Fowler's Modern English Usage
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A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, often referred to simply as Fowler's Modern English Usage, or Fowler, is a style guide to British English usage, authored by Henry W. Fowler. Fowler covers in detail many issues of usage, from plurals and literary techniques to distinctions between similar words and the usage of foreign terms.
The work concentrated on British usage, and set the standard for all usage books to follow. Its first edition of 1926 remains in print, but more recent editions have updated the book.
Fowler's remark on the split infinitive is noteworthy:
| "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." |
Fowler concludes that split infinitives should not attract as much attention as they do, and says that they are indeed sometimes the best way to express one's meaning if used properly. He clarified in the article that corrections should be made with care. See the split infinitive article for further discussion.
Only the first edition of the book was completely Fowler's. The second edition was a light revision by Sir Ernest Gowers and the third edition was substantially revised and rewritten by Robert Burchfield. The third edition is regarded by many as inappropriately liberal in its advice, in part because while it marks a number of constructions and phrases as "informal" it refuses to counsel against their usage in a fashion similar to earlier editions.
The difference between the first and second editions on the one hand, and the third on the other, can be understood as a shift from prescriptive to descriptive linguistics; the criticism the third edition received is perhaps in part due to the popularity of earlier editions with proponents of prescriptive linguistics such as David Foster Wallace, who wrote approvingly of "Fowler's" in an essay in Harper's Magazine.
- First edition, 1926 (reprinted in 2003, see References below)
- Second edition, 1965, edited by Sir Ernest Gowers, paperback edition with corrections 1983.
- Third edition, 1996 (The New Fowler's Modern English Usage)
[edit] See also
- Disputed English grammar
- Elegant variation
- Logorrhoea
- Pleonasm
- Politics and the English Language (George Orwell)
- Prescription and description
[edit] Similar works
- The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White
- The Chicago Manual of Style, the authoritative guide to American English publishing style and markup
- Plain Words by Sir Ernest Gowers
- A Dictionary of American-English Usage Based on Fowler's Modern English Usage, by Margaret Nicholson. 1950s Signet paperback, by arrangement with Oxford University Press.
[edit] 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.
- Burchfield, R. W. (Editor); Fowler, H. W. (1996). The New Fowler's Modern English Usage. Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-869126-2.
- Nicholson, Margaret; (1957). A Dictionary of American-English Usage Based on Fowler's Modern English Usage. Signet, by arrangement with Oxford University Press.
