Common Errors H

HIV VIRUS

"HIV" stands for "human immunodeficiency virus," so adding the word
"virus" to the acronym creates a redundancy. "HIV" is the name of the
organism that is the cause of AIDS, not a name for the disease itself. A
person may be HIV-positive (a test shows the person to be infected with
the virus) without having yet developed AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency
syndrome). HIV is the cause, AIDS the result.


HADN'T HAVE/HADN'T

Many people throw in an extra "have" when they talk about things that
might have happened otherwise: "If he hadn't have checked inside the
truck first he wouldn't have realized that the floorboards were rusted
out." This is often rendered "hadn't of" and pronounced "hadn'ta." In
standard English, omit the second word: "If he hadn't checked inside the
truck. . . ."

HAIL/HALE

One old meaning of the word "hale" is "to drag," especially by force. In
modern usage it has been replaced with "haul" except in the standard
phrase "hale into court." People who can't make sense of this form often
misspell the phrase as "hail into court." To be hailed is to be greeted
enthusiastically, with praise. People haled into court normally go
reluctantly, not expecting any such warm reception.

HAIRBRAINED/HAREBRAINED

Although "hairbrained" is common, the original word "harebrained" means
"silly as a hare" (the little rabbit-like creature) and is preferred in
writing.

HAND AND HAND/HAND IN HAND

"Poverty goes hand in hand with malnutrition." The image here is of the
two subjects holding hands, one hand in the other. The phrase is very
frequently misspelled "hand and hand," which does not convey the same
sort of intimate connection.

HANDICAP/DISABILITY

In normal usage, a handicap is a drawback you can easily remedy, but a
disability is much worse: you're just unable to do something. But many
people with disabilities and those who work with them strongly prefer
"disability" to "handicap," which they consider an insulting term. Their
argument is that a disability can be compensated for by--for instance--a
wheelchair, so that the disabled person is not handicapped. Only the
person truly unable by any means to accomplish tasks because of a
disability is handicapped. The fact that this goes directly counter to
ordinary English usage may help to explain why the general public has
been slow to adopt it; but if you want to avoid offending anyone, you're
safer using "disability" than "handicap."

Many of the people involved also resent being called "disabled people";
they prefer "people with disabilities."

HANGED/HUNG

Originally these words were pretty much interchangeable, but "hanged"
eventually came to be used pretty exclusively to mean "executed by
hanging." Does nervousness about the existence of an indelicate
adjectival form of the word prompt people to avoid the correct word in
such sentences as "Lady Wrothley saw to it that her ancestors' portraits
were properly hung"? Nevertheless, "hung" is correct except when capital
punishment is being imposed or someone commits suicide.

HANGING INDENTS

Bibliographies are normally written using hanging indents, where the
first line extends out to the left-hand margin, but the rest of the
entry is indented.

Twain, Mark. Mark Twain at the Buffalo Express: Articles and Sketches by
America's Favorite Humorist, edited by Joseph B. McCullough and Janice
McIntire-Strasburg (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2000).

These are extremely easy to create on a word processor, but many people
have never mastered the technique. Normally the left-hand margin marker
at the top of the page consists of two small arrows. Drag the top one to
the right to make a normal indent, the bottom one to create a hanging
indent. In most programs, you have to hold down the Shift key while
dragging the bottom marker to leave the top part behind. Don't get into
the habit of substituting a carriage return and a tab or spaces to
create hanging indents because when your work is transferred to a
different computer the result may look quite different--and wrong.

HANUKKAH, CHANUKAH

This Jewish holiday is misspelled in a host of ways, but the two
standard spellings are "Hanukkah" (most common) and "Chanukah" (for
those who want to remind people that the word begins with a guttural
throat-clearing sound).

HARD/HARDLY

Everybody knows "hard" as an adjective: "Starfleet requires a hard
entrance exam." The problem arises when people needing an adverb try to
use the familiar pattern of adding -ly to create one, writing things
like "we worked hardly at completing the test." The adverbial form of
this word is in fact the same as the adjectival form: "hard." So it
should be "we worked hard at completing the test."

