Male. See [Female].
Marry. There has been some discussion, at one time and another, with regard to the use of this word. Is John Jones married to Sally Brown or with Sally Brown, or are they married to each other? Inasmuch as the woman loses her name in that of the man to whom she is wedded, and becomes a member of his family, not he of hers—inasmuch as, with few exceptions, it is her life that is merged in his—it would seem that, properly, Sally Brown is married to John Jones, and that this would be the proper way to make the announcement of their having been wedded, and not John Jones to Sally Brown.
There is also a difference of opinion as to whether the active or the passive form is preferable in referring to a person's wedded state. In speaking definitely of the act of marriage, the passive form is necessarily used with reference to either spouse. "John Jones was married to Sally Brown on Dec. 1, 1881"; not, "John Jones married Sally Brown" on such a date, for (unless they were Quakers) some third person married him to her and her to him. But, in speaking indefinitely of the fact of marriage, the active form is a matter of course. "Whom did John Jones marry?" "He married Sally Brown." "John Jones, when he had sown his wild oats, married [married himself, as the French say] and settled down." Got married is a vulgarism.
May. In the sense of can, may, in a negative clause, has become obsolete. "Though we may say a horse, we may not say a ox." The first may here is permissible; not so, however, the second, which should be can.
Meat. At table, we ask for and offer beef, mutton, veal, steak, turkey, duck, etc., and do not ask for nor offer meat, which, to say the least, is inelegant. "Will you have [not, take] another piece of beef [not, of the beef]?" not, "Will you have another piece of meat?"
Memorandum. The plural is memoranda, except when the singular means a book; then the plural is memorandums.
Mere. This word is not unfrequently misplaced, and sometimes, as in the following sentence, in consequence of being misplaced, it is changed to an adverb: "It is true of men as of God, that words merely meet with no response." What the writer evidently intended to say is, that mere words meet with no response.
Metaphor. An implied comparison is called a metaphor; it is a more terse form of expression than the simile. Take, for example, this sentence from Spenser's "Philosophy of Style": "As, in passing through the crystal, beams of white light are decomposed into the colors of the rainbow; so, in traversing the soul of the poet, the colorless rays of truth are transformed into brightly-tinted poetry." Expressed in metaphors, this becomes: "The white light of truth, in traversing the many-sided, transparent soul of the poet, is refracted into iris-hued poetry."
Worcester's definition of a metaphor is: "A figure of speech founded on the resemblance which one object is supposed to bear, in some respect, to another, or a figure by which a word is transferred from a subject to which it properly belongs to another, in such a manner that a comparison is implied, though not formally expressed; a comparison or simile comprised in a word; as, 'Thy word is a lamp to my feet.'" A metaphor differs from a simile in being expressed without any sign of comparison; thus, "the silver moon" is a metaphor; "the moon is bright as silver" is a simile. Examples:
"But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill."