usage

n.

1. 1. The act, manner, or amount of using; use: the usage of a technical term; an instrument that measures water usage.
   2. The act or manner of treating; treatment: subjected the car to rough usage.
2. A usual, habitual, or accepted practice. See synonyms at habit.
3. The way in which words or phrases are actually used, spoken, or written in a speech community.
4. A particular expression in speech or writing: a nonce usage.

[Middle English, from Old French, from us, from Latin ūsus, from past participle of ūtī, to use.]

noun

1. The act of putting into play: application, employment, exercise, exertion, implementation, operation, play, use, utilization. See used/unused.
2. A quantity consumed: consumption, use. See give/take/reciprocity, used/unused.
3. A habitual way of behaving: consuetude, custom, habit, habitude, manner, practice, praxis, usance, use, way, wont. See usual/unusual.

This entry contains information applicable to United States law only.

A reasonable and legal practice in a particular location, or among persons in a specific business or trade, that is either known to the individuals involved or is well established, general, and uniform to such an extent that a presumption may properly be made that the parties acted with reference to it in their transactions.

The term usage refers to a uniform practice or course of conduct followed in certain lines of business or professions that is relied upon by the parties to a contractual transaction. A court will apply the usage of a business when it determines that doing so is necessary to resolve a contractual dispute. Ignoring usage may result in the misreading of a document and the intent of the parties who signed it.

The law has developed different forms of usage. Local usage refers to a practice or method of dealing regularly observed in a particular place. Under certain circumstances it may be considered by a court when interpreting a document. General usage is a practice that prevails generally throughout the country, or is followed generally by a given profession or trade, and is not local in its nature or observance.

A trade usage is the prevailing and accepted custom within a particular trade or industry and is not tied to a geographic location. The law assumes that merchants are aware of the usage of their trade. Trade usage supplements, qualifies, and imparts particular meaning to the terms of an agreement for the purpose of their interpretation.

The term custom and usage is commonly used in commercial law, but "custom" and "usage" can be distinguished. A usage is a repetition of acts whereas custom is the law or general rule that arises from such repetition. A usage may exist without a custom, but a custom cannot arise without a usage accompanying it or preceding it. Usage derives its authority from the assent of the parties to a transaction and is applicable only to consensual arrangements. Custom derives its authority from its adoption into the law and is binding regardless of any acts of assent by the parties. In modern law, however, the two principles are often merged into one by the courts.

A cynical view of the world by Ambrose Bierce

n.

The First Person of the literary Trinity, the Second and Third being Custom and Conventionality. Imbued with a decent reverence for this Holy Triad an industrious writer may hope to produce books that will live as long as the fashion.

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IN BRIEF: Accepted or habitual practice.

Manners are the happy ways of doing things; each one a stroke of genius or of love, now repeated and hardened into usage. — Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Even the best writers are sometimes troubled by questions of correct usage. A guide to some of the most common questions is provided here, with discussion of the following topics:

singular or plural	we (with phrase following)
-s plural or singular	I who, you who, etc.
comparison of adjectives and adverbs	you and I or you and me
nouns ending in -ics	collective nouns
group possessive	none (pronoun)
may or migh	as (followed by a pronoun)
I or me, we or us

singular or plural

1. When subject and complement are different in number (i.e., one is singular, the other plural), the verb normally agrees with the subject, e.g.,

(Plural subject)
Their wages were a mere pittance.
Liqueur chocolates are our specialty.

(The Biblical The wages of sin is death reflects an obsolete idiom in which wages took a singular verb.)

(Singular subject)
What we need is customers.
Our specialty is liqueur chocolates.

2. A plural word or phrase used as a name, title, or quotation counts as singular, e.g.,

Sons and Lovers has always been one of Lawrence’s most popular novels.

3. A singular phrase (such as a prepositional phrase following the subject) that happens to end with a plural word should nevertheless be followed by a singular verb, e.g.,

Everyone except the French wants (not want) Britain to join.
One in six has (not have) his problem.

See also -s plural or singular; nouns ending in –ics.

-s plural or singular

Some nouns, though they have the plural ending -s, are nevertheless usually treated as singular, taking singular verbs and pronouns referring back to them.

1. News	3. Games:	4. Countries:
2. Diseases:	billiards	the Bahamas
measles	dominoes	the Philippines
mumps	checkers	the Netherlands
rickets	craps	the United States
shingles	quoits
Measles and	darts
rickets can also be
treated as ordinary
plural nouns.

These are treated as singular when considered as a unit, which they commonly are in a political context, or when the complement is singular, e.g.,

The Philippines is a predominantly agricultural country.
The United States has withdrawn its ambassador.

The Bahamas and the Philippines are also the geographical names of the groups of islands that the two nations comprise, and in this use can be treated as plurals, e.g.,

The Bahamas were settled by British subjects.

