Weekly GrammarTip

Non-English Words in English Text

Foreign words can attach a sense of sophistication and flair to your text. Misused, they can bring a sense of idiocy--and nobody wants that. Pay attention, mi amigo, and let's make you an international star.

Italics. Italics are used for isolated words and phrases in a foreign language if they are likely to be unfamiliar to readers.

• The grève du zèle is not a true strike but a nitpicking obeying of work rules.
• Honi soit qui mal y pense is the motto of the Order of the Garter.

An entire sentence or a passage of two or more sentences in a foreign language is usually set in roman and enclosed in quotation marks.

Parentheses and quotation marks. A translation following a foreign word, phrase, or title is enclosed in parentheses or quotation marks.

• The word she wanted was pécher (to sin), not pêcher (to fish).
• The Prakrit word majjao, "the tomcat," may be a dialect version of either of two Sanskrit words: madjaro, "my lover," or marjaro, "the cat" (from the verb mrij, "to wash," because the cat constantly washes itself).
• Leonardo Fioravanti's Compendio de i secreti rationali (Compendium of rational secrets) became a best seller.

In linguistic and phonetic studies a definition is often enclosed in single quotation marks with no intervening punctuation; any following punctuation is placed after the closing quotation mark.

• The gap is narrow between mead 'a beverage' and mead 'a meadow'.

Proper nouns. Foreign proper nouns are not italicized in an English context.

• A history of the Comédie-Française has just appeared.
• Leghorn--in Italian, Livorno--is a port in Tuscany.

Familiar foreign words. Foreign words and phrases familiar to most readers and listed in Webster are not italicized if used in an English context; they should be spelled as in the dictionary. German nouns, if in Webster, are lowercased. If confusion might arise, however, foreign terms are best italicized and spelled as in the original language.

pasha, in vitro, recherché, de novo, weltanschauung, a priori, eros and agape, the kaiser
but
He never missed a chance to épater les bourgeois.

Source: The Chicago Manual of Style.

 

 

Did You Know?

According to Wikipedia, Theodor Geisel's middle name, Seuss, was pronounced like Soice. But Geisel switched to the anglicized pronunciation, "Sooss," because it "evoked a figure advantageous for an author of children's books to be associated with Mother Goose" and because most people used this pronunciation.

Word Challenge

Happy  Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Today, March 2, 2011, is Read Across America Day. On this day in 1904, Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known to the world as Dr. Seuss, was born in Springfield, MA. Try today's vocab list after your breakfast of green eggs and ham.


1. diddle: (a) fiddle; (b) to grope for or handle something clumsily or aimlessly; (c) to move with short rapid motions; (d) to act nervously or indecisively.

2. paradiddle: (a) a quick succession of drumbeats slower than a roll and alternating left- and right-hand strokes in a typical L-R-L-L, R-L-R-R pattern; (b) a device (as a slat, rack, or light railing) to keep objects from sliding off a table aboard ship; (c) a restatement of a text, passage, or work giving the meaning in another form; (d) two matched diddles.

3. taradiddle: (a) a mound marking the site of a primitive human habitation; (b) pretentious nonsense; (c) one appointed to act in place of another; (d) three matched diddles.

4. fusilli: (a) in an irresolute, undecided, or hesitating manner; (b) spiral-shaped pasta; (c) a short, continuous train of a combustible substance enclosed in a cord or cable for setting off an explosive charge by transmitting fire to it; (d) a quick temper.

5. rockabilly: (a) an afficionado of mountain climbing on rocky cliffs; (b) a literary genre or style associated especially with the American West that incorporates fantastic or mythical elements into otherwise realistic fiction; (c) popular music marked by features of rock and country music; (d) teenage Bill Clinton's garage band.

6. Caerphilly: (a) flavored custard or pureed fruit combined with gelatin and whipped cream; (b) a fine hard bland soap made from olive oil and sodium hydroxide in Ireland's Caerphilly district; (c) clotted cream; (d) a mild white friable cheese of Welsh origin.

7. dulcify: (a) to make agreeable; (b) to make dull; (c) to make melodious; (d) to make fun of.

8. fructify: (a) to sweeten; (b) to make fruitful or productive; (c) to expand (as a statement) by the use of detail or illustration or by closer analysis; (d) to become inflexible and changeless.

9. lithify: (a) to change to vapor; (b) to make transparent; (c) to render harmless; (d) to change to stone.

10. contumacious: (a) marked by restraint especially in the consumption of food or alcohol; (b) stubbornly disobedient; (c) produced by special effort; (d) musically discordant.

Click here for the answers to today's Word Challenge!