Ambrose Bierce: Write It Right. A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults

This belongs to the language of sport, which persons of sense do not write – nor read.

"Negligence militates against success." If "militate" meant anything it would mean fight, but there is no such word.

This is a reasonless extension of one legitimate meaning of mind, namely, to heed, to give attention.

"After the battle he was minus an ear." It is better in serious composition to avoid such alien words as have vernacular equivalents.

"You are mistaken." For whom? Say, You mistake.

Not only hyperbolical, but inaccurate. There is not a monarch in Christendom.

"The moneyed men of New York." One might as sensibly say, "The cattled men of Texas," or, "The lobstered men of the fish market."

"The apples are most all gone." "The returning travelers were most home."

"The family has moved to another house." "The Joneses were moving."

By this word we express a reciprocal relation. It implies exchange, a giving and taking, not a mere possessing in common. There can be a mutual affection, or a mutual hatred, but not a mutual friend, nor a mutual horse.

"His name was Mr. Smith." Surely no babe was ever christened Mister.

"Bread and meat are necessaries of life." Not so; they are the mere means, for one can, and many do, live comfortably without them. Food and drink are necessaries of life, but particular kinds of food and drink are not.

"Necessities of life are those things without which we cannot live."

Feminine of ne , born. "Mrs. Jones, nee Lucy Smith." She could hardly have been christened before her birth. If you must use the French word say, nee Smith.

From the Latin negotium . It means, as all know, to fix the terms for a transaction, to bargain. But when we say, "The driver negotiated a difficult turn of the road," or, "The chauffeur negotiated a hill," we speak nonsense.

"Neither a cat or fish has wool." Always after neither use nor.

"A nice girl." Nice means fastidious, delicately discriminative, and the like. Pope uses the word admirably of a dandy who was skilled in the nice conduct [ management ] of a clouded cane.

"A noise like a flute"; "a noise of twittering birds," etc. A noise is a loud or disagreeable sound, or combination or succession of sounds.

Usually, and in most cases, singular; as, None has come. But it is not singular because it always means not one, for frequently it does not, as, The bottle was full of milk, but none is left. When it refers to numbers, not quantity, popular usage stubbornly insists that it is plural, and at least one respectable authority says that as a singular it is offensive. One is sorry to be offensive to a good man.

"He tried to smile, but it was no use." Say, of no use, or, less colloquially, in vain.

In a novel there is at least an apparent attention to considerations of probability; it is a narrative of what might occur. Romance flies with a free wing and owns no allegiance to likelihood. Both are fiction, both works of imagination, but should not be confounded. They are as distinct as beast and bird.

Rightly used, numerous relates to numbers, but does not imply a great number. A correct use is seen in the term numerous verse – verse consisting of poetic numbers; that is, rhythmical feet.

Obnoxious means exposed to evil. A soldier in battle is obnoxious to danger.

"His arrival occasioned a great tumult." As a verb, the word is needless and unpleasing.

These are not, as so many authors and compilers seem to think, poems written at irregular and indefinite intervals, but poems written for occasions , such as anniversaries, festivals, celebrations and the like.

"The greatest poet of any that we have had."

Offhand is both adjective and adverb; these are bastard forms.

A street comprises the roadway and the buildings at each side. Say, in the street. He lives in Broadway.

See Each Other .

"He only had one." Say, He had only one, or, better, one only. The other sentence might be taken to mean that only he had one; that, indeed, is what it distinctly says. The correct placing of only in a sentence requires attention and skill.

The word is not very respectably connected.

"I hold the opposite opinion." "The opposite practice."

Probably our most nearly universal solecism. "I cannot see the sun or the moon." This means that I am unable to see one of them, though I may see the other. By using nor, I affirm the invisibility of both, which is what I wanted to do. If a man is not white or black he may nevertheless be a Negro or a Caucasian; but if he is not white nor black he belongs to some other race. See Neither .

Clumsy.

In ancient Rome an ovation was an inferior triumph accorded to victors in minor wars or unimportant battle. Its character and limitations, like those of the triumph, were strictly defined by law and custom. An enthusiastic demonstration in honor of an American civilian is nothing like that, and should not be called by its name.

"Don't cry over spilt milk." "He rejoiced over his acquittal."

"A sum of over ten thousand dollars." "Upward of ten thousand dollars" is equally objectionable.

"The policeman struck him over the head." If the blow was over the head it did not hit him.

"Let us have it over with." Omit with. A better expression is, Let us get done with it.

Omit the preposition.

If a word has a good plural use each form in its place.

Abbreviated from pantaloons, which are no longer worn. Vulgar exceedingly.

A dictionary word, to swell the book.

"A party named Brown." The word, used in that sense, has the excuse that it is a word. Otherwise it is no better than "pants" and "gent." A person making an agreement, however, is a party to that agreement.