While I was away I bought a huge number of books from a teacher who was clearing out her collection of Language and Linguistics texts. Most of them are abtruse technical journals that would be of interest to only a couple of people here but among the was the aforementioned guide.
There's no publication date but the layout and style make it look quite old and the advice is often odd. Even when the advice is sound the phrasing sometimes makes me chuckle.
In this thread I'm going to quote a few selections.

The first chapter is head "PLEONASM, VULGARISMS. COLLOQUIALISMS, JOURNALESE, WRONG IDIONS, ETC."

It begins by defining the terms.
Among the colloquialisms it objects to are "I have got" for "I have" and "a lot of" for "many".
Nowadays I don't think there are many people who would seriously object to the phrase "I have got a lot of books" and insist on "I have many books" as the correct form. Maybe there are, but certainly both forms are given in the various grammar books that I use for teaching.

Here are a couple of quotes from the chapter which although strictly speaking are correct would certainly nowadays be considered OK in normal spoken use.

aim to
They are, in fact, aiming to overthrow the present system.
wrong idiom

Correct: They aim, in fact, at overthrowing the system.

I don't think their correction sounds any better. In fact I'd suggest that most people would find it a little stilted and pompous.

conservative

On a conservative estimate, the profits will be large enough for a 10 per cent. dividend to be paid on the ordinary shares.

"Conservative" must not be used in this sense; its proper meaning is "disposed to maintain existing conditions."

Correct: moderate

My dictionary gives a secondary meaning of "conservative" as tending to be moderate or cautious" so this use of conservative is perfectly acceptable. Not only that but I don't consider "moderate" to be a synonym for "tending to be moderate". There is a distinct shade of meaning missing if you make their suggested correction.

More later.

As for the "conservative" example, that writer has fallen into the same trap I have fallen into on this board. Remember how I like a word to have one, main meaning? I can absolutely identify with this author! Yet, I have learned time and time again, from all of you, that words have many different meanings (Richards example of "set" comes to mind), and we must be aware of that.

So, Bob, I agree with you.

Bob,

Is there any explanation for why the sentence is completely recast in the "aim to/at" example? Do they feel there is something wrong with They are, in fact, aiming at overthrowing the present system?

quote:

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Originally posted by arnie:
Bob,

Is there any explanation for why the sentence is completely recast in the "aim to/at" example? Do they feel there is something wrong with _They are, in fact, aiming at overthrowing the present system_?

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No suggestion at all. Apart from the layout which I can'r duplicate here, it's quoted as written in the book.

Perhaps are aiming being a single verb in Latin, they felt it should be unsplit, like the Latin infinitive. I've never heard of that stricture before; I don't think it's in Fowler.

Perhaps are aiming being a single verb in Latin, they felt it should be unsplit, like the Latin infinitive.

Yes, aput, and the real irony being that where Latin does have two words, it was a favorite trick of poets to split them up by inserting other words or whole phrases in between them. Especially with prepositions and the nouns they governed.