Q: Is it proper to use nor by itself, or should it be used only as part of the phrase neither ... nor? And is the verb to disrespect proper, or should disrespect be used only as a noun?

A: The word nor can be used alone, as long as the clause it appears in does not contain another negative. For example, the following sentence is correct (although there is a negative in the preceding clause) because the clause in which nor appears contains no other negative: “She has broken no law, nor did she intend to.” But with a second negative in the nor clause, the sentence is ungrammatical: “She has broken no law, nor never intended to.”

The pairs neither ... nor and either ... or are similar grammatically, and they are both acceptable. When either pair connects two singular subjects, use a singular verb: “Neither a robin nor a bluebird has been in our bird-bath recently.” If both members of either pair are plural, use a plural verb: “Neither birds nor squirrels have visited our yard recently.”

But if one member of either pair is singular and the other is plural, you have a minor problem. In that case grammarians use the “rule of attraction,” which selects the number of the verb by the closer noun. For example, “Neither optimism nor blind hopes are helpful.” But suppose the sentence then constructed seems awkward. Just change the order of the nouns in the sentence to achieve a more satisfactory result. Suppose, for example, that your sentence was, “Neither memories nor rumor is reliable.” That sentence seems awkward to me, so I would change it to “Neither rumor nor memories are reliable.”

How about disrespect as a verb? As Attorney Judy Luby of Monterey Park, California, pointed out, the noun disrespect has been listed in dictionaries for a long time, but the verb is a relative newcomer. I don't know exactly when it entered English, but it was not listed in the 1985 edition of The American Heritage Dictionary. It does appear, however, in the 1993 edition of Webster's Third, so it was adopted as slang between those two dates. Currently it seems to be well-accepted and is probably considered standard usage. In fact, it is so widely used that the slang version diss is often substituted, “He dissed me.”

Q: In your April “Language Tips,” you mentioned redundancy. That reminded me of the annoying radio and television ads that advertise: “If you order (blank) right now, we will send you another (blank) FOR FREE! Isn't the word for redundant?

A: Yes, because the adjective free, by itself, means “for, or at no cost.” The advertisers know that as well as you do, but they hope to make extra sales by the added emphasis of the preposition.

Q: The word robust suddenly seems to have appeared everywhere. I saw it recently in The New York Times, in a speech in which President Bush called for “more robust action” by the Iraq government. What exactly did he mean by that?

A: Your question is better than my answer. There seems to be no unanimity about the current meanings of robust. In President Bush's speech, it appears to mean “more forceful,” the same meaning it had when a political critic of President Bush previously said that he wished Bush would urge the United Nations to take “more robust action” in Iraq.

The adjective robust has been in use for many years, but recently it has appeared in force with new meanings and has become a fad word. Originally, robust came from the Latin adjective ruber (“red”), and was first used in English in 1549 to describe a certain kind of reddish heartwood tree. So the first meaning of robust was “oaken.” Then robust expanded in meaning, describing any object that was hard or strong. Shakespeare used it in Hamlet, Act III, ii

Later robust added the senses of “vigorous” and “flourishing.” That expansion added healthful connotations to robust. It has that meaning in a 19^th century quotation: “The male form [is] more robust [than the female] and the bones more rugged.” Applied to people, animals, and plants, robust still often means not only “vigorous,” but also “healthy.” The antonym to robust was, and still is, “frail.”

Robust then expanded again, adding figurative meanings to the literal ones. It now can describe coffee and wine, as “robust, rich, and full of flavor.” Or robust can refer to characteristics able to withstand challenge or adversity; for example, “a robust faith,” or “a robust determination.” It also carries the sense of coarse and boisterous behavior, as in “a robust crowd of drunken fans.”

But when President Bush called for more robust action by Iraq, he seems to have been using robust to urge the Iraq military to be more effective, reducing the need for American troops. Perhaps he borrowed the adjective robust from Vice President Cheney's statement immediately after September 11, 2001, when Mr. Cheney said that “robust interrogation” was necessary to “extract intelligence from captured suspects.”

In that statement, Vice-President Cheney was putting a “spin” on the word robust. Animated by the belief that Al-Qaeda's destruction required immediate and strong emergency response, Mr. Cheney's call for “robust interrogation” seems to imply that to achieve that purpose, torture of suspects might be necessary. That meaning is far from the original meaning of robust.

So robust has a new meaning; it has become a euphemism for torture, so that spinmeisters can avoid a more truthful adjective. It thus joins the ranks of words like downsizing (firing) and earmarking (inserting into a bill at the last-minute an item benefitting only a few constituents). But when words become euphemisms to describe unpleasant situations, they often lose their previous unslanted meanings. So in future years, we may no longer be able to describe a healthy and vigorous person as “robust.”

Gertrude Block is Lecturer Emerita at the University of Florida College of Law. Her book ,”Legal Writing Advice: Questions and Answers” (William S. Hein & Co., Inc.) was published in December 2004. Ms. Block is also author of “Effective Legal Writing”, 5th Edition (Foundation Press), with an accompanying instructor's manual. She is co-author of the “Judicial Opinion Writing Manual” (published by the American Bar Association, 1991). Send questions to the ISBA Bar News – Language Tips, Illinois State Bar Association, Illinois Bar Center, Springfield, IL 62701, or e-mail her at block@law.ufl.edu.