icide_. This is never a verb. "He suicided." Say, He killed
himself, or He took his own life. See _Commit Suicide_.

_Supererogation_. To supererogate is to overpay, or to do more than
duty requires. But the excess must be in the line of duty; merely
needless and irrelevant action is not supererogation. The word is not
a natural one, at best.

_Sure_ for _Surely_. "They will come, sure." Slang.

_Survive_ for _Live_, or _Persist_. Survival is an outliving, or
outlasting of something else. "The custom survives" is wrong, but a
custom may survive its utility. Survive is a transitive verb.

_Sustain_ for _Incur_. "He sustained an injury." "He sustained a
broken neck." That means that although his neck was broken he did not
yield to the mischance.

_Talented_ for _Gifted_. These are both past participles, but there
was once the verb to gift, whereas there was never the verb "to
talent." If Nature did not talent a person the person is not talented.

_Tantamount_ for _Equivalent_. "Apology is tantamount to confession."
Let this ugly word alone; it is not only illegitimate, but ludicrously
suggests catamount.

_Tasty_ for _Tasteful_. Vulgar.

_Tear Down_ for _Pull Down_. "The house was torn down." This is an
indigenous solecism; they do not say so in England.

_Than Whom_. See _Whom_.

_The_. A little word that is terribly overworked. It is needlessly
affixed to names of most diseases: "the cholera," "the smallpox," "the
scarlet fever," and such. Some escape it: we do not say, "the
sciatica," nor "the locomotor ataxia." It is too common in general
propositions, as, "The payment of interest is the payment of debt."
"The virtues that are automatic are the best." "The tendency to
falsehood should be checked." "Kings are not under the control of the
law." It is impossible to note here all forms of this misuse, but a
page of almost any book will supply abundant instance. We do not
suffer so abject slavery to the definite article as the French, but
neither do we manifest their spirit of rebellion by sometimes cutting
off the oppressor's tail. One envies the Romans, who had no article,
definite or indefinite.

_The Following_. "Washington wrote the following." The following what?
Put in the noun. "The following animals are ruminants." It is not the
animals that follow, but their names.

_The Same_. "They cooked the flesh of the lion and ate the same." "An
old man lived in a cave, and the same was a cripple." In humorou