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If there is an affinity between two friends, does one then have an affinity for the other? Affinity has a variety of meanings, ranging from “relationship by marriage” (its earliest) to “a resemblance or similarity” and extending to “a natural attraction” and even “a chemical attraction.” The meanings are clear enough, but it’s not always [...]
Affect and effect are sometimes confused, but before you can sort them out, you must sort out the two words spelled affect. One means “to put on a false show of,” as in She affected a British accent. The other can be both a noun and a verb. The noun meaning “emotion” is a technical [...]
The use of advise in the sense of “inform, notify” was found acceptable by a majority of the Usage Panel in an earlier survey, but many members prefer that this usage be restricted to business correspondence and legal contexts. Thus a sentence like The suspects were advised of their rights is perfectly acceptable, but one [...]
Who isn’t averse to getting adverse reactions to their ideas? Averse normally refers to people and means “having a feeling of distaste or aversion,” as in As an investor I’m averse to risk-taking. People sometimes mistakenly slip in adverse for averse in these constructions with to. But adverse normally does not refer to people, rather [...]
When used as a noun, advance indicates forward movement (the advance of the army) or progress or improvement (an advance in molecular biology). Advancement is usually used figuratively to indicate promotion or movement beyond an established norm: career advancement. Unlike advance, advancement often implies the existence of an agent or outside force. Thus the advance [...]
Children are adopted by parents, and we normally refer to an adopted child and to adoptive parents. By extension, adoptive can also refer to families and homes. When describing places, you can use either adopted or adoptive: She enjoys living in her adopted country. San Francisco is their adoptive city.
Some people insist that admittance should be used only to refer to achieving physical access to a place (He was denied admittance to the courtroom) and that admission should be used to refer to achieving entry to a group or institution (her admission to the club, China’s admission to the United Nations). There is no [...]
The words act and action both mean “a deed” and “the process of doing.” However, other senses of act, such as “a decision made by a legislative body,” and of action, such as “habitual or vigorous activity,” show that act tends to refer to a deed while action tends to refer to the process of [...]
When acquiesce takes a preposition, it is usually used with in: No government acquiesces in its own overthrow. The preposition to is less common, but also acceptable: She acquiesced to her parents’ wishes. Acquiesced with is obsolete
A traditional rule states that the preposition to use when accompany occurs in passive constructions should be by in the case of persons and with in the case of everything else. Thus you should say The candidate was accompanied by six burly bodyguards, but The salmon was accompanied with a delicious salad. However, by is [...]