''Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words'' () is a book by

Bill Bryson William McGuire Bryson (; born 8 December 1951) is an American–British journalist and author. Bryson has written a number of nonfiction books on topics including travel, the English language, and science. Born in the United States, he has b ...

, published under several titles since 1984, that catalogues some of the

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

's most commonly misused words and phrases in order to demonstrate preferable

usage The usage of a language is the ways in which its written and spoken variations are routinely employed by its speakers; that is, it refers to "the collective habits of a language's native speakers", as opposed to idealized models of how a language ...

. It helps writers and editors to think about how to make written communication clearer (or, in some cases, at least how to make it immune from pedantic editorial disparagement by avoiding the pedants' trigger points). It was first published in 1984 with the title ''The

Penguin Penguins (order (biology), order List of Sphenisciformes by population, Sphenisciformes , family (biology), family Spheniscidae ) are a group of Water bird, aquatic flightless birds. They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: on ...

Dictionary of Troublesome Words'' () in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

and with the title ''The

Facts on File Infobase Publishing is an American publisher of reference book titles and textbooks geared towards the North American library, secondary school, and university-level curriculum markets. Infobase operates a number of prominent imprints, includin ...

Dictionary of Troublesome Words'' () in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. It was republished in a revised edition in 1987; and again in the UK in 1997 under the title ''Troublesome Words'' (). In 2002 it was published as ''Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words''. As the author states, "This book might more accurately, if less convincingly, have been called ''A Guide to Everything in English Usage That the Author Wasn't Entirely Clear About Until Quite Recently.''" Bryson describes the

as a valuable entity, with no two experts agreeing on any point of usage, claiming that those guides that do exist for the common user often expect the reader to be familiar with

grammatical In linguistics, grammaticality is determined by the conformity to language usage as derived by the grammar of a particular variety (linguistics), speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the go ...

terms not encountered since (or even at) high school. Using almost forty standard works on the subject as his guide, Bryson aims to produce a list of difficult English words that is generally readable and informative while also usable as a

reference work A reference work is a work, such as a paper, book or periodical (or their electronic equivalents), to which one can refer for information. The information is intended to be found quickly when needed. Such works are usually ''referred'' to f ...

. This aim is accomplished using a large degree of

humour Humour (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humorism, humoral medicine of the ancient Gre ...

as well as a willingness to hold the experts he quotes up to the light for their own failings, thus illustrating how easy it is to make errors of usage, or at least to fail to adhere to preferable or optimal usage. Like all other major usage advice books, it reflects the language epistemology of professional editors, which is not completely coincident with that of linguistic scientists. It makes use of both

linguistic prescription Linguistic prescription, or prescriptive grammar, is the establishment of rules defining preferred usage of language. These rules may address such linguistic aspects as spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, syntax, and semantics. Sometimes infor ...

and

linguistic description In the study of language, description or descriptive linguistics is the work of objectively analyzing and describing how language is actually used (or how it was used in the past) by a speech community. François & Ponsonnet (2013). All acad ...

, attempting to avoid the pathological extremes of prescription (valueless

pedant A pedant is a person who is excessively concerned with formalism, accuracy and precision, or one who makes an ostentatious and arrogant show of learning. Etymology The English language word ''pedant'' comes from the French ''pédant'' (used i ...

ry such as

hypercorrection In sociolinguistics, hypercorrection is non-standard use of language that results from the over-application of a perceived rule of language-usage prescription. A speaker or writer who produces a hypercorrection generally believes through a mi ...

) while also making use of its helpful side (which encourages

critical thinking Critical thinking is the analysis of available facts, evidence, observations, and arguments to form a judgement. The subject is complex; several different definitions exist, which generally include the rational, skeptical, and unbiased analysis ...

References

Books by Bill Bryson English language English dictionaries {{dictionary-stub