modern american usage

Now fully revised and brought up-to-date, this one-volume course in good writing brims with helpful answers - large and small - for readers who want to use English clearly, naturally, and correctly.

Alphabetical for easy consulting (and full of cross-references), the book carries the reader to the entry that explains a troublesome word or phrase - and shows how to use or avoid it; no time lost in wondering whether the problem is one of grammar, syntax, or style. Every page offers natural ways to avoid saying or writing the vague, the long-winded, the needlessly technical, and the hopelessly stale.