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The
Elements of Style
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According
to the St. Louis Dispatch, this "excellent book, which should
go off to college with every freshman, is recognized as the best
book of its kind we have." It should be the ". . . daily
companion of anyone who
writes for a living and, for that matter, anyone who writes at all"
(Greensboro Daily New). "No book in shorter space, with fewer
words,
will help any writer more than this persistent little volume"
(The Boston Globe).
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Barron's
English Language
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Over 120 English
irregular verbs are fully conjugated in all tenses and arranged
alphabetically. A supplementry reveiw of standard English usage
includes spelling, punctuation, abbreviations, grammar,
and troublesome words and phrases. This handy guide is also an ideal
reference source for students and teachers in "English-as-a-Second
Language courses.
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The
Miracle of Language
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New England
schoolmaster, columnist, and bestselling author Lederer (Crazy English,
1989) offers an enthusiastic new assemblage in tribute to language
generally and the English kind in particular. Sounding in turn like
D'Israeli the Elder on curiosities of literature, William Targ on
bibliomania, H.L. Mencken on words, or William Lutz on doublespeak,
Lederer compiles a scrapbook that preaches, naturally, to those
who are
devoted to the wonder of words aggregated. There are tributes to
heroes of our tongue: Shakespeare, Johnson (with incursions by Bierce
and
other witty lexicographers), Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson,
T.S. Eliot, and George Orwell. In terms of one syllable, Lederer
proves the power of short words. They can, he says, ``make a straight
point between two minds,'' which seems a little hard to do, but
you get the line. English isn't perfect, however: It's sexist (queens
do not rule queendoms), lacks certain utilitarian words (what will
we call the decade
that will follow the Nineties?), and lends itself to redundant repetition,
too, as Lederer cheerfully illustrates and shows. He likes libraries
and
letter-writing (citing St. Paul as a great correspondent). There's
even a lesson in versification and examples of favored writing from
his prep-
school students. The text concludes with a few hundred pithy comments
on words by practitioners from Aristophanes to Wittgenstein. A golly-gee
skimming of the manifest wonders of ``the most glorious of all human
inventions,'' not deep but easygoing enough to satisfy Lederer's
legion of fans. — Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates,
LP. All rights reserved.
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