In American English "hardly" always means something like "scarcely," as
in "we hardly worked on the test." In British English the word "hardly"
is sometimes used to mean "severely, harshly," as in "Trevor felt
himself to have been used hardly [badly treated] by the executive
committee"; but this pattern is unfamiliar to most American readers.

HARDLY

When Bill says "I can't hardly bend over with this backache," he means
he can hardly bend over, and that's what he should say. Similarly, when
Jane says "you can feed the cat without hardly bending over" she means
"almost without bending over."

HARDLY NEVER/HARDLY EVER

The expression is "hardly ever" or "almost never."

HARDY/HEARTY

These two words overlap somewhat, but usually the word you want is
"hearty." The standard expressions are "a hearty appetite," "a hearty
meal," a "hearty handshake," "a hearty welcome," and "hearty applause."
Something difficult to kill is described as a "hardy perennial," but
should not be substituted for "hearty" in the other expressions. "Party
hearty" and "party hardy" are both common renderings of a common youth
saying, but the first makes more sense.

HARK/HEARKEN

One old use of the word "hark" was in hunting with hounds, meaning to
turn the dogs back on their course, reverse direction. It was this use
that gave rise to the expression "hark back." It refers to returning in
thought to an earlier time or returning to an earlier discussion: "That
tie-died shirt harks back to the days we used to go to rock festivals
together."

The expression is not "hearkens back." Although "hark" and "hearken" can
both mean "listen," only "hark" can mean "go back."

HE DON'T/HE DOESN'T

In formal English, "don't" is not used in the third person singular. "I
don't like avocado ice cream" is correct, and so is "they don't have
their passports yet" and "they don't have the sense to come in out of
the rain"; but "he don't have no money," though common in certain
dialects, is nonstandard on two counts: it should be "he doesn't" and
"any money." The same is true of other forms: "she don't" and "it don't"
should be "she doesn't" and "it doesn't."

HEADING/BOUND

If you're reporting on traffic conditions, it's redundant to say
"heading northbound on I-5." it's either "heading north" or
"northbound."

HEAL/HEEL

Heal is what you do when you get better. Your heel is the back part of
your foot. Achilles' heel was the only place the great warrior could be
wounded in such a way that the injury wouldn't heal. Thus any striking
weakness can be called an "Achilles' heel." To remember the meaning of
"heal," note that it is the beginning of the word "health."

HEAR/HERE

If you find yourself writing sentences like "I know I left my wallet
hear!" you should note that "hear" has the word "ear" buried in it and
let that remind you that it refers only to hearing and is always a verb
(except when you are giving the British cheer "Hear! Hear!"). "I left my
wallet here" is the correct expression.

HEARING-IMPAIRED/DEAF

"Hearing-impaired" is not an all-purpose substitute for "deaf" since it
strongly implies some residual ability to hear.

HEAVILY/STRONGLY

"Heavily" is not an all-purpose synonym for "strongly." It should be
reserved for expressions in which literal or metaphorical weight or
density is implied, like "heavily underlined," "heavily influenced,"
"heavily armed," or "heavily traveled." Not standard are expressions
like "heavily admired" or "heavily characteristic of." People sometimes
use "heavily" when they mean "heartily," as in "heavily praised."

HEIGHTH/HEIGHT

"Width" has a "TH" at the end, so why doesn't "height"? In fact it used
to, but the standard pronunciation today ends in a plain "T" sound.
People who use the obsolete form misspell it as well, so pronunciation
is no guide. By the way, this is one of those pesky exceptions to the
rule, "I before E except after C," but the vowels are seldom switched,
perhaps because we see it printed on so many forms along with "age" and
"weight."

HELP THE PROBLEM

People say they want to help the problem of poverty when what they
really mean is that they want to help solve the problem of poverty.
Poverty flourishes without any extra help, thank you. I guess I know
what a "suicide help line" is, but I'd rather it were a "suicide
prevention help line." I suppose it's too late to ask people to rename
alcoholism support groups as sobriety support groups, but it's a shoddy
use of language.

