Your Grammar & Usage

[Slug]

That's it! 

Oh Red Pen.
Come here boy. Good boy. sic!

A lot, not ALOT, a lot, two words, not one, TWO! Got it? 
GOT IT!!!!


USAGE NOTE: When referring to the massive destruction of
human beings by other human beings, holocaust has a secure
place in the language. Fully 99 percent of the Usage Panel
accepts the use of holocaust in the phrase nuclear
holocaust. Sixty percent accepts the sentence As many as two
million people may have died in the holocaust that followed
the Khmer Rouge takeover in Cambodia. But because of its
associations with genocide, extended applications of
holocaust may not always be received with equanimity. When
the word is used to refer to death brought about by natural
causes, the percentage of the Panel's acceptance drops
sharply. Only 31 percent of the Panel accepts the sentence
In East Africa five years of drought have brought about a
holocaust in which millions have died. Just 11 percent
approved the use of holocaust to summarize the effects of
the AIDS epidemic. This suggests that other figurative
usages such as the huge losses in the Savings and Loan
holocaust may be viewed as overblown or in poor taste.
WORD HISTORY: Totality of destruction has been central to
the meaning of holocaust since it first appeared in Middle
English in the 14th century and referred to the biblical
sacrifice in which a male animal was wholly burnt on the
altar in worship of God. Holocaust comes from Greek
holokauston (“that which is completely burnt”), which was a
translation of Hebrew ôlâ (literally “that which goes up,”
that is, in smoke). In this sense of “burnt sacrifice,”
holocaust is still used in some versions of the Bible. In
the 17th century the meaning of holocaust broadened to
“something totally consumed by fire,” and the word
eventually was applied to fires of extreme destructiveness.
In the 20th century holocaust has taken on a variety of
figurative meanings, summarizing the effects of war,
rioting, storms, epidemic diseases, and even economic
failures. Most of these usages arose after World War II, but
it is unclear whether they permitted or resulted from the
use of holocaust in reference to the mass murder of European
Jews and others by the Nazis. This application of the word
occurred as early as 1942, but the phrase the Holocaust did
not become established until the late 1950's. Here it
parallels and may have been influenced by another Hebrew
word, sho’ah (“catastrophe”). In the Bible sho’ah has a
range of meanings including “personal ruin or devastation”
and “a wasteland or desert.” Sho’ah was first used to refer
to the Nazi slaughter of Jews in 1939, but its phrase
ha-sho’ah (“the catastrophe”) only became established after
World War II. Holocaust has also been used to translate
hurban (“destruction”), another Hebrew word used to
summarize the genocide of Jews by the Nazis. This sense of
holocaust has since broadened to include the mass slaughter
of other peoples, but when capitalized it refers
specifically to the destruction of Jews and other Europeans
by the Nazis and may also encompass the Nazi persecution of
Jews that preceded the outbreak of the war.

The slugish GrughMaryAnne