The Penguin Dictionary of American English Usage and Style_4

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The Penguin Dictionary of American English Usage and Style_4140 fortunate that state that, if we provide treat- steps and doffed his hat just as the boy ment for infants and children, we on the bicycle returned holding up a must provide for their education if tube triumphantly. Never had so they are hospitalized for long periods many fortuitous omens graced us at of time,” E—— said. once.The administrator was mixed up and the This time “fortuitous” would well be re-reporter probably was too. They may placed by favorable.have confused “fortuitous” with a com- An adverb related to fortuitous is for-bination of felicitous, meaning apt or ap- tuitously. A related noun is fortuitous-propriate, and fortunate, meaning lucky. ness.Either word would have been a better FORTUNATE. See FORTUITOUS.choice than “fortuitous.” That which is fortuitous may be inter- FORTUNE. See DESTINY.preted as appropriate or inappropriate,lucky or unlucky. Natural disasters are FORWARD and BACK (time).fortuitous. Like felicitous, it is a four-syllable word beginning with f and end- When daylight-saving time arrives ining with -itous. It shares the first five the spring, we are advised to move ourletters of fortunate. Otherwise fortuitous clocks “forward” one hour; that is,has little in common with the other two move them in the direction in whichadjectives. The Latin equivalents and an- clocks automatically move. Turning thecestors of fortuitous and fortunate are clock “back,” say from 2 a.m. to 1 a.m.,fortuitus and fortunatus, which in the is what we are advised to do in the falldistant past evidently had a common when standard time returns. The mne-root in fors, chance, luck. monic “Spring forward, fall back” does A book by two scientific writers ap- not help some people, who misunder-pears to suggest that accident and uncer- stand those adverbs and arrive at placestainty pervade the universe. The two hours late or two hours early.components of such a universe could An announcing of a shift in time re-truly be called fortuitous. In the follow- quires caution. The new hour or dateing example, no problem appears up to needs to be stated precisely.the second comma. The manager of a television station decided to start its network programs at For some people, the exceedingly 7 p.m. instead of 8 p.m. A newspaper re- fortuitous arrangement of the physi- ported that she was “moving prime time cal world, which permits the very spe- forward one hour.” cial conditions necessary to human Sometimes forward (as an adjective) observers’ existence, confirms their can indeed mean early: “A forward con- belief in a creative Designer. tingent is on its way.” But forward (as an adverb) can refer also to the future:In this example, felicitous would itself be “From this day forward” / “I look for-more felicitous than “fortuitous.” Fortu- ward to the party.” Similarly, back cannate also would pass muster. suggest an earlier time to some (“Think A similar problem appears in another back to your school days”), a later timebook, by a traveler telling about car to others (who may recall the movietrouble in Africa. Back to the Future). If a meeting originally scheduled for Within a few moments, the engine May 3 is postponed, or put off, to May fired. The mechanic danced a few 10, is it moved “ahead” one week? The frankenstein 141future lies ahead, but three comes ahead speech. That fact may acquit the tele-of ten. Stating the new date avoids con- caster of verbal malfeasance but not offusion. verbosity. Obviously $30,000 is a frac- tion of $250,000. Had he made a calcu-FORWARD and FOREWORD. lation and reported, “It’s a mere 12See FOREWORD and FORWARD. percent of the $250,000,” at least he would be imparting information.FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS. A press example also deals with Rus-See WHO and WHOM, 1. sia:FOUNDATION, FUNDAMEN- . . . The total of about 7,000 work-TAL, and FUN ...