HENCE WHY/HENCE

Shakespeare and the Bible keep alive one meaning of the old word
"hence": "away from here" ("get thee hence"). There's no need to add
"from" to the word, though you often see "from hence" in pretentious
writing, and it's not likely to bother many readers.

But another sense of the word "hence" ("therefore") causes more trouble
because writers often add "why" to it: "I got tired of mowing the lawn,
hence why I bought the goat." "Hence" and "why" serve the same function
in a sentence like this; use just one or the other, not both: "hence I
bought the goat" or "that's why I bought the goat."

HERBS/SPICES

People not seriously into cooking often mix up herbs and spices.
Generally, flavorings made up of stems, leaves, and flowers are herbs;
and those made of bark, roots, and seeds and dried buds are spices.
However saffron, made of flower stamens, is a spice. The British
pronounce the H in "herb" but Americans follow the French in dropping
it.

HERO/PROTAGONIST

In ordinary usage "hero" has two meanings: "leading character in a
story" and "brave, admirable person." In simple tales the two meanings
may work together, but in modern literature and film the leading
character or "protagonist" (a technical term common in literary
criticism) may behave in a very unheroic fashion. Students who express
shock that the "hero" of a play or novel behaves despicably reveal their
inexperience. In literature classes avoid the word unless you mean to
stress a character's heroic qualities. However, if you are discussing
the main character in a traditional opera, where values are often
simple, you may get by with referring to the male lead as the
"hero"--but is Don Giovanni really a hero?

See also "heroin/heroine."

HEROIN/HEROINE

Heroin is a highly addictive opium derivative; the main female character
in a narrative is a heroine.

HIGHLY LOOKED UPON/HIGHLY REGARDED

Many people, struggling to remember the phrase "highly regarded," come
up with the awkward "highly looked upon" instead; which suggests that
the looker is placed in a high position, looking down, when what is
meant is that the looker is looking up to someone or something
admirable.

HIM, HER/HE, SHE

There is a group of personal pronouns to be used as subjects in a
sentence, including "he," "she," "I," and "we." Then there is a separate
group of object pronouns, including "him," "her," "me," and "us." The
problem is that the folks who tend to mix up the two sets often don't
find the subject/object distinction clear or helpful, and say things
like "Her and me went to the movies."

A simple test is to substitute "us" for "her and me." Would you say "us
went to the movies"? Obviously not. You'd normally say "we went to the
movies," so when "we" is broken into the two persons involved it becomes
"she and I went to the movies."

But you would say "the murder scene scared us," so it's correct to say
"the murder scene scared her and me."

If you aren't involved, use "they" and "them" as test words instead of
"we" and "us." "They won the lottery" becomes "he and she won the
lottery," and "the check was mailed to them" becomes "the check was
mailed to him and her."

See also "I/me/myself"

HINDI/HINDU

Hindi is a language. Hinduism is a religion, and its believers are
called "Hindus." Not all Hindus speak Hindi, and many Hindi-speakers are
not Hindus.

HIPPIE/HIPPY

A long-haired 60s flower child was a "hippie." "Hippy" is an adjective
describing someone with wide hips. The IE is not caused by a Y changing
to IE in the plural as in "puppy" and "puppies." It is rather a
dismissive diminutive, invented by older, more sophisticated hipsters
looking down on the new kids as mere "hippies." Confusing these two is
definitely unhip.

HISSELF/HIMSELF

In some dialects people say "hisself" for "himself," but this is
nonstandard.

AN HISTORIC/A HISTORIC

You should use "an" before a word beginning with an "H" only if the "H"
is not pronounced: "an honest effort"; it's properly "a historic event"
though many sophisticated speakers somehow prefer the sound of "an
historic," so that version is not likely to get you into any real
trouble.

HOARD/HORDE

A greedily hoarded treasure is a hoard. A herd of wildebeests or a mob
of people is a horde.

