Found this article on the new edition of Fowler's Modern English Usage, a book I adore. http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/72770362.html I completely agree with the reviewer, Liam Julian (what a pretty name!), on his take on what makes Fowler so readable and charming. My favorite bit:
"Fowler also saw no problem in placing and or but at the start of a sentence, nor in plopping a preposition at its end. While he could get hooked by crotchets — objecting to amoral, for instance, on the grounds that it was an ungainly combination of a Greek prefix and a Latin derivative — he was generally practical in his rule-making and rule-breaking. His abiding hope was to promote production of precise and pleasurable sentences, and if old prejudices stood in the way of that goal, they were knocked aside. David Crystal, editor of the rereleased first edition, writes that Fowler 'turns out to be far more sophisticated in his analysis of language than most people realize.' What’s more, 'Several of his entries display a concern for descriptive accuracy which would do any modern linguist proud.'"
CD
No comments:
Post a Comment