An executive session of a deliberative body is a session for executive business, as distinguished from legislative. It is commonly secret, but a secret session is not necessarily executive.

"I expect he will go." Say, I believe (suppose or think) he will go; or, I expect him to go.

The former word is frequently used, even in laws and ordinances, as a euphemism for the latter. It not only means something entirely different, but to one with a Latin ear is far more offensive.

"The sinner experienced a change of heart." This will do if said lightly or mockingly. It does not indicate a serious frame of mind in the speaker.

"He extended an invitation." One does not always hold out an invitation in one's hand; it may be spoken or sent.

"He failed to note the hour." That implies that he tried to note it, but did not succeed. Failure carries always the sense of endeavor; when there has been no endeavor there is no failure. A falling stone cannot fail to strike you, for it does not try; but a marksman firing at you may fail to hit you; and I hope he always will.

"The child favors its father."

"The doctor felt of the patient's head." "Smell of" and "taste of" are incorrect too.

"A feminine member of the club." Feminine refers, not to sex proper, but to gender, which may be defined as the sex of words. The same is true of masculine.

Fetching includes, not only bringing, but going to get – going for and returning with. You may bring what you did not go for.

"His financial reward"; "he is financially responsible," and so forth.

If this word could mean anything it would mean firstlike, whatever that might mean. The ordinal numbers should have no adverbial form: "firstly," "secondly," and the rest are words without meaning.

This is, in America, a word-of-all-work, most frequently meaning repair, or prepare. Do not so use it.

The word is sometimes spelled forbears, a worse spelling than the other, but not much. If used at all it should be spelled forebeers, for it means those who have been before. A forebe-er is one who fore-was. Considered in any way, it is a senseless word.

For this abominable word we are indebted to the weather bureau – at least it was not sent upon us until that affliction was with us. Let us hope that it may some day be losted from the language.

Indicating the first and the second of things previously named, these words are unobjectionable if not too far removed from the names that they stand for. If they are they confuse, for the reader has to look back to the names. Use them sparingly.

Tautological. Say, obsequies; the word is now used in none but a funereal sense.

"After many preliminary examinations he was fully committed for trial." The adverb is meaningless: a defendant is never partly committed for trial. This is a solecism to which lawyers are addicted. And sometimes they have been heard to say "fullied."

"He was out of funds." Funds are not money in general, but sums of money or credit available for particular purposes.

"Taxation furnished the money." A pauper may furnish a house if some one will provide the furniture, or the money to buy it. "His flight furnishes a presumption of guilt." It supplies it.

"The winds are generally high." "A fool is generally vain." This misuse of the word appears to come of abbreviating: Generally speaking, the weather is bad. A fool, to speak generally, is vain.

Vulgar exceedingly.

This word, meaning polite, or well mannered, was once in better repute than it is now, and its noun, gentility, is still not infrequently found in the work of good writers. Genteel is most often used by those who write, as the Scotchman of the anecdote joked – wi' deeficulty.

It is not possible to teach the correct use of this overworked word: one must be bred to it. Everybody knows that it is not synonymous with man, but among the "genteel" and those ambitious to be thought "genteel" it is commonly so used in discourse too formal for the word "gent." To use the word gentleman correctly, be one.

"A genuine document," "a genuine surprise," and the like.

"The soldier was given a rifle." What was given is the rifle, not the soldier. "The house was given a coat (coating) of paint." Nothing can be "given" anything.

In this country goatee is frequently used for a tuft of beard on the point of the chin – what is sometimes called "an imperial," apparently because the late Emperor Napoleon III wore his beard so. His Majesty the Goat is graciously pleased to wear his beneath the chin.

If this is correct we should say, also, "got dead" for died; one expression is as good as the other.

This has gone out of good use, though in such compounded words as begotten and misbegotten it persists respectably.

"A gratuitous assertion." Gratuitous means without cost.

Used chiefly by newspaper reporters; as, "He was subjected to a grueling cross-examination." "It was grueling weather." Probably a corruption of grilling.