Incorrect orthography. Orthography means “correct writing, or spelling.” “Incorrect orthography” is, therefore, equivalent to “incorrect correct writing.”
How for that. “I have heard how some critics have been pacified with claret and a supper.”
Directly, for as soon as. “Directly he came, I went away with him.”
Equally as well, for equally well. E.g., “It will do equally as well.”
Supplement, used as a verb. There is considerable authority for this use of the word; but it is a case where usage is clearly opposed to the very principles of the language.
Greet and greeting are often improperly used. A greeting is a salutation; to say, therefore, as newspaper reporters often do, that a speaker in the Legislature, or on the platform, was “greeted with hisses,” or “with groans,” is a decided “malapropism.”
To a degree is a phrase often used by English writers and speakers. E.g., “Mr. Gladstone is sensitive to a degree.” To what degree?
Farther for further. “Farther” is the comparative of far, and should be used in speaking of bodies relatively at rest; as, “Jupiter is farther from the earth than Mars.” “Further” is the comparative of “forth,” and should be used when motion is expressed; as “He ran further than you.”
Quite for very. E.g., In Mrs. Stowe’s “Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands,” we read: “The speeches were quite interesting”; “we had quite a sociable time up in the gallery”; and we are told that at Mrs. Cropper’s, “in the evening, quite a circle came in,” etc., etc. The true meaning of “quite” is completely, entirely.
Effluvium. The plural of this word is often used as if it meant bad odors; whereas an “effluvium” may be a stream either of pure air or of foul air,—of pure water or of impure, etc.