Discussion Groups / English Usage / November 2007

What do you think of the expression "accumulative total" rather than
the more common "cumulative total"?

Of the three definitions given in the OED for "accumulative" the first
would seem to apply to this phrase, though the examples given don't
exactly match the way it's used in "cumulative total" They place
emphasis on the /process/ of accumulation in a way that I don't think
"accumulative total" does.

OED:

 Characterized by accumulation.

   1. Arising from accumulation or successive additions of
particulars; cumulative, collective.

a1651 CLEVELAND Rupertismus 167 Scatter th' accumulative King; untruss
That five-fold Fiend the State's Smectymnuus. 1652 MILTON Lett. State
Wks. 1847, 596/2 For more ample and accumulative satisfaction, and to
remove all Scruples from your Excellency. 1662 FULLER Worthies II. 211
The Distinction of Accumulative and Constructive Treason was coyned,
and caused his Destruction. 1766 Hist. Europe in Ann. Reg. 9/1 No
particular crime was specified in the sentence against Sully, but a
general accumulative charge in which treason was comprehended. 1862
WHATELEY in Life & Corr. (1866) II. 392 Such persons cannot understand
the force of accumulative proof.
   2. Of things: So constituted as to accumulate or increase in
amount; as money does by the continuous addition of the interest to
the principal.

1857 RUSKIN Pol. Econ. Art ii. 96 Thus the science of nations is to be
accumulative from father to son: each learning a little more and a
little more; each receiving all that was known, and adding its own
gain: the history and poetry of nations are to be accumulative; each
generation treasuring the history and songs of its ancestors, adding
its own history and its own songs: and the art of nations is to be
accumulative, just as science and history are; the work of living men
not superseding, but building itself upon the work of the past. 1863
Morning Star 7 Jan. 6 The sinking fund is accumulative.
   3. Of persons: Given to accumulate or amass.

1817 COLERIDGE Poems 139 Taylor is eminently discursive, accumulative,
and (to use one of his own words) agglomerative.

My own feeling was that "accumulative" has been largely replaced by
"cumulative" in modern English, with some people reverting to the
older form out of an attempt to be more formal. But then I checked the
OED entry for "cumulative" and found it to be slightly older than
"accumulative."

The definitions for "accumulative" and "cumulative" in Merriam-Webster
would seem to indicate the second word is standard in phrases like
"cumulative total."

So when you see someone writing "accumulative total" do you react by
thinking they are old-fashioned? overly formal? mistaken? pretentious?
hyper-correct? or just using a variant but legitimate spelling?

Paul Brians