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''A Dictionary of Modern English Usage'' (1926), by Henry Watson Fowler (1858–1933), is a style guide to
British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Oxford Dictionaries, "English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadl ...
usage The usage of a language is the ways in which its written and spoken variations are routinely employed by its speakers; that is, it refers to "the collective habits of a language's native speakers", as opposed to idealized models of how a languag ...
, pronunciation, and writing. Covering topics such as plurals and literary technique, distinctions among like words (
homonym In linguistics, homonyms are words which are homographs (words that share the same spelling, regardless of pronunciation), or homophones ( equivocal words, that share the same pronunciation, regardless of spelling), or both. Using this definitio ...
s and
synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are al ...
s), and the use of foreign terms, the dictionary became the standard for other
style guide A style guide or manual of style is a set of standards for the writing, formatting, and design of documents. It is often called a style sheet, although that term also has multiple other meanings. The standards can be applied either for gene ...
s to writing in English. Hence, the 1926 first edition remains in print, along with the 1965 second edition, edited by
Ernest Gowers Sir Ernest Arthur Gowers (2 June 1880 – 16 April 1966) is best remembered for his book ''Plain Words,'' first published in 1948, and his revision of Fowler's classic '' Modern English Usage''. Before making his name as an author, he had a long ...
, which was reprinted in 1983 and 1987. The 1996 third edition was re-titled as ''The New Fowler's Modern English Usage'', and revised in 2004, was mostly rewritten by
Robert W. Burchfield Robert William Burchfield CNZM, CBE (27 January 1923 – 5 July 2004) was a lexicographer, scholar, and writer, who edited the '' Oxford English Dictionary'' for thirty years to 1986, and was chief editor from 1971. Education and career Born in ...
, as a
usage dictionary A language-for-specific-purposes dictionary (LSP dictionary) is a reference work which defines the specialised vocabulary used by experts within a particular field, for example, architecture. The discipline that deals with these dictionaries is ...
that incorporated
corpus linguistics Corpus linguistics is the study of a language as that language is expressed in its text corpus (plural ''corpora''), its body of "real world" text. Corpus linguistics proposes that a reliable analysis of a language is more feasible with corpora ...
data; and the 2015 fourth edition, revised and re-titled ''Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage'', was edited by Jeremy Butterfield, as a usage dictionary. Informally, readers refer to the style guide and dictionary as ''Fowler's Modern English Usage'', ''Fowler'', and ''Fowler's''.


Linguistic approach

In ''A Dictionary of Modern English Usage'', Henry W. Fowler's general approach encourages a direct, vigorous writing style, and opposes all artificiality, by firmly advising against convoluted sentence construction, the use of foreign words and phrases, and the use of archaisms. He opposed pedantry, and ridiculed artificial grammar rules unwarranted by natural English usage, such as bans on ending a sentence with a
preposition Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
; rules on the placement of the word ''only''; and rules distinguishing between ''which'' and ''that''. He classified and condemned every
cliché A cliché ( or ) is an element of an artistic work, saying, or idea that has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, even to the point of being weird or irritating, especially when at some earlier time it was consi ...
, in the course of which he coined and popularised the terms ''battered ornament'', ''vogue words'', and ''worn-out humour'', while defending useful distinctions between words whose meanings were coalescing in practice, thereby guiding the speaker and the writer away from illogical sentence construction, and the misuse of words. In the entries "Pedantic Humour" and "Polysyllabic Humour" Fowler mocked the use of arcane words (archaisms) and the use of unnecessarily long words.


