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"Authoritative as it is amusing, this book distills everything Benjamin Dreyer has learned from the hundreds of books he has copyedited, including works by Elizabeth Strout, E. L. Doctorow, and Frank Rich, into a useful guide not just for writers but for everyone who wants to put their best foot forward in writing prose. Dreyer offers lessons on the ins and outs of punctuation and grammar, including how to navigate the words he calls 'the confusables,' like tricky homophones; the myriad ways to use (and misuse) a comma; and how to recognize--though not necessarily do away with--the passive voice. (Hint: If you can plausibly add 'by zombies' to the end of a sentence, it's passive.) People are sharing their writing more than ever--on blogs, on Twitter--and this book lays out, clearly and comprehensibly, everything writers can do to keep readers focused on the real reason writers write: to communicate their ideas clearly and effectively. Chock-full of advice, insider wisdom, and fun facts on the rules (and nonrules) of the English language, this book will prove invaluable to everyone who wants to shore up their writing skills, mandatory for people who spend their time editing and shaping other people's prose, and--perhaps best of all--an utter treat for anyone who simply revels in language"--… (more)
User reviews
And I may not remember much of what he says to avoid or watch out for, but hopefully some things will
One of my favorite chapters is the one that lists sets of words that are redundant. It's available online so I recommend that everyone read that at the very least.
Now if only there were a similar book for UK English...!
Benjamin Dreyer has been the copy chief at
Oh, and the importance of doing so diplomatically.
I listened to the audiobook, and Dreyer is an excellent reader of his own work, as well as a very good writer. He has wit and humor and a sense of the ironic. Alison Fraser reader's quotes and excerpts used to illustrate points, and is also very good.
However, there are also a few sections that I think I would have preferred to read, no listen to. These are lists of names often misspelled, words often misspelled, expressions often misused, misspelled, or which have wrong words substituted. His commentary on this is well-done and entertaining, but they are still lists of words and phrases accompanied by that great commentary. Because of that, I recommend reading, not listening to, this book.
But very definitely recommended, in whichever format you choose.
I borrowed this audiobook from my local library.
Quote: "First challenge is to go a week without writing these words: very, rather, really, quite, in fact, of course, surely, that said. And "actually"? Feel free to go the rest of your life without another "actually"".
I knew I still had a lot to learn when the book’s first chapter, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (Your Prose),” began with a challenge not to use for a week what turned out to be five of my favorite words: “very,” “rather,” “really,” “quite,” and “in fact.” And my apprehension only increased when Dreyer went on to add “just,” “pretty,” “surely,” “of course,” “so,” “that said,” and “actually” to the list. Dreyer is not saying never to use these words, only that they should be used sparingly if they are to have much of an impact on the reader.
Dreyer, though, is not as strict as this may make him sound because the second chapter of Dreyer’s English is an explanation of why we should ignore some of the written (and unwritten) writing rules we grew up with. (God bless him). Among other things, Dreyer gives us his blessing to:
• Begin a sentence with “And” or “But,”
• Split an Infinitive,
• End a Sentence with a Preposition (see the first sentence of this paragraph),
• Use Contractions in Formal Writing,
• Actively Use the Passive Voice, and
• Use Sentence Fragments (for effect).
Dreyer’s English is broken into two distinct parts, “The Stuff in the Front” and “The Stuff at the Back,” with the second part being largely a series of lists (with explanations and tips) of things such as easily misspelled words, the author’s pet peeves, words easily confused by the writer (or spell check) with other words, notes on confusing proper names, and words that should never be used in connection with other words. Part One focuses as much on grammar as it does on style but proves to be as much fun to read as it is instructive because Dreyer so often uses his keen sense of humor to make his points. This section includes my favorite part of the book, a chapter entitled “67 Assorted Things to Do (and Not to Do) with Punctuation.” Somehow, the chapter managed to clarify some of my longtime uncertainties about punctuation at the same time it was making me feel that my grammar might not be as hopeless as I had feared. (So, of course, it is my favorite part of the book.)
Bottom Line: Dreyer’s English is an excellent style and grammar guide, and it is written in such humorous fashion that it is fun to read – what may be a first in the history of books on English grammar. My one quibble with the book, and it is a big one, is the author’s insistence on so often using President Trump in disparaging or negative terms to illustrate poor grammar or his simple dislike of the man and his policies. It was kind of funny the first two or three times, but the first third of Dreyer’s English is so heavily littered with the remarks and examples that they soon become little more than an irritating distraction. Why turn a book on grammar and style into a personal political statement? Thankfully, there are far fewer of these little throwaways in the final two-thirds of the book.
“If you can last a week without writing any of what I’ve come to think of as the Wan Intensifiers and Throat Clearers - I wouldn’t ask you to go a week without saying them; that would render most people, especially British people, mute - you will at the end of that week be a considerably better writer than you were at the beginning.”
He also attacks the modifier “literally,” calling it “the Intensifier from Hell.” “No,” he states, “you did not literally die laughing.”
He explains that prose rules “aid us in using our words to their preeminent purpose: to communicate clearly with our readers.” He avers, “I swear to you, a well-constructed sentence sounds better.” Still, he is much more flexible that one would suppose. Dreyer in his witty, breezy book tells us that most of the don’ts we learned in the last century were (or are now) maybes.
He notes, somewhat dispiritedly, that the English language is “not so easily ruled and regulated . . . [it] continues to evolve anarchically.”
