Sent To The Gallows

Sometime back, a jobless man was reported to have been "sent to the gallows" by the judge, when what the paper meant was that the man was found guilty of a capital offence and he was SENTENCED to death. He's not dead yet. He may appeal the sentence. If you want to be stylish you may say that he was sentenced to be executed AT THE GALLOWS. Put it simply, "sent to the gallows" meant that the guilty man was already executed. Hanged in this case.

IRREGARDLESS or REGARDLESS

Regardless of what you may have read in the net or the newspapers, "Irregardless" is another common redundancy in English. The suffix "less" already makes the word negative. Hence, the addition of "ir" makes it a double negative. It does sound better though. Like Irrespective, irregularly or irrefutable. However, it is unacceptable in proper English. Although it is widely condemned in the American references, it has found its way into some American Dicitonaries. For instance, my Webster's New World Dictionary defines IRREGARDLESS as REGARDLESS - a non standard or humorous usage. It is also listed in the American Heritage Dictionary. The word is not found in English dictionaries.

Composite Picture

Two or more pictures (images or photographs) placed side by side or in a group should not be referred to as a composite picture. They are simply two or more pictures (images or photographs). A photograph made by combining two or more separate photographs is a composite picture. Common examples are a composite picture of the various phases of the moon during a lunar eclipse and a composite picture of a guy playing chess with himself. Magazine covers are very often composite images of various sections inside. Montages and collages are also special types of composite pictures.

Acronyms and Abbreviations

Today I want to ramble a bit about Acronyms. Quite often any abbreviation is referred to as an Acronym. Acronym sounds so learned. Abbreviation is so basic. Just about anybody knows what it means. But wait! Acronym is only applicable to an abbreviation that is read as a word. It is that simple and straightforward. Radio Detection And Ranging is abbreviated to RADAR and is read as spelt. So it is an acronymn. So is QANTAS (Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services). But not BBC, 4U2C, HRC, ABC, and so on and so on. Over here is Malaysia we have quite a few political parties. Among the well known ones, MCA, MIC, DAP and PKR are all abbreviations. UMNO and PAS are acronyms.

The word "strangle"

I have often come across the phrase "strangled to death" in newspapers especially here in Malaysia. It is my contention that when a person is "strangled" he is already dead. Just as when a person is murdered, executed, electrocuted, killed, assassinated, drowned or hanged he is DEAD. Pointing this out to the editor of an English Improvement section of one particular newspaper that the phrase is a redunduncy in proper English, prompted a very clever reply from him that the usage is correct. He argued that if it was mentioned somewhere earlier in an article that the said person is already dead, than subsequent sentences with only "strangled" would suffice and imply that he was dead. Otherwise, to indicate that the person has died, the phrase "strangled to death" should be used. It was quite laughable.

Certainly, "strangle" is linked to words like "choke" and "squeeze". Quoting the Concise Oxford Dictionary, "Choke" is "to hinder of impede the breathing of a person by constricting the windpipe of ". However, "strangle" is "to squeeze the windpipe or neck so as TO KILL". So it is correct to say that a person was "choked to death". But NOT "strangled to death".

Similarly, a person may be beaten to death, burnt to death, hacked to death, mangled to death, or mauled to death.

Your comments are welcomed.