Watch your “ads”

March 17th, 2009 at 07:00am Barry Wood

Webster’s includes more than a dozen Latin phrases beginning with “ad,” meaning “to, at, toward,” but only three of them are known well enough to be used in general writing.

Unfortunately, one of them is frequently misspelled: “ad nauseam.” Too often a “u” appears in place of the second “a” in “nauseam.” (The same mistaken substitution is all too common for the “a” in “in memoriam” as well.)

In English, “ad nauseam” means “to the point of disgust; to a sickening extreme.”

The other two common ones are “ad infinitum” (”endlessly; forever; without limit”) and “ad hoc” (”for a special case only, without general application”).

Note that a hyphen is not called for when using the latter: “an ad hoc committee.”

Two other “ad” phrases are worth a mention: “ad astra per aspera” (”to the stars through difficulties”), which is the state motto of Kansas; and “ad-lib,” an informal verb meaning “to improvise,” which is derived from the musical direction “ad libitum,” “at (one’s) pleasure; as one pleases.” In other words, “wing it.”

Entry Filed under: foreign phrases, word origins