bound: This word may be the participial adjective of buā, prepare, or the past participle of bindan, bind. The words should not be confused. “I am bound to have it:” yes, if constrained or compelled; but no, if merely resolved. It is true that in the United States a colloquial usage to this effect has become popular, but it is none the less an error of speech.
bountiful, plentiful: Bountiful which originally meant “generous in bestowing gifts” has gradually come to mean “showing abundance,” “yielding in plenty.” In the latter sense it is synonymous with plentiful.
bourne: From the French borne, bourne (Latin bodina, limit), means that which marks the end, and hence the end or goal. It does not mean country which it is so often supposed to mean—presumedly from Hamlet’s “undiscovered country, from whose bourne no traveller returns.” Readers who on this authority construe bourne as country make the mistake of substituting the word “which” for the phrase “whose” bourne.
brand-new often incorrectly written bran-new. The original and etymologically correct form of this word is brand-new, from brand, meaning “fire” or “burning,” and new meaning “fresh”—the “fire-new” of Shakespeare (Twelfth Night, act. iii., sc. 2) is best explained by his own words, “fire-new from the mint,” meaning “fresh and bright” like a new coin, as being newly come from the fire and forge. Bran-new is a colloquialism.
brand of Cain: By a peculiar perversion of facts, this is invariably referred to as a stigma similar to the scarlet letter with which Hester Prynne was indeed branded. But the brand was an act of mercy and “a token of Divine protection,” for “the Lord set a mark on Cain, lest any finding him should slay him.”
bravery, courage: Inasmuch as the courageous may be without bravery and the brave without courage a careful discrimination should always be made in the use of these terms. Courage is rather a virtue of the mind, whereas bravery is temperamental. Your courage may ooze out, as it were, at the palms of your hands, but bravery which is instinctive, remains. For this reason bravery may often be misplaced, true courage—which ever seeks to do the right thing at the right time, regardless of results—never.
bred and born: An erroneous sequence of words. One is born before one is bred; therefore say “born and bred.”
brevity, conciseness: Words sometimes misused. Brevity is commonly applied to shortness of time, but it has the sanction of literary usage for conciseness or condensation of language into few words. A speech may be concise yet comprehensive; that is, it may cover the entire range of a subject in few words and as such be characterized by conciseness; another may be short in duration, the theme being one that does not permit of expansion and as such be characterized by brevity.
bring, carry, fetch: Discriminate carefully between these words. Bring expresses motion toward some person, place, or thing, and implies to bear from a distant place to one nearer; carry expresses motion away from; fetch expresses motion from a given place to another, as for the purpose of obtaining some article, and return to the given place with the article required. Go and fetch is pleonastic.