Rob and steal vie for ideal identities while enormousness head-butts enormity.

Here is an Associated Press story lede that ran hereabouts late last summer. Any observations?

"A sudden blackout robbed electricity from millions of people across a vast swath of the northern United States and southern Canada...." Quoth the AP Stylebook 2003: "Larceny is the legal term for the wrongful taking of property. Its nonlegal equivalents are stealing or theft.

"Robbery in the legal sense involves the use of violence or threat in committing larceny....

"USAGE NOTE: You rob a person, bank, house, etc., but you steal the money or the jewels."

In the AP piece, it seems to this workstation the utility company was robbed of its product--electricity--which ipso facto was stolen from the consumers.

The mail has brought me Time magazine's Readers' Advisory Survey fresh from the "office of the vice president in Rockefeller Center, New York, N.Y." Well, it's 'readers' on the letterhead and on the face of the postage-paid return envelope, but the opening sentence on the cover letter proves that Time's proofreaders can nod just like anyone else:

"ALDEN WOOD ... You are among a group of Time subscriber's who've been selected (to join in a survey)."

Subscriber's, eh? I feel by Time possessed. Bag that apostrophe.

Faithful contributor Kathleen Much, who labors in the shadow of fair Stanford out on that other ocean, was perusing her Sept/Oct CW when she spotted the following phrase on page 33: "stresses the enormity of the Panama Canal."

E-mailed my respected colleague, "Eeeek. No editor on duty? The Panama Canal is a GOOD thing, not a terrible one. 'Vastness', 'huge size', or even 'enormousness' would work here. Not 'enormity'."

CW Editor Natasha Spring said using enormity as demonstrated on p. 33 "has gained acceptance (although) it is indeed not the preferred word." Spring quotes The New Oxford American Dictionary as her resource.

In other venues, support pales. The usage note in American Heritage Dictionary says "Enormity is frequently used to refer simply to the property of being great in size or extent, but many would prefer that enormousness (or a synonym such as immensity) be used for this general sense and that enormity be limited to situations that demand a negative moral judgment, as in Not until the war ended and journalists were able to enter Cambodia did the world really become aware of the enormity of Pol Pot's oppression. Fifty-nine percent of the (AHD) Usage Panel rejects the use of enormity as a synonym for immensity in the sentence, At that point the engineers sat down to design an entirely new viaduct, apparently undaunted by the enormity of their task. This distinction between enormity and enormousness has not always existed historically, but nowadays many observe it. Writers who ignore the distinction, as in the enormity of the President's election victory, or the enormity of her inheritance, may find that their words have cast unintended aspersions or evoked unexpected laughter."

Encarta World English Dictionary displays a "Word Key: Usage: Enormity or enormousness? Enormity is the older word, and after several changes in usage over several centuries, it settled down in the 19th century in the meaning associated with evil. It is used in this way both as a concept or attribute and as a concrete word with a plural form: 'We were shocked by the enormity of the crime. The regime committed many enormities to suppress opposition.' Enormousness is the only word in this pair that refers, in correct usage, to significant size: We were daunted by the enormousness of the task."

Ya Gotta Learn the Lingo: Jeffrey Zaslow's Wall Street Journal column, Moving On, recently reflected on combat veterans' experiences. One event related how "a U.S. corporal slammed the butt of his carbine rifle into the chest of one of the captured Germans."

Dictionaries agree that the carbine is a short-barreled lightweight repeating rifle used as a supplementary military arm or for hunting in dense growth brush. Carbine or rifle ... either is correct, but the combination misses the mark.

Alden Wood, professor emeritus at Simmons College, Boston, Mass., USA, writes and lectures on language usage. He is a retired insurance industry vice president of advertising and public relations, His e-dress is [e-mail].