Bryson's Dictionary For Writers And Editors (v5.0) (5 page)

Ayckbourn, Sir Alan.
(1939–) Prolific British playwright.

Ayers Rock
(no apos.) for the Australian eminence. However, the formal and now usual name is
Uluru.

Aykroyd, Dan.
(1952–) Canadian-born actor and screenwriter.

Azerbaijan.
Former republic of the Soviet Union; capital Baku.
Azerbaijani/Azeri.

Azikiwe, Nnamdi.
(1904-1996) Nigerian nationalist leader, president (1963-66).

Bb

Baader-Meinhof Gang.
German underground group named after
Andreas Baader
(1943-1977) and
Ulrike Meinhof
(1934–1976); also called the Red Army Faction.

Baath Party.
Formally
Baath Arab Socialist Party.

Babbitt.
Novel by Sinclair Lewis (1922).

Babington conspiracy.
A plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I of England, named for its principal conspirator,
Antony Babington
(1561–1586).

Babi Yar.
Site near Kiev where Nazis massacred Russian Jews in 1941; also the title of a poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko and a novel by Anatoly Kuznetsov.

babushka.
A Russian grandmother; also a kind of scarf.

Bacardi.
A brand of rum.

baccalaureate.

baccarat.
A casino game. In French,
baccara
.

Bacchae, The.
Play by Euripides.

Bacchus.
Roman god of wine; the Greek equivalent was Dionysus. Words derived from
Bacchus
are usually not capitalized but do retain
-cc-
spelling:
bacchanalian, bacchic, bacchantic.

Bach, Johann Sebastian.
(1685-1750) German composer and father of four others:
Wilhelm Friedemann
(1710-1784),
Carl Philipp Emanuel
(1714–1788),
Johann Christoph Friedrich
(1732-1795), and
Johann Christian
(1735-1782).

bacillus,
pl.
bacilli.

bacteria
is plural. The singular is
bacterium
. Bacteria should not be confused with viruses, which are much smaller and cause different diseases.

Baden-Württemberg.
German state; capital Stuttgart.

Baedeker.
Famous series of travel guidebooks first published in Germany by
Karl Baedeker
(1801-1859).

Baekeland, Leo Hendrik.
(1863-1944) Belgian-born American chemist who invented Bakelite.

bagatelle.
A trifle.

bahadur.
A title of respect in India.

Bahai.
A religion; the cognate forms are
Bahaist
and
Bahaism.

Bahamian.
Of or from the Bahamas.

Bahnhof.
(Ger.) Railroad station.

Bahrain.
Island state in the Persian Gulf; capital Manama.

bail, bale.
Bail
is a prisoner's bond, the pieces that rest atop the stumps in cricket, and the act of scooping water. A
bale
is a bundle, as of cotton or hay. You bail out a boat, but bale out of an aircraft. A malicious person wears a baleful expression.

Baile Atha Cliath.
Gaelic for Dublin.

baited breath
is wrong; breath is
bated.

Bakelite.
(Cap.) Type of plastic.

Bakunin, Mikhail (Aleksandrovich).
(1814-1876) Russian revolutionary.

balalaika.
Stringed instrument.

Balanchine, George.
(1904-1983) Russian-born American choreographer.

baldechin/baldaquin.
A canopy over a throne or altar; pronounced
bald-a-kin.
In Italian, baldacchino.

Baldrige, Malcolm.
(1922-1987) Not
-ridge
. American statesman.

bale, bail.
A
bale
is a bundle, as of cotton or hay.
Bail
is a prisoner's bond, the pieces that rest atop the stumps in cricket, and the act of scooping water. You bail out a boat, but bale out of an aircraft. A malicious person wears a baleful expression.

Balearic Islands.
Cluster of Spanish islands in the Mediterranean; in Spanish, Islas Baleares.

Balladur, Édouard.
(1929–) Prime minister of France (1993-1995).

Ballesteros, Severiano.
(1957–) Spanish golfer; nickname “Sevvy.”

Balliol College,
Oxford University.

Baluchistan.
Region in Pakistan bordered by Iran and Afghanistan.

Band-Aid
(hyphen) is a trademark.

bandanna.
Note
-anna
, not
-ana.

bandicoot.
Type of marsupial.

banister.
Handrail on a staircase.

banjos.

Banjul.
Capital of Gambia; formerly called Bathurst.

BankAmerica Corporation
is now
Bank of America.

Bankers Trust.
(No apos.)

Bankhead, Tallulah.
(1903-1968) American actress.

Ban Ki-moon.
(1944–) South Korean diplomat; secretary-general of United Nations (2007–); on second reference, Mr. Ban.

Bannister, Sir Roger (Gilbert).
(1929–) First person to run a mile in less than four minutes (3 minutes, 59.4 seconds; 1954).

banns.
Notice in church of intended marriage.

banshee.
Evil spirit; in Gaelic,
bean sídhe
.

Bantustan.
South African black homeland.

banzai, bonsai.
The first is a Japanese war cry; the second is a type of Japanese gardening centered on miniature trees.

baptistery.

Barabbas.
In the New Testament, the condemned thief released instead of Jesus by Pilate.

Barbadian.
Of or from Barbados. The slang term
Bajan
is also sometimes used.

barbaric, barbarous.
Barbaric
, properly used, emphasizes crudity and a lack of civilizing influence. A sharpened stick might be considered a barbaric implement of war.
Barbarous
stresses cruelty and harshness and usually contains at least a hint of moral condemnation, as in “barbarous ignorance” or “barbarous treatment.”

Barbarossa.
Not
-rosa.
Nickname of Frederick I (c. 1123-1190), Holy Roman Emperor; German code name for the invasion of the USSR in 1941.

barbecue
is the only acceptable spelling in serious writing.

Barbizon School.
Group of French landscape painters, among them Millet, Daubigny, and Rousseau.

Barclays Bank,
UK (no apos.).

Barents Sea.

bar mitzvah.
Religious coming-of-age ceremony for Jewish boys; the ceremony for girls is a
bat mitzvah.
The plural is
mitzvoth
or
mitzvahs
.

Barnard, Christiaan.
(1922-2001) South African heart surgeon. Note
-aa-
in first name.

Barnes & Noble.
(Ampersand.)

Barneys New York.
(No apos.) Clothing retailer.

Barnstable.
Town and county, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, but
Barnstaple,
England.

Barnum, P(hineas) T(aylor).
(1810-1891) American showman.

baron, baroness, baronet.
A
baron
has the lowest rank in the British nobility. A baronage can be either hereditary or nonhereditary. Holders of the latter are called life peers. A
baroness
is a woman who is the wife or widow of a baron, or a peer in her own right. In British contexts,
Lord
or
Lady
can be substituted for
Baron
or
Baroness
, e.g., Baron Baden-Powell is called Lord Baden-Powell. A
baronet
is not a peer; this is a hereditary title ranking below a peer but above a knight. See also
BRITISH ARISTOCRACY
.

barracuda.

Barrie, J. M.
(formally Sir James Matthew Barrie) (1860-1937) Scottish writer, creator of Peter Pan.

Barroso, José Manuel.
(1956–) Portuguese politician, president of the European Commission (2004-2009).

Bartholdi, Frédéric Auguste.
(1834-1904) French sculptor; designed Statue of Liberty.

Bartholomew Day,
August 24, but the
St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre
(1572) and
St. Bartholomew's Hospital,
London (familiarly known as
Bart's
).

Bartók, Béla.
(1881-1945) Hungarian pianist and composer.

Bartolommeo, Fra.
(1475-1517) Florentine painter.

Basel, Basle, Bâle.
Third-largest city in Switzerland.
Basel
is the usual spelling in the United States and Germany;
Basle
is the usual spelling in Switzerland and Britain;
Bâle
is the usual spelling among French speakers.

Baasescu, Traian.
(1951–) President of Romania (2004–).

Bashkortostan.
Russian republic.

BASIC.
Short for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code; computer programming language.

basically.
The trouble with this word, basically, is that it is almost always unnecessary.

Basilicata.
Region of Italy.

basis.
More often than not, a reliable indicator of wordiness, as here: “Det. Chief Supt. Peter Topping…said he would review the search on a day-to-day basis.” Why not make it “would review the search daily” and save five words?

Basotho.
The people of Lesotho.

bas-relief.

Basse-Normandie.
Region of France; capital Caen.

Basseterre.
Capital of St. Kitts and Nevis.

basset hound.

Bastille Day.
July 14 (1789).

Bataan.
Peninsula of the Philippines, famous for a long forced march of defeated Allied soldiers by Japanese in which many thousands died in World War II.

bated breath,
not
baited. Bated
is a cousin of
abated
and so implies something that is withheld.

bathos.
From the Greek
bathus,
meaning “deep,”
bathos
can be used to indicate the lowest point or nadir, or triteness and insincerity. But its usual use is in describing an abrupt descent from an elevated position to the commonplace. It is not the opposite of
pathos,
which has to do with feelings of pity or sympathy.

Bathsheba.
In the Old Testament, the wife of Uriah and then David, and mother of Solomon.

bathyscaph.
Research submarine.

battalion.

Battelle Memorial Institute,
Columbus, Ohio.

Baudelaire, Charles (Pierre).
(1821-1867) French poet.

Baudouin I, (Albert Charles Léopold Axel Marie Gustave).
(1930-1993) King of the Belgians (1951-1993).

Bauhaus.
German school of arts and architecture, founded by Walter Gropius (1883-1969).

Baum, L(yman) Frank.
(1856-1919) American writer of children's stories; created
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Bausch & Lomb.
Eye-care company.

Bayern.
German for Bavaria.

Bayonne.
Name of cities in France and New Jersey.

Bayreuth,
Bavaria.

BC
always goes after the year (e.g., 42
BC
); usually set in small caps. See also
AD
.

BCE
. Before the Christian era.

be (with a participle).
Almost always a wordy way of getting your point across, as here: “He will be joining the board of directors in March.” Quicker to say, “He will join the board of directors in March.”

Beachy Head,
East Sussex, England.

Beardsley, Aubrey.
(1872-1898) British artist.

béarnaise sauce.

Beaufort,
South Carolina; pronounced
bew-furt.

Beaufort scale.
Measures wind velocity on a scale of 0 to 12, with 0 representing dead calm and 12 representing a hurricane.

Beaujolais.
French region and wine.

Beaumarchais, Pierre Augustin Caron de.
(1732-1799) French playwright whose works inspired
The Barber of Seville
and
The Marriage of Figaro.

beau monde.
(Fr.) The fashionable world; pl.
beaux mondes.

Beauregard, Pierre (Gustave Toutant de).
(1818-1893) Confederate general in the Civil War.

Beauvoir, Simone (Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand) de.
(1908-1986) French author.

beaux arts.
(Fr.) The fine arts.

béchamel sauce.

Becher's Brook.
Celebrated jump on English Grand National horse racing course.