English Usage Guides

For the first time, the editors of the acclaimed American Heritage(R) Dictionary have applied their efforts to word usage as its own subject. The result is this practical guide that includes chapters on grammar, style, diction, gender, social groups, pronunciation, word formation, science terms, and a subject and a word index.

This volume explores both historical and current issues in English usage guides or style manuals. Chapters look at how and why these guides are compiled, and by whom; what sort of advice they contain; how they differ from grammars and dictionaries; and how attitudes to usage have changed.

The authoritative guide to using the English language effectively, from “the greatest writer on grammar and usage that this country has ever produced” (David Yerkes, Columbia University). The author of The Chicago Manual of Style’s popular “Grammar and Usage” chapter, Bryan A. Garner is renowned for explaining the vagaries of English with absolute precision and utmost clarity. With The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation, he has written the definitive guide for writers who want their prose to be both memorable and correct. Garner describes standard literary English—the forms that mark writers and speakers as educated users of the language. He also offers historical context for understanding the development of these forms. The section on grammar explains how the canonical parts of speech came to be identified, while the section on syntax covers the nuances of sentence patterns as well as both traditional sentence diagramming and transformational grammar. The usage section provides an unprecedented trove of empirical evidence in the form of Google Ngrams, diagrams that illustrate the changing prevalence of specific terms over decades and even centuries of English literature. Garner also treats punctuation and word formation, and concludes the book with an exhaustive glossary of grammatical terms and a bibliography of suggested further reading and references. The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation is a magisterial work, the culmination of Garner’s lifelong study of the English language. The result is a landmark resource that will offer clear guidelines to students, writers, and editors alike. “[A manual] for those of us laboring to produce expository prose: nonfiction books, journalistic articles, memorandums, business letters. The conservatism of his advice pushes you to consider audience and occasion, so that you will understand when to follow convention and when you can safely break it.”—John E. McIntyre, Baltimore Sun

The complexities of the English language can be daunting for even the most fluent speakers, and for Canadians this is doubly so with the mixture of British and American traditions. Almost anyone engaged in formal writing will sometimes need to consult a usage guide for advice, but Canadians have always been forced to choose between a British or an American source. With the Guide to Canadian English Usage, writers will have an authoritative reference based on Canadian sources that provides pithy direction on numerous details of the language. From the indefinite article to zoology, alphabetically arranged entries clarify issues of word choice, punctuation, spelling, and abbreviation. Throughout it offers guidance on Canadianisms, confusibles, difficult expressions, First Nation names, foreign phrases, grammar, inclusive language, punctuation, spelling, and troublesome pronunciations. Each entry explains the problem at hand, outlines a range of prescriptions, and then either recommends a particular usage or reviews the alternatives from which the now-informed reader can choose. All entries feature a wide range of fascinating quotations from Canadian sources. Newly reissued in an attractive hardcover edition, the Guide to Canadian English Usage is the essential reference for any writer, editor, or speaker of English in Canada.

The Routledge Student Guide to English Usage is an invaluable A–Z guide to the appropriate use of English in academic contexts. The first part of the book covers approximately 4000 carefully selected words, focusing on groups of confusable words that sound alike, look alike or are frequently mixed up. The authors help to solve academic dilemmas, such as correct usage of the apostrophe and the crucial difference between infer and imply. Examples of good usage are drawn from corpora such as the British National Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary American English. The second part covers the key characteristics of formal English in a substantial reference section, comprising: • stylistic features • punctuation • English grammar • the use of numbers • email writing. This is the essential reference text for all students working on improving their academic writing skills. Visit the companion website for a range of supporting exercises: www.routledge.com/cw/clark.

The Cambridge Guide to Australian English Usage is an up-to-date, evidence-based account of the variable points in Australian usage and style, in alphabetical format. Its description of Australian English uses a wealth of primary sources (linguistic corpora; the internet; public surveys of usage, conducted through Australian Style) as well as the latest editions of English dictionaries, style manuals and grammars. With all this input the Cambridge Guide to Australian English Usage provides in-depth coverage of the currency of alternative usages in spelling, punctuation and word choice in Australia, while showing the influence of British and American English here as well. This book is designed for everyone who writes and edits documents and non-fiction texts, for print or electronic delivery. Tertiary students and staff will get plenty of help from it, as well as professional editors who work with manuscripts of many different authors and commissions from multiple publishers.