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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (80143)	1/6/2004 9:07:10 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Tough to know which usage maven to go with. Why do you have to pick one? They're right, the modernized Fowler is only a shadow of the original. Sort of like Bowlderized Shakespeare. Or what they've done to the original Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books. Dumbed down so people are spared any need to think. Personally, off the cuff and without thinking about it, the Oxford English Dictionary is, of course, critical for definitions and actual usage over the years. After that, my recommendations in order of preference are: 1. Strunk and White 2. American Heritage Dictionary with usage notes 3. Original Fowler's 4. Quiller-Couch The Art of Writing 5. Partridge, Usage and Abusage, and almost anything else Partridge wrote on usage. After that, there's a bunch I go to less often but not infrequently: Harper's Dictionary of Contemporary Usage (though I think it's plain wrong about 10% of the time), Follett Modern American Usage, Amis The King's English. There are lots of others out there, maybe some better than these, but I haven't bought a new usage book in about ten years, so if there's anything better since then I wouldn't know about it. Those are all usage books. Of course, the grammar section is a whole nother thing, but that's not for here. And of course we cant leave out the Chicago Manual or Style or a good Thesarus (Roget is fun but a bit out of date by now.) Enough already1