In many cases Dreyer has the good grace to tell us what the old rule was. He proposes that the writer may observe them or not in his (or ‘her’ or sometimes ‘their’) discretion. (He doesn’t care for the use of the singular ‘their,’ but seems ready to bow to the inevitable if the gender of a single person is unknown.)
He does stress the importance of the serial comma (sometimes called the “Oxford comma”), providing funny examples of misunderstandings from omitting it. [That is the comma that precedes the final ‘and’ in an enumeration in most American books, but is typically absent (presumably to save space) in most American newspapers.]
He also is against using the passive voice, even while allowing that sometimes one needs to emphasize something other than the subject of a sentence. But he wants you at least to know what the passive voice is, writing:
“If you can append ‘by zombies’ to the end of a sentence (or, yes, ‘by the clown’), you’ve indeed written a sentence in the passive voice.”
He is not above taking opportunities to inject veiled political jabs into his rationales for his recommendations. For example, he bemoans the tendency of the President of the United States to misspell words, and has this to say on the importance of fact-checking quotes:
“In an era redolent to the high heavens with lies passed off as truths - often by career perjurers rabidly eager to condemn as fabrications facts they find inconvenient - I beg you not to continue to perpetrate and perpetuate these fortune-cookie hoaxes, which in their often insipid vapidity are as demeaning to the spirit as in the inauthenticity they are insulting to the history of the written word.”
He includes sections on, inter alia, “Peeves and Crotchets” (such as the use of aggravate versus irritate), “The Confusables” (affect versus effect, for example), and “Notes on Proper Nouns” which includes “Miscellaneous Facty Things” and “The Trimmables,” i.e., all those redundant phrases we use, from “blend together” to “exact same.”
Dreyer peppers the text with funny footnotes, sometimes all the more amusing for being digressive.
This book, like many of its genre, can be sampled a little at a time. I enjoyed it so much I read straight through, over to cover.
Dreyer's English is a sort of memoir and chapbook by a man who was for years the chief copy editor over at Random House.
The first half of the book is the memoir of famous books and authors he worked with and in passing some of the
The second half of the book is more just "Do this" and "Don't do that" it's useful and the books index is first rate but it's not quite as much fun as the first half.
But a lovely book to have on your night table and dip into here and there. And learn something
Yes, I actually laughed out loud while reading this book, and I did it often. One night my husband asked what was so funny. When I told him "the proper use of commas," he stood staring at me like he wasn't quite sure what
Not only is this book highly enjoyable, but it's also a treasure trove of information. The layout is concise and easy to follow, making it ideal for quick reference. First, though, you'll want to read the entire thing from beginning to end, at least once but maybe twice, because, really, you'll learn a lot, and laughter is good for you.
This book is a must, whether you're a professional writer, a student, a blogger, or you just want your work emails and Facebook rants to look smarter.
He won my heart by adding, "Even now I'd be hard-pressed to tell you what a nominative absolute is, I
We did diagram sentences in junior high....in 1965... Don't ask me how to do that now.
In school, I often got an A for content and a C for grammar and spelling. I never did learn to touch type with accuracy, and any proficiency I had gained in spelling has disappeared.
I often said that I came out of Temple University knowing how to read intelligently. I was quite unemployable and ended up in customer service and sales.
When I somehow got a job as a copywriter/copyeditor in promotion for a small publishing house (I had worked for a former employee and my new boss thought I had learned her skills through osmosis), I worked hard to correct my errors by reading grammar books. My coworker and I had many heated discussions about how to write; she was a grammar nerd.
Later in life, while schooling our son, my family all were writing and we would critique each other. I had become a member of the dreaded 'grammar police' and oversensitive to bad writing habits.
I took short-term editing jobs and people hated me. I edited a manuscript for a self-published author who appreciated my insight and gave me double our agreed on price.
Well, that was a long time ago. I had thrown out my ragged grammar books before a move. Now, I needed a refresher course. And hearing so many good things about Dreyer's English, bought an ebook.
What a treasure! So much useful information, shared in such an entertaining way! A joy to read!
I now understand why I never know if I should use gray or grey. My history of reading British writers had me totally confused.
I am very grateful.
This book is as funny as grammar gets.
The first chapters are the best, as he reviews general principles of correct and strong writing: rules of grammar, punctuation (be warned: he takes the Oxford comma seriously), conventions of spacing, foreign words, parenthetical statements, and so on. I'm going to scan the section on hyphens (includes em and en dashes for extra credit) and put it on my bulletin board. The section on editing fiction writing is illuminating, and is clearly a special professional niche, since it may involve authorial replies to your edits along the lines of "WRITE YOUR OWN F***ING BOOK!" The later chapters are more or less compendia of random tips, trick, preferences, and what I think must be extracts from his daily notebooks: "Peeves and Crotchets," "Assorted Things," "Confusables," words people just use wrong all the time, celebrity names to be sure to spell right, words he can never spell right.... The main takeaway would be - and he says it repeatedly: Look it up. Keep a dictionary, consult any of a number of recommended grammar / writing websites, or google it (when referring to the website, it's Google; if it's a verb, it's google).
Not necessarily a book to be read cover to cover, though I did, with enjoyment. But I will definitely stick this on the shelf next to my own "big fat style manuals" to refer to. A breezy, drily funny (thought sometimes he tries a little bit too hard) companion for those of us who really truly want to know where the word "only" properly should go in a sentence (answer: it depends).