HOI POLLOI

Hoi polloi is Greek for "the common people," but it is often misused to
mean "the upper class" (does "hoi" make speakers think of "high" or
"hoity-toity"?). Some urge that since "hoi" is the article "the hoi
polloi" is redundant; but the general rule is that articles such as
"the" and "a" in foreign language phrases cease to function as such in
place names, brands, and catch phrases except for some of the most
familiar ones in French and Spanish, where everyone recognizes "la"--for
instance--as meaning "the." "The El Nino" is redundant, but "the hoi
polloi" is standard English.

HOLD YOUR PEACE/SAY YOUR PIECE

Some folks imagine that since these expressions are opposites, the last
word in each should be the same; but in fact they are unrelated
expressions. The first means "maintain your silence," and the other
means literally "speak aloud a piece of writing" but is used to express
the idea of making a statement.

HOLE/WHOLE

"Hole" and "whole" have almost opposite meanings. A hole is a lack of
something, like the hole in a doughnut (despite the confusing fact that
the little nubbins of fried dough are called "doughnut holes"). "Whole"
means things like entire, complete, and healthy and is used in
expressions like "the whole thing," "whole milk," "whole wheat," and
"with a whole heart."

HOLOCAUST

"Holocaust" is a Greek-derived translation of the Hebrew term "olah,"
which denotes a sort of ritual sacrifice in which the food offered is
completely burnt up rather than being merely dedicated to God and then
eaten. It was applied with bitter irony by Jews to the destruction of
millions of their number in the Nazi death camps. Although phrases like
"nuclear holocaust" and "Cambodian holocaust" have become common, you
risk giving serious offense by using the word in less severe
circumstances, such as calling a precipitous decline in stock prices a
"sell-off holocaust."

HOME PAGE

On the World Wide Web, a "home page" is normally the first page a person
entering a site encounters, often functioning as a sort of table of
contents for the other pages. People sometimes create special pages
within their sites introducing a particular topic, and these are also
informally called "home pages" (as in "The Emily Dickinson Home Page");
but it is a sure sign of a Web novice to refer to all Web pages as home
pages.

HOMOPHOBIC

Some object to this word--arguing that it literally means "man-fearing,"
but the "homo" in "homosexual" and in this word does not refer to the
Latin word for "man," but is derived from a Greek root meaning "same"
while the "-phobic" means literally "having a fear of," but in English
has come to mean "hating." "Homophobic" is now an established term for
"prejudiced against homosexuals."

HONE IN/HOME IN

You home in on a target (the center of the target is "home"). "Honing"
has to do with sharpening knives, not aim.

HORS D'OEUVRES

If you knew only a little French, you might interpret this phrase as
meaning "out of work," but in fact it means little snack foods served
before or outside of ("hors") the main dishes of a meal (the "oeuvres").
English speakers have trouble mastering the sounds in this phrase, but
it is normally rendered "or-DERVES," in a rough approximation of the
original. Mangled spellings like "hors' dourves" are not uncommon.
Actually, many modern food writers have decided we needn't try to wrap
our tongues around this peculiar foreign phrase and now prefer
"starters." They are also commonly called "appetizers."

HOW COME/WHY

"How come?" is a common question in casual speech, but in formal
contexts use "why?"

HOW TO/HOW CAN I

You can ask someone how to publish a novel; but when you do, don't write
"How to publish a novel?" Instead ask "How can I publish a novel?" or
"How does someone publish a novel?" If you're in luck, the person you've
asked will tell you how to do it. "How to" belongs in statements, not
questions.

HUNDREDS/CENTURY

"Eighteen hundreds," "sixteen hundreds" and so forth are not exactly
errors; the problem is that they are used almost exclusively by people
who are nervous about saying "nineteenth century" when, after all, the
years in that century begin with the number eighteen. This should be
simple: few people are unclear about the fact that this is the
twenty-first century even though our dates begin with twenty. For most
dates you can just add one to the second digit in a year and you've got
the number of its century. It took a hundred years to get to the year
100, so the next hundred years, which are named "101," "102," etc. were
in the second century. This also works BC. The four hundreds BC are the
fifth century BC. Using phrases like "eighteen hundreds" is a signal to
your readers that you are weak in math and history alike.