See also nouns ending in -ics.

comparison of adjectives and adverbs

The two ways of forming the comparative and superlative of adjectives and adverbs are:

1. Addition of suffixes -er and -est. Monosyllabic adjectives and adverbs almost always require these suffixes, e.g., big (bigger, biggest), soon (sooner, soonest), and normally so do many adjectives of two syllables, e.g., narrow (narrower, narrowest), silly (sillier, silliest).

2. Use of adverbs more and most. These are used with adjectives of three syllables or more (e.g., difficult, memorable), participles (e.g., bored, boring), many adjectives of two syllables (e.g., afraid, awful, childish, harmless, static), and adverbs ending in -ly (e.g., highly, slowly).

Adjectives with two syllables sometimes use suffixes and sometimes use adverbs.

There are many that never take the suffixes, e.g.,

antique	bizarre
breathless	constant
futile	steadfast

There is also a large class that is acceptable with either, e.g.,

clever	pleasant
handsome	tranquil
solemn	cruel
common	polite

The choice is largely a matter of preference.

nouns ending in -ics

Nouns ending in -ics denoting subjects or disciplines are sometimes treated as singular and sometimes as plural. Examples are:

apologetics	mechanics
genetics	politics
optics	economics
classics (as a study)	metaphysics
phonetics	statistics
linguistics	electronics
mathematics	obstetrics
physics	tactics
dynamics	ethics

When used strictly as the name of a discipline they are treated as singular:

Psychometrics is unable to investigate the nature of intelligence.

So also when the complement is singular:

Mathematics is his strong point.

When used more loosely, to denote a manifestation of qualities, often accompa nied by a possessive, they are treated as plural:

His politics were a mixture of fear, greed, and envy.
I don’t understand the mathematics of it, which are complicated.
The acoustics in this hall are dreadful.

So also when they denote a set of activities or pattern of behavior, as with words like:

acrobatics	athletics
dramatics	gymnastics
heroics	hysterics

E.g., The mental gymnastics required to believe this are beyond me.

group possessive

The group possessive is the construction by which the ending -’s of the possessive case can be added to the last word of a noun phrase, which is regarded as a single unit, e.g.,

The king of Spain’s daughter
John and Mary’s baby
Somebody else’s umbrella
A quarter of an hour’s drive

Expressions like these are natural and acceptable.

I or me, we or us, etc.

There is often confusion about which case of a personal pronoun to use when the pronoun stands alone or follows the verb to be.

1. When the personal pronoun stands alone, as when it forms the answer to a question, strictly formal usage requires it to have the case it would have if the verb were supplied:

” Who called him?” “I” (in full, I called him or I did).
“Which of you did he approach?” “Me” (in full, he approached me).

Informal usage permits the objective case in both kinds of sentence, but this is not acceptable in formal style. However, the nominative case often sounds stilted. One can avoid the problem by providing a verb, e.g.,

“Who likes cooking?” “I do.”
“Who can cook?” “I can.”
“Who is here?” “I am.”

2. When a personal pronoun follows it is, it was, it may be, it could have been, etc., formal usage requires the nominative case:

Nobody could suspect that it was she.
We are given no clues as to what it must have felt like to be he.

Informal usage favors the objective case (not acceptable in formal style):

I thought it might have been him at the door.
Don’t tell me it’s them again!

When who or whom follows, the nominative case is obligatory in formal usage and quite usual informally:

It was I who painted that sign.

The informal use of the objective case often sounds incorrect:

It was her who would get into trouble.

In constructions that have the form I am+ noun or noun phrase + who, the verb following who agrees with the noun (the antecedent of who) in number (singular or plural):

I am the sort of person who likes peace and quiet.
You are the fourth of my colleagues who has told me that.

may or might

There is sometimes confusion about whether to use may or might with the perfect tense when referring to a past event, e.g., He may have done or He might have done.

1. If uncertainty about the action or state denoted by the perfect remains – that is, if the truth of the event is still unknown at the time of speaking or writing— then either may or might is acceptable:

As they all wore so many different clothes of identically the same kind, there may have been several more or several less.
For all we knew our complaint went unanswered, although of course they might have tried to call us while we were out of town.

2. If there is no longer uncertainty about the event, or the matter was never put to the test, and therefore the event did not in fact occur, use might:

If that had come ten days ago my whole life might have been different.
You should not have let him come home alone; he might have gotten lost.

It is a common error to use may instead of might in the following circumstances:

If they had not invaded, then eventually we may have agreed to give them aid.
I am grateful for his intervention, without which they may have remained in the refugee camp indefinitely.
Schoenberg may never have gone atonal but for the breakup of his marriage.

In each of these sentences “might” should be substituted for “may.”

we (with phrase following)

Expressions consisting of we or us followed by a qualifying word or phrase, e.g., we Americans or us Americans, are often misused with the wrong case of the first person plural pronoun. In fact the rules are exactly the same as for we or us standing alone.

