The American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style
In this age when Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org] and Wiktionary [http://en.wiktionary.org] allow anyone to be a self-appointed subject expert or lexicographer,The American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Styleacknowledges the inexorable force of popular usage while it also honors canonical authority. Drawing on the authoritative knowledge of its lexicographers and the considered collective judgment of a panel of noted writers, the book offers guidance on the simple (the pronunciations ofbouquet); the perplexingly redundant (free gift); the often imprecisely used (impeach); the no longer distinct (healthful/healthy); the needless but persistent (irregardless); the easily confused (stationary/stationery); the unfortunately conflated (lay/lie); and many more pitfalls. Articles embodying the precision and lucidity of dictionary definitions explain the history of a word's or expression's usage issue, how and why the issue exists, and the preferred usage. Advice on acceptable usage in informal language such as daily speech and recommended usage in formal language such as writing often differ. Examples from newspapers, literature, and Web sites as well as reports of the usage panel's responses bolster the explanations. Entries such aslady/ladyliketestify to the potent influence that gender issues and sexual politics have had on usage. Thehe/sheentry even offers ways to avoid the generiche.The Guidealso includes entries on grammar issues such as absolute constructions, the double passive, nominative case, plural nouns, and the subjunctive.With fewer entries but a more popular touch, this complements Bryan Garner'sDictionary of Modern American Usage(Oxford, 1998) and Pam Peters' internationalCambridge Guide to English Usage(Cambridge, 2004). None of them, however, address usage issues in the newest form of written English--text messaging, that rapidly evolving telegraphic electronic communication medium in which numerals can be words and English words can be vowel-less. That guide will undoubtedly have more in common in spirit and, undoubtedly, in medium with Wiktionary and Wikipedia than with any printed usage guide.James RettigCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved