2 Comments:

1. Anonymous said...
   23 July 2008 at 8:02 am  
   Was that 'insure' or 'ensure'?
   
   There's a difference. Insuring my neighbour's prosperity, let alone the world's is an expensive proposition.
   Kate McMahon said...
   24 July 2008 at 9:02 pm  
   Ah yes - you might be right about that - I must confess that didn't go back to the original source to find the quote (bad scholarship).
   
   But I'm going to leave it as it because, unlike American english, uk/australian english is much more flexible on this score - to use 'insure','ensure' and even 'assure' interchangably is acceptable, if not typical, contemporary english.
   
   Insure can be used to in the sense of "ensuring safety" as well as "to purchase insurance". At least I think so.
   
   Also, Bertrand Russell was writing at the turn of last century, and I'm not sure when current ensure/insure usage became common.

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