The Cambridge Guide to Australian English Usage phần 8 potx

palindrome
recognisable without it. Australian respondents to the 1998–2000 Langscape survey,
showed that pal(a)eo- is on the turn with 51% voting for paleolithic.
palette, pallette, palate or pallet All these words are diminutive forms of
the Latin word pala “spade”. That flat shape becomes the palette on which artists
mix their colors, and as pallette it was the name for a particular plate of metal in
the armpit of a medieval suit of armor. As pallet it was the name for a tool used by
the potter to smooth the clay being worked on the wheel. In modern industries the
same spelling (pallet) is the one used for the wooden platform on which goods are
stored before transportation.
Note that the spelling pallet is also attached to a quite unrelated word for a
mattress of straw, derived from the French word for straw paille. And palate,
though pronounced in exactly the same way as all the others, is also an unrelated
word from Latin palatum.
Apart from their likeness in sound, palette and palate can almost overlap in
meaning when each is figuratively extended. The image of the artist’s palette
is sometimes extended to mean “range of colors”, while palate is quite often a
substitute for “taste”, based on the old idea that the taste buds were in the roof of
the mouth. So either palette or palate might be used in an impressionistic comment
about the rich tones of a new musical composition. It depends on whether the writer
is thinking of the color or the flavor of the music.
palindrome A palindrome is a word or string of them which can be read either
forwards or backwards with the same meaning. Words which are palindromes
include noon, madam, and the South Australian placename Glenelg. Longer
examples include:
don’t nod! (injunction to bored audience)
revolt lover! (goodbye to romance and all that)
step on no pets! (warning as you enter premises of an incorrigible
cat breeder)
red rum sir is murder (I’d settle for a red-label beer)
Few palindromes get put to a serious purpose. The only possible exception is a

man, a plan, a canal, Panama! used, as it were, to hail the work of Goethals, the
US army engineer who completed the canal’s construction in 1914, after decades of
setbacks.
Those addicted to palindromes are also conscious of the next best thing—words
or phrases which can be read both ways but with a different meaning each way,
such as:
dam/mad devil/lived regal/lager stressed/desserts
There is no standard name for them, though one addict has proposed semordnilap
for reasons which will be apparent.
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pallette pallet, palette or palate
pallette, pallet, palette or palate See palette.
pan- This Greek element meaning “all” is embedded in words such as:
panacea pandemic pandemonium panegyric panorama pantechnicon
pantheist
The literal meaning of the prefix is not so easy to isolate in such words, however. It’s
a good deal more noticeable in modern English formations such as Pan-American
for a US airline, and in international institutions such as the Pan-Pacific Congress.
pandit or pundit See pundit.
paneled or panelled The choice between these is discussed at -l/-ll
panic For the spelling of this word when it becomes a verb, see -c/-ck
papaya, papaw or pawpaw See pawpaw.
Papua New Guinea Both culturally and linguistically Papua and New
Guinea are separate entities, and they were managed by different colonial powers
until the end of World War I. In the nineteenth century, Papua was administered
by Britain, and New Guinea by Germany. However Papua was ceded to Australia
in 1905, and New Guinea became Australia’s mandated territory by resolution of
the League of Nations after World War I. Australia has since then administered
the two together, and they were forged into a single unit through independence in
1972, with the double-barreled name.

The name is strategic, giving careful recognition and equal status to both Papua
and New Guinea. There is no hyphen between the two names. Citizens refer to
themselves in full as Papua New Guineans, though those from Papua have been
known to describe themselves as just Papuans. Fortunately the whole nation is
united by the use of a common lingua franca: tok pisin (also known as New Guinea
pidgin or Neo-Melanesian). In it Papua New Guinea is called Niugini, a neat and
distinctive title. (For more about New Guinea pidgin, see pidgins.)
Note that as a geographical term, New Guinea refers to the whole island, and
therefore includes not only Papua New Guinea, but also West Irian, or Irian Jaya—
once a Dutch territory, but now part of Indonesia.
papyrus For the plural of this word, see -us section 1.
para- These letters represent three different prefixes, one Greek, one derived
from Latin and a third which has evolved in modern English. The first, meaning
“alongside or beyond” is derived from Greek loanwords such as paradox, parallel,
paraphrase and parasite. Fresh uses of it are mostly found in English scholarly
words such as:
paraesthesia paralanguage paramnesia paraplegic parapsychology
parataxis
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paradigm
Note that before a word beginning with a, the prefix becomes just par
The second prefix involving the letters para- comes to us through French
loanwords such as parachute and parasol. They embody an Italian prefix meaning
“against”, a development of the Latin imperative para literally “be prepared”.
But parachute itself is the source of the third meaning for para-, found in recent
formations such as the following:
parabrake paradrop paraglider paramilitary paratrooper
All such words imply the use of the parachute in their operation.
Note that the word paramedic may involve either the first or the third use
of para. When referring to the medical personnel who provide auxiliary services

besides those of doctors and nurses, it belongs with the first set of scholarly words
above. But when it’s a doctor or medical orderly in the US armed forces, who
parachutes in to wherever help is needed, the word is clearly one of the third
group.
parable A parable uses a simple story to teach a moral truth. The word has
strong biblical associations, as the word applied in New Testament Greek to the
didactic stories of Jesus Christ. But the definition applies equally to Aesop’s fables.
A parable differs from an allegory in that the latter is concerned with more than a
single issue, and often involves systematic linking of the characters and events with
actual history. See further under allegory.
paradigm This word is widely used to mean “model”, though its older use is in
terms of a “model of thinking”, an abstract pattern of ideas endorsed by particular
societies or groups within them. The term applies to the medieval assumption that
the sun revolved around the earth, which was replaced by the opposite cosmological
paradigm—that the earth revolves around the sun. Sociologists use the phrase
dominant paradigm to refer to a system of social values which seems to set the
pace for everyone. Rebels try to expose it with the slogan subvert the dominant
paradigm.
Paradigm is also a synonym for the word “model” in a different sense, that of
“exemplar” or just “example”. These meanings have always been part of the scope
of the word in English, so the following usage is nothing new:
The new guidelines are a paradigm for nonsexist communication in any large
organisation.
Some people resist this use of the word, and it fuels their conviction that the phrase
paradigm case is a tautology. But even that phrase is fully recognised in the Oxford
Dictionary (1989).
The word paradigm haslongbeenusedin grammars to referto the set of different
word forms used in the declension or conjugation of a particular word. The often-
quoted paradigm for the present tense of the Latin verb amare “love” is:
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paradise
amo “I love”
amas “you love” (singular)
amat “he/she/it loves”
amamus “we love”
amatis “you love” (plural)
amant “they love”
For a given context you select the form of the word you need. This idea of selecting
one out of a vertical set of options has been extended in modern linguistics to refer
to the alternative words or phrases which might be selected at a given point in a
sentence. See for example the various paradigms in:
Several new staff begin on Monday.
A few employees commence next Monday.
A number of assistants start next week.
The use of paradigm in this last sense is the basis on which linguists speak of the
paradigmatic axis of language, as opposed to the syntagmatic axis. For more about
the latter, see under syntax.
paradise When things are so good it seems like heaven, there are plenty of
adjectives to express the feeling. In fact there’s a confusion of choice:
paradisiac paradisian paradisal
paradisiacal paradisaic paradisean
paradisial paradisaical paradisic
Though the major dictionaries give separate entries to several of these, it’s clear
from their crossreferencing that for almost all of them the preferred spelling/form
is paradisiacal.
paragraphs For those who cast a casual eye down the page, paragraphs are just
the visual units that divide up a piece of writing. The paragraph breaks promise relief
from being continuously bombarded with information. The start of each paragraph
is still marked by an indent in most kinds of writing and print publishing. But in
electronic publishing and business correspondence the trend is to set even the first