If the expression is the subject, we should be used:

(Correct) We were not always laughing as heartily as we Americans are supposed to do.
(Incorrect) We all make mistakes, even us judges.

If the expression is the object or the complement of a preposition, us should be used:

(Correct) To us Americans, personal liberty is a vital principle.
(Incorrect) The president said some nice things about we reporters in the press corps.

I who, you who, etc.

The verb following a personal pronoun (I, you, he, etc.) + who should be the same as what would be used with the pronoun as a subject:

I, who have no savings to speak of, had to pay for the work.
They made me, who have no savings at all, pay for the work (not “who has”).

When it is (it was, etc.) precedes I who, etc., the same rule applies: the verb agrees with the personal pronoun:

It’s I who have done it.
It could have been we who were mistaken.

you and I or you and me

When a personal pronoun is linked by and or or to a noun or another pronoun, there is often confusion about which case to put the pronoun in. In fact the rule is exactly as it would be for the pronoun standing alone.

1. If the two words linked by and or or constitute the subject, the pronoun should be in the nominative case, e.g.,

Only she and her mother cared for the old house.
That’s what we would do, that is, John and I would.
”Who could go?” ”Either you or he.”

The use of the objective case is quite common in informal speech, but it is non-standard, e.g.,

Perhaps only her and Mrs. Natwick had stuck to the christened name.
That’s how we look at it, me and Martha.
Either Mary had to leave or me.

2. If the two words linked by and or or constitute the object of the verb, or the complement of a preposition, the objective case should be used:

The afternoon would suit her and John better.
It was time for Kenneth and me to go down to the living room.

The use of the nominative case is very common informally. It probably arises from an exaggerated fear of the error indicated under 1 above. It remains, however, nonstandard, e.g.,

It was this that set Charles and I talking of old times.
Why is it that people like you and I are so unpopular?
Between you and I . . .

This last expression is very commonly heard. Between you and me should always be substituted.

collective nouns

Collective nouns are singular words that denote many individuals, e.g., audience, government, orchestra, the clergy, the public.

It is normal for collective nouns, being singular, to be followed by singular verbs and pronouns (is, has, consists, and it in the examples below):

The government is determined to beat inflation, as it has promised.
Their family is huge: it consists of five boys and three girls.
The bourgeoisie is despised for not being proletarian.

The singular verb and pronouns are preferable unless the collective is clearly and unmistakably used to refer to separate individuals rather than to a united body, e.g.,

The cabinet has made its decision.

but

The cabinet are sitting at their places around the table with the president.

The singular should always be used if the collective noun is qualified by a singular word like this, that, every, etc.:

This family is divided.
Every team has its chance to win.

none (pronoun)

The pronoun none can be followed either by singular verb and singular pronouns, or by plural ones. Either is acceptable, although the plural tends to be more common.

Singular: None of them was allowed to forget for a moment.
Plural: None of the orchestras ever play there.
None of the authors expected their books to become best-sellers.

as (followed by a pronoun)

In the following sentences, formal usage requires the nominative case (I, he, she, we, they) on the assumption that the pronoun would be the subject if a verb were supplied:

You are just as intelligent as he (in full, “as he is”).
He might not have heard the song so often as I (in full, “as I had”).

Informal usage permits such constructions as

You are just as intelligent as him.

Formal English uses the objective case (me, him, her, us, them) only when the pronoun would be the object if a verb were supplied:

I thought you preferred John to Mary, but I see that you like her just as much as him (meaning “just as much as you like him”).

Kirkpatrick, E.M. The Oxford Essential Thesaurus. New York: Berkeley, 1998.

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Common misspelling(s) of usage

• useage

Dansk (Danish)
n. - brug, anvendelse

Nederlands (Dutch)
gebruik, gewoonte, taalgebruik, behandeling

Français (French)
n. - usage, coutume, (Ling) usage, utilisation, consommation

Deutsch (German)
n. - Brauch, Behandlung, Sprachgebrauch, Anwendung

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - συνήθης αντιμετώπιση ή μεταχείριση, μακρά συνήθεια, χρήση, χρήση (γλώσσας)

Italiano (Italian)
costume, consuetudine, uso, linguaggio

Português (Portuguese)
n. - emprego (m), costume (m), uso (m)

Русский (Russian)
обхождение (с кем-л. или чем-л.), обыкновение, употребление, словоупотребление, обычай

Español (Spanish)
n. - costumbre, usanza, tratos, uso, tratamiento, uso común

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - behandling, hantering, språkbruk, bruk, sed, skick, användning

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
用法, 习惯, 使用

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 用法, 習慣, 使用

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 관습, 용법, 어법

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 使用, 待遇, 慣用法, 用法, 慣習

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) استعمال, عرف, معامله‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮שימוש, השתמשות, נוהג, דפוסי-התנהגות, שימוש-הלשון‬

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