Product Description

With TROUBLESOME WORDS, journalist and bestselling travel-writer Bill Bryson gives us a clear, concise and entertaining guide to problems of English usage and spelling. Originally published as THE PENGUIN DICTIONARY OF TROUBLESOME WORDS, it has beenan indispensable companion to those who work with the written word for nearly twenty years. Now fully updated and revised, it is better than ever. So if you want to discover whether you should care about split infinitives, are cursed with an uncontrollable outbreak of commas or were wondering if that newsreader was right to say 'an historic day', this superb book is the place to find out.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3281 in Books
• Published on: 2002-09-26
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From Amazon.co.uk
It is nearly 20 years since Bill Bryson first penned his deliciously witty paean to precision Troublesome Words. Now he has revised it and 60 per cent of the content is new so it's well worth another browse and a place on the desk corner of anyone who likes words and who wants to get things right.

Once a sub-editor at The Times, Bryson is irresistibly drawn to knowing that "to flaunt" means to display ostentatiously but "to flout" means to treat with contempt. Or that a straitjacket may be straight but its name means that its occupant is confined and restricted--in straitened circumstances, perhaps. And can you explain the difference between a Creole and a Pidgin or between egoism and egotism? If not consult Bryson. Then you'll be able to. There's no pedantry or pomposity in Bryson's writing. But he argues: "Just as we all agree that clarity is better served if 'cup' represents a drinking vessel and 'cap' something you put on your head, so too I think the world is a fractionally better place if we agree to preserve a distinction between 'its' and 'it's', between 'I lay down the law' and 'I lie down to sleep', between 'imply' and 'infer' and countless others."

Bryson modestly jokes that this alphabetically arranged book could be subtitled "Even More Things in English Usage That the Author Wasn't Entirely Clear about Until Quite Recently". If only most of us were sure about a fraction of the things Bryson clearly understands very well we might all be more effective writers and speakers. --Susan Elkin

Review
To have a book as definitive as this guide to the most commonly encountered problems of English spelling and usage is highly useful - and the fact that it's written by one of the most entertaining writers in the English language is a considerable bonus. Do you know the difference between blatant and flagrant or flount and flaunt? Do you wear an Arran sweater or an Aran sweater? Do you curl up with a whodunit or a whodunnit? Most of us are given pause by such nagging uncertainties, and while Bryson may not resolve every problem with finality (there are, after all, several options for commonly misused words), he provides us with as reliable a guide as we're likely to encounter. This book has been on many a reading table since its original publication in 1984, and really is indispensable for anyone whose business is the written word: journalists, writers, teachers, publishers. But for the ordinary reader, too, it's a diverting treasure trove of information, constantly challenging the things we think we know - but really don't. This edition has been thoroughly revised and updated, offering rulings that are both reliable and informed, while resolutely keeping pedantry at bay (this is the wisdom of having Bryson on board -- pomposity isn't going to get a look in with him around!). What Bryson brings to the book is humour - and we're never within a million miles of the kind of dry-as-dust tome that this could easily have been. For instance: 'Any journalist who believes that barbecue [may be] spelled bar-b-q is not ready for unsupervised employment.' Who'd have thought that a book as utilitarian as this could be such a treat? (Kirkus UK)

About the Author
Bill Bryson was born in 1951 in Iowa but lived in the UK for many years working as a sub-editor before becoming an international bestselling writer with books such as THE LOST CONTINENT and NOTES FROM A SMALL ISLAND. He now lives in New England withhis wife and four children.