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s/o Can someone please recommend a great grammar and usage book?
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Anonymous
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I know I am guilty of malapropisms from time to time and I would love a go to guide to look them up (esp. before my kids start copying me!).
TIA |
Anonymous
| The classic Strunk and White. Just put those two words into Amazon, buy it, and live by it. |
Anonymous
| Eats Shoots and Leaves is good too. And yes, purposely wrote the title w/o commas. |
Anonymous
| Turabian. |
Anonymous
| Strunk & white, ITA. There is probably a dummies book too for basic stuff. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
Are you sure you're not getting it just so you can edit our DCUM posts?! 
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Anonymous
Just post your questions and concerns here -- we'll tell you what's right and wrong, for free! 
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Anonymous
| Elements of Style is good. |
Anonymous
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Elements of Style IS Strunk and White. S&W are the authors.
White, by the way, is E.B. White who wrote Charlotte's Web. Favorite quote, "omit needless words." Classic. |
Anonymous
| dictionary of english usage is great as well...i have that and strunk, but I think the former is more complete |
Anonymous
| Gregg Reference Manual |
Anonymous
There's an illustrated one for kids--saw it in the sale section at Politics an Prose. Also, I think that every middle school-er and above should own a copy of the MLA Handbook and the Chicago Manual of Style. |
Anonymous
| I like the Chicago Manual of Style personally. |
Anonymous
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Sounds like you are endeavoring to avoid what have come to be known as eggcorns http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000018.html.
A grammar or usage book won't help you with those. The eggcorn database might:http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/, but just reading & writing more is much more likely to have the desired effect. (Also, they are not really that bad. Honest.) If you'd like a style manual, MLA or Chicago are both excellent, but you should learn the style that you need to write in. I write for publications that use both and need to know which one to use for a given circumstance. As for Strunk and White, I wouldn't bother. A lot of what they say is just dead wrong, unfortunately. |