Lost and Found

A favourite author of mine is Agatha Christie; but like all writers, she is capable of an occasional solecism (more about that word another time).

She writes in her autobiography "One day Wilfred rang up from Portsmouth and said that a wonderful chance had come his way.  There was a party being assembled to look for treasure trove in South America".

Now there's no point in "looking for treasure trove" because by definition it doesn't need looking for: it is already found.  The French word 'trouvé' (the origin of the term 'trove') means 'found', and the legal context of the term 'treasure trove' is the need to decide to whom such 'found' treasure belongs.

Worse - far worse - than Christie's misunderstanding of the phrase is the one I came across recently: "a trove of treasure".  This makes 'trove' into a noun.  You might just as well (or as badly) write of  'a found' of treasure.

Many solecisms are caused by people using terms they don't understand.  The safest thing is to avoid using strange words at all.  If you want to learn what they really mean, use a dictionary.  But beware: recent dictionaries have become descriptive rather than prescriptive, and even include some misuses of words - presumably because we are almost as likely to hear misuses as to hear words used correctly !

Lost and Found