Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary of English Usage
Publisher: Merriam Webster, January 1, 2002.
Edition: First
Book Condition: New
Binding: Paperback
ISBN: 0877796335 / 9780877796336
"A handy guide to problems of confused or disputed usage based on the critically acclaimed Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage. Over 2,000 entries explain the background and basis of usage controversies and offer expert advice and recommendations."
Amazon.com Review
Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary of English Usage is a dictionary. It is not a usage guide. It is not Fowler, or Partridge, or Bernstein (nor, at 799 pages, is it exactly concise, but that's another matter). Unlike those eminent watchdogs of the English language, the editors of this volume are record-keepers, chronicling how language is used, not how it should be used. Based on Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, this book cites the classic English-language specialists generously but finds its true course by observing actual contemporary usage. Take the word discomfit, for example, whose meaning (to thwart, foil, or frustrate) is staunchly defended in many usage guides. Sorry, says Merriam-Webster. Their survey says that the use of the word as a synonym to discomfort is so entrenched as to have become "thoroughly established" as the most prevalent meaning. Though the editors of this book are more reporters than campaigners, their prose is eminently readable, charming, and even, like that of the best usage enforcers, quirky. For instance, the word data, they claim, is a "queer fish," while errata "leads a double life," and yclept is "peculiar-looking." --Jane Steinberg
Item #7559
Price: $24.97
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