Australian English commented on, for better or worse Yet only in the twentieth century (and after two world wars) did Australian English attain its majority, and secure recognition of its place in the English-speaking world Distinctively Australian vocabulary developed in response to the new social and physical environment The conditions of transportation, the development of new pastoral lands and the gold rushes all demanded their own terminology Some of it came from standard English (e.g block, bush, squatter, emancipist), and some (e.g barrack, billy, fossick) from English dialects Convict slang drawn from the British underworld provided other words such as swag (See further under flash language.) But new vocabulary was required for Australian flora and fauna, and the naming process went on throughout the nineteenth century The names for Australian fauna were sometimes borrowed from Aboriginal languages, and sometimes compounded out of English elements, and the same animal or bird might be referred to either way So the dingo was also the native dog, the kookaburra was the laughing jackass or settler’s clock, and the koala the native bear By the end of the nineteenth century, this variation had mostly been ironed out, leaving us with fewer rather than more Aboriginal names Few people remember that bettong was the name for a small kangaroo, tuan for a flying squirrel, and wobbegong for the carpet shark The names for Australian flora and fauna were the staple of a dictionary titled Austral English, which was published in 1898 by E E Morris Items from Morris’s list of Australianisms were incorporated into both Webster’s New International Dictionary (1909) and the Oxford Dictionary (1884–1928) A wide-ranging account of the informal and colloquial aspects of Australian English was first made by S.J Baker in a volume first published in 1945, titled The Australian Language (echoing H.L Mencken’s The American Language of 1919) Baker recorded the slang of many Australian subcultures: the racetrack, the pub, the two-up alley, and above all that of Australia’s military forces in two world wars Not all the words that he discussed were strictly speaking Australianisms, but they were and are part of the resources of Australian English Like Mencken, he presented his findings in a series of essays with word lists embedded in them, not as a dictionary A dictionary of Australian colloquial idioms compiled by Wilkes (1978) shows the inventiveness of Australian phraseology The first comprehensive dictionary of Australian English, the Macquarie Dictionary, appeared in 1981 with 80 000 headwords The Dictionary made it its business to include all standard Australian words and meanings, as well as Australianisms (expressions which originated here and are often still unique to this country): words for new cultural and social phenomena, for the unusual flora and fauna, and local slang and colloquialisms Other “Australian” dictionaries have since appeared, with a quota of Australian words interpolated into a comprehensive dictionary of British English The Australian National Dictionary published in 1988 75 Australian Rules concentrates on Australianisms alone It gives a long historical perspective through citations on 10 000 headwords Australian English does not seem to have diverged in its grammar from that of standard English elsewhere In casual conversation some Australian speakers (like English-speakers elsewhere) make nonstandard selections of tense, such as come for came, done for did, and kep for kept; and but occurs as a sentence-final item (see but) However, none of this appears in print, except when an author quotes or aims to represent nonstandard speech The morphology of Australian English words is based on the same resources as English everywhere, although Australians make fuller use than others of informal shortenings of words with -o (as in milko), and with -ie (as in barbie) The latter suffix is sometimes said to be childish, but in Australia its use is widespread among adults, and words formed with it are part of the informal style of popular daily newspapers The only distinctively Australian detail of morphology one might point to is in the handful of reduplicative words (e.g mia-mia, willy-willy), which embody the exact reduplication used in various Aboriginal languages In English generally the echoic type of reduplication (ping-pong, walkie-talkie) is much more common, and words with exact reduplication remain informal (see further under reduplicatives) Apart from general expressions such as willy-willy, exact reduplication is found in Australian placenames such as Wagga Wagga and Woy Woy The details of Australian written style (i.e editorial style) are not strongly standardised, in that most publishing houses and newspapers print their own style guides for their writers and editors The Style Manual produced by the Australian Government Publishing Service (and extensively revised for its fourth and sixth editions (1988, 2002)) sets the standard for federal government publications, and is referred to by other Australian institutions and corporations Yet beyond the genres of official publishing, different editorial practices may seem appropriate, and with both British and American publishing houses at work in Australia, the range of styles is probably increasing rather than decreasing The institution of regular “Style Councils” since 1986 and the publication of their proceedings (listed among References in Appendix X), has helped to inform editors about variable and changing trends in style (Contact the Dictionary Research Centre, Macquarie University, for information about them.) There is no language academy to refer to in Australia (any more than in Britain or the US), but the Style Council conferences provide a consultative forum for discussing and assessing the options in written Australian English Australian Rules Australians developed their own style of football in the nineteenth century Like rugby, Australian Rules began as a private school sport, the first game being played in 1858 between Melbourne Grammar School and Scotch College It has remained most popular in Victoria and in Western Australia Its official name since 1927 has been Australian National Football, though the earlier 76 auxiliary verbs names Australian Football and especially Australian Rules are more widely used Informally it’s Aussie Rules Compare rugby union Australianisms See Australian English authoritarian or authoritative These words take rather different attitudes towards authority In authoritarian there is resentment of high-handed leadership, whereas in authoritative the leadership provided is welcome and respected Authoritative is much the older of the two, dating from the seventeenth century, whereas authoritarian dates only from the nineteenth century Meditate if you will on the social and political practices of the Victorian era, which are immortalised in the latter auto- Borrowed from Greek, this prefix meaning “self” or “on its own” is familiar enough in words like: autobiography autocracy autocrat autograph auto-immune autism autistic automatic automation automaton automobile autonomy autonomic autonomous A less obvious example is autopsy, which is literally “inspection with one’s own eyes” Its reference nowadays is so restricted to postmortems that one would hardly venture a joke about an “autopsy” of the food served in the company canteen— though in past centuries (up to the eighteenth), the word was not so specialised in its meaning Because of its use in automobile, the prefix auto- can also mean “associated with motor cars”, and this is certainly its meaning in auto-electrician Note that in the phrase auto-da-f´ , borrowed from Portuguese, auto means “act” e (of faith) It was a euphemism for the execution of those tried by the Inquisition, and usually applied to the burning of “heretics” auxiliary verbs These verbs combine with others to make up a verb phrase, and help to indicate tense, aspect, voice, mood and modality (See under those headings for more about each.) Auxiliaries complement the main verb, typically bringing grammatical meaning to bear on its lexical meaning There may be three or even four auxiliaries in a single phrase, as the following set shows: was added was being added had been added might have been added might have been being added (at that time ) A verb which has no accompanying auxiliary is known as a simple verb (see further under verbs) The auxiliaries are often classed into two subgroups: primary auxiliaries and modal auxiliaries 77 auxiliary verbs The primary auxiliaries are have, be and Have and be have the special characteristic of combining with participles, present and past, in order to express aspect, and the passive voice (see further under those headings) Have and be never combine with the “bare” infinitive, as the modal auxiliaries and indeed the verb In the continuous flow of discourse, the auxiliaries have and be sometimes appear unaccompanied by participles, but this is when the relevant participle can be inferred from a previous sentence So for example it is natural enough to say (or write): I haven’t met the new assistant yet Have you? The main verb participle met (and its object) are all understood with have in the question Note however that have and be can also occur on their own as simple main verbs, as in: He hasn’t any money and They are in the office In those cases, each verb carries its own lexical meaning: have a possessive meaning, and be an existential meaning The auxiliary has special roles in helping to formulate the interrogative (Do I like spaghetti?) and negative statements (I don’t like spaghetti) All interrogative and negative statements are phrased with do, unless they already contain one of the other auxiliaries (primary or modal) Do has other roles as a substitute verb: I enjoy spaghetti much less than they Here stands for the main (lexical) verb enjoy and its object in the second clause Once again, performs this function unless there is another auxiliary present Compare the following with the previous example: I wouldn’t enjoy the spaghetti as they would I can’t enjoy the spaghetti as they can Note that as a simple main verb, means “work on (something)”, as in doing one’s accounts or doing the milk run The modal auxiliaries express modalities, shades of possibility, certainty and obligation, with a “bare” infinitive following Two of them, will and shall, can also express tense (the future), although there may be a modal overtone of certainty or obligation there as well See for example: You will be in my power! The winner shall receive a free trip to Hawaii The essential modals are: can 78 could may might shall should will would must axis To these may be added a number of what the Comprehensive Grammar of English (1985) calls marginal modals and semi-auxiliaries Many of these correspond to the modals in meaning but are often if not always followed by the to- infinitive: Marginal modals ought to need (to) used to dare (to) Semi-auxiliaries have to be able to be going to be likely to be obliged to be supposed to be willing to (compare with should) (approximating to would) (compare with could) (compare with must) (compare with can) (compare with will) must should would Other terms used for these sets of periphrastic modals are semi-modals and quasimodals (Peters 2004) See further under modality and individual headings See also catenatives avenge or revenge See revenge averse or adverse See adverse await or wait See wait awake or awaken See under wake aweing or awing See under -e section axe or ax The spelling ax is earlier, and standard in North America It is “better on every ground” according to the original Oxford Dictionary, including etymology, phonology and analogy Yet its citations show that the spelling axe gained support in Britain during the nineteenth century, and the second edition of the Oxford Dictionary (1989) confirms that ax is no longer used in Britain Australia has inherited the spelling with e, and the best argument in its favor is that it contrives to make the word consist of three letters It thus conforms to the principle that whereas the function words of English (such as we, to, as) may have less than three letters, the content words never (see further under words) Though we use the spelling axe for the noun, we drop the e when it becomes a verb: axing, thus treating the word like any other one ending in e See further under -e section axiom See under aphorism axis For the plural of this word, see -is 79 aye or ay aye or ay These two spellings essentially represent two different pronunciations and two different meanings Ay, pronounced to rhyme with “day”, is an oldfashioned word for “ever” Aye, pronounced to rhyme with “eye”, is a formal expression of affirmation in public meetings, and institutionalised in the Navy response: Aye aye sir In the Australian parliament it means “one who votes in the affirmative”, as in: The ayes have it The shorter spelling ay is occasionally used for the parliamentary vote, but it creates an unfortunate overlap with the other word, and also violates the principle that the content words of English should have a minimum of three letters (For the distinction between content and function words, see under words.) All this makes aye much the better spelling for the affirmative word 80 B bacillus For the plural of this word, see under -us section back- This is a formative element in quite a few English compound words: backbench background backhand backlash backlog backslider backstroke backwash backwater Back- serves to indicate location or direction, and like other adverbs and particles it is normally set solid with the word it’s prefixed to (See hyphens section 2b.) As the examples above show, it normally combines with ordinary English stems, whereas retro-, its classical equivalent, combines with scholarly words from Latin and Greek: see further under retro- back matter See endmatter back of This collocation has wider currency in Australia than in Britain, in fixed expressions like back of beyond, back of Bourke, back o’ Cairns and back o’ the sunset, as well as in ones made up freely: back of Mudgee back of Holland’s property irrigation channel back of the silos back of the It means “beyond” rather than strictly “behind” Note that the expression in back of meaning “behind” is still American rather than Australian English, and does not mean “in the back of” For Americans in back of the shop means “outside and behind the shop” In fact their use of in back of complements in front of, in exactly the way we use it But because in back of may be misunderstood in Australia, we need to replace it with behind or in the back of as appropriate backformation New words are most often developed from smaller, simple words, as rattler is from rattle and assassination from assassin Just occasionally words (especially verbs) are formed in the opposite way, distilled out of pre-existing words which are construed as complex ones (see further under complex words) So burgle is from burglar, surveil from surveillance, and electrocute from electrocution Some other verbs derived in this way are: donate edit enthuse swindle televise laze liaise reminisce resurrect scavenge stoke 81 backslash Most of the backformations just mentioned have become standard English, though some remain informal and colloquial, such as buttle (from butler) and jell (from jelly) Backformations of any kind are unacceptable to some writers, almost as if their unusual origin makes them illegitimate words Some backformations are indeed unnecessary, because they duplicate a much older verb The verb adaptate (backformed from adaptation) is scarcely needed when we already have adapt, and strictly speaking orientate only duplicates the verb orient But others like commentate (from commentator) are certainly earning their keep alongside comment, by covering different areas of meaning (see further under comment) It seems pedantic to deny the legitimacy of such formations merely on account of their origins Note that for some, the singular Aborigine was not to be used because it was a backformation from the plural aborigines, the only form of the word recorded in the Oxford Dictionary (see further under Aboriginal) For examples of other words derived in a similar way, see false plurals backslash See slash backward or backwards See under -ward bacteria Should it be This bacteria is dangerous or These bacteria are dangerous? Though plural agreement is still the more usual overall, singular agreement is also found, especially in nontechnical writing (Peters 2004) This shows that bacteria is gradually becoming a collective noun in English (Australian Government Style Manual 2002) Bacteria is a Latin plural by origin (see -a), whose singular is bacterium, but it mostly appears in scientific documents bad or badly Which of these goes with verbs such as feel, look, need, smell, think, want? For some people, either would do, but the frontiers have been shifting, especially in the US, leaving a trail of uncertainty The grammatical fundamentals are that bad is first and foremost the adjective (a bad shot), and badly the adverb (He played badly) This division of labor was stressed in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, and continues in British English But American English now sanctions the use of bad with all the verbs mentioned at the start of this entry, according to Webster’s English Usage (1989) It functions as a zero adverb (see further under that heading) Some argue that feel badly and feel bad have slightly different meanings, though others would say it’s just a stylistic difference, one of greater and lesser formality In Australian English bad is acceptable with feel, look and smell (i.e with copular verbs: see further under that heading) Meanwhile badly goes with need, think and want Note that after do, bad is possible in a negative expression in casual speech: I didn’t too bad, did I? 82 bail or bale In more formal contexts, it would be badly bail or bale These two spellings overlie several different uses of these words The least problematical cases are the agricultural uses in bale of wool and bail up a cow The spellings are uncontroversial and reflect etymology in each case: bale is from Old French balle meaning “package”, and bail is older English baile meaning “stick” In Australia bail is the bar by which farmers hold a cow’s head through a wooden fence, in order to constrain its movements for milking A figurative extension of this was found in the bushranger bailing up travelers for their valuables As bushranging became a thing of the past, the expression bail up gained a further figurative extension to anyone who holds another person up against their will The legal uses of bail derive from another Old French word, the verb bailler meaning “keep in custody” The expression bail (someone) out originates from this legal context, hence its spelling The same spelling is right for the more general use of the expression, meaning “help someone out of difficulty” Nautical use of bail out (“scoop water out of a boat”) has traditionally been spelled with bail, but by coincidence, since the phrase embodies the Old French word for a bucket baille In the US it continues with bail, but the Oxford Dictionary commented that the spelling bale out for this idiom was gaining ground in the nineteenth century, and so it’s the primary spelling in its second edition (1989) But the Australian Oxford (2004) and the Macquarie Dictionary (2005) both make it bail out When it comes to airmen making a parachute jump from their aircraft, this is again bail out in American English It is bale out in the Oxford Dictionary (1989)— yet not because it’s regarded as an extension of the nautical usage (an emergency measure in/from a vehicle) Instead, the dictionary relates it to the noun bale, and sees the manoeuvre as one where the parachutist exits from the aircraft like a bale through a trapdoor In all this we see two solutions to a dilemma The American solution is to use bail for every meaning except bale of wool The British solution is to give additional uses to the spelling bale, as the verb associated with taking emergency measures, and to differentiate it from legal (and agricultural) uses of the verb bail But when both are figuratively extended they are harder to separate, and the reason for one spelling or the other becomes obscure Why, for example, should one bale out of a failing enterprise, but bail out a failing company? They generate contrasting headlines: BOND BALES OUT OF HONG KONG The cash-strapped empire of Mr Alan Bond has released up to $364 million in funds by selling out its half-stake in Hong Kong’s Bond Centre LANGE BAILS OUT BNZ Wellington The Lange Government was forced yesterday to bail out the Bank of New Zealand 83 balk or baulk A grammarian would note that the first headline was intransitive and the second transitive, but is it worth the trouble? The American practice of using bail for both is the more straightforward one, and sounder in terms of etymology Note that there is no dilemma for cricketers the world over: the small pieces of wood which top the wicket are always bails And the quite independent word baleful is always spelled that way, because it’s related to the Old Norse word bal meaning “fate” balk or baulk The first spelling balk has much to recommend it Apart from the analogy with common words such as chalk, talk and walk, it’s more widely used than baulk, being standard in the US and one of the alternatives used in Australia and Britain Balk is also the earlier spelling, but the Oxford Dictionary noted increasing use of baulk in Britain in the later nineteenth century, especially in billiards Compare caulk, calk or calque, where several meanings are involved ballot Should the t be doubled when this word has verb suffixes added to it? See under t banquet On whether to double the t before verb suffixes are added, see under t barbaric, barbarous or barbarian All these serve to express the civilised person’s distaste for savagery and condemnation of it All three have been recorded in English since early modern times (the sixteenth century) There is little to differentiate them, except that barbarian is, these days, less often an adjective than a noun for someone with savage or uncivilised ways The other two can only be adjectives Note also that whereas barbarous always expresses condemnation, the judgement in barbaric varies with the phrase it appears in In barbaric cruelty it’s clearly negative, while in barbaric hospitality it connotes something which though primitive is impressive in its own way In origin all three words represent a much less harsh judgement about those who stand outside our society and culture The root barbar- embedded in them was used by the Greeks to describe the speech of the neighboring nations, which they found unintelligible Thus barbarians were originally people who spoke a different language; and the name given to the Berbers may have originated in this way also In modern English the tables are turned in the idiom “It was all Greek to me” barbarism Older commentators on usage, including Fowler (1926), made use of barbarism to stigmatise the misuse of words In principle it was used for a particular class of error (words malformed according to conventional usage or normal patterns of coining, e.g normalcy); while other kinds of error in syntax were termed solecisms (see under that heading) Those who know the technical application of barbarism might find it less heavy-handed, but those who not find it a powerful word, as Fowler himself noted And those less scrupulous than 84 clauses In complex sentences the clauses are linked so as to give one of them superior status The superior one is known as the main clause (or principal clause), while the other is subordinated to it and is therefore called the subordinate clause This differentiation of roles is achieved through the use of particular conjunctions, sometimes called “subordinating conjunctions” (see further under conjunctions) The following are complex sentences: They pleaded insanity so that the charge would be dropped main clause subordinate clause Because they pleaded insanity, the charge was dropped sub clause main clause Notice the different effect of the subordinate clause in those sentences In the first it simply acts as a coda to the main clause; in the second it draws attention to both the main clause and itself, because of its prime position (See further under information focus.) Types of subordinate clause In traditional grammar the three types distinguished are: relative (or adjectival) noun adverbial As their names suggest, they function as adjectives, nouns and adverbs respectively, in relation to the main clause a) Relative clauses attach further information to nouns or pronouns in the main clause: The book which I had in my hand had been banned The book was written by someone who mocked traditional values As in those examples, relative clauses may serve either to define or to further describe the noun or pronoun which they modify (See further under relative clauses section 4.) b) Noun clauses take the place of a noun or noun phrase in the main clause: They explained what was going on What was going on took some explaining The noun clause works as either subject, object or complement of the main clause In the first example above, it’s the object: in the second, the subject c) Adverbial clauses attach further information to the verb of the main clause, detailing such things as how, when, where or why the action or event took place: Her eyes lit up as they hadn’t for days (HOW) Her eyes lit up when she heard the news (WHEN) She would succeed where others had failed (WHERE) 144 cleft sentences She would succeed because the time was ripe (WHY) She would succeed although they weren’t yet out of the woods (CONCESSION) She would succeed if she could only raise the funds (CONDITION) The enterprise would flourish so that no-one would dare question it again (RESULT) Note that modern English grammars such as the Comprehensive Grammar of English (1985) distinguish adverbial clauses of similarity and comparison (introduced by as, or as if/though) from comparative clauses proper The latter have a comparative or equative element in the main clause which is connected by than or as with the subordinate clause, as in: He liked the film better than I did cleave This word is really two words, both verbs, meaning: “stick (to)”, “be attached (to)”, as in A man shall cleave to his wife “split”, “cut through”, as in They cleaved their way through the jungle Neither verb is actively used nowadays The first is an archaism, and the second quite old-fashioned But the second has provided us with cleavage, the butcher’s cleaver, and a number of expressions such as cloven-footed, cloven hoof, cleft palate and cleft stick These fossils show the earlier confusion between the two verbs as to their past forms The form cloven belongs only to cleave (2), while cleft was originally part of cleave (1), but eventually annexed by cleave (2) cleft sentences A cleft sentence is one in which the normal sequence of subject/verb/object is interrupted and even rearranged, so as to spotlight one of them in particular Compare: Jane noticed the unusual signature with its cleft counterparts: It was Jane who noticed the unusual signature It was the unusual signature that Jane noticed The it was (or it is) of the cleft sentence draws special attention to whatever follows, underscoring it as the topic of the sentence (See further under topic.) A similar rearranging of the basic sentence elements (known as the pseudo-cleft sentence) helps to foreground the action of the verb, as in: What Jane noticed was the signature Both cleft and pseudo-cleft sentences help to sharpen the information focus in a sentence, and to signal a change of focus when necessary (See further under information focus.) 145 clench or clinch Cleft sentences sometimes raise questions of grammatical agreement: Can the verb in the clause after It is/was be plural? Yes, and in fact it should be if its subject is plural: It is her relatives who are insisting on it What happens with the pronouns? In formal style it’s conventional to use the subject (nominative) form of pronouns: I, he, she, we, you, they, and to make the verb agree with it: It is I who am unsure It is s/he who is unsure It is we/you/they who are unsure However informal usage allows the object pronouns: me, him, her, us, them The third person singular verb is then used for either first or second person singular: It’s me who is unsure It’s you who’s in need of help What other conjunctions apart from who can be used? The relative that is often used in cleft sentences, in references to people as well as objects That is also preferred to when and where by some They would correct: It was on Sunday when I saw him It was on Sunday that I saw him to The basis of this objection is not explained, and when/where are certainly used in the cleft constructions one hears In speech, intonation makes their role clear, whereas in writing it may be ambiguous until you reach the end of the sentence As often, our control of written language has to be tighter for reliable communication clench or clinch These words both suggest an intense grip Hands or teeth are clenched, and a bargain may be clinched The second one really derives from the first, with the vowel changing under the influence of the following n In earlier centuries they shared some meanings, especially in carpentery (clenching or clinching nails) and in nautical usage But clench has lost ground, collocating mostly with the hands, fists and teeth of an individual; and clinch has developed new meanings such as the hold used by boxers or wrestlers on each other, and even the embrace of people in noncombative encounters cliches These are tired, overworked turns of phrase like the one in the sign on a ´ certain news editor’s desk which read: All clich´ s should be avoided like the plague e 146 climax The advice of Spike Milligan on the same subject did succeed in avoiding clich´ e itself: Clich´ s are the handrails of an infirm mind e Clich´ s are a particularly tempting resource if you have to write a lot in a short time e For journalists it’s a way of life, and a crop of clich´ s can be harvested from the pages e of most daily papers, predictable phrases which readers can skim over: “Urgent— held behind closed—.” Fill in the blanks! The word clich´ means “stereotype(d)” e in French, where it once referred to the stereotype block cast from an engraving, from which multiple copies could be printed Our clich´ s recast unique events e in a standard mould Resisting clich´ s takes mental energy, and for mass media e communicators there is the depressing prospect that today’s striking thought is tomorrow’s platitude, and next week’s clich´ —as Bernard Levin (1986) put it e Writers sometimes use clich´ s deliberately as a way of parodying a style, and the e parody itself controls and limits their use There’s more danger of clich´ s getting e out of hand when writers use them to make things effortless for the reader, a danger of losing the reader altogether Information theory reminds us that readers need at least a modicum of stimulation from the unexpected, to keep them reading When the content of a text is itself predictable, the language has to provide the stimulation Writing the word clich´ Clich´ comes to us from French with an acute accent, e e showing that the final e is a separate syllable Like many other accents, it’s often left off in English, though without it cliche just could be a one-syllabled word like creche, cache etc Those who know the word would never pronounce it with one syllable—hence the Tory jibe about the British prime minister whose speeches consisted of “clitch after clitch after clitch” When clich´ becomes a verb in English, its past participle or adjective can be e written in several ways: clich´ d e clich´ ’d e clich´ ed e cliche’d cliched The first three depend on having an acute accent in your typing or printing facilities If it’s not available, the fourth helps the reader more than the fifth For more about adding the past tense ending to foreign words, see under -ed section climax In Greek this meant “ladder”, and in rhetoric it implied an ascending series of steps, each one more impressive than the one before Nowadays we apply the word only to the last step in the series, the point which is the culmination of all that has gone before Developing a climax is the core of narrative art, whether the composition is as long as a novel or as brief as a fable A build-up is achieved by many writers through the space they devote to setting the scene and developing characters All such detail helps to involve the reader, to raise the level of tension gradually, and to build the climax 147 clinch or clench In argumentative writing also, one needs to plan to develop the discussion step by step towards a climax, in order to convince the reader Many writers make their strongest argument the last one in the series, to ensure the impact and prevent anticlimax—that sense of let-down—creeping in at the end Even when drafting sentences, it pays to work up to the most compelling item when you have a series to present Compare Next across the line were an Olympic athlete, a wheelchair victim pushed by his red-hot companion, an army recruit in battle gear, a footballer, and a runner in a dinner jacket with Next across the line were a footballer, an Olympic athlete, a runner in a dinner jacket, an army recruit in battle gear, and a wheelchair victim pushed by his red-hot companion Assuming that the order in which the competitors finished is unimportant, the second version is more effective because it exploits the escalating amount of detail in each item to engage the reader The first version simply has one thing after another, like a jumbled catalogue in which you could easily get lost In the second version the items have all been harnessed to create a mini-climax See further under rhythm (rhythm and rhetoric of a series) and bathos clinch or clench See clench clipping New words are sometimes formed from older ones by a process of cutting back or clipping Either the beginning, the end, or both ends may be clipped, as with the following: bus (from omnibus) exam (from examination) flu (from influenza) Of the three types, the ones which are clipped back to the first syllable(s), like exam, are the most numerous Some other common examples are: ad deb deli gym telly uni zoo lab memo mike (microphone) pram pro taxi Among those examples, bus, pram, taxi and zoo have become the standard word, replacing the original word or phrase The others are still an informal counterpart to the standard word, to be avoided in more formal styles of writing Many clippings belong to the in-house or in-group jargon of a particular institution or social group As if brief was not really beautiful, Australians often extend their clippings with the addition of informal suffixes such as -ie or -o This is of course the source of numerous colloquialisms, such as: 148 cocotte or coquette bookie cozzie footie mozzie pokie arvo compo milko rego (See further under -ie/-y and -o.) cliquey or cliquy See under -y/-y cloven See under cleave co- This useful prefix implies joint activity in a particular role: co-author co-editor co-pilot co-sponsor co-star This meaning is a relatively new one, developed from the meaning “together” which it has in older formations such as: coaxial coeducation coequal co(-)ordinate coexist cohabit coincide co(-)operate These older words show how co- was originally used with words beginning with a vowel or h, and as a variant of the Latin prefix con- or com- Co- is the only one of them which is productive in modern English, and since the seventeenth century it has increasingly been used with words beginning with any letter of the alphabet A number of mathematical words show this development: coplanar coset cosine cotangent covalence Co- has even replaced the earlier con- in coterminous, and the seventeenth century raised cotemporary as a variant for contemporary It seems to stress the historical sense of that word (living in the same period) One of the perennial questions with co- is whether or not to use the hyphen with it As the examples show, the ad hoc words in which it means “joint” are often given hyphens, but the hyphen is left out of the established ones, except those which are liable to be misread The only ones over which there is any debate are ones where coprecedes an o, as in co(-)occur, co(-)operate and co(-)ordinate In America they are set solid like the rest, while in Britain they are hyphened In Australia, the hyphen is disappearing, and both Australian Oxford (2004) and the Macquarie Dictionary (2005) prioritise the solid setting If you set them solid, there can be no problem misinterpreting them because there are no words remotely like them Note that in short or clipped words with co-, such as co-ed, co-op and co-opt, the hyphen is vital to ensure that their two syllables are obvious cocotte or coquette Both these French loanwords are about women and sexuality, but if the coquette makes men her victims, men have the advantage over the cocotte Cocotte is colloquial French for a prostitute, while grande cocotte is the expression for the upmarket type kept in luxury by her lover Alternatively, the latter is a poule de luxe (roughly “a luxury bird”) The coquette differs in maintaining a flirtatious independence while exploiting the affections of her admirers Both words are ultimately derived from coc, the Old French word for rooster 149 codex codex For the plural of this word, see -x section cogito ergo sum This Latin phrase meaning “I think therefore I am” is surprisingly well known in the English-speaking world They are the words of the French philosopher Descartes, uttered in 1637 but mediated through British philosophers of the nineteenth and twentieth century The words seem to express the essence of existentialism, and the ultimate syllogism (see syllogism) Descartes himself insisted that the statement was simply a way of asserting the involvement of self in any act of thinking He was concerned about the basis of knowledge, and how far intuition plays a part in it coherence or cohesion, coherent or cohesive There are broad differences between coherence/cohesion and coherent/cohesive, even though all four are related to the verb cohere (“stick together”) None of them retain the literal meaning of the verb itself, but the second word in each pair still carries a sense of bonding together, as in the cohesion within the party or a cohesive defence force The first word in each pair has moved further away, and implies a consecutive and logical linkage from one thing to the next, as in the coherence of his argument or a coherent plan This extended meaning is underscored in the negatives incoherence and incoherent Note the lack of established negatives for cohesion and cohesive, another sign that they are more recent arrivals (dating from the late seventeenth and eighteenth century, whereas coherence/coherent are from the sixteenth century) Coherence in writing Communication of any kind needs to be both coherent and cohesive: to be integrated and logical in its development, as well as effectively bonded in its expression The coherence comes from thinking about the sequence of ideas, whether you are writing or speaking Even in fiction the world created has to be imaginatively consistent and provide plausible dramatic development In nonfiction it’s vital that the statements made are somehow related, as being matched or deliberately contrasted, or linked as general/particular, problem/solution or cause/effect Some underlying logic of development, e.g deduction or induction, is needed, though it may not be spelled out as such (See further under deduction, induction and argument.) Cohesion in writing is the network of verbal connections on the surface of the text, which link one reference with another and mark the continuity of ideas In fiction, the pronouns he and she help to keep tabs on the protagonists, as in the following extract from Cliff Hardy’s Heroin Annie (1987): When she came out at twenty to six she was recognisable from her walk; she still moved well, but there was something not proud about the way she carried her head Her hair had darkened to a honey colour and she wore it short In a lumpy cardigan and old jeans she headed across the pavement to a battered Datsun standing at the kerb; no-one stood aside for her 150 coherence or cohesion, coherent or cohesive This detective “portrait of a lady” keeps its focus on Annie with the unobtrusive aid of she and her in successive sentences Cohesion is also provided by the sequence of references to her appearance, and then the street phenomena, pavements, car, the crowd, as reminders of the dramatic context In nonfiction, the pronouns (especially it, this and that, and the as well) are again important in ensuring continuity of reference Other cohesive aids in informative and argumentative writing are the conjunctions, which forge links between one statement and another, and make explicit the underlying relationship (of similarity, contrast, cause and effect, etc.: see further under conjunctions) The links between clauses or phrases can also be made by ellipsis (see under that heading) Yet much of the cohesion still comes through the words that express the subject matter, and through synonyms and antonyms which maintain the same meaning (See further under synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms and synecdoche.) Most writers succeed in maintaining enough cohesive links in the texts they compose But the conjunctions deserve extra thought, and it pays to check on any sequences of pronouns, in case ambiguity has crept in See for example: He waited until the boss had finished reading his letter (Whose letter was it?) Such problems are always more obvious when you come back to edit at a later stage Ironically, it’s quite hard to write something which is totally lacking in coherence and cohesion One author who tried was hailed as a great poet, in a notorious Australian literary hoax This was “Ern Malley”, the pseudonym adopted by James McAuley and Harold Stewart when they offered for publication in 1944 a set of verses concocted out of bits and pieces from the books that happened to be on their desks “We opened books at random, choosing a word or phrase haphazardly We made lists of these and wove them into nonsensical sentences ” A sample of the result, from the poem “Egyptian register”, begins: The hand that burns resinous in the evening sky Which is a lake of roses, perfumes, idylls Breathed from the wastes of the Tartarean heart The skull gathers darkness, like an inept mountain That broods on its aeons of self-injury The spine, barbed and venomous, pierces The one unmodulated cumulus of cloud Knowing the intention behind it, you are unlikely to look for coherence or meaningful connections in it But Max Harris who published the poems in 1944 certainly did It shows how ready we are to assume that printed text is coherent and cohesive, though it’s as well to maintain a little skepticism See further under gobbledygook 151 coliseum or colosseum coliseum or colosseum Any place of entertainment which calls itself a coliseum or colosseum invokes the famous Colosseum of Rome, the huge amphitheatre built by Vespasian in the first century AD Its name expresses all that we know in the word colossal, and it was evidently the ultimate entertainment centre Smaller amphitheatres and stadiums, built on the same model elsewhere in the Roman Empire, turned it into a generic word, and it comes to us through medieval Latin (and Italian) as coliseum This form of the word is used by Byron in reference to Vespasian’s original, when he declares (through Childe Harold): While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand Journalists in Melbourne who use Coliseum for the original in Rome are no doubt less influenced by the memory of Byron than the requirements of their style guides It serves to distinguish any classical reference from the Victorian Colosseum Hotel, and other private enterprises which perpetuate the name collapsable or collapsible Either spelling is acceptable See under the heading -able/-ible collectable or collectible These spellings are given equal status in the Macquarie Dictionary (2005), and each is perfectly acceptable Collectable is the simple English formation and the one preferred in Britain, according to the Oxford Dictionary; whereas the latinate form collectible is given priority for American English in the Webster’s and Random House dictionaries Webster’s English Usage (1989) notes further that there’s no sign of a grammatical division of labor (noun v adjective) correlating with spelling collective nouns A collective noun is a singular term which designates a group of people, animals or objects Those referring to people connote some kind of organisation or structure: audience class committee congregation crew council family government orchestra parliament squad staff team tribe Such words raise questions of grammatical agreement: each can represent either the collective body or its individual members, according to whether it is used with a singular or plural verb Compare: The crew is training as hard as it can The crew are training as hard as they can The first sentence gives you a picture of the team members all synchronising their strokes on the river, while the second has them doing time on individual exercise machines in the gym The choice of verb and pronoun (singular or plural) accords with the writer’s meaning, rather than being dictated by grammar (See further under agreement section 4.) 152 collocation and collocations Collective terms for animals usually work as the head of a phrase, e.g herd of elephants This is so with examples like: flock mob pack school shoal swarm troupe Because they are not species-specific we must specify, at least for the first reference, what the flock or mob consists of Flock can be used with animals or birds, and there is more than one possibility for mob This is also true of collective terms for objects such as: bunch cluster collection crop heap mass pile The possibilities for them are in fact much wider than for animal terms The convention of specifying the species lingers with some very traditional collective words which are applied to one species only, witness: covey of partridges, gaggle (of geese), pride (of lions) etc These are the models for various facetious formations for specialised human groups, such as the haggle of vendors and the decorum of deans (or the decanter of deans) Among the many others created for amusement are: a column of accountants a consternation of mothers a goggle of tourists a guess of diagnosticians a quaver of coloraturas a recession of economists a slumber of old guard The danger of libel looms larger, the further you go with such phrases—which probably explains why their use is limited collocation and collocations This is the tendency of words to go with particular others in a sequence There may be only one word which can go with a particular verb, as in the mind boggles or with lips pursed Why this is so is not obvious, any more than the reason why we speak of Scotch whisky and Scottish people Why should it be melted butter and molten lead? They are just some of the conventional collocations of English Collocations of another kind are to be found in phrasal verbs: bear up, browned off, butt in, carry out etc., where the same particle is always used Knowing which particle it is makes life hard for the second language learner, and even native Australians can be bushed when slightly different collocations are used in speech and in writing In standard written English, it’s usual to have wait for (someone) while in speech you quite often hear it expressed as wait on Thus some collocations vary according to context, and others according to the structure of the sentence The choice of particle after different (from/than/to) often depends on what comes next (See further under different.) 153 colloquialisms Collocations differ from idioms in that their meaning is not removed from the literal value of their components Compare expressions such as a red herring and shoot (oneself) in the foot (true idioms) with any of the examples in the previous paragraph (See further under idiom.) Collocations differ from clich´ s in that they have an established place in the e language, whereas clich´ s are hackneyed expressions which seem to need replacing e See further under clich´ s e colloquialisms These are expressions used in casual conversation They smack of easy-going exchanges between people, when not too fine a point is being put on the medium of communication: If you’ll get a wriggle on with the painting—we can have a barbie this arvo, and get the neighbors round to have a bite We’ll have a bash at doing the garden tomorrow The most conspicuous colloquialisms in a casual conversation are words like barbie and arvo, where the word itself or the particular use of it is reserved for informal use They appear in writing only in texts which are designed to conjure up the flavor of natural talk Colloquial idioms like get a wriggle on and have a bash at also contribute to the flavor and are unlikely to appear in formal writing, even though the words within them can be used in noncolloquial ways Colloquial expressions are often allusive rather than specific Examples such as have a bite, and doing the garden rely a lot for their meaning on the context and on the knowledge shared by the speakers When conversing we take a lot for granted We also tend to telescope the less essential parts of words and phrases, resulting in contractions such as you’ll in the sample above In formal writing those are things to avoid because they undermine the serious effect you would want to have on the reader The style should not appear casual, imprecise or to gloss over details But in friendly communication, a sprinkling of colloquialisms helps to lighten the style, and show that you are human colloquium For the plural of this word, see under -um Colombia or Columbia See Columbia colon The colon is a handy punctuation mark for showing that examples or specific details are about to come The examples may continue the line of the sentence, as in the following case: Most of their books are technical: textbooks for students of economics and law, and manuals for computer users Alternatively, the examples after the colon may be set out on the line(s) below, as in countless entries in this book The colon reassures readers that what follows will give them the specifics, and that they will be offered more than an empty generalisation It allows the writer 154 Colombia or Columbia to detail something or give a set of examples without overloading the introductory part of the sentence Note that what comes after the colon is not usually a sentence itself—a point on which colons differ significantly from semicolons (see under semicolon) The word following the colon is kept in lower case, unless it’s a formal statement, slogan or motto For example: On the laboratory door was a new sign: Trespassers prosecuted Colons are often used these days before presenting extended quotations A long quotation from a printed source is nowadays introduced by just a colon, not a colon plus a dash (:—) Direct quotations from someone’s speech are also prefaced by a colon nowadays, especially in newspapers and magazines, where once a comma was the standard punctuation The use of commas with quotations is increasingly confined to literary fiction (See quotation marks section 3.) Other uses of colons: r to separate the headings in memos from the specific details: MEMO TO: Leslie Smith, Manager FROM: Robin Jones SUBJECT: Uniforms for staff (In American correspondence the colon is also used after the salutation in ordinary letters, as in: Dear John: Your last letter arrived after I’d left for Detroit r to separate the main title from the subtitle of a book (See further under titles.) r to separate elements in literary and biblical citations: Romeo and Juliet Act V:ii Revelation 12:20 r to separate elements in bibliographical references, such as the publisher from the place of publication, or the date of publication from the page numbers (See referencing sections and 3.) r to indicate ratios in mathematics, as in 3:1 Note that in the US the colon is also used in expressions of time, e.g 5:30 pm, whereas in Australia and Britain it is 5.30 pm color or colour See under -or/-our colosseum or coliseum See coliseum Columbia or Colombia Both names honor Christopher Columbus, as does ´ Colon The different forms of his name result from its being differently written in Italian, Spanish and Latin Columbus was of course an Italian by birth, and the Italian form of his name Colombo is preserved exactly as the name of the capital city of Sri Lanka In South America his name is written into the mountainous state Colombia and the Colombian Basin to the north of it When Columbus settled in 155 combated or combatted Spain, he adopted the name Cristobal Colon, and Colon lives on as the name of ´ ´ cities in Argentina, Panama and Cuba Columbus, the form most familiar to us, is the Latin version of the great explorer’s name In North America it becomes Columbia in the several towns that bear the name, as well as the District of Columbia, Columbia University and the Canadian state of British Columbia So English-speaking countries use Columbia along with Columbus, whereas ´ Colombia and Colon are used where Spanish or Portuguese culture has prevailed combated or combatted The spelling combated is preferred in all major dictionaries, Australian, American and British The Oxford Dictionary shows that the spelling combatted was once more common, no doubt when the word’s second syllable was stressed (See further under doubling of final consonant.) The older spelling survives in the heraldic word combattant, whereas its modern military counterpart is combatant comic or comical The first of these adjectives is more closely linked with comedy, as in comic opera and a comic character Comical is more loosely used of anything that generates laughter, as in a comical expression But the boundaries between them are not too sharply drawn, as with other pairs of this kind (See further under -ic/-ical.) comma Commas are an underused punctuation mark, and the chief casualty of the trend towards open punctuation (see punctuation, section 1) They have a vital role to play in longer sentences, separating information into readable units, and guiding the reader as to the relationship between phrases and items in a series A single comma ensures correct reading of sentences which start with a longish introductory element: a) Before the close of the last Ice Age, Tasmania was joined to the mainland of Australia b) Before the last Ice Age ended ten thousand years ago, Tasmania was joined to the mainland Whether the sentence begins with a phrase as in (a), or a clause as in (b), it benefits by having a comma to show where the introductory element ends and the main statement begins The comma allows the reader to pause between the two parts, and to absorb each one properly Introductory strings of words often express the ongoing theme of a paragraph, or they highlight a change or adjustment to the theme (see information focus) When the introductory string is short (just two or three words), the separating comma may not be necessary—except to prevent misreading The comma is essential in a case like the following: Fourteen months after the rains came to other parts of the Kimberleys 156 comma A comma following after will prevent the reader having to go over the sentence twice to get its structure Commas can also make a difference to the reading of a sentence with a relative clause (see relative clauses section 4), and those with negatives in them (see negatives section 2) Pairs of commas help in the middle of a sentence to set off any string of words which is either a parenthesis or in apposition to whatever went before The desert trees, casuarinas and acacias, were sprouting new green needles (apposition) The dead canyons, all nature in them reduced to desiccation, came alive with the sound of rain slithering down the crevasses (parenthesis) Note that a pair of dashes could have been used instead of commas with the parenthesis, in both formal and informal writing Sets of commas are a means of separating: a) strings of adjectives of the same type, as in: a big, bold, enticing show Compare a fine old Italian fresco, where the three adjectives belong to different classes: evaluative, descriptive, definitive respectively (See further under adjectives.) b) items in a series, as in: The billabongs at sunset drew flocks of galahs, gang-gangs, budgerigars and cockatoos of all kinds A curious amount of heat has been generated over whether or not there should be a comma between the two last items in such a series (the so-called serial comma debate) Older editing practice tried to legislate on the matter, and insisted that there should always be a comma before the final and, and this is established American practice (Chicago Manual of Style 2003), and now called the “Oxford” comma (New Hart’s Rules 2005) Yet Webster’s Standard American Style Manual (1985) admitted that the serial comma was as often absent as present in its citation files The Australian Government Style Manual (2002) recommends using the final serial comma only when it is needed to prevent ambiguity There’s no problem in the example sentence shown just above if the serial comma is absent However it’s a different matter with the following: Drinking their fill at the billabong were rabbits, emus, flocks of galahs and wallabies The word flock does not collocate with wallabies, and a comma before and, to separate flocks of galahs from wallabies, is desirable Note that once there are commas within individual items in a series, semicolons must be used to separate each item from the next: Drinking their fill at the billabong were a tribe of rabbits, large and small; emus with rippling plumage; flocks of galahs, jostling each other for positions; and a tentative group of wallabies 157 commands The disappearing comma r with numbers (see numbers section 1) r with dates Depending on the order (day, month and year or month, day and year), the comma may or may not be necessary (See under dates.) r with addresses on envelopes To ensure accurate reading by the electronic scanners, Australia Post recommends the omission of commas (and all punctuation) from addresses on envelopes (See further in Appendix VIII.) For inverted commas, see quotation marks commands In English, commands are most directly expressed through what grammarians call imperatives They are the short, sharp forms of verbs which are used on the parade ground, or in written instructions: Switch on the automatic control to the oven Turn the clock to whatever starting time you want Set the temperature control In recipes imperatives are regularly found at the start of sentences But other, less direct ways of expressing commands are also available in English, particularly if you want to soften the abruptness of the imperative—and to adopt the role of counsellor rather than commander in the document you’re writing The following are some of the possibilities, graded more or less from most to least direct: Switch on the oven You must switch on the oven Make sure you switch on the oven The oven should be switched on In face-to-face situations we generally use something even less direct, such as Could you switch on the oven? It seems to allow more discretion to the other party, and disguises the instruction In writing that might seem to be going too far, however (See further under imperative.) comme il faut Borrowed from French, this phrase means “as it should be” Adopted into English in the courtly eighteenth century, it refers to matters of etiquette and correct social behavior It commends as proper conduct whatever it is attached to The phrase allows more freedom of choice than certain other French phrases which refer to etiquette De r` gle means “required by rule or convention”; e and de rigueur (roughly “in strictness”) suggests that the whole weight of social opinion is behind it, to make it an absolute necessity comment or commentate Both of these verbs both have their place Commentate conveys the sense of commenting as a means of earning your living, providing continuous commentary on events at which you’re the official media representative Comment usually implies making an ad hoc set of remarks, or just one of them 158 ... words like: autobiography autocracy autocrat autograph auto-immune autism autistic automatic automation automaton automobile autonomy autonomic autonomous A less obvious example is autopsy, which... according to the Australian Government Style Manual (20 02) , even when it’s part of the masthead Compare: She works for The Australian with In the Australian editorial yesterday (See further under the. .. according to the models provided in the Australian Government Style Manual (20 02) , but not (C) Italics are normally used in (A) and (B) to set off the title of the book or the name of the journal