Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage

Rating:
Summary: The best usage guide on the market.
Review: I own a lot of usage guides, and this is the one I turn to most often by a long shot. Its best feature is its practice of summarizing, in each entry, what other authorities have had to say on the subject. Thus, in buying this book, you get not only its editors' opinions, but also those of Fowler, The American Heritage Dictionary, William Safire, etc. The book also provides numerous, well-identified examples of the usages it discusses, and (contrary to what some reviewers have implied) it does make clear what usages are considered questionable...

Rating:
Summary: Embarassing but true...
Review: I've been reading this one from A to Z.

I'm not a word nut, but lately I've been doing more serious writing and I've felt a need for usage guides--it's been a while since high school English. And M-W's guide has been the best of the lot I've examined so far. The background and examples behind the words are interesting indeed, more than I anticipated when I bought it.

The guide is somewhat helpful with grammatical usage, but if you're wondering about word usage this is the first place to turn to (even before looking in a dictionary). Of course you might disagree with the editors, but they are consistently thorough about documenting their sources and reasons for their conclusions. (I usually find it difficult to `disagree'--they're just documenting existing usage with examples, and what is there to argue with?)

They're happily relaxed about usage. If it's clear that a word has been consistently used in a given way by a variety of sources, the commentators usually `approve' it. (Many people dislike this approach, and if you do this absolutely isn't the book for you.) It's mainly a guide to clarifying existing usage, certainly not a prescriptive rulebook--in fact, the commentators frequently demolish long-held opinions of other prescriptive guides.

The problem I see with prescriptive usage is that words change. Anybody can write a prescriptive guide, but that won't stop people from `speaking badly' according to the guide. Language is a consensus, not an arbitrary master... and there are so many arbitrary masters that it's more a question of which one you decide to obey, not which one is correct. Many of the descriptions in M-W's usage guide demonstrate just how arbitrary other guides can be, as it's not unusual to see numerous conflicting recommendations.

Writing is intended for communicating, and I believe that as long as you stick with the recommended usages in this guide you'll clearly get your point across. Your writing might not read like a grammar book's, but that isn't a hallmark of `good writing'. It's all aboot talkin' clear 'n good, and this reference will help.

Rating:
Summary: Embarassing but true...
Review: I've been reading this one from A to Z.

I'm not a word nut, but lately I've been doing more serious writing and I've felt a need for usage guides--it's been a while since high school English. And M-W's guide has been the best of the lot I've examined so far. The background and examples behind the words are interesting indeed, more than I anticipated when I bought it.

The guide is somewhat helpful with grammatical usage, but if you're wondering about word usage this is the first place to turn to (even before looking in a dictionary). Of course you might disagree with the editors, but they are consistently thorough about documenting their sources and reasons for their conclusions. (I usually find it difficult to `disagree'--they're just documenting existing usage with examples, and what is there to argue with?)

They're happily relaxed about usage. If it's clear that a word has been consistently used in a given way by a variety of sources, the commentators usually `approve' it. (Many people dislike this approach, and if you do this absolutely isn't the book for you.) It's mainly a guide to clarifying existing usage, certainly not a prescriptive rulebook--in fact, the commentators frequently demolish long-held opinions of other prescriptive guides.

The problem I see with prescriptive usage is that words change. Anybody can write a prescriptive guide, but that won't stop people from `speaking badly' according to the guide. Language is a consensus, not an arbitrary master... and there are so many arbitrary masters that it's more a question of which one you decide to obey, not which one is correct. Many of the descriptions in M-W's usage guide demonstrate just how arbitrary other guides can be, as it's not unusual to see numerous conflicting recommendations.

Writing is intended for communicating, and I believe that as long as you stick with the recommended usages in this guide you'll clearly get your point across. Your writing might not read like a grammar book's, but that isn't a hallmark of `good writing'. It's all aboot talkin' clear 'n good, and this reference will help.

Rating:
Summary: Nothing else even comes close...
Review: If you are involved with the English language in any sort of responsible or professional way, you need this book. It is entertaining, informative, and spot on. An additional fun feature is that it apparently put a number of self-appointed amateur "language mavens" out of business, including the ones who suddenly decided that the word "hopefully" was an offense that needed to be punished by hanging. Unfortunately, it turns out that many English sentences begin with "general adverbs." (There's one, right there.)

It also has an excellent overview of the hoo-ha surrounding the word "data" -- an English word where many self-taught amateurs stand ready to pounce, with the almost completely irrelevant fact that "data" is (in the Latin language) the plural form of "datum." None of these amateurs will know that there is an actual English word "datum" -- used by land surveyors -- which has a plural, "datums" believe it or not.

But the great thing about this book is that it gives you ALL the information you need to make an informed decision. I decided that "data" was to be used just as we use "information" -- it's a mass noun, like "snow" or "air" or "justice." Mass nouns take the singular verb, have no plural, and are used with "much" -- not "many." But you may go right ahead and declare that it is a plural, and type such odd-sounding sentences as "Not many data are present." After all, the ultimate arbiter will not be you, it will be your editor! :-)

Highest possible recommendation!

Rating:
Summary: 100% entertaining. 90% for usage guidance.
Review: If you love words, this book will keep you entertained for weeks with its excellent essays on the histories and controversies surrounding words and the ways that they are used and abused. It is an extraordinary buy at the price being asked for here at Amazon.com. As a grammar guide, however, it is good but not great. Merriam-Webster takes a radically descriptive approach to grammar - if plenty of people use a word or phrase a certain way - Shazam! - M-W declares it standard and acceptable. Forget that the usage may be based on a misuderstanding, a mistake, an ignorant misreading of a word. All that matters to M-W is that the majority should rule. This is allowing the mob to lynch the English language. There are other considerations, M-W. Just because millions of people eat at fast food burger joints does not mean that that is how we all should eat. A usage guide should inform us how the language should be written and spoken at its best and most elegant - not advise us to give up any attempt to do so because so few bother. I prefer Bryan Garner's excellent work as his ground rules for usage avoid the low ground that M-W consistently stoops to. Get this and enjoy it. Just do not use it as your only guide.

Rating:
Summary: Addictive
Review: If you love words, you will love this book.

Rating:
Summary: Informative and entertaining
Review: If you want a useful, well-researched guide to the way English is actually used by real creative writers, past and present, buy this book. If you want to be entertained while reading about English grammar (not easily done!), buy this book. If you prefer to blindly follow rigid rules which, rather than reflecting the way the language is actually used, reflect the way some 18th or 19th century usage writers thought it ought to be used, maybe this isn't for you (though I still think you should read it, maybe you'll learn something).

Don't be misled into thinking that this book is simply applying an "everything goes" philosophy. On the contrary, the editors clearly explain and illustrate the way words and phrases are commonly used by writers in Britain and America, and advise you to avoid what is not commonly accepted. They also cite numerous usage writers, whether they agree with them or not (though they quote one writer as saying that if usage writers read more, they would argue less -- an observation that could also apply to some of the reviewers on this page...). They also make clear distinctions between what is acceptable in formal and informal writing. Many of the things that they "permit" (read the entry on permissiveness, by the way) they still recommend be avoided in formal writing.

I don't think that the rules this book skewers represent "the accumulated wisdom of thousands of writers." More accurately, they represent the thinking of a few conservative usage writers (and there's a big difference between usage writers and creative writers -- who would you rather read, Bishop Loweth or Shakespeare?), given added weight by the herd mentality of many generations of grammar teachers. To give one example, grammarians like to insist that "each other" should refer to two people and "one another" should refer to three or more, but as the examples in this book show, it just ain't (fingernails on chalkboard, anyone?) so.

As for "Where's it at?", unfortunately I don't have my copy of the book with me and I don't remember what they had to say about it. I have the pocket version (handy, but lacking the examples and the entertaining discussions), which simply points out that it has been part of American speech for a century (which doesn't imply that it should be used in formal writing). Yes, the dictionary definition of "where" is indeed "in or at what place" but if you go around blindly substituting the dictionary defintion for every word I'm sure you'll discover a lot more seemingly redundant phrases.

This book dicusses the usage history of various words and phrases and gives you examples of how great (and not-so-great) writers throughout history have used them. It gives you clear guidelines rather than setting down rigid rules for you to follow. And if you're obsessed with rules, then maybe you should consider law instead of writing.

Rating:
Summary: Comment on the Editorial Review
Review: On a book of such purport, it would be really nice if someone paid attention to the editorial review and corrected the grammatical mistakes. I read the editorial review while surfing and was quite amused. I have not seen the book yet so please ignore my rating. I could not avoid entering the rating and I am sorry if it skews it. If I read the book, I will correct the rating.

Rating:
Summary: The Only Guide to Grammar and Usage That's Worth a Damn
Review: Peruse the bookstore sections on Grammar and Usage, and you'll see there has never been a lack of experts who want to tell you how to write. But the problem with just about every one of these books is that their explanations of grammatical phenomenona are misleading: they're not researched at all. In fact, they're not so much based on English as real writers actually use it, so much as they're based on how the writer fancies everyone ought to use it.

