Re: Technical Grammar Peeves

[keith bradshaw <Keith.G.Bradshaw@soc.soton.ac.uk>]

At 10:10 AM 5/27/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Falo Gerald A CHPPM wrote:
>
>> I've restrained myself for a while now, but I've noticed several annoying
>> grammatical trends cropping up in many publications., including technical
>> articles.
>>
>> The first is the use of the word "reference" as a verb;
>
>Gerald, evidently you have a hard time reading technical reports being so
anal.
>Here is what the American Heritage Dictionary says about the use of
>"referenced":
>
(SNIP)

 --ref·er·ence tr.v. ref·er·enced,
>ref·er·enc·ing, ref·er·ences. 1. To supply references to: “Our memories are
>addressed and referenced . . . by significant fragments of their own content”
>(Frederick Turner). 

2. To mention in a reference; refer to: He referenced her
>book in his speech. See Usage Note at  allude. --ref“er·enc·er n.
>--ref”er·en“tial (-…-rµn“sh…l) adj. --ref”er·en“tial·ly adv.
>
>Evidently it can be used as a verb if you desire to.


Perhaps I'm anal but I agree with Gerald. 'He referenced her book in his
speech' sounds slightly like jargon. 'He refered to her book..' sounds
better to me. Why use 'referenced' when in our context, most of the time,
we could use 'cited'? What's the 'Usage Note at allude'?.