Purport

Again and again, Bryan Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day sends me looking back at my prose. And yes, I sometimes end up making small changes to a number of posts as a result. Today’s tip made me wonder about how I’ve been using purport :

purport, vb., = to be intended to seem <the bill purported to be a $100 bill>. Because the sense is already passive, this verb shouldn’t be put into the passive voice.

And examples follow.

To my surprise, I’ve been using purport correctly, as in a sentence about a hilarious-in-retrospect episode of Murder, She Wrote:

In addition to extended glimpses of Jessica Fletcher wearing what purports to be a virtual-reality headset, there are repeated references to “source codes” (plural).

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