line of each paragraph out at the left hand margin (= “blocked format”: see further
under indents, letter writing and Appendix VII).
For the reader, paragraphs should correlate with units of thought or action in
the writing. They should provide digestible blocks of information or narrative,
by which the reader can cumulatively absorb the whole. Ideally (at least in
informative and argumentative writing) the paragraphs begin with a topic sentence,
which signals in general terms whatever the paragraph is to focus on. The
following paragraph shows the relationship between topic sentence and the
rest:
In Sydney it’s commonly said—and perhaps believed—that Melbourne is a
wetter place. The facts are quite different. Sydney’s rainfall in an average year is
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paragraphs
almost twice that of Melbourne, and in a bad year, a lot more than that.
Suburban flooding is a much more frequent problem in Sydney than in
Melbourne . . .
The first sentence says what the paragraph is about, the notion that Melbourne is
a wetter place (than Sydney). Note that the second brief sentence in fact combines
with it to show what the paragraph is intended to do, and also works as a kind
of topic sentence. Following the statement of the topic, there are specific points
to back it up, and so the paragraph forms a tightly knit unit around a particular
idea.
Readers (especially busy ones) are grateful to writers who provide regular topic
sentences. And for writers it’s a good habit to get into, because it obliges you to
identify the topic of each paragraph, and reduces the tendency to shift on to other
matters which really deserve a separate paragraph. It makes writers much more
conscious of the structure of their argument.
1 How long should a paragraph be? What is considered normal in length varies
with the context. Many newspapers use one-sentence paragraphs in their ordinary
reporting—presumably because they are conscious of the visual effect of longer

ones, and are less concerned about giving their readers information in significant
units. In scholarly writing and in institutional reports, paragraphs are often
quite long—as if shorter ones might imply only cursory attention to an issue.
For general purposes, paragraphs from 3 to 8 sentences long are a suitable size
for developing discussion, and some publishers recommend an upper limit of
5/6 sentences. Paragraphs which threaten to last the whole page certainly need
scrutiny, to see whether the focus has actually shifted and a new paragraph is
needed.
2 Continuity of paragraphs. Paragraphs need to be in an appropriate order for
developing the subject matter. The connections between them can then be made
unobtrusively—often embedded in the topic sentence. In the following example, a
small but sufficient link with what’s gone before is provided by means of the word
different:
A different approach to marketing fiction paperbacks might be to develop
automatic vending machines for them, to be installed at airports and on railway
platforms
The use of different is a reminder to the reader that at least one other “approach”
has already been discussed, and a sign that a contrasting strategy is coming up. The
one word achieves two kinds of cohesion with what went before. (For a range of
other cohesive devices, see under coherence or cohesion, and conjunctions.)
Some people advocate including a cohesive or transitional device at the end of
each paragraph, as well as at the beginning. This can become very tedious if done
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parakeet, parrakeet or paroquet
in every paragraph, and is not necessary if there is adequate cohesion at the start of
the paragraph.
parakeet, parrakeet or paroquet These are only some of the spellings for
this colorful native bird. Others recorded are parroket, parroquet, paraquet and
paraquito. The origin of the word is much debated: French, Italian and Spanish
ancestors have been found for it, each contributing to the variety of the spellings.

In English the spelling parakeet is the one preferred in many dictionaries, including
the Macquarie Dictionary(2005) and the Oxford Dictionary (1989).Webster’s (1986)
gave preference to parrakeet. The spelling with double r suggests the influence of
parrot on it. Both parrot and par(r)akeet seem to owe their origin to the name
Peter, in French and Spanish respectively, though the details of their etymologies
are still elusive.
parallel This word is well endowed with ls, and so the final l is not normally
doubled when suffixes of any kind are added to it. Hence paralleled and paralleling;
and parallelism and parallelogram. Yet the spellings parallelled and parallelling
appear as alternatives in some dictionaries, and they make the word conform to
the standard British rule for words ending in l (see under -l/-ll-). It makes the
third syllable rather hefty however, and even Fowler (1926) preferred to make an
exception of parallel, and recommended against using double l with it. Citations in
the Oxford Dictionary (1989) show that the spellings with four ls have been very
little used.
parallel constructions Presenting comparable or contrasting thoughts in a
parallel construction is an effective way of drawing attention to their likeness or
otherwise. Many ordinary observations become memorable sayings or aphorisms
with the help of parallelism:
Least said soonest mended.
Run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.
The use of identical grammatical structures in the two parts of those sayings helps
to bind them together into an effective package. In the same way a writer can use
a parallel construction to draw attention to ideas which complement or contrast
with each other. See for example:
The traveller doesn’t need to go outside Australasia for sightseeing, or to see the
best, get the best or do the best this planet affords (G.D. Meudell)
The grammatical structures of the three points in the latter part of the sentence are
matched exactly—so exactly that all of them can be read in connection with the
final clause.