But "Merriam Webster's Dictionary of English Usage" is the only guide to grammar and usage I've found that's worth a damn. Along with Joseph Williams's "Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace", this is the only book in the genre that I would recommend. Too many books in this genre have little to say that hasn't already been said a thousand times, and they're just too hyper-focused on mistakes, a focus which has a way of inculcating a sort of paranoia amongst writers who follow the one-size-fits-all dictums too rigidly. Imagine the way a runner might tip-toe through a minefield. That's the kind of writing these other books bread.

"English usage today is a discourse", this book begins, and that key observation is central to its approach. This observation might seem obvious to some, but almost every other grammar book (Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style" and Diana Hacker's "Rules for Writers", for instance) is written in a bubble outside of this discourse, and they read like theirs is first, and the definitive treatise on correctitude in English. This is the grammar book tradition, which sadly has changed very little in the past 300 years (See Haussamen's "Revising the Rules" for discussion). "Merriam Webster's" diverges from the grammar book tradition by stepping back and summarizing the history of the discourse in a way that puts modern quibbles in a perspective that's sorely missing. It turns out that most contemporary controversies are nothing new; they date back decades, if not centuries. The authors cite liberally from language commentators and armchair grammarians, often in ways that make the "experts" sound clownish. For instance, the authors note how commentators have been wrongly predicting the deaths of the subjunctive and of "whom" for over a century.

This is not a book for those who want over-simplified pronouncements of what's "right" and what's "wrong". Correctness is not a binary, it's a polarity. But "Merriam Webster's" never falls into the correct/incorrect trap, because the authors are grounded in the systematic study of language. How refreshing! The truth is that the writers of most grammar books are not linguists-they're just writers. And that means that they're out of their ballpark when they try to explain the maddening complexities of the English language.

Whereas other grammar books like to fabricate example sentences to fit their prescriptions, "Merriam Webster's" bases all its claims on real-life usage. 20,000+ illustrative citations show how respected writers actually use English. What's most interesting is that for every tsk-tsk rule of writing that your seventh grade English teacher might have taught you, this book provides ample examples of writers that follow them, and writers that flout them. Thanks to the authors' diligent research, we can see that Shakespeare would have failed a quiz on how we are traditionally taught to use "who" and "whom".

An alphabetical listing of 2,300+ entries covers just about every sticking point in the English language that any language-watcher has ever commented on. I've read dozens of grammar and usage guides (which never agree on what should be listed) and "Merriam Webster's" covers every single controversy I've heard, plus many I never imagined existed. Even seemingly uncontroversial words like "claim" and "gap" have made it into this book. More complicated usages-such as the choice of objective or nominative pronoun-are broken into separate sub-issues. The discussions are scholarly and objective. They steer clear of those imperatives and directives that are part of the grammar book tradition, and instead allow you to draw your own informed conclusions.

Rating:
Summary: By far the best usage manual available
Review: The readers' reviews for this book tend toward the extremes. Readers are not ambivalent about this book. I am no different. I rarely give five stars, but this is simply the best usage manual available (and I have the major ones and many of the minor ones).

Here is the format for a typical entry: There is a statement of the question; a survey of the opinions of previous usage writers; a survey of actual usage from early times to the present, including numerous examples; and a conclusion advising the reader on how to use it, often making distinctions between levels of formality.

This differs from most usage manuals, which have only the statement of the question and the conclusion. This affects the conclusions, as many traditional conclusions are only possible if the historical evidence is ignored. Many traditional shiboleths turn out to derive from some guy's personal opinion, faithfully and uncritically repeated until considered Revealed Truth.

The one-star reviewers overlook two points. The first is that Merriam Webster often gives firm advice. Those who claim that this book is "anything goes" are misrepresenting the book. Indeed, frequently this advice is exactly what the prescriptivists would give. Frequently it is not, but that's what happens when you let evidence influence your opinion. The second, more serious point is that a reader can learn the traditional conclusion even when Merriam Webster disagrees with it. If a reader wants to know Fowler's opinion this book will give it. There is no longer any need to actually own a copy of Fowler. So the objections to this book implicitly are that it gives more information than they would like. This is a peculiar objection to make of a reference work. It would be downright sinister were there reason to suspect these opinions to be at all thought out.

If what you want is a book to help you avoid offending the lowest sort of linguistic curmudgeon and you have no further interest in the subject then this book is overkill. The abridged Bryan Garner will give you that while taking up less space on your bookshelf. But for anyone else this is the one usage manual to own.

As a bonus, it is entertaining to read.