Yes, I Could Care Less: How to Be a Language Snob Without Being a Jerk
Praise for Yes, I CouldCare Less:"ReadingYes, I Could Care Lessis like bellying up to your favorite neighborhood bar while a cranky yet lovable uncle holds forth on the perils of comma splices and misplaced hyphens. Walsh is combative and funny, and he doesn't suffer fools gladly In short, Walsh brings some welcome newsroom swagger and regular-guy moxie into the often prim world of style and syntax."--The Washington Post"A frisky reminder that usage issues are part convention, part passion." —Kirkus Reviews"You should be so lucky as to have Bill Walsh as your editor. Pay attention. Be clear. Be precise. Don't be a jerk."—Baltimore Sun"If you dream about correcting the office grammar Nazi,  pick up Washington Post copyeditor Bill Walsh's witty bookYes, I Could Care Less."—The Washingtonian"How can you not love a language maven who admits up front (well, in the Epilogue anyway) that he’s nuts? And who wouldn’t be? Bill Walsh has to walk a fine line. He’s enough of a pickypants to satisfy readers ofThe Washington Post, but he never crosses the line into jerkitude. Or hardly ever. (Give up the hyphen, Bill. The word isemail.) Oh, and did I mention that’s he’s funny?Armed gunmen, he tells us, are ‘the worst kind.’ And you probably think you know whatdomestic beeris. But as the author can tell you, it’s in the eye of the bartender."—Patricia T. O’Conner, author ofWoe Is Iand, with Stewart Kellerman,Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language."In his third volume of musings and pronouncements on language, Bill Walsh argues persuasively that there’s room at the table for both prescriptivists and descriptivists—or what he calls ‘the sticklers’ and ‘the spoilsports.’ With keen intelligence, dry humor, and panache, he exhorts us not only to think more critically about how we write and speak but also to strive for ‘tiny acts of elegance’ in that ‘slippery and elusive’ realm called standard American English. Some will call Walsh a demigod of usage. Others will call him a demagogue. I call him, oxymoronically, our most amiable curmudgeon of style."— Charles Harrington Elster, author ofThe Accidents of StyleandVerbal AdvantagePraise for Bill Walsh’s Books:"What Walsh calls his ‘curmudgeon’s stylebook’ contains such useful items as differentiating names of peoples. . . . His ‘gray areas’ are stimulating."—William Safire, On Language,New York Times MagazineonThe Elephants of Style"More from Bill Walsh! I love it. He’s packedThe Elephants of Stylewith his wisdom and expertise to help any writer look good."—Barbara Wallraff, former language columnist forTheAtlantic Monthly"A mother lode for language lovers."—American Journalism ReviewonLapsing Into a Comma"Bill Walsh is a stylist with a sense of humor, a rare commodity these days."—Frank Mankiewicz, former president, NPR, onLapsing Into a Comma