Product Description

The Complete Plain Words is the essential guide for anyone who needs to express themselves clearly, fluently and accurately in writing. Whether you are working on a paper or on a computer, this invaluable reference work will lead you through the intricacies, problems and pleasures of the English language with wit, common sense and authority.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4534 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-30
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

From the Publisher

A sample extract:

(iv) Shall and will.

English text-books used to begin by stating the rule that to express the `plain' future shall is used in the first person and will in the second and third:

I shall go

You will go

He will go

and that if it is a matter not of plain future but of volition, permission or obligation it is the other way round:

I will go (I am determined to go, or I intend to go)

You shall go (You must go, or you are permitted to go)

He shall go (He must go, or he is permitted to go)

But the idiom of the Celts is different. They have never recognised `I shall go'. For them `I will go' is the plain future. The story is a very old one of the drowning Scot who was misunderstood by English onlookers and left to his fate because he cried, `I will drown and nobody shall save me'.

American practice follows the Celtic, and in this matter, as in so many others, the English have taken to imitating the American. If we go by practice rather than precept, we can no longer say dogmatically that `I will go' for the plain future is wrong, or smugly with Dean Alford:

"I never knew an Englishman who misplaced shall and will; I hardly ever have known an Irishman or Scotsman who did not misplace them sometimes."

About the Author
Sir Ernest Gowers was born in 1880 and served in a number of illustrious occupations. He advised numerous commissions and committees on a wide variety of subjects from work conditions to the preservation of historic houses. Sidney Greenbaum was a Director of the Survey of English Usage and was the author of many books on grammar and linguistics. Janet Whitcut has worked on a number of prestgious dictionaries and is now a freelance writer with a special interest in langauge.

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Customer Reviews

Useful for reference
Despite having been through the education system more than twenty five years ago before it was allegedly dumbed down and despite being a voracious reader of quality newspapers, magazines, classic novels and history books I still find myself stumped from time to time when writing.

I sometimes have to write reports at work and I also enjoy blogging on various websites e.g the Daily Telegraph's. Every so often I come to a halt when I am not sure whether I am making grammatical sense. I may think long and hard about a few sentences and still be none the wiser.

This is one of a number of excellent reference books on the market and would suit anyone from students, professionals such as accountants, engineers, nurses, doctors, police officers and the like as well as blogging enthusiasts and even full time professional writers.

This is excellent and highly recommnded.

A useful book, but for a specialised readership
First of all: if you are someone who hasn't read a lot of books about the English language, but you have to do a fair amount of writing in your daily life and you feel that you need help with grammar and punctuation, this book is probably not for you.

Gowers' original book was written in the late 1940s and early 1950s, mainly for use by civil servants who were already highly educated but who needed reminding that they were supposed to be servants of the public, not masters. Gowers' advice is mostly about cleaning up bad and pretentious English, not about basic points of style and usage for people who just don't know how to put a sentence together. If you want a useful book which will tell you things like where to put the full stop in a sentence that ends with a quote, then you need a good style guide. The best one for my money is the Oxford University Press 'New Hart's Rules', an excellent handbook of guidelines on basic usage, clarity and good plain style. Alternatively, you could get Fowler's 'Modern English Usage' but the current edition of it (edited by Robert Burchfield) is somewhat controversial, and previous editions, though fascinating, are a bit out of date. 'New Hart's Rules' covers the same ground but is shorter and more handy for everyday use.

'The Complete Plain Words' is a different sort of book from any of the above, and is really intended for people who already think they know how to write. It's extremely good at clearing up common confusions in the minds of educated people, such as the distinctions between 'abrogate' and 'arrogate', or 'comprise' and 'compose' (or, for that matter, the specific difference between 'comprise' and 'include'.) If this is not the kind of thing you are looking for, then you probably need 'New Hart's Rules' or Fowler. Everybody else needs them too, but this book is actually a fairly specialised guide to writing official English, and is aimed at people who do that for a living.

For those people, Gowers is a great and enlightening read. My own copy of the book is the second edition, edited by his great successor Sir Bruce Fraser, and apart from its value as a guide to good usage it's an interesting snapshot of the state of English in the early 1970s, when Fraser carried out his revision. It's also wise, witty and full of fascinating examples of what the author and editor considered good as well as bad English.

There is a current fad for correctness in language, of which the bestselling example is probably Lynne Truss' book 'Eats, Shoots and Leaves'. It has been hyped as a useful and accessible guide to correct English (or at any rate, correct punctuation). I haven't read it, though, for two reasons: one is that a quick flick through the book revealed that it didn't contain anything that wasn't already in any of the books mentioned above, which I already own; and the other is that if I were looking for someone to teach me about how to write clear and unpretentious English, I certainly wouldn't go to a journalist.

To sum up: if you feel lost writing English and want to know how to avoid basic mistakes, get 'New Hart's Rules' or Fowler's 'Modern English Usage'. If you feel like you know how to write but find it difficult to make your meaning clear, get them anyway, but also get this.

Fantastic little book
I first read this book cover-to-cover, like a novel. It is interesting, easy to read and entertaining. It also covers a LOT of ground without being complicated or long-winded.

I bought this book in the late 90s and I still refer to it regularly. It's a fantastic little reference book. It explains things very clearly, and the examples it uses are very helpful indeed.

Its index is great; you can find what you're looking for very quickly.

It's refreshing to read a book about English usage which reflects our times and stresses the importance of clarity and elegance over blind adherence to Latin-based rules (e.g. it takes a sensible and pragmatic approach to the splitting of infinitives and to sentences ending with prepositions), but which at the same time doesn't do any "dumbing down" - everything it recommends is firmly rooted in good grammar and educated, clear use of the language.

This book was first published 52 years ago, but it has been updated to keep it current. In my opinion it is the best book you can buy if you want a clear, concise, sensible guide to writing well.

Oh - and the section on verbo-pomposity is a hoot!