I was somewhat surprised to come across a book by Ambrose Bierce (of The Devil's Dictionary fame) titled Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. It's available from Project Gutenburg.

It's a list of don'ts; many of which I agree with to some degree, but for many of the others the use of language has changed over the last century (the book came out in 1909) so his proscriptions seem arbitrary at best.

He does have the grace to admit he's not infallible, though. As he says in the introduction:

quote:

In neither taste nor precision is any man's practice a court of last appeal, for writers all, both great and small, are habitual sinners against the light; and their accuser is cheerfully aware that his own work will supply (as in making this book it has supplied) many "awful examples"--his later work less abundantly, he hopes, than his earlier. He nevertheless believes that this does not disqualify him for showing by other instances than his own how not to write.

Overall it is an interesting read, and much more amusing than The Elements of Style or the grammar book that Bob quoted a while back.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: arnie,

I had a look at it. It looks like the same list of unsupported prescriptions you see in all these books. I'm not convinced that some of the prescriptions seems arbitrary because the language has changed since he wrote it. For instance

quote:

_Spend_ for _Pass_. "We shall spend the summer in Europe." Spend
denotes a voluntary relinquishment, but time goes from us against our
will.

One of the meanings of "spend" is "To employ, occupy, use or pass (time, one's life, etc.) in or on some action, occupation, or state" since 1300.

quote:

Originally posted by arnie:
He does have the grace to admit he's not infallible

It seems to me that what he's admitting there is that he commits the same solecisms that he's condemning. It would have been nice if he admitted that he might be mistaken about some of the solecisms that he's condemning.

This is also from the introduction:

quote:

Few words have more than one literal and serviceable meaning, however
many metaphorical, derivative, related, or even unrelated, meanings
lexicographers may think it worth while to gather from all sorts and
conditions of men, with which to bloat their absurd and misleading
dictionaries. This actual and serviceable meaning--not always
determined by derivation, and seldom by popular usage--is the one
affirmed, according to his light, by the author of this little manual
of solecisms. Narrow etymons of the mere scholar and loose locutions
of the ignorant are alike denied a standing.

Damn those absurd and misleading dictionaries!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy,

quote:

Originally posted by goofy:

Damn those absurd and misleading dictionaries!

I suppose the British said as much about Mr. Webster. He seemed to have it in for any word with a Norman spelling.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Asa Lovejoy,