Quotations

Widely and often cited, ''A Dictionary of Modern English Usage'' is renowned for its witty passages, such as:
; Didacticism : The speaker who has discovered that ''Juan'' and ''Quixote'' are not pronounced in Spain as he used to pronounce them as a boy is not content to keep so important a piece of information to himself; he must have the rest of us call them ''Hwan'' and ''Keehotay''; at any rate he will give us the chance of mending our ignorant ways by doing so. ; French Words : Display of superior knowledge is as great a vulgarity as display of superior wealth—greater indeed, inasmuch as knowledge should tend more definitely than wealth towards discretion and good manners. ;
Inversion Inversion or inversions may refer to: Arts * , a French gay magazine (1924/1925) * ''Inversion'' (artwork), a 2005 temporary sculpture in Houston, Texas * Inversion (music), a term with various meanings in music theory and musical set theory * ...
: Writers who observe the poignancy sometimes given by inversion, but fail to observe that 'sometimes' means 'when exclamation is appropriate', adopt inversion as an infallible enlivener; they aim at freshness and attain frigidity. ;
Split infinitive A split infinitive is a grammatical construction in which an adverb or adverbial phrase separates the "to" and " infinitive" constituents of what was traditionally called the full infinitive, but is more commonly known in modern linguistics as th ...
: The English-speaking world may be divided into (1) those who neither know nor care what a split infinitive is; (2) those who do not know, but care very much; (3) those who know and condemn; (4) those who know and approve; and (5) those who know and distinguish. ... Those who neither know nor care are the vast majority, and are a happy folk, to be envied by the minority classes. ; Terribly : It is strange that a people with such a fondness for understatement as the British should have felt the need to keep changing the adverbs by which they hope to convince listeners of the intensity of their feelings. ; Welsh rarebit : ''Welsh rabbit'' is amusing and right. ''Welsh rarebit'' is stupid and wrong.


Editions

Before writing ''A Dictionary of Modern English Usage'', Henry W. Fowler and his younger brother, Francis George Fowler (1871–1918), wrote and revised '' The King's English'' (1906), a grammar and usage guide. Assisted in the research by Francis, who died in 1918 of
tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, ...
contracted (1915–16) whilst serving with the British Expeditionary Force in the First World War (1914–1918), Henry dedicated the first edition of the ''Dictionary'' to his late brother:
I think of it as it should have been, with its prolixities docked, its dullnesses enlivened, its fads eliminated, its truths multiplied. He had a nimbler wit, a better sense of proportion, and a more open mind, than his twelve-year-older partner; and it is a matter of regret that we had not, at a certain point, arranged our undertakings otherwise than we did. . . . This present book accordingly contains none of his actual writing; but, having been designed in consultation with him, it is the last fruit of a partnership that began in 1903 with our translation of
Lucian Lucian of Samosata, '; la, Lucianus Samosatensis ( 125 – after 180) was a Hellenized Syrian satirist, rhetorician and pamphleteer who is best known for his characteristic tongue-in-cheek style, with which he frequently ridiculed supersti ...
.
The first edition of ''A Dictionary of Modern English Usage'' was published in 1926, and then was reprinted with corrections in 1930, 1937, 1954, and in 2009, with an introduction and commentary by the linguist David Crystal. The second edition, titled ''Fowler's Modern English Usage'', was published in 1965, revised and edited by
Ernest Gowers Sir Ernest Arthur Gowers (2 June 1880 – 16 April 1966) is best remembered for his book ''Plain Words,'' first published in 1948, and his revision of Fowler's classic '' Modern English Usage''. Before making his name as an author, he had a long ...
. The third edition, ''The New Fowler's Modern English Usage'', was published in 1996, edited by
Robert Burchfield Robert William Burchfield CNZM, CBE (27 January 1923 – 5 July 2004) was a lexicographer, scholar, and writer, who edited the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' for thirty years to 1986, and was chief editor from 1971. Education and career Born in ...
; and in 2004, Burchfield's revision of the 1996 edition was published as ''Fowler's Modern English Usage''. The fourth edition, ''Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage'', was published in 2015, edited by Jeremy Butterfield. The modernisation of ''A Dictionary of English Usage'' (1926) yielded the ''Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage'' (1999), edited by the lexicographer Robert Allen, which is based upon Burchfield's 1996 edition; the modernised edition is a forty per cent abridgement realised with reduced-length entries and the omission of about half the entries of the 1996 edition. A second edition of Allen's "Pocket Fowler" was published in 2008, the content of which the publisher said "harks back to the original 1926 edition". * * * * * * * *


See also

*
Disputes in English grammar In the English language, there are grammatical constructions that many native speakers use unquestioningly yet certain writers call incorrect. Differences of usage or opinion may stem from differences between formal and informal speech and other ...
* Elegant variation * False scent


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Merriam Webster's Dictionary of English Usage ''Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage'' is a usage dictionary published by Merriam-Webster, Inc., of Springfield, Massachusetts . It is currently available in a reprint edition (1994) