A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.
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Word Choice
New Uses, Common Confusion, and Constraints
THIS chapter treats usage problems that are inherent to individual words or entail a choice between words. It provides guidance on traditional difficulties such as when to use
between instead of among, what the verb decimate means, and whether politics takes a singular or plural verb. It sorts out commonly confused words like founder and flounder or blatant and flagrant. And it assesses new usages, such as the verbs empower and interface, that have some popular appeal but may be seen as trendy or pretentious. Problems involving pronouns and conjunctions are treated under Grammar.
1
a / an
In modern written English, we use a before a word beginning with a consonant sound, however it may be spelled (a frog, a university, a euphemism). We use an before a word beginning with a vowel sound (an orange, an hour). At one time, an was an acceptable alternative before words beginning with a consonant sound but spelled with a vowel (an one, an united appeal), but this usage is now entirely obsolete.
2
An was also once a common variant before words beginning with h in which the first syllable was unstressed; thus 18th-century authors wrote either a historical or an historical, but a history, not an history. This usage made sense in that people often did not pronounce the initial h in words such as historical and heroic, but by the late 19th century, educated speakers were usually giving their initial h’s a huff, and the practice of writing an began to die out. Nowadays it survives primarily before the word historical. You may also come across it in the phrases an hysterectomy or an hereditary trait. These usages are acceptable in formal writing.
3
able
The construction able to takes an infinitive to show the subject’s ability to accomplish an action: We were able to finish the project thanks to a grant from a large corporation. The new submarine is able to dive twice as fast as the older
