Usage Panel. In political contexts, the panel gives a strong yes vote to empower. Eighty percent approve of the example We want to empower ordinary citizens. But in other contexts the panel is markedly less enthusiastic. The sentence Hunger and greed and then sexual zeal are felt by some to be stages of experience that empower the individual garnered approval from only 33 percent of the panelists. The panel may frown on this kind of psychological empowering because it resonates of the self-help movement, which is notorious for trendy coinages. | 5 |
enormity / enormousness
| | Enormity is frequently used to refer simply to the property of being great in size or extent, but many people would prefer that enormousness (or a synonym such as immensity) be used for this general sense and that enormity be limited to situations that demand a negative moral judgment, as in Not until the war ended and journalists were able to enter Cambodia did the world really become aware of the enormity of Pol Pot’s oppression. Fifty-nine percent of the Usage Panel rejects the use of enormity as a synonym for immensity in the sentence At that point the engineers sat down to design an entirely new viaduct, apparently undaunted by the enormity of their task. Even if | 6 |
| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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