In this Guide, we've offered reasons for our preferences concerning such matters as pronoun agreement and sexist language. On our Myths page, we've presented arguments against a few preferences of others, preferences that most present-day authorities join us in rejecting. You will find additional suggestions about usage under Common Errors . These suggestions are no substitute for a comprehensive manual of English usage, which we believe every student would do well to purchase. You can discover some of these policies by going to the Disciplines page of this Guide.
Every language has resources for clear, precise, economical expression.
If a change in usage threatens some existing resource, other means must be and always can be found. Yet it's reasonable to fight for the preservation of what has worked in the past. Usage authorities often hold out for subtle distinctions among words. A few still deprecate the depreciation of deprecate through its confusion with depreciate. Smith might have been a great ballplayer.