The New Fowler's Modern English Usage

Rating:
Summary: Honestly, it isn't a bad book... it's just not Fowler's
Review: As a person who has long held Fowler's Grammatical works in highest esteem, this "new edition" comes as a grave disappointment to me.
It is more an inferior re-write than that which you might call a "New Edition".
Some might argue that the English language is in flux, and of course, this is true. However, when a significant part of this is entirely due to the perpetuation of improper word usage (often relegating original meanings and associated sentence structures to the archives), ratifying the inclusion of such examples, other than to point out that they are incorrect, is linguistic vandalism.
Purists and writers alike should go for the Second Edition; it is more accurate, more informative, and a more interesting and witty read.
Those people with sound knowledge of correct grammar are the only ones with any right to break the rules of grammar; they know what rules they are breaking, and why. This edition can only undermine the terrific utility of the Second Edition in this regard.

Rating:
Summary: A most unfortunate revision of an outstanding work
Review: I can but concur that while Fowler's Modern English Usage is the outstanding, seminal work on the conventions, structure and usage of English, it is the second and not the third edition that lovers of English should buy. Fowler's knowledge and wit shine through his own work; Burchfield's tendentious, plodding and pseudo-scholarly revision has left little trace of such elements. If you want to see exactly what's wrong with Burchfield, try reading his observations on 'sexist language'; he is entitled to his opinions of what is acceptable usage, but he comprehensively misunderstands that in English the generic pronoun "he" is not the same word as the masculine personal pronoun that one spells and pronounces the same way. Burchfield's is a fallacy of comprehension, and not merely (which would be quite as bad in someone affecting to advise on English usage) an inability to write clear and idiomatic English.

And if you want to see why Fowler is such a marvellous source of reference and learning, read (in the second edition) his clear and authoritative exposition of the difference, which is now rarely understood, between a gerund and a participle. Fowler, second edition, is the one work of reference that you should own.

Rating:
Summary: Honestly, it isn't a bad book... it's just not Fowler's
Review: I think that the issue most people have with the third edition of this book is the big word "Fowler's" on the cover. If it had simply been called "Modern English Usage," this book would, I think, be a very useful tool to most literary folk.

The second edition of Fowler's had charisma and wit on it's side. This book, the third is well... it is a good tool, and not much more.

Personally, I use both editions in different ways. When I was in school once sat down and read the second edition cover to cover, and I still, occasionally consult it. Because the third edition deals with Canadian English (and I suppose American too) I use it, infrequently, like I would a regular dictionary.

Rating:
Summary: The essential English usage reference
Review: If you aren't familiar with previous versions of Fowler's, don't be scared off by all the negative reviews here. If you work with words for a living (as I do), you must have a copy of the current edition. It is the only comprehensive -- and, importantly, comprehendible -- reference on English usage available. The current edition reflects modern standard usage. Perhaps it is not as prescriptive as earlier editions, but I would argue that you don't want it to be. English usage is in flux, and the author is wise enough not to enforce rules that are in the process of being naturally dismantled. He is wise enough to tell you precisely what the state of the language is now, enough to inform your own decisions. If you are an editor or a serious writer, you must have this book.

Rating:
Summary: an insult - to readers, to Fowler, to wit, to intelligence
Review: The book is not wrong - it is, quite simply, boring. You CAN use it as a reference, but why would you want to? The original (2nd ed.) is still available and is still infintely more fun. I suspect the original will remain the authority and this will be a passing curiosity.

Rating:
Summary: Why Bother?
Review: The impression I have from my bookstore sampling is consistent with the several reviews I see here -- that the "Burchfield" Fowlers is not an improvement over the Gowers. I came so close to spending the $30 anyway just to be sure that I and my now-high schooler would have the latest and therefore (arguably) best usage manual on our shelf. Thanks, folks, for helping me recognize more clearly what my initial instinct was struggling to tell me. It ain't worth it -- stay with Gowers.

Rating:
Summary: Not really Fowlerian
Review: Unlike the second edition of this venerable classic, this, the third, is thoroughly revised and brought up to date by R. W. Burchfield whose distinguished credentials include having been the Chief Editor of the Oxford English dictionaries from 1971 to 1984 and an editor of the Cambridge History of the English Language. The problem is that in doing so he has greatly lessened the prescriptive intent of Mr. Fowler and offended many readers.

Let's begin with the Preface in which he has the temerity of damning H.W. Fowler himself with faint praise and something close to dismissal. Burchfield asks: "Why has this schoolmasterly, quixotic, idiosyncratic, and somewhat vulnerable book...retained its hold on the imagination of all but professional linguistic scholars for just on seventy years?" (p. ix) One gets the sense that Burchfield is going to straighten matters out forthwith. He adds, "Fowler's name remains on the title-page, even though his book has been largely rewritten..." In the next sentence he refers to Fowler's book as a "masterpiece," but adds that "it is a fossil all the same" while intimating that its scholarly scope did not extend beyond "the southern counties of England in the first quarter of the twentieth century." (p. xi)

From there we go to the entries themselves and find on page one that the suffix "-a" is now

being printed more and more to present the sound that replaces "of" in rapid (esp. demotic) speech, as in "kinda" (=kind of), loadsa, sorta.

The problem with this is there is no acknowledgment that such usage, especially in written English, is substandard. Even in the entry on "demotic English," Burchfield merely notes that such formulations as "gotta," "shoulda," etc. are becoming more common.

Or consider his entry for "didn't ought" which includes this designation:

A remarkable combination of the marginal modal "ought" and the periphrastic negative auxiliary "didn't."

Huh? Burchfield reveals here that he has lost the thread of Fowler's intent. Instead of writing for a general educated public that would like some guidance in matters of usage, he is instead addressing scholars, linguists and others whose interest in such matters is professional and not practical. He goes on to allow that "didn't ought" is "[a]lmost certainly of dialectal origin" (I give that a "duh, dude") that "has made its way into novels of the 19c and 20c and into informal speech as a typical construction used by rustic or sparsely educated speakers."

Such is his way of "labeling," and it isn't very effective. True, he avoids outright condemnation, but forces the reader to closely examine his prose in order to realize, after some perusal, that if it is "a typical construction" of "rustic or sparsely educated speakers," it is probably substandard and ought to be avoided. Much of the book suffers from such circumlocutious expression and is entirely inimical to the spirit of Fowler who believed in concise, straightforward English.

Okay let's look at that favorite of English usage mavens around the world: "infer" versus "imply." Well, I think I'd have to be a lawyer to be certain that Burchfield got it right (although I don't doubt that he did) since I had to wade through several hundred words of qualification and extraneous example ("imply" used correctly; "infer" used correctly; "infer" illogically used for "imply"...) so that the most important distinction to be made between the words is lost, not to mention that by the time I had finished I felt like I needed to reread the passages and take notes.

What Burchfield is at pains to do is walk a fine line between being what Bryan A. Garner (who wrote the very fine Garner's Modern American Usage (2003) which I highly recommend) calls "describers" and "prescribers." As a compiler and editor of dictionaries, Burchfield leans toward the descriptive mode. He records usage and tries not to pronounce from on high what is or isn't right. The problem with this approach is that in a usage book the entire point is to make distinctions between what is acceptable and what is not, between what is effective and what is not. Burchfield's reluctance to be more prescriptive defeats the intent of a usage dictionary. Note that I am NOT suggesting that Burchfield doesn't know what he is talking about or that he lacks in any way the authority to write a usage dictionary. On the contrary.

Note also that Burchfield (who also wrote The New Zealand Oxford Pocket Dictionary) has not confined himself to BrE but has incorporated AmE and examples of usage from all around the world into Fowler's once more restrictive volume. This is actually to the good in my opinion, but certainly suggests that this book ought to be called something other than "Fowler's..." For this perhaps we can blame the Oxford University Press itself which clearly wanted to take advantage of Fowler's name and reputation. This book might be better appreciated if we were not forced to compare Burchfield with Fowler, which is somewhat like comparing Neil Simon to Ben Johnson.

Bottom line: a little stuffy, a little long-winded, somewhat pretentious, but for the careful reader, as authoritative a book on English usage as one could want.