A Dictionary of Modern English Usage
| Author | H. W. Fowler |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Publication date | 1926 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, often referred to as Fowler's Modern English Usage or simply as Fowler's or Fowler, is a style guide to British English usage, written by Henry W. Fowler, and first published in 1926. Modern English Usage covers in detail many issues of usage, pronunciation, and style, from plurals and literary techniques to distinctions between similar words and the usage of foreign terms. The guide set the standard for all usage books to follow, and as such its first edition remains in print even though more recent editions exist.
Editions
The first edition went through several reprints. A reprint whose copyright page mentions "1954" as the most recent reprint notes that reprints in 1930 and 1937 were "with corrections ..." The second edition, published in 1965, involved a light revision by Sir Ernest Gowers. Gowers updated and contributed to the existing text, while removing articles "no longer relevant to [current] literary fashions." Robert Burchfield edited the third edition. Its preface explains that while "Fowler's name remains on the title-page, ... his book has been largely rewritten." This third edition can best be understood as a shift from prescriptive to descriptive linguistics; the criticism it has received is perhaps in part due to the popularity of earlier editions with proponents of prescriptive linguistics.
- Fowler, Henry Watson (1926). A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1st edition ed.). Great Britain: Oxford University Press.
{{cite book}}:|edition=has extra text (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|month=(help) - Fowler, Henry Watson (1965). Fowler's Modern English Usage. edited by Sir Ernest Gowers (2nd edition ed.). Great Britain: Oxford University Press.
{{cite book}}:|edition=has extra text (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|month=(help) - Burchfield, Robert William (1996). The New Fowler's Modern English Usage (3rd edition ed.). Oxford University Press.
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Quotations
The book is renowned for its witty passages,[1] many of which have been widely cited:[2]
- Didacticism
- The speaker who has discovered that Juan and Quixote are not pronounced in Spain as he used to pronounce them as a boy is not content to keep so important a piece of information to himself; he must have the rest of us call them Hwan and Keehotay; at any rate he will give us the chance of mending our ignorant ways by doing so.
- French Words
- Display of superior knowledge is as great a vulgarity as display of superior wealth — greater indeed, inasmuch as knowledge should tend more definitely than wealth towards discretion and good manners.
- Inversion
- Writers who observe the poignancy sometimes given by inversion, but fail to observe that 'sometimes' means 'when exclamation is appropriate', adopt inversion as an infallible enlivener; they aim at freshness and attain frigidity.
- Split Infinitive
- The English-speaking world may be divided into (1) those who neither know nor care what a split infinitive is; (2) those who do not know, but care very much; (3) those who know and condemn; (4) those who know and approve; and (5) those who know and distinguish.
- Terribly
- It is strange that a people with such a fondness for understatement as the British should have felt the need to keep changing the adverbs by which they hope to convince listeners of the intensity of their feelings.
Footnotes
- ^ Weber, John (1978). Good Reading: A Guide for Serious Readers. R. R. Bowker. p. 225.
- ^ Shapiro, Fred R. (2006). The Yale Book of Quotations. The Yale University Press. p. 284. ISBN 0300107986.
See also
Similar works
- The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White
- The Chicago Manual of Style, a widely used guide to American English publishing style and markup
- Plain Words by Sir Ernest Gowers
References
- Fowler, Henry; Winchester, Simon (introduction) (2003 reprint). A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (Oxford Language Classics Series). Oxford Press. ISBN 0-19-860506-4.
- Nicholson, Margaret (1957). A Dictionary of American-English Usage Based on Fowler's Modern English Usage. Signet, by arrangement with Oxford University Press.