In the following example, the lack of exact matching makes it difficult to read
things in parallel. It shows faulty parallelism:
The speaker was not able to hold their attention, nor his jokes to amuse them.
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parasitic or parasitical
The need for a plural verb in the second statement means that the reader cannot
borrow the singular one from the first statement, and the parallelism fails. The
benefits of parallelism are easily compromised by noncorrespondence of the two
parts, and what results is stylistically worse than if there had been no suggestion
of parallelism there at all. A simple change or two is often all that it takes to secure
the parallelism:
The speaker was unable to hold their attention, or to amuse them with his jokes.
Parallel constructions can themselves be given extra emphasis through the use of
paired conjunctions, such as neither . . . nor, either . . . or (when they express
alternative ideas); and with notonly butalso or both . . . and when one idea is
added to another. See further under those headings.
paralyse or paralyze See under -yse.
paranoid or paranoiac Both serve as adjectives to describe someone
suffering from paranoia, both in the clinical sense of a severe mental disturbance, or
in the ordinary senseof an anxiety that makes someone hypersensitiveor suspicious.
Psychiatrists prefer to keep paranoiac for the clinical meaning, and to allow the
general public touse paranoid for theordinary meaning. This distinctionis reflected
in some dictionaries, but not consistently observed in common usage.
paraphrase A paraphrase finds an alternative way of saying something. Dr
Samuel Johnson did it impromptu when he first said (of a literary work):
It has not wit enough to keep it sweet.
and immediately afterwards turned it into:
It has not vitality enough to preserve it from putrefaction.
In that famous case, the paraphrase has also effected a style change, from plain
Anglo-Saxon language to rather formal latinate language. The stylistic change could

of course go in the opposite direction—further down the scale of informality:
. . . not enough spark to keep it lively.
People use paraphrases for any of a number of reasons. A style may need adapting
to communicate with a different audience from the one originally addressed. So
a technical document may need extensive paraphrasing for the lay reader. A piece
which is written for silent reading may need to be revised for a listening audience.
Paraphrasing is also a useful way to test your understanding of anything you’ve
read.
Note that the best paraphrases work with whole sentences and ideas, and are
not produced by finding new words for the slots in an old sentence. The example
quoted from Johnson above is rather limited in this respect. By totally recasting the
sentence you achieve a more consistent style, and more idiomatic English.
parasitic or parasitical See under -ic/ical.
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parataxis
parataxis This is an another term for coordination. See under clauses section 2
(compound sentences).
parcel For the spelling of this word when verb suffixes are added to it,
see -l/-ll
parentheses In the US this is the standard name for brackets, and Australians
too are using it increasingly for that purpose. See brackets 1a.
parenthesis
This is a string of words interpolated into a sentence but
grammatically independent of it:
The old woman had managed (heaven knows how) to move the cupboard in
front of the door.
The brackets (parentheses) show the independence of the parenthetical comment,
though a pair of dashes would also have served the purpose. Paired commas are
sometimes used, butthey are not ideal: they implya closer interrelationship between
parenthesis and the host sentence than there actually is. For other punctuation

associated with parentheses, see under brackets.
Because a parenthesis interrupts the reading of the host sentence, it should not
be too long, nor introduce tangential material which could and should be kept for
its own sentence. In examples like the one above, the parenthesis is brief and simply
adds in an authorial comment on the main point.
parenthetic or parenthetical See under -ic/-ical.
parliament The pronunciation of this word confounds its spelling, which
has been quite variable even up to a century ago. In earlier times the
second syllable was spelled with e, y or i. The standard spelling comes from
Anglo-Latin parliamentum (with the Middle English parli written into the
Latin root parla-). The Anglo-Latin spelling began to be recorded in English
documents from the fifteenth century, and became the regular spelling in the
seventeenth.
parlor or parlour See under -or/-our.
parody A parody is a humorous or satirical imitation of a literary work (or any
work of art). It usually keeps the form and style of the original work, or the genre to
which it belongs, and applies them to rather different subject matter. In the example
below, Dorothea Mackellar’s romantic poem about the Australian landscape
is turned into a satire on the more primitive aspects of suburbia. Mackellar’s
original version appears on the left, and the parody by Oscar Krahnvohl on the
right:
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participles
I love a sunburnt country I love a sunburnt country
A land of sweeping plains A land of open drains
Of rugged mountain ranges Mid-urban sprawl expanded
Of droughts and flooding rains. For cost-accounting gains
I love her far horizons Broad, busy bulldozed acres
I love her jewelled sea Once wastes of fern and trees
Her beauty and her terror Now rapidly enriching

The wide brown land for me. Investors overseas.
Those who know the words of the original will find strong satire of its romanticism
in the parody. Those who only half remember it will still notice the parodic effect of
using a carefully worked poetic form to express uncompromising social criticism.
paronomasia This is a learned word for punning. See further under puns.
parrakeet or parakeet See parakeet.
parricide or patricide While patricide is strictly “murder of one’s father”,
parricide is “murder of a parent or ancestor, or any person to whom reverence
is due”. The Latin word pater is clearly the formative root behind patricide, and
is sometimes claimed for parricide as well. Another possibility is that parricide
embodies the same root as the word parent. The modern spelling with two rs
disguises this, though in Latin the word was often spelled with just a single
r. The connection with parent is made more likely by the fact that in Roman
law par(r)icidium was regularly defined in terms of the killing of father or
mother.
pars pro toto This Latin phrase, literally “part for the whole”, is an alternative
name for meronymy or synecdoche. See further under synecdoche.
participles The following show the various forms:
present: rolling taking blowing ringing
past: rolled taken blown rung
The names present and past are misnomers, since either participle can occur in
what is technically a present or past tense. In we were rolling the present participle
combines to form the past continuous tense, and in we have rolled the past participle
contributes to the present perfect.
What the participles really do in English is create different aspects for the verb,
either imperfect, also known as continuous,orperfect, i.e. completed. (See further
under aspect.) The participles also contribute to the active/passive distinction, in
that the present participle is always active, and the past one is normally passive (see
further under those headings.)
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particles
The two kinds of participle are frequently used as adjectives in English, as in
a rolling stone and a rolled cigarette. Each type is also capable of introducing a
nonfinite clause, witness their role in the following sentences:
Rolling towards them the tyre loomed larger every second.
They found the papers rolled up in a cardboard tube.
See further under nonfinite clauses.
particles The term particle has been used to label various kinds of words which
are difficult to classify among the standard grammatical parts of speech (see under
that heading). It is often applied to the adverb-cum-preposition which is attached
to simple English verbs, and becomes integral to their meaning, as with take up,
write off and many more. (See further under phrasal verbs.) It also serves to refer
to the much censured “preposition” which can occur at the end of a sentence (see
prepositions, section 2).
partly or partially These can certainly serve as synonyms for each other in
some contexts. Yet there are also distinctions to be made, if we agree with Fowler
(1926) that partly seems to target the fact that only some part(s) of the whole are
concerned, whereas partially implies that it’s a question of degree over the whole.
So a partly finished report would be one of which some sections were done and
others hardly begun, and a partially finished report is one which has been fully
drafted, but which needs polishing overall. You might also note that in examples
like those, partly seems to comment on the noun report (only part of the report is
done), while partially modifies the verbal adjective finished, showing the extent to
which it is finished.
Those distinctions are fine ones to make, and in many contexts it may not make
much difference. Note however that partially is stylistically more formal, and
grammatically less flexible than partly. Partially works like a standard adverb,
modifying verbs,adjectives and other adverbs;whereas partly can beused to modify
whole phrases, as in:
It’s partly because of his unfailing interest

her fault
to please my family
on behalf of my wife
In all such constructions partially is impossible. Webster’s English Usage (1989)
notes that this may become the most important distinction between the two words.
Be that as it may, the additional uses of partly already help to give it much greater
currency than partially.
parts of speech This is a traditional term for what are now usually called word
classes. Either waythey are the groupsinto which words maybe classified, according
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passim
to their roles in sentences. The eight such classes which have traditionally been
identified for English are:
nouns pronouns adjectives verbs adverbs prepositions conjunctions
interjections
These classes have been the basis of dictionary classifications of words, with the
minor addition of articles. But modern English grammars have diverged further,
developing the broader class of determiner to include both articles and certain kinds
of adjectives (see determiners), as well as separate classes for numerals, and for three
types of verb (primary, modal and full). (See further under auxiliary verbs.) Note
also the linguistic distinctionbetween the “closed” and “open” classes ofwords. The
first set includes determiners, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions and auxiliary
verbs—word classes whose members are relatively fixed. The second set includes
nouns, adjectives, adverbs and full (main) verbs, whose membership is open-ended.
The English language challenges traditional parts of speech in other ways
as well. Words can clearly belong to more than one class, e.g. down can be
either noun, adjective, verb, adverb or preposition, depending on the surrounding
words. It proves more useful to think of word classes as representing a range
of grammatical functions which a word may take on, rather than as a set of
pigeon-holes for classifying words. In Latin and Greek, most words had a single

function and could be seen as belonging to a particular class; whereas in English
their classification must vary with their function. The functions of the English
word classes are still discussed under the familiar headings of noun, verb etc.;
and it’s still conventional to talk of words being converted or transferred from
one class to another when they take on new grammatical roles. In fact this
usually means an additional rather than a substitute role. See further under
transfers.
passed or past These words are identical in sound and origin (both being
derived from the verb pass), but only passed can now be used for the past tense
and past participle of that verb. Past was used that way until about a century
ago, but it’s now reserved for all the other uses of the word, as adjective (past
tense), adverb (they marched past), preposition (It’s past midnight), and noun (in the
past).
passim This Latin word, meaning “in various places” or “throughout”, is used in
referencing, when you want to indicate that there are relevant details at many points
in the work, too many to make it worthwhile noting them all. Some would say that
it’s not very helpful to do this: if the references are in just one chapter, it looks rather
lazy to say “chapter 6 passim” instead of giving specific page references. Passim is
however justifiable when you’re referring to a key word which recurs many times
on successive pages; or else to an idea whose expression is diffused through the
discussion and not in any fixed verbal form.
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passive
As a foreign word and/or as a referencing device, passim may be set in italics
rather than roman. Yet editorial practice is changing on the setting of reference
devices (see under Latin abbreviations), and the word can scarcely be mistaken for
any other if set in roman.
passive People seem to polarise over passives; they’re either addicted to them or
inclined to crusade against them. But passive verbs serve more or less legitimate
ends, and our use of them should be moderated accordingly.

1 A passive verb is one in which the subject undergoes the process or action
expressed in the verb, as in:
The subjects were tested for HIV antibodies.
Several candidates have been included on the short list.
As the examples show, passive verbs consist of (a) a part of the verb be and (b)
a past participle. Between them they ensure that the subject is acted upon, and
so is a passive rather than an active participant in whatever is going on. Passive
constructions like those emphasise the process, rather than who is performing the
action, and so are called agentless passives. It is possible to express the agent of a
passive verb, but only as a phrase after it:
The subjects were tested by the doctor for HIV antibodies.
Even in this form, the passive seems to downplay the agent, not allowing it to
take up the more prominent position at the start of the sentence (see further under
information focus).
2 Style and the passive. Because passive verbs play down the agent (or make it
invisible), they are not the stuff of lively narrative, when you want to know who
is doing what. Used too often, as in some academic and official styles, they make
for dreary reading. But for institutional communication they’re all too useful. In
their agentless form (i.e. without by . . .) they avoid saying who is controlling and
managing the situation, which is a distinct advantage if you have to break the news
that retrenchments are on the horizon:
All staff with less than six months service will be retrenched.
Such wording is less confrontational and perhaps more tactful than:
We, the senior management, will retrench all staff with less than six months
service.
The second version with an active verb puts a glaring spotlight on the people who
have to do the dirty deed. (Active verbs must have their agents expressed as the
subject: see further under that heading.)
3 The passive in scientific prose. Apart from its use in official and corporate
documents, the passive is a regular component of some kinds of science writing.

Its use is occasioned by the fact that science aims to provide objective description
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pasta, paste, pastry, pasty, pˆat´e or patty
of its own procedures, and in terms of processes rather than people. The agentless
passive allows scientists to report that:
The mixture was heated to 300
◦
C.
without saying who actually did it. Who did it is irrelevant (or should be) as far as
the scientific process goes. The passive also allows scientists to avoid implying any
particular cause and effect in their statements, and to concentrate on what happened
until they are ready to look for explanations in physical laws and principles. Not
all science writers rely on the passive, and the pressures just discussed are probably
stronger in chemistry than in biology. The American Council of Biology Editors
has come out in favor of more direct, active reporting of observations, and against
the ingrained habit of using the passive. No longer is it a stylistic necessity for
professional scientists. (See further under I.)
Final note. The passive has a place in any writer’s stylistic inventory, in spite of the
problems associated with it—its dullness, and the fact that it seems to be habit-
forming in some institutions and professions. Used occasionally it’s a graceful
alternative to the active construction, and a useful device for altering the focus
or setting up a new topic at the beginning of a sentence. See further under topic
and topicalising.
past or passed See passed.
past tense Most English verbs show whether the action they refer to happened
in the past, rather than the present or some indefinite time in the future. This is the
point of difference between:
live/lived send/sent teach/taught write/wrote
The past tense is often shown simply by the -(e)d suffix, as with lived and all regular
verbs. Irregular verbs make the past tense in other ways, with changes to vowels

and/or consonants as illustrated by sent/taught/wrote. Just a handful of verbs (old
ones ending in -t like hit and put) make no change at all from the present to the past
tense (see under irregular verbs).
Note that only the simple past tense is formed by those means. For compound
tenses, auxiliaries are combined with one or other participle, and they in fact mark
the tense:
was living (past continuous, progressive)
had been teaching (past perfect continuous)
had written (past perfect)
All such compound tenses express aspect as well as tense: see further under aspect.
pasta, paste, pastry, pasty, pˆat´e or patty All these words for food go
back to the Greek word for “barley porridge”. They are, if you like, a tribute to
603
pathos
the versatility of European cuisine, and all improve on the shapeless cereal of the
original.
In pasta the focus on cereal remains, yet this staple Italian food comes in
myriads of shapes: cannelloni, macaroni, ravioli, spirelli, tortellini, vermicelli etc.
The English word pastry embodies the same root, and with the -ry suffix transforms
the cereal substance into the medium out of which shapely pies and pie crusts can be
created.
The traditional English pasty features both the pastry medium, and its meaty
filling, whereas in paste and p
ˆ
at
´
e the meaning has shifted away from the cereal to
the prepared meat. Both paste and p
ˆ
at

´
e are enjoyed in their own right, though we
normally consume them with the help of other cereal items (bread or biscuits).
The English word patty sustains both kinds of meaning. What we bake in patty
pans is again a form of cereal, a small pie, tart, cake or muffin; whereas the patties
we cook in a frying pan are a savory item made out of minced meat.
Note that pat
´
e is often written in English without its circumflex, though the
final acute accent lingers to distinguish it from the English word pate “head”, as in
bald pate.
pathos In the ancient art of rhetoric, this connoted an appeal to the audience’s
sense of pity and using it to sway them. Pathos contrasted with ethos, the attempt
to impress the audience through the intrinsic dignity and high moral stance of your
presentation.
Neither pathos (nor ethos) is to be mistaken for bathos (see under that heading).
patricide or parricide
See parricide.
patronymic This is a name which identifies someone in relation to his/her
father or ancestor. In Australia patronymics are most familiar to us in surnames
with the suffixes -son or -sen, or the prefixes Fitz-, Mac- or O’ In Russian and
some Slavic languages, there are parallel patronymics for the surnames of sons (-ov)
and daughters (-ova), as there are in Iceland, with -sonar for sons and -dottir for
daughters.
Note that the equivalent female term is metronymic rather than “matronymic”.
patty, pˆat´e or pasta See pasta.
pawpaw, papaw or papaya The first spelling is usual in Australia for the
large, soft-bodied tropical fruit with succulent orange-colored flesh. Pawpaw is
the primary spelling in the Australian Oxford (2004) and the Macquarie Dictionary
(2005). Papaw is a rare alternative (Google 2006), once favored by several Australian

newspapers. It is the older spelling by centuries, first recorded in 1624, whereas
pawpaw was first recorded in 1902.
Both words seem to be derived from papaya, a word which originated in
Caribbean Spanish. Yet in Australia papaya is often used as the name of one
604
peewee or peewit
particular variety of the fruit, smaller in size than the pawpaw and having bright
pink flesh.
In the US, both papaya and what we call pawpaw are known as papaya. This is
because the word pawpaw is put to a different purpose altogether, to name a shrub
which is a member of the custard apple family. Its fruit is shaped like a stubby
banana and apparently rather tasteless.
peaceable or peaceful These are sometimes substituted for each other, but
their normal lines of demarcation are that peaceable is the one to apply to a person
or group of people who are disposed to keep good relations with each other. It can
also be applied to human character or intentions. Peaceful is applied to nonhuman
nouns, such as those referring to situations, periods or general activities which are
calm and free of disturbance and conflict.
peccadillo The plural of this word is discussed under -o.
peccavi See under mea culpa.
pedagogue or pedagog See under -gue/-g.
pedaled, pedalled or peddled See under pedlar.
pediatrician or paediatrician, and p(a)ediatrics
See under ae/e.
pedlar, peddler or pedal(l)er In Australian and British English, the first
two are applied to different kinds of trader. Pedlar is the older word, applied to
an older type of traveling salesman who went from village to village dealing in
household commodities, including pots and pans and haberdashery. Their business
was quite legal, whereas the word peddler was and is reserved for those who deal
in illegal drugs or stolen goods. In the US, peddler is applied to both. (See further

under -ar.)
A pedaler or pedaller is one who pedals a bicycle or other pedal-powered vehicle.
The choice between single and double l in that word, and for the verb pedal is
discussed under -l/-ll
pedophile or paedophile, and p(a)edophilia See under ae/e.
peewee or peewit These are two of the several names for the Australian
magpie lark (Grallina cyanoleuca), which looks something like a magpie and sings
(a little) like a lark. The name peewee suggests its rather plaintive cry. Though
sometimes called the peewit, it’s a quite different bird from the European peewit
(Vanellus), a kind of plover which makes its nest on the ground. The Australian
bird makes its nest high in a tree, using mud as the adhesive, and is in fact called
the mudlark in Victoria. Yet another name is Murray magpie, used in South
Australia. Those in NSW and Queensland who are inclined to use peewee should
certainly prefer it to peewit,asdotheReader’s Digest Book of Australian Birds
605
pejorative and pejoration
(1977) and the Macquarie Dictionary (2005). The various regional names are all
more popular than the straightforward magpie lark, according to Bryant’s research
(1989).
pejorative and pejoration This un-English-looking word is used by
linguists for several purposes:
1 to refer to affixes which have a derogatory effect on the word they are attached
to. This is the effect of prefixes such as mis- and pseudo-, and occasionally of
suffixes such as -ose and -eer. (See further under individual headings.)
2 to refer to words with disparaging implications, e.g. shack, wench.
3 to refer to the process by which some words deteriorate in meaning in the
course of time, usually over centuries. So the word cretin once meant
“Christian”, and silly once meant “blessed”. Much more rapid pejoration can
be seen in changes to the meaning of the word gay during the twentieth
century.

Peking or Beijing
The capital of China is now known worldwide as Beijing
(see further under China). This reformation of the name is not however likely
to affect traditional designations such as Peking Duck, the Pekin(g)ese dog or the
Peking man. Restyled with “Beijing” the first two would lose something of their
cachet, and the third, its credibility as an ancient human species.
penciled or pencilled When pencilbecomes a verb,it raises spellingquestions.
See further under -l/-ll
peninsula or peninsular A grammatical distinction lurks in those two
spellings: the first makes the word a noun, the second an adjective. Compare:
The Mornington Peninsula is now a commuter region of Melbourne.
But all peninsular traffic has to exit and return by the same route.
See further under -ar.
penumbra The plural of this word is discussed under -a.
per This Latin preposition, meaning “through, by”, has a number of uses in
English, mostly as a member of stock Latin phrases which are detailed below. It
can also be combined with English words of the writer’s own choosing for various
meanings. When used in recipes, as in 200 gm cheese per person, it means “for
each”, and its meaning is similar in price lists: $25 per 100. In the phraseology of
commercialese: to be delivered per courier, per means “by or through the agency
of”. Some object to such expressions, especially when the simple by would do. Yet
the meaning embedded in “per person” would be hard to express as neatly in other
words.
606
per procurationem
r
per annum means “by the year”, often used after quoting a salary: $27 450 per
annum, and usually abbreviated in job advertisements as p.a.
r
per capita means “by heads”. Its usual context is in economic writing, when

statistics are being presented in terms of the individual:
The per capita consumption of wine has decreased dramatically in Australia over
the last two years.
r
per cent. See percent.
r
per diem means “by the day”. In English it’s used as a noun to refer to the
allowance for daily expenses given by some institutions to traveling employees,
apart from the cost of overnight accommodation.
r
per procurationem. See separate entry.
r
per se means “by itself” or “for its own sake”. In rather formal and theoretical
writing it serves to distinguish the intrinsic value of something from its
applications. See for example:
The discovery is of some importance per se, as well as for the directions it suggests
for future industries.
per- Only in chemical names is this prefix still productive. There it’s applied to
inorganic acids and their salts, where it means that they have the maximum amount
of the element specified in them. For example: peroxide, perchloride and potassium
permanganate. It replaces hyper- used in this sense in older chemical nomenclature.
per procurationem This is the full form of a phrase we know better by the
abbreviations per proc., per pro or just p.p. The full Latin phrase means “through
the agency (of)”, and when followed by capitalised initials it indicates who actually
signed the letter, as opposed to the person in whose name it is sent. The usual
convention is for p.p. and the proxy’s initials or signature to appear just above the
typed signature of the official sender.
An older convention reported by Fowler (1926) and others since is for the proxy
also to handwrite the official signatory’s name, either before the p.p. or after their
own initials. So a letter going out for James Lombard might be signed in either of

the following ways:
Yours sincerely Yours sincerely
J . Lombard
Manager
J . Lombard
Manager
More common than either nowadays is the simple use of p.p. and the proxy’s initials.
607
percent and percentage
Note that the older abbreviation per pro (without a stop) was taken by some
users to be a combination of two Latin prepositions, and to mean “for and on
behalf of”. In accordance with this interpretation, they would write it as per/pro.
With decreasing knowledge of Latin in the community, this variant is disappearing.
For other points of institutional letter writing, see commercialese, letter writing
and Appendix VII.
percent and percentage Percent is an abbreviation for per centum “by the
hundred”. So completely assimilated is it in the shortened form that it’s never
given a full stop, nor set in italics. It has traditionally been written as two words
per cent, and in the Australian ACE corpus the two-word form outnumbered
percent by about 5:1. But the trend towards thesolidform is benchmarked by major
dictionaries: Webster’s (1986), and the Oxford Dictionary (1989) which confirms
that it “frequently” appears that way. In Australian internet documents (Google
2006), the ratio is about 2:1, with Google itself nudging anyone searching for
per cent towards the solid form, with the query Did you mean percent?
In printed texts the numbers accompanying percent may be either figures or
words, i.e. 10 percent or ten percent, though the ACE corpus showed that the use
of words was (1) rare, and (2) confined to very small or round numbers such as two
percent, fifty percent.
The percent symbol % is freely used in nonfiction in Australia, except in
newspapers where it’s almost always paraphrased in words. In the Australian ACE

corpus overall, the % sign occurs just about as often as the paraphrase. It is always
set solid with the preceding number: 70%. When used in tables, it need not be used
with every number in a column of percentage figures, but can simply appear at the
top of the column. (Note that the figures in the column may not add up to exactly
100 percent, and the total at the bottom should be left as 99.4% or 100.2%, not
rounded off.)
When used in continuous text, a percentage figure may take either a singular or a
plural verb in agreement with it, depending on whether the entity under discussion
is a mass noun or something countable:
In the end 10 percent of the wool was rejected.
Out of the students who came, 10 percent were unprepared.
Percentage is the fully forged abstract noun for percent, meaning “proportion
calculated in terms of a notional population of 100”. However percentage is
sometimes used loosely to mean “an (unspecified) proportion”, as in:
A percentage of the class went to the races.
The statement is so vague as to be useless. Does it mean 95 percent or 10 percent?
But it’s easily made more useful with the addition of an adjective, such as “large”
or “small”:
A small percentage of the class went to the races.
608
perma-
Note also the use of percentage to mean “advantage”, figuratively derived from its
use in specifying a profit margin. For example:
There’s no percentage in rushing back to the office.
The word is often preceded by no (as in that case), or by any or some. This usage is
still regarded as colloquial and casual.
perceptibly or perceptively The adverb perceptively means “showing fine
perception”, though it implies theexercise of intelligence and critical judgement, not
just powersof observation. Perceptibly ismore closely related towhat is observable.
It means “able to be perceived” as in;

He was perceptibly distressed by the things she said.
Just how obvious an effect is, when it’s described as “perceptible”, can only be
assessed in context. Both perceptibly and perceptible cover a wide range from the
conspicuous to the barely noticeable.
perfect aspect See under aspect.
perhaps or maybe See maybe.
peri- This suffix, meaning “around”, is embodied in Greek loanwords such as
perimeter, periphery, periscope and peristyle. As those examples show, it’s most
often used in the dimension of space, and recent medical terms use it to describe
a bodily structure in terms of the organ it lies around, as with pericardium and
periodontal. Just occasionally it has formed words in the time dimension, as with
perinatal, used in relation to the latest stage of pregnancy and the earliest weeks
after giving birth.
period In both the US and Canada, the period is the term for the full stop used in
word and sentence punctuation. (For a discussion of those functions, see full stop.)
In North America it also serves as the word for the decimal point.
For issues relating to periods of time, see dating systems.
periodic or periodical As adjectives these are usually interchangeable, like
many -ic/-ical pairs. Yet in the periodic table which classifies the known chemical
elements, only the first will do. In periodical literature only the second will do,
because periodical also has an independent life as a noun for a publication issued at
regular intervals, e.g. a magazine or journal. For librarians the periodical contrasts
with the monograph (see under monogram or monograph). Like many a noun it
can qualify other nouns, as it does in periodical literature.
perma- This prefix, derived from permanent, was put to formative use in the
mid-twentieth century, witness permafrost from the 1940s, and more recently
permapress (permanent press) and permaculture (that type of agriculture which
is self-sustaining and does not require regular plantings).
609
permanence or permanency

permanence or permanency See under -nce/-ncy.
permissive or permissible These adjectivesexpresscomplementary notions
in society’s control of its members. Permissive is the hands-off approach, tending
to permit anything, as in permissive parents. Permissible implies statutory limits
on what is permitted, as in permissible levels of radiation.
perpetual calendar This remarkable tool allows us to know exactly what day
of the week any date in the past or future might be. Both historians and astrologers
are interested in what day of the week people are born on; and those making forward
plans for celebrations may be interested in what day of the week Australia Day will
be in the year 2010 or 2011.
The calendar was originally developed within the Christian church as an aid
to knowing what days of the week the fixed saints days fell on, and how they
related to Easter in a given year. The table is based on the date of the first Sunday
in the year, and from that a dominical letter i.e. a “Sunday letter” is determined
for each year. If the first Sunday is actually January 1, the dominical letter for
the year is A. If the first Sunday is January 2, the dominical letter is B; if it’s
January 3, the letter is C, and so on, through to G. Put the other way round, we
have a scheme for checking the rotation of days of the week against fixed dates.
So:
Dominical letter A January 1 = Sunday
B Saturday
C Friday
D Thursday
E Wednesday
F Tuesday
G Monday
In leap years two dominical letters apply, one for January and February, and
the second for March to December. The dominical letters, and their numerical
equivalents, are shown on the table in Appendix II, along with a segment of the
calendar for the years 1901 to 2020.

For more about the development of the European calendar, see under dating
systems.
prerequisite or perquisite See prerequisite.
persistence or persistency See -nce/-ncy.
person For grammarians, the concept of person distinguishes between the
person speaking (first person), the one spoken to (second person), and the one
spoken about (third person). The differences are mostly to be seen among the
pronouns:
610
persona non grata
first person I (me, my, mine) we (us, our, ours)
second person you (your, yours)
third person he (him, his) she (her, hers) it (its) they (them,
their, theirs)
The only other point in English grammar where person makes a difference is in
the present tense singular of most verbs. The third person has an -s suffix, while
the first and second do not. Compare: I believe and you believe with s/he believes.
However with the verb be, all three persons are different: am, are, is.
First- or third-person narrative. When writing, the choice of person has a
significant effect on the style. The choice of first person, especially I, has the
effect of engaging the reader closely in whatever’s described and has often been
used by narrators for this reason. The use of first person (plural) we also tends to
involve readers, suggesting a kind of solidarity between writer and reader which
is useful for nonfiction writers. The third person puts distance between writer and
reader, in both fiction and nonfiction. A third person narrative, written in terms
of he/she/it/they, seems to set both writer and reader outside whatever’s being
described. And continuous use of the third person in nonfictional writing can seem
very impersonal—which may or may not be the intention. See further under I.
-person Many have looked to this ending to provide a gender-free way out
of some of the problems of sexism in language. So instead of saying spokesman

or spokeswoman, we might use spokesperson for both. Unfortunately the word
spokesperson (or chairperson or salesperson etc.) is more often used to paraphrase a
term ending in -woman than one ending in -man. This means that people see the
word ending in -person as a thinly veiled substitute for the one ending in -woman,
and nothing has been achieved with it.
This is a potential difficulty with any of the substitutes proposed for the endings
-woman or -man. Perhaps invented ones like -per (from person) or even -peep (from
people) would have a better chance, in that they are more like true suffixes, many of
which are gender-free. Yet if “policeper” were only used to replace policewoman,
it could not become the gender-free alternative.
Better alternatives, for job titles at least, can be found among words which make
no reference at all to gender but simply highlight the occupation. See further under
man.
persona non grata In Latin this phrase means “unwelcome person”. It has an
official use in diplomatic circles, referring to representatives of foreign governments
who are unacceptable in the country to which they are accredited. But it’s also
used freely in many contexts to refer to someone who has lost their welcome
there. The phrase was originally used in English in its positive form persona grata,
but the negative form is now the one most widely known and used, especially in
nondiplomatic contexts.
611
personal or personnel
Because it is a Latin phrase, its plural is personae non gratae. See further
under -a.
personal or personnel The first word is a common adjective meaning
“belonging to the particular person”, whose use is illustrated in phrases such as
personal column, personal computer, personal effects and personal space. The word
personnel is used in companies and government departments as a collective noun
for all those employed there. It may take either singular or plural verbs in agreement
(see under collective nouns).

Like many an English noun, personnel occasionally works as an adjectival
modifier, as in Personnel Department and Personnel Officer. Used in this way,
it comes close to the domain of personal: see for example personal development,
personnel development. Both are possible, though the first is about maximising
individual potential, and the second represents the management’s concern with
staff training.
personal pronouns These are the set of pronouns which stand in place of
nouns referring to person(s) or thing(s):
Has John brought the letter? Yes, he’s brought it.
For the full set of personal pronouns, see person. Other kinds of pronoun are
presented under pronoun.
personification This is a literary device and figure of speech which imputes
a personal character to something abstract or inanimate. Poets personify the great
abstracts of our experience, as did Shakespeare in the simile:
Pity like a naked newborn babe striding the wind
In such lofty rhetoric the abstract is given human identity, and demands a human
response from us. An atheist might comment that referring to the Christian God as
He (His/Him) in hymns and religious discourse is also a form of personification.
Optimism about the future of Australia was personified in the voice of the nymph
Hope, in verses by Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles Darwin) on his visit
to Sydney Cove in 1789:
“There shall tall spires and dome-capped towers ascend,
And piers and quays their massy structures blend;
While with each breeze approaching vessels glide,
And northern treasures dance on every tide!”
Then ceased the nymph—tumultuous echoes roar,
And Joy’s loud voice was heard from shore to shore—
Her graceful steps descending pressed the plain,
And Peace, and Art, and Labour joined her train.
Hope’s handmaids are thus personified with her in the concluding lines.

