Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage

Rating:
Summary: A dictionary to happily leaf through
Review: The witty and drily humourous entries of this dictionary make it one of those books you can leaf through endlessly, learning something on every page.

Those who claim that this usage handbook is too lenient, or defends bad usage, seem to object chiefly to the fact that the authors here state their conclusions in terms of what is really at stake --- "if you write 'X', you are at risk of being corrected" --- rather than simply labelling them "wrong," as if some kind of moral judgment was being passed.

Fortunately, the many examples of each contested usage set forth in this book ultimately allow the reader to make up her own mind about the prestige and literary precedents that the word or phrase she's wondering about might carry. This approach strikes me as vastly preferable to Fowler's ipse-dixits and anti-Americanisms.

Of course, a book of this breadth will miss the boat occasionally, as this one does on "gender" where "sex" is meant: objectionable not so much as a genteelism, but as jargon compassing a belief system which the careful writer may not actually mean to endorse. A number of minor or more recent controversies, like the question of whether to use a singular or plural verb when an 'and' phrase is used to add qualifying information rather than an additional item, seem to have escaped notice. Still, this is the most thorough and up-to-date usage manual of its kind, I think.

Rating:
Summary: Superb research, sound usage information, great value!
Review: This is the finest work of scholarship on English grammar and usage I have ever seen, in thirty years of doing research on English grammar. One grouchy reviewer on this page gives it a one-star put-down and grumbles that it is unreliable, advocating a return to Fowler, or Strunk and White. Don't believe it. The stiff and constricting prescriptions of those older works are in fact often unfounded. The third edition of Fowler (prepared by Burchfield) is not an improvement, and actually gets grammatical points wrong (and I means things like giving examples that are not in fact examples of the point at issue). The Merriam-Webster book is on a different level of scholarship. The example collection is magnificent, the analysis is intelligent and accurate, and where it says something is now acceptable literate usage you can trust it. Of course, if you want silly advice, like "never end a sentence with a preposition" or "never split an infinitive", you won't find it: there are irrational prejudices in the English usage field, and this book lends them no support. But this is because it demands EVIDENCE and ARGUMENT concerning the points it treats; it is not content simply to pass on dogmas and myths from past centuries. I was particularly struck by the fantastic value of this book: Amazon brought it to my door for shipping included -- and this is a 990-page large-format hardback! BUY THIS BOOK. You can't afford not to if you have any serious interest in English grammar.

Rating:
Summary: Don't Let this One be your Only Guide to English Usage
Review: This one is entertaining but is not a one of eminence.