Fowler S Concise Dictionary Of Modern English Usage

A comprehensive guide to the English language provides detailed and expert information on grammar, style, spelling, vocabulary, and punctuation with clear explanations and example sentences.

Fowler's Concise Dictionary of Modern English Usage is an invaluable quick-reference work, providing clear, practical and up-to-date guidance on questions of grammar, spelling, style, and word choice. Jeremy Butterfield has judiciously revised the text to reflect the English usage practices and concerns of the 21st century.

This work offers advice on English usage in an accessible quick-reference format. Drawing on the resources of "Oxford's English dictionaries" language monitoring program, it provides clear, practical, and up-to-date guidance on questions of grammar, spelling, style, and word choice. Jeremy Butterfield has revised the text to reflect the usage practices and concerns of the 21st century.

guide to precise phrases, grammar, and pronunciation can be key; it can even be admired. But beloved? Yet from its first appearance in 1926, Fowler's was just that. Henry Watson Fowler initially aimed his Dictionary of Modern English Usage, as he wrote to his publishers in 1911, at "the half-educated Englishman of literary proclivities who wants to know Can I say so-&-so?" He was of course obsessed with, in Swift's phrase, "proper words in their proper places." But having been a schoolmaster, Fowler knew that liberal doses of style, wit, and caprice would keep his manual off the shelf and in writers' hands. He also felt that description must accompany prescription, and that advocating pedantic "superstitions" and "fetishes" would be to no one's advantage. Adepts will have their favorite inconsequential entries--from burgle to brood, truffle to turgid. Would that we could quote them all, but we can't resist a couple.

No book had more influence on twentieth-century attitudes to the English language in Britain than Henry Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage. It rapidly became the standard work of reference for the correct use of English in terms of choice of words, grammar, and style. Much loved for his firm opinions, passion, and dry humour, Fowler has stood the test of time and is still considered the best arbiter of good practice. Now one of today's leading experts on thelanguage, David Crystal, has reassessed Fowler's contribution in this fascinating new edition.Crystal goes beyond the popular mythology surrounding Fowler's reputation to retrace his method and practice and arrive at a fresh evaluation of his place in the history of linguistic thought. With a wealth of entertaining examples he looks at Fowler's stated principles and the tensions between his prescriptive and descriptive temperaments. He reaches some surprising conclusions and shows that the Dictionary does a great deal more than make normative recommendations and expressprivate opinions. In addition he offers a modern perspective in notes on some 300 entries, in which he shows how English has changed since the 1920s, including the pronunciation of certain words.

This invaluable reference work offers the best and most sought-after advice on English grammar based on Henry Fowler's original, which is still a classic text after nearly 80 years. Updated with the use of Oxford's unique language databases, it comprises over 4,200 entries giving clear recommendations on grammar, pronunciation, spelling, confusable words, and writing style. DT Advice on how to avoid common pitfalls in English usage, such as the split infinitive, infer or imply, who or whom DT Broad coverage of British and American English, including examples from all over the English-speaking world DT Wide-ranging illustrative quotations from well-known authors, such as Julian Barnes and A. S. Byatt, and international newspapers and journals