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Follett's Modern American Usage
''Follett's Modern American Usage'' is the book published with the title ''Modern American Usage'' which was left in draft form and unfinished by Wilson Follett at his death. It was completed and edited by his friend Jacques Barzun in collaboration with six other editors. It is a usage guide for contemporary American English. ''Modern American Usage'' covers issues of usage, prose composition, and style, including English grammar, syntax, and literary techniques. Pre-publication Wilson Follett devoted his last years to composing a book on a subject he had studied all his life: the usage of American English. However, when he died more than two-thirds of the manuscript were still in first draft. People who had read this draft felt that it would be intolerable for this work never to be published, so his friend Jacques Barzun undertook the task of finishing and revising the work on the understanding that he would have help. This came from a group of writers and teachers of English: Ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wilson Follett
Roy Wilson Follett (March 21, 1887 – January 7, 1963) was an American writer known for writing the draft form of what became '' Follett's Modern American Usage'', which was unfinished at his death and was completed and edited by his friend Jacques Barzun (in collaboration with six other people who helped with the editing) and published posthumously. He was educated at Harvard and taught at Brown University. In 1921, he was one of the dedicatees of James Branch Cabell's novel '' Figures of Earth''. He also edited ''The Work of Stephen Crane'' in twelve volumes (1925–27), the first collected edition of Crane's writings. His novel ''No More Sea'' came in third in the voting for the 1934 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.Complete Historical Handbook of the Pulitzer Prize System 1917-2000 by H. and E. Fischer He was the father of Barbara Newhall Follett Barbara Newhall Follett [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mark Van Doren
Mark Van Doren (June 13, 1894 – December 10, 1972) was an American poet, writer and critic. He was a scholar and a professor of English at Columbia University for nearly 40 years, where he inspired a generation of influential writers and thinkers including Thomas Merton, Robert Lax, John Berryman, Whittaker Chambers, and Beat Generation writers such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. He was literary editor of ''The Nation'', in New York City (1924–1928), and its film critic, 1935 to 1938. He won the 1940 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for ''Collected Poems 1922–1938''. Amongst his other notable works, many published in ''The Kenyon Review'',"History" the ''Kenyon Review'' Web site, accessed January 26, 2007 include a collaboration with brother |
Garner's Modern American Usage
''Garner's Modern English Usage'' (''GMEU''), written by Bryan A. Garner and published by Oxford University Press, is a usage dictionary and style guide (or ' prescriptive dictionary') for contemporary Modern English. It was first published in 1998 as ''A Dictionary of Modern American Usage'', with a focus on American English, which it retained for the next two editions as ''Garner's Modern American Usage'' (''GMAU''). It was expanded to cover English more broadly in the 2016 fourth edition, under the present title. The work covers issues of usage, pronunciation, and style, from distinctions among commonly confused words and phrases to notes on how to prevent verbosity and obscurity. In addition, it contains essays about the English language. An abridged version of the first edition was also published as ''The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style'' in 2000. Editions The first edition was published in 1998 as ''A Dictionary of Modern American Usage'', and released in an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ernest Gowers
Sir Ernest Arthur Gowers (2 June 1880 – 16 April 1966) is best remembered for his book '' Plain Words,'' first published in 1948, and his revision of Fowler's classic '' Modern English Usage''. Before making his name as an author, he had a long career in the Civil Service, which he entered in 1903. His final full-time appointment was as Senior Regional Commissioner for Civil Defence, London Region (1940–45). After the Second World War, he was appointed chairman of numerous government inquiries, including the 1949 Royal Commission into Capital Punishment. He was also chairman of the Harlow New Town Development Corporation. Education and early life Gowers was born in London, the younger son of the neurologist Sir William Gowers and his wife, Mary, (daughter of Frederick Baines, one of the proprietors of the'' Leeds Mercury''). The family lived in Queen Anne Street, W1. Ernest followed his elder brother, William Frederick Gowers (1875–1954), to Rugby School, where he ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Complete Plain Words
''The Complete Plain Words'', titled simply ''Plain Words'' in its 2014 revision, is a style guide written by Sir Ernest Gowers, published in 1954. It has never been out of print. It comprises expanded and revised versions of two pamphlets that he wrote at the request of HM Treasury, ''Plain Words'' (1948) and ''ABC of Plain Words'' (1951). The aim of the book is to help officials in their use of English as a tool of their trade. To keep the work relevant for readers in subsequent decades it has been revised by Sir Bruce Fraser in 1973, by Sidney Greenbaum and Janet Whitcut in 1986, and by the original author's great-granddaughter Rebecca Gowers in 2014. All the editions until that of 2014 were published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO). The most recent is issued by an imprint of Penguin Books. Background The association of wordiness with bureaucracy has a long history. In the 14th century Geoffrey Chaucer, a prominent civil servant as well as a poet, urged the u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Markup Language
Markup language refers to a text-encoding system consisting of a set of symbols inserted in a text document to control its structure, formatting, or the relationship between its parts. Markup is often used to control the display of the document or to enrich its content to facilitating automated processing. A markup language is a set of rules governing what markup information may be included in a document and how it is combined with the content of the document in a way to facilitate use by humans and computer programs. The idea and terminology evolved from the "marking up" of paper manuscripts (i.e., the revision instructions by editors), which is traditionally written with a red pen or blue pencil on authors' manuscripts. Older markup languages, which typically focus on typography and presentation, include troff, TeX, and LaTeX. Scribe and most modern markup languages, for example XML, identify document components (for example headings, paragraphs, and tables), with the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Chicago Manual Of Style
''The Chicago Manual of Style'' (abbreviated in writing as ''CMOS'' or ''CMS'', or sometimes as ''Chicago'') is a style guide for American English published since 1906 by the University of Chicago Press. Its 17 editions have prescribed writing and citation styles widely used in publishing. It is "one of the most widely used and respected style guides in the United States". The guide specifically focuses on American English and deals with aspects of editorial practice, including grammar and usage, as well as document preparation and formatting. It is available in print as a hardcover book, and by subscription as a searchable website as ''The Chicago Manual of Style Online.'' The online version provides some free resources, primarily aimed at teachers, students, and libraries. Availability and uses ''The Chicago Manual of Style'' is published in hardcover and online. The online edition includes the searchable text of both the 16th and 17th—its most recent—editions with feat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Strunk Jr
William Strunk Jr. (July 1, 1869 – September 26, 1946) was an American professor of English at Cornell University and author of ''The Elements of Style'' (1918). After revision and enlargement by his former student E. B. White, it became a highly influential guide to English usage during the late 20th century, commonly called Strunk & White. Life and career Strunk was born and reared in Cincinnati, Ohio, the eldest of the four surviving children of William and Ella Garretson Strunk. He earned a bachelor's degree at the University of Cincinnati in 1890 and a PhD at Cornell University in 1896. He spent the academic year 1898–99 at the Sorbonne and the Collège de France, where he studied morphology and philology. Strunk first taught mathematics at Rose Polytechnical Institute in Terre Haute, Indiana in 1890–91. He then taught English at Cornell for 46 years, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, disdaining specialization and becoming an expert in both classical and non-Englis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Elements Of Style
''The Elements of Style'' is an American English writing style guide in numerous editions. The original was written by William Strunk Jr. in 1918, and published by Harcourt in 1920, comprising eight "elementary rules of usage", ten "elementary principles of composition", "a few matters of form", a list of 49 "words and expressions commonly misused", and a list of 57 "words often misspelled". E. B. White greatly enlarged and revised the book for publication by Macmillan in 1959. That was the first edition of the so-called Strunk & White, which ''Time'' named in 2011 as one of the 100 best and most influential books written in English since 1923. History Cornell University English professor William Strunk Jr. wrote ''The Elements of Style'' in 1918 and privately published it in 1919, for use at the university. (Harcourt republished it in 52-page format in 1920.) He and editor Edward A. Tenney later revised it for publication as ''The Elements and Practice of Composition'' (1935). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Dictionary Of Modern English Usage
''A Dictionary of Modern English Usage'' (1926), by Henry Watson Fowler (1858–1933), is a style guide to British English usage, pronunciation, and writing. Covering topics such as plurals and literary technique, distinctions among like words ( homonyms and synonyms), and the use of foreign terms, the dictionary became the standard for other style guides to writing in English. Hence, the 1926 first edition remains in print, along with the 1965 second edition, edited by Ernest Gowers, which was reprinted in 1983 and 1987. The 1996 third edition was re-titled as ''The New Fowler's Modern English Usage'', and revised in 2004, was mostly rewritten by Robert W. Burchfield, as a usage dictionary that incorporated corpus linguistics data; and the 2015 fourth edition, revised and re-titled ''Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage'', was edited by Jeremy Butterfield, as a usage dictionary. Informally, readers refer to the style guide and dictionary as ''Fowler's Modern English U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elegant Variation
Elegant variation is a writer's substitution of "one word for another for the sake of variety". The term was introduced in 1906 by H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler in ''The King's English''. In their meaning of the term, they focus particularly on instances when the word being avoided is a noun or its pronoun. Pronouns are themselves variations intended to avoid awkward repetition, and variations are so often necessary, that they should be used only when needed. The Fowlers recommend that "variations should take place only when there is some awkwardness, such as ambiguity or noticeable monotony, in the word avoided". History Henry Fowler's later '' Dictionary of Modern English Usage'', published in 1926, keeps the same definition, but more explicitly cautions against overuse of variations or synonyms by writers who are "intent on expressing themselves prettily", rather than "conveying their meaning clearly", adding that "there are few literary faults so prevalent." Fowler then qu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Disputes In English Grammar
In the English language, there are grammatical constructions that many native speakers use unquestioningly yet certain writers call incorrect. Differences of usage or opinion may stem from differences between formal and informal speech and other matters of register, differences among dialects (whether regional, class-based, or other), and so forth. Disputes may arise when style guides disagree with each other, or when a guideline or judgement is confronted by large amounts of conflicting evidence or has its rationale challenged. Examples Some of the sources that consider some of the following examples incorrect consider the same examples to be acceptable in dialects other than Standard English or in an informal register; others consider certain constructions to be incorrect in any variety of English. On the other hand, many or all of the following examples are considered correct by some sources. * Generic ''you'' – e.g., "Brushing your teeth is a good habit" as opposed to "Bru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
