event: Care should be exercised in the use of this word. It means strictly a happening; that which happens or comes to pass as distinguished from a thing that exists. In interlocutory proceedings a defendant was granted costs (which happened to be considerable) in any event. The plaintiff was shrewd enough to drop all further proceedings, and consequently there was no event so the heavy costs which he would have had to pay fell upon his opponent.
eventuate: Although some writers condemn the use of this word as a synonym for “happen” the use is recorded by modern dictionaries and may be considered good English. Originally and in a restricted sense eventuate meant “to culminate in some result”; now, it means also “to be the issue of.”
even up: A slang expression much used in the South and West to signify “get even with; exact compensation from”: an undesirable phrase.
ever: Where ever is intended to be used as an adverb of degree and not an adverb of time, it is improper to substitute never (not ever) for the word. If the substitution be made, it must be with the understanding that the thought of the sentence is changed from degree to time. “If he run ever so well, he can not win” is not correctly expressed by “If he run never so well,” etc., unless the thought intended to be conveyed is “If he run, and run so well, as never in his life before, he can not win.” The tendency has been to use both ever so and never so loosely and vaguely.
ever so: The phrases ever so great, little, much, many, etc., meaning “very” or “exceedingly great,” etc., may be carefully discriminated from never so great, little, etc., meaning “inconceivably great, little,” etc. Compare [NEVER SO].
every: A collective pronominal singular that is sometimes incorrectly used with a verb in the plural. Do not say “Every passenger of the two hundred aboard were detained at the dock.” Say, rather, “Every passenger ... was detained.”
every confidence: The phrase is objected to by some critics on the ground that “every is distributive, referring to a number of things that may be considered separately, while confidence is used as a mass-noun.” The adjective, therefore, as signifying all or entire, is not permitted, though the phrase is accepted by many as being elliptical, the words “sort of” being understood after every; but implicit confidence is a preferable phrase.
every which way: A pleonastic colloquialism for “every way”; “in all directions”; either of which phrases may be used in preference.
evidence, testimony: These words are often used as if they were interchangeable. Greenleaf says “Testimony, from the Latin, testis, a witness, is, however, only a species of evidence through the medium of witnesses. The word evidence, in legal acceptation, includes all the means by which any alleged matter of fact, the truth of which is submitted to investigation, is established or disproved.” (Evidence, vol. i. ch. 1, p. 3.) Again “Evidence rests upon our faith in human testimony, as sanctioned by experience” (vol. i. ch. 10, p. 70). We may have the testimony of a traveler that a fugitive passed his way; but his footprints in the sand are evidence of the fact.
evident. Compare [APPARENT].