HYPHENATION

The Chicago Manual of Style contains a huge chart listing various sorts
of phrases that are or are not to be hyphenated. Consult such a
reference source for a thorough-going account of this matter, but you
may be able to get by with a few basic rules. An adverb/adjective
combination in which the adverb ends in "-LY" is never hyphenated: "His
necktie reflected his generally grotesque taste." Other sorts of adverbs
are followed by a hyphen when combined with an adjective: "His
long-suffering wife finally snapped and fed it through the office
shredder." The point here is that "long" modifies "suffering," not
"wife." When both words modify the same noun, they are not hyphenated. A
"light-green suitcase" is pale in color, but a "light green suitcase" is
not heavy. In the latter example "light" and "green" both modify
"suitcase," so no hyphen is used.

Adjectives combined with nouns having an "-ED" suffix are hyphenated:
"Frank was a hot-headed cop."

Hyphenate ages when they are adjective phrases involving a unit of
measurement: "Her ten-year-old car is beginning to give her trouble." A
girl can be a "ten-year-old" ("child" is implied). But there are no
hyphens in such an adjectival phrase as "Her car is ten years old." In
fact, hyphens are generally omitted when such phrases follow the noun
they modify except in phrases involving "all" or "self" such as
"all-knowing" or "self-confident." Fractions are almost always
hyphenated when they are adjectives: "He is one-quarter Irish and
three-quarters Nigerian." But when the numerator is already hyphenated,
the fraction itself is not, as in "ninety-nine and forty-four one
hundredths." Fractions treated as nouns are not hyphenated: "He ate one
quarter of the turkey."

A phrase composed of a noun and a present participle ("-ing" word) must
be hyphenated: "The antenna had been climbed by thrill-seeking teenagers
who didn't realize the top of it was electrified."

These are the main cases in which people are prone to misuse hyphens. If
you can master them, you will have eliminated the vast majority of such
mistakes in your writing. Some styles call for space around dashes (a
practice of which I strongly disapprove), but it is never proper to
surround hyphens with spaces, though in the following sort of pattern
you may need to follow a hyphen with a space: "Stacy's pre- and post-
haircut moods."

HYPHENS & DASHES

Dashes are longer than hyphens, but since some browsers do not reliably
interpret the code for dashes, they are usually rendered on the Web as
they were on old-fashioned typewriters, as double hyphens--like that.
Dashes tend to separate elements and hyphens to link them. Few people
would substitute a dash for a hyphen in an expression like "a
quick-witted scoundrel," but the opposite is common. In a sentence like
"Astrud--unlike Inger--enjoyed vacations in Spain rather than England,"
one often sees hyphens incorrectly substituted for dashes.

When you are typing for photocopying or direct printing, it is a good
idea to learn how to type a true dash instead of the double hyphen
(computers differ). In old-fashioned styles, dashes (but never hyphens)
are surrounded by spaces -- like this. With modern computer output which
emulates professional printing, this makes little sense. Skip the spaces
unless your editor or teacher insists on them.

There are actually two kinds of dashes. The most common is the "em-dash"
(theoretically the width of a letter "M"--but this is often not the
case). To connect numbers, it is traditional to use an "en-dash" which
is somewhat shorter, but not as short as a hyphen: "cocktails 5-7 pm."
All modern computers can produce en-dashes, but few people know how to
type them. For most purposes you don't have to worry about them, but if
you are preparing material for print, you should learn how to use them.

HYPOCRITICAL

"Hypocritical" has a narrow, very specific meaning. It describes
behavior or speech that is intended to make one look better or more
pious than one really is. It is often wrongly used to label people who
are merely narrow-minded or genuinely pious. Do not confuse this word
with "hypercritical," which describes people who are picky.

HYSTERICAL/HILARIOUS

People say of a bit of humor or a comical situation that it was
"hysterical"--shorthand for "hysterically funny"--meaning "hilarious."
But when you speak of a man being "hysterical" it means he is having a
fit of hysteria, and that may not be funny at all.