Whatever your response, please let me know why so I can either bite the bullet or gloat in my intuitive knowledge. Thanks!

Thank you!

Authority: New York Public Library Writer's Guide to Style and Usage HarperCollins: New York. 1994. p. 155. Cited with permission.

(155).

Thank you for your help.

Gerald E. Smyth (Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan) reminds us that such discombobulations are known as "spoonerisms." For more on the Reverend Spooner's legacy to language, visit http://home.earthlink.net/~exw6sxq/excerpts/fxspoone.html.

Authority: Chicago Manual of Style 14th ed. U of Chicago P: Chicago. 1993. 373-375.

Authority: Understanding English Grammar by Martha Kolln. 4rth Edition. MacMillan Publishing Company: New York. 1994. 72.

I thought that "if" should be used when there is a degree of doubt, and "when" when there is no doubt. Consequently, it seems to me that is contradictory to use the expression "if and when" (implying that there exists both a doubt and no doubt?) -- Shoul dn't the author decide whether there's some doubt and then choose betwen "if" or "when" -- or perhaps, it would be logicial (albeit awkward) to use an expression such as "if OR when" instead?

Those who wish to uncouple the pair and use only if or only when are free to do so. But there are circumstances, it seems to me, when the conjoined pair has an independent value, and that is when its presence is required to reinforce the element of doubt.

Authority: The New Fowler's Modern English Usage edited by R.W. Burchfield. Clarendon Press: Oxford, England. 1996. Used with the permission of Oxford University Press.

The American Heritage Dictionary, on the other hand, has this citation regarding this distinction:

In formal usage, "compare to" is the only acceptable form when "compare" means representing as similar or likening, according to 71 per cent of the Usage Panel: "compare a voice to thunder." In such comparisons the similarities are often metaphorical rather than real; the things compared are of fundamentally unlike orders, and a general likeness is intended rather than a detailed accounting. "Compare with" is the only acceptable form in the sense of examining in order to note similarities or differences, according to 70 per cent of the Panel: "compare Sheldon's poetry with Wordsworth's." Here the things compared are of like kinds, and specific resemblances and differences are examined in detail. Informally, "to" and "with" are often used interchangeably in the foregoing examples. In formal usage, only "compare with" is acceptable when "compare" intransitively means being worthy of comparison, according to 94 per cent of the Panel: "Promises do not compare with deeds." In such constructions, "compare to" is infrequent, even in informal usage.

Some people are using the word "eponym" for this meaning. See The Database of American Proprietary Eponyms. Technically, I think the word would be applicable only if the word is based on someone's name, like "sandwich," but this is as close as I can get.

Clouds had gathered — whether by choice, by reason, or just by nature's beckoning — to bear witness to the maelstrom beneath.

Thanks for clearing up this little matter for me.

Authority: The New Fowler's Modern English Usage edited by R.W. Burchfield. Clarendon Press: Oxford, England. 1996. Used with the permission of Oxford University Press.