Webster's English Usage Guide

Peruse the bookstore sections on Grammar and Usage, and you'll see there has never been a lack of experts who want to tell you how to write. But the problem with just about every one of these books is that their explanations of grammatical phenomenona are misleading: they're not researched at all. In fact, they're not so much based on English as real writers actually use it, so much as they're based on how the writer fancies everyone ought to use it. But "Merriam Webster's Dictionary of English Usage" is the only guide to grammar and usage I've found that's worth a damn. Along with Joseph Williams's "Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace", this is the only book in the genre that I would recommend. Too many books in this genre have little to say that hasn't already been said a thousand times, and they're just too hyper-focused on mistakes, a focus which has a way of inculcating a sort of paranoia amongst writers who follow the one-size-fits-all dictums too rigidly. Imagine the way a runner might tip-toe through a minefield. That's the kind of writing these other books bread. "English usage today is a discourse", this book begins, and that key observation is central to its approach. This observation might seem obvious to some, but almost every other grammar book (Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style" and Diana Hacker's "Rules for Writers", for instance) is written in a bubble outside of this discourse, and they read like theirs is first, and the definitive treatise on correctitude in English. This is the grammar book tradition, which sadly has changed very little in the past 300 years (See Haussamen's "Revising the Rules" for discussion). "Merriam Webster's" diverges from the grammar book tradition by stepping back and summarizing the history of the discourse in a way that puts modern quibbles in a perspective that's sorely missing. It turns out that most contemporary controversies are nothing new; they date back decades, if not centuries. The authors cite liberally from language commentators and armchair grammarians, often in ways that make the "experts" sound clownish. For instance, the authors note how commentators have been wrongly predicting the deaths of the subjunctive and of "whom" for over a century. This is not a book for those who want over-simplified pronouncements of what's "right" and what's "wrong". Correctness is not a binary, it's a polarity. But "Merriam Webster's" never falls into the correct/incorrect trap, because the authors are grounded in the systematic study of language. How refreshing! The truth is that the writers of most grammar books are not linguists-they're just writers. And that means that they're out of their ballpark when they try to explain the maddening complexities of the English language. Whereas other grammar books like to fabricate example sentences to fit their prescriptions, "Merriam Webster's" bases all its claims on real-life usage. 20,000+ illustrative citations show how respected writers actu

Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary Of English Usage: The Essentials Of Clear Expression is a well organized, extremely practical, "user friendly" writer's reference. More than 2,000 extensive and meticulous entries discuss the nuances in the daily uses, both historical and present, of commonly confused words in the English language. Enhanced with a multi-page bibliography, Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary Of English Usage is a solid and highly recommended guide for anyone who works with words as a core aspect of their career.

The readers' reviews for this book tend toward the extremes. Readers are not ambivalent about this book. I am no different. I rarely give five stars, but this is simply the best usage manual available (and I have the major ones and many of the minor ones).Here is the format for a typical entry: There is a statement of the question; a survey of the opinions of previous usage writers; a survey of actual usage from early times to the present, including numerous examples; and a conclusion advising the reader on how to use it, often making distinctions between levels of formality.This differs from most usage manuals, which have only the statement of the question and the conclusion. This affects the conclusions, as many traditional conclusions are only possible if the historical evidence is ignored. Many traditional shiboleths turn out to derive from some guy's personal opinion, faithfully and uncritically repeated until considered Revealed Truth. The one-star reviewers overlook two points. The first is that Merriam Webster often gives firm advice. Those who claim that this book is "anything goes" are misrepresenting the book. Indeed, frequently this advice is exactly what the prescriptivists would give. Frequently it is not, but that's what happens when you let evidence influence your opinion. The second, more serious point is that a reader can learn the traditional conclusion even when Merriam Webster disagrees with it. If a reader wants to know Fowler's opinion this book will give it. There is no longer any need to actually own a copy of Fowler. So the objections to this book implicitly are that it gives more information than they would like. This is a peculiar objection to make of a reference work. It would be downright sinister were there reason to suspect these opinions to be at all thought out.If what you want is a book to help you avoid offending the lowest sort of linguistic curmudgeon and you have no further interest in the subject then this book is overkill. The abridged Bryan Garner will give you that while taking up less space on your bookshelf. But for anyone else this is the one usage manual to own.As a bonus, it is entertaining to read.