612
persuasion
Note thattheuse of his (withnonhuman subjects) in literatureup to and including
the seventeenth century is not necessarily a case of personification, because until
then his served as the possessive for both he and it. The neuter pronoun its first
appears at the end of the sixteenth century, and was not in regular use until about
1675. It is absent from the Authorised Version of the Bible, and only begins to
appear in Shakespeare texts in the Folio editions of 1623.
Anthropomorphism and personification. Anthropomorphism is a similar device,
which gives human form and attributes to the nonhuman, whether a deity, an
animal or an object. In ancient art the gods were anthropomorphised, and so Athena,
goddess of wisdom and justice, was depicted holding balanced scales, and Diana,
goddess of the moon, appears as the huntress with bow and arrow in hand. A
modern example would be the way a successful yachtsman might describe his boat
as “dancing her way to the finishing line”.
personnel or personal See personal.
persuasion The desire to persuade or convince the reader is often a motive for
writing, one which calls for special attention to writing technique. Keeping readers
with you is all-important, anticipating their attitudes and reactions, and managing
the subject matter so that it too brings them inescapably to share your point of
view.
We sometimes think of politicians and advertisers as the archetypal persuaders,
yet the arts of persuasion were highly developed in ancient rhetoric. Then and now,
persuasion depends on getting the audience on side, by an appeal to emotion or
reason. The former was recognised as the more direct method, and meant trying
to engage the audience’s sympathies with something that touched the heart, or
appealed to their better instincts (see further under pathos). Nowadays we might
feel that the appeal to emotion was sometimes aimed at some instinct lower down
the body—gut feeling, or the hip-pocket nerve. Both then and now, the persuader
also knew thepower of appealing toself-interest, with the argumentumadhominem

(see under ad hominem).
Persuaders with more respect for the intelligence of their audience are more
likely to invoke reason and logic on their side, and to use the force of argument in
persuasion. Classical rhetoric too recognised the place of induction and deduction
in constructing an argument; and with less formal logic, today’s persuaders may
compile a convincing list of examples to make a general point, or get us to endorse
a premise which leads to an inescapable conclusion. (See further under induction
and deduction.) Either way they are not simply giving us loose information or an
extended narrative, but selecting and structuring a telling set of points for maximum
effect.
The ultimate key to persuasion is in getting the audience or reader to share
your value system—to agree that something is worthwhile, or to be condemned.
This often comes back to using evaluative words which embed those values in
613
perverse or perverted
whatever is being talked about. Environmentalists evoke the common concern with
preserving natural resources, and so words like “natural”, “renewable resource”
and “rainforest” are positively charged, while “exploitation” and “pollution” carry
negative values. Such values can be shared by many people these days, whether they
look to nature for recreation or for raw materials. Advertisers often try to persuade
by appealing to the social values latent in their readers, their concern with self-
image and social status. So words like “glamor”, “luxury” and “sophistication”
are used to tap that value system, and help consumers reach for their
wallets.
perverse or perverted The second adjective makes a much more serious
charge than the first. Perverse just implies that something defies convention and
normal practice, as in:
He took a perverse interest in watching every soap opera ever screened.
The habit described could never be thought of as morally reprehensible, whereas
perverted does imply an infringement of the common moral code, as in:

He took a perverted interest in child pornography.
Perverted is of course part of a verb, which also refers to a serious moral and/or
legal matter, witness the charge of perverting the course of justice.
Note that the abstract noun for perverse may be either perverseness or perversity.
Perversion however is reserved as the abstract noun for perverted.
petaled or petalled For the spelling of this word when used as a verb, see
-l/-ll
petitio principii See beg the question.
petrol or petroleum These are not strictly synonymous, since they refer to
products from different stages of the process of refining oil. Petroleum is the natural
raw material, also known as “crude oil”, “rock oil” and “black gold”. Stage by
stage in the refining process, petroleum yields various fuels, including kerosene
(also known as “paraffin”), diesel, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and petrol itself.
Though petrol is its standard name in Australia and Britain, the same fuel is gasoline
or gas in the US.
ph or f See f/ph.
phalanx This word enjoys some general use, meaning a body of people in close
array. Its plural then is phalanxes, just as in historical references to the distinctive
battle formation used by the Greeks and Macedonians (men packed together under
overlapping shields). But for the anatomist who uses the word to mean any of the
bones of the fingers or toes, the plural is phalanges. For other examples of this type,
see -x section 3.
614
phenomenon and phenomena
The phalanger (a zoologist’s term for various kinds of possum) takes its name
from phalanx in the anatomical sense.
pharmacist, chemist or druggist The word pharmacist is now the
standard Australian term for the specialist maker and dispenser of pharmaceutical
remedies, who usually doubles as the retailer of other goods associated with health
care. In older Australian usage, the pharmacist was the chemist, as older shop signs

remind us, and this is still the usual term in Britain. But in Australia those trained
in pharmacy moved to identify themselves as pharmacists, and the professional
chemist is nowadays more likely to be a specialist in chemistry who works at a
university or research laboratory—a different world from that of the person who
runs a suburban pharmacy/chemist’s shop. In the US the word druggist is the
standard name for the trained pharmacist—not to be confused with the illegal drug
dealer.
phase or faze Though separate in origin and meaning, these raise some
confusion and uncertainty because both ph and f, and s and z can be interchanged
in some other English words.
Phase serves primarily as a noun, although it has acquired uses as a verb in the last
half-century, particularly the phrasal verbs phase in/phase out, and also as a simple
verb meaning (1) “synchronise”, and (2) “carry out in stages”. Neither of these is in
general use, the first being a technical word, and the second an administrative and
institutional expression. Neither is used of people. Given those roles it’s perhaps
surprising that phase could become tangled with the rather informal verb faze
meaning “disconcert”, which is almost always used of people, and typically in a
negative construction:
Contentious meetings never fazed him.
Faze seems to be a variant form of an old dialect word feeze meaning “frighten
away”, recorded in American English from the early nineteenth century. The first
evidence of substituting phase for faze was late in that century, after which it was
recorded often enough to be entered as a variant in Webster’s Dictionary (1986),
though not Random House or the Oxford Dictionary (1989). Webster’s English
Usage (1989) recommends against allowing it, thoughwithoutgreat hope that phase
and faze can be confined to their independent roles. Neither the Australian Oxford
(2004) nor the Macquarie Dictionary (2005) presents it as an alternative.
phenomenon and phenomena These are the singular and plural form
respectively for this Greek loanword, presented in all dictionaries as the standard
forms (see further under -on). However the Oxford Dictionary (1989) shows that

phenomena has been used as the singular since the sixteenth century, and usage
notes in the Collins and Random House dictionaries register it as a twentieth
century tendency, although one which is infrequent in edited writing. Both the
Australian Oxford (2004)and the MacquarieDictionary (2005) cautionagainst using
615