num_pages: 334
description: From tired old clichés to meaningless jargon, dangling participles to sentences without verbs, the English language is under attack from many quarters.Politicians dupe us with deliberately evasive language. Professors fear the consequences of correcting their students' mangled sentences. Bureaucrats bore us into submission.Language is about communicating. All this does the opposite. And it is all so ugly. English is a beautiful language that should give us pleasure, not pain.John Humphrys has fun at the expense of language abusers, and also raises serious issues about people in power who use words to manipulate us. Language should be simple, clear and honest. Where it is not, we need to ask why - and do something about it.
language: English
title: Lost for Words: The Mangling and Manipulating of the English Language
titlecomplete: Lost for Words: The Mangling and Manipulating of the English Language
genres: Reference, Biography, Language, Linguistics, Writing, Nonfiction
ratings_count: 296
publisher: Hodder and Stoughton, Limited