In one of the earlier reviews of this book the entry for "at" was misrepresented. I thought I would take some time to set the record straight. The entry for "at" is on page 141. It notes that usage writers from Vizetelly in 1906 onward have written disapprovingly about the use of the preposition "at" somewhere in the vicinity of and especially after the adverb where. The entry goes on to say that this is evidently chiefly an Americanism (attested by the OED Supplement and entered in the Dictionary of American Regional English), but not entirely unknown in British dialects. Scholarly works such as the Oxford English Dictionary, and the Dictionary of American Regional English are cited as well as citations from the Merriam Webster files. The evidence shows the idiom to be nearly nonexistent in discursive prose, although it occurs in letters and transcriptions of speech and there citations given from and Joel Chandler Harris, Flannery O'Connor. The entry gives an analysis of current usage saying that "at" at the end of pronominal phrase beginning with where serves to provide a word at the end of the sentence that can be given stress. It tends to follow a noun or pronoun to which the verb has been elided, as in this utterance by an editor here at the dictionary factory: "Have any idea where Kathy's at?" Then the entry has some conclusions and recommendation "You will note that at cannot simply be omitted; the 's must be expanded to is to produce an idiomatic sentence if the at is to be avoided." Frankly, there is nothing controversial about this, and information provided is accurate, reliable and verifiable. At the end of article is a note to see the entry labeled "Where ...At" for information about the mid 20th century use idiom. This article is on page 955 follows the pattern of the earlier one. There is the history of the usage issue, followed by a history of the idiom, and examples of actual usage, from Cyra McFadden, Paul Mazursky, quoted in Christian Science Monitor, Charles M. Young, Hunter S. Thompson, Dr. Gordon K. Davies, and Gunther S. Stent. Then come the conclusions and recommendations which are that "where it's at" and like phrases "continue to be used today, although they have some of the passe quality of old slang....Other than in these phrases, "at" almost never occurs after where in writing from standard sources." The Merriam Webster Dictionary of English Usage has more in common with the historical English grammars by Metzner, Sweet, Poutsma, Jespersen, Kruisinga and Curme, and the large standard reference grammars by the team of Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvik then the run of the mill usage guide that is hawked to the uninformed. You should not let the casual tone of the writing fool you. The information given is accurate, verifiable and reliable.

If you want a useful, well-researched guide to the way English is actually used by real creative writers, past and present, buy this book. If you want to be entertained while reading about English grammar (not easily done!), buy this book. If you prefer to blindly follow rigid rules which, rather than reflecting the way the language is actually used, reflect the way some 18th or 19th century usage writers thought it ought to be used, maybe this isn't for you (though I still think you should read it, maybe you'll learn something).Don't be misled into thinking that this book is simply applying an "everything goes" philosophy. On the contrary, the editors clearly explain and illustrate the way words and phrases are commonly used by writers in Britain and America, and advise you to avoid what is not commonly accepted. They also cite numerous usage writers, whether they agree with them or not (though they quote one writer as saying that if usage writers read more, they would argue less -- an observation that could also apply to some of the reviewers on this page...). They also make clear distinctions between what is acceptable in formal and informal writing. Many of the things that they "permit" (read the entry on permissiveness, by the way) they still recommend be avoided in formal writing.I don't think that the rules this book skewers represent "the accumulated wisdom of thousands of writers." More accurately, they represent the thinking of a few conservative usage writers (and there's a big difference between usage writers and creative writers -- who would you rather read, Bishop Loweth or Shakespeare?), given added weight by the herd mentality of many generations of grammar teachers. To give one example, grammarians like to insist that "each other" should refer to two people and "one another" should refer to three or more, but as the examples in this book show, it just ain't (fingernails on chalkboard, anyone?) so.As for "Where's it at?", unfortunately I don't have my copy of the book with me and I don't remember what they had to say about it. I have the pocket version (handy, but lacking the examples and the entertaining discussions), which simply points out that it has been part of American speech for a century (which doesn't imply that it should be used in formal writing). Yes, the dictionary definition of "where" is indeed "in or at what place" but if you go around blindly substituting the dictionary defintion for every word I'm sure you'll discover a lot more seemingly redundant phrases.This book dicusses the usage history of various words and phrases and gives you examples of how great (and not-so-great) writers throughout history have used them. It gives you clear guidelines rather than setting down rigid rules for you to follow. And if you're obsessed with rules, then maybe you should consider law instead of writing.