Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Healthy/Healthful:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_08_09-2009_08_15.shtml#1250082411
A commenter on the [1]reference to President's daughters thread
writes:
The grammar seems more troublesome than the mention, without name
or likeness, of the President's daughters.
I am open to education or correction, but would not "healthful"
(instead of "healthy") lunches for students be the proper usage as
well as a worthy goal?
Fortunately, a standard reference source gives the answer. If you go
to [2]dictionary.com, you'll see that in both the Random House entry
and the American Heritage entry, "healthy" is given as a synonym for
"healthful." And as a special bonus, the American Heritage entry is
followed by this Usage Note:
The distinction in meaning between healthy ("possessing good
health") and healthful ("conducive to good health") was ascribed to
the two terms only as late as the 1880s. This distinction, though
tenaciously supported by some critics, is belied by citational
evidence -- healthy has been used to mean "healthful" since the
16th century. Use of healthy in this sense is to be found in the
works of many distinguished writers, with this example from John
Locke being typical: "Gardening ... and working in wood, are fit
and healthy recreations for a man of study or business." Therefore,
both healthy and healthful are correct in these contexts: a healthy
climate, a healthful climate; a healthful diet, a healthy diet.
Of course, if one follows the [3]Horace Google principle, one can see
why it is the poster writers said "healthy" instead of "healthful":
"Healthy lunch" yields over 100 times more Google hits than "healthful
lunch" does. Sticking with the most common usage is generally better
for advertising, I think, because the less common usage seems likelier
to distract the reader from the substance. (There are of course
exceptions, for instance if the advertisers want to stand out through
their unusual word choice, or if the more common usage is intensely
objected to by a substantial minority of readers and the less common
usage is not intensely objected to by a majority. But I take it that
here they were just following the norm, deliberately or otherwise; and
the commenter's objection is a pretty rare one, as the extremely
lopsided usage data shows.)
But in any event, the moral of the story: Before you make a claim of
usage error, or even usage "troublesome[ness]" (by the way, the issue
here is not "grammar," but usage, since both "healthy" and "healthful"
are adjectives), look it up.
References
1. http://volokh.com/posts/1250026704.shtml
2. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/healthy
3. http://volokh.com/posts/1244585366.shtml
_______________________________________________
Volokh mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.powerblogs.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
