Page:The king's English (IA kingsenglish00fowlrich).pdf/73

Rh Thrills which gave him rather a unique pleasure.—.

A very unique child, thought I.—.

...is to be translated into Russian by M. Robert Boker, of St. Petersburg. This is a somewhat unique thing to happen to an English textbook.—Westminster Gazette.  To aggravate is not to annoy or enrage (a person), but to make worse (a condition or trouble). The active participle should very rarely, and the rest of the active practically never, be used without an expressed object, and that of the right kind. In the sentence, An aggravating circumstance was that the snow was dirty, the meaning is not that the dirt was annoying, but that it added to some other misery previously expressed or implied. But, as the dirt happens to be annoying also, this use is easily misunderstood, and is probably the origin of the notorious vulgarism; since it almost inevitably lays a writer open to suspicion, it is best avoided. Of the following quotations, the first is quite correct, the other four as clearly wrong; in the last, aggrieved would be the right word.

A premature initiative would be useless and even dangerous, being calculated rather to aggravate than to simplify the situation.—Times.

Perhaps the most trying and aggravating period of the whole six months during which the siege has lasted was this period of enforced idleness waiting for the day of entry.—Times.

There is a cold formality about the average Englishman; a lack of effusive disposition to ingratiate himself, and an almost aggravating indifference to alien customs or conventions.—Times.

Mrs. Craigie may possibly be regarding him with an irony too fine for us to detect; but to the ordinary mind he appears to be conceived in the spirit of romance, and a very stupid, tiresome, aggravating man he is.—Times.

'Well, I'm sure I'm very much obliged to you. Misses Brown,' said the unfortunate youth, greatly aggravated.—.

Nevertheless, it is an aggravating book, though we are bound to admit that we have been greatly interested.—Westminster Gazette. 