View source for Albeit - howbeit

This is a pair of words classed by [[Fowler 1931]] as an example of his category '''Malaprop 5''':

'''Words whose meaning is misapprehended without apparent cause''', 

although it might also be said that they belong to '''Malaprop 4''': 

'''Words having properly no connexion with each other, but confused through superficial resemblance'''.

*'''Albeit''' is properly a [[conjunction]]. It means the same as 'though', or 'although'. It can be used more firmly as a contrast, 'even though' or 'even if'. It is rather [[archaic]], and is rarely found outside academic and legal English.

*'''Howbeit''' is even more archaic, although still to be found in academic writing - sometimes by the confusion that Fowler is trying to warn us against. It is nowadays only a [[sentence adverbial]], roughly equivalent ot 'nevertheless' or 'however' (although ''[[OED]]'' records an ''obsolete'' usage as a [[conjunction]], with a last quotation dated 1634.)

Fowler's concern is mostly with the implications for punctuation. As '''howbeit''' is most commonly used at the start of a sentence although it is not a [[conjunction]] (~ 'joining word'), it should normally be preceded by a full stop. As '''albeit''', on the contrary, <u>is</u> a conjunction, it should normally be preceded by a comma.

::The [[etymology]] of both these words may be worth attention. They contain a use of the [[subjunctive]] mood of the [[verb]] 'to be': each was originally a three-word phrase, ''''al'''[though] '''it''' [may] '''be'''' and ''''how'''[ever] '''it''' may '''be''''. Each had a [[past tense]], '''all were it''' and '''how were it'''. Neither of these past tenses is current in [[present-day English]].

[[category:malaprop 5]][[category:malaprop 4]][[category:punctuation]][[category:sentence adverbs]]