The Penguin Dictionary of American Usage and Style

by Paul W. Lovinger and Paul Lovinger

Book Overview

The Penguin Dictionary of American English Usage and Stylecovers a wide range of topics from grammar and punctuation to style and word choice. Drawing on more than 2,000 real-life examples of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670891665
• ISBN13: 9780670891665
• Release Date: July 2000
• Publisher: Viking Books
• Length: 491 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

An Entertaining Tool for Better Communication

I found "The Penguin Dictionary of American English Usage and Syle" to be a powerful tool. It shows and corrects rampant and very common errors in word usage that have been made in newspapers, magazines, TV, Radio and books.This book is highly entertaining. It includes a lot of witty humor in pointing out some of the errors. Almost anyone who has any interest in the field of information would be titillated by the hilarious examples.It's an excellent reference, especially for journalists and others who write for a living because it shows the common errors that are made in that field. But everyone who has to write at any level and anyone who reads should be aware of proper usage and grammar.The book is a great aid in making yourself understood and in understanding others. One of the things it brings out to me is that without using words properly, we don't say what we mean. Often we're confused about what one another mean.Among the many entries that enlightened me is "Obscene and obscenity," which a lot of people are using loosely for deficits and lucre. Two others are "Tautology" and "Verbosity". They show that it's common for people to use words redundantly but that not using more words than necessary to get ideas across would strengthen a writer's ability to communicate effectively. Three more are "Affect and Effect", "Can and may", and "Gone and went". The examples are good and the explanations are clear.

A LIGHTHEARTED LOOK AT LANGUAGE

I got "The Penguin Dictionary of American English Usage and Style" to help me with my writing. I wanted to avoid mistakes such as using "lay instead of lie" and "farther" instead of "further." And I wanted to be able to use a semicolon correctly and know the difference between a dash and a hyphen. The book helped me with all those problems and more.As I read the entries I discovered the book's wit and humor and I ended up reading it from cover to cover -- from "A and An," to Zero In." I thoroughly enjoyed myself. This book is a valuable tool that is fun to use.

A great read--even though it's a reference book!

For those of us a little less versed in journalistic writing, this book is a very good guide as well as a great read! (And if you ARE a journalist, you could probably stand to learn a thing or two.) I pick up this book, open it to any random page, and start reading. The entries are informative and funny. The examples of how NOT to write are great. Some of them are a little subjective, such as the "sultry" eggplant. But others are accurate reminders, such as the point that refugees do not "burgeon." I also learned the difference between lecturn and podium. Do you know the difference? Most of America does not!

An Unusual Dictionary: Readable and Stimulating

Reference books don't usually serve as bedtime reading or the topic of controversy. Here is an exception. "The Penguin Dictionary of American English Usage and Style," by Paul W. Lovinger, is unusually readable and thought-provoking for a book labeled "dictionary." It clashes with those lexicographers and theorists who contend that speakers of a language cannot go wrong, that many verbal wrongs make a right. Examples of those wrongs are the use of "infer" instead of "imply," and "flaunt" instead of "flout," which some dictionaries accept. In an introductory section headed "Save the Language," it borrows the rhetoric of the environmental movement to warn that English is losing indispensable words because of misuse. The Penguin Dictionary disavows purism or pedantry--for instance, it does not flatly condemn split infinitives or ending sentences with prepositions. "But it does value precision over fashion, logic over illogic, and grammatical correctness over 'political correctness'" (from the introduction). A good example is from the book's discussion of pronouns and number: Drawing from the abortion controversy, it quotes an advocate of "an individual's right to make a choice about their individual lives"--instead of "her individual life." Comment: "Having erroneously associated 'individual' with 'their,' the speaker proceeded to give that individual a number of 'lives.'" The quotation, incidentally, is one of some 2,000 in the book. (The count excludes made-up examples, the introduction says-- contrary to the intimation of a reader. He wants the book to be fatter and include a list of sources. That would increase its price but not its usefulness. It has over 500 pages, with the front matter. By the way, another reader condemns the whole book because he disagrees with a statement under "reason, 2." But that sub-entry presents differing views, and most readers should find it reasonable and balanced.) In exceptionally clear language, this A-Z guide to good English explains principles of grammar and style (such as the parts of speech, active and passive voice, infinitives, modifiers, plurals, punctuation, and tense). It deals with distinctive words that are often misused (e.g., alibi, bemuse, connive, desecrate, dilemma, fortuitous, idyllic, literally, transpire, and unique) and confusing pairs (e.g., can-may, disinterested-uninterested, emigrate-immigrate, eminent-imminent, masterful-masterly, may-might, nauseated-nauseous, prescribe-proscribe, respectable-respectful, that-which, and perhaps the biggest puzzle: who-whom). Some of Lovinger's entry topics--like Fowler's--are quirky: anachronisms, backward writing, cliché clash, dehumanization, guilt and innocence, joining of words, metaphoric contradiction, quotation problems, range (true and false), reversal of meaning, series errors, synonymic silliness, and verbal unmentionables. The only objection I have is to the title of "The Penguin D

An Uncommon Resource: Readable and Stimulating

Reference books don't usually serve as bedtime reading or the topic of controversy. Here is an exception. "The Penguin Dictionary of American English Usage and Style," by Paul W. Lovinger, is unusually readable and thought-provoking for a book labeled "dictionary." It clashes with those lexicographers and theorists who contend that speakers of a language cannot go wrong, that many verbal wrongs make a right. Examples of those wrongs are the use of "infer" instead of "imply," and "flaunt" instead of "flout," which some dictionaries accept. In an introductory section headed "Save the Language," it borrows the rhetoric of the environmental movement to warn that English is losing indispensable words because of misuse. The Penguin Dictionary disavows purism or pedantry--for instance, it does not flatly condemn split infinitives or ending sentences with prepositions. "But it does value precision over fashion, logic over illogic, and grammatical correctness over 'political correctness'" (from the introduction). A good example is from the book's discussion of pronouns and number: Drawing from the abortion controversy, it quotes an advocate of "an individual's right to make a choice about their individual lives"--instead of "her individual life." Comment: "Having erroneously associated 'individual' with 'their,' the speaker proceeded to give that individual a number of 'lives.'" The quotation, incidentally, is one of some 2,000 in the book. (The count excludes made-up examples, the introduction says-- contrary to the intimation of a reader. He wants the book to be fatter and include a list of sources. That would surely increase its price but not its usefulness. It has over 500 pages, with the front matter. By the way, another reader condemns the whole book because he disagrees with a statement under "reason, 2." But that sub-entry presents differing views, and most readers should find it reasonable and balanced.) In exceptionally clear language, this A-Z guide to good English explains principles of grammar and style (such as the parts of speech, active and passive voice, infinitives, modifiers, plurals, punctuation, and tense). It deals with distinctive words that are often misused (e.g., alibi, bemuse, connive, desecrate, dilemma, fortuitous, idyllic, literally, transpire, and unique) and confusing pairs (e.g., can-may, disinterested-uninterested, emigrate-immigrate, eminent-imminent, masterful-masterly, may-might, nauseated-nauseous, prescribe-proscribe, respectable-respectful, that-which, and perhaps the biggest puzzle: who-whom). Some of Lovinger's entry topics--like Fowler's--are quirky: anachronisms, backward writing, cliché clash, dehumanization, guilt and innocence, joining of words, metaphoric contradiction, quotation problems, range (true and false), reversal of meaning, series errors, synonymic silliness, and verbal unmentionables. The only objection I have is to the title of "The Penguin Dictionary of American English