Friday, July 11, 2008

S.O.S. Believe this.....

On to the proper ways to use a few key "B" words:

believe
is often thoughtlessly used in combination with can't hardly but in the phrase "I can't hardly believe it" there are two negatives, the first of which muct be dropped to make sense: "I can hardly believe it"; that is. "I can not easily believe it."

between you and I is a common slip of speech. Between being a preposition requires that a pronoun in the objective case be used-- "between you and me"

bitch used for a "jade" or applied to any other than the female of the genus Canis, is ruled out of all polite society as coarse to the lowest degree, notwithstanding that the word is permitted as a euphemism by the late editor of a popular dictionary.

breakneck speed. An absurd phrase, for if one traveled at breakneck speed one's neck would be broken. This phrase, however, is used my many thoughtless persons.

brute, beast are not synonymous. Brute implies the absence of intelligence; beast refers to savage nature. One speaks of a savage beast in referring to a wild animal, but to a violent brute in speaking of a man who is under the sway of his animal propensities, to show our complete understanding of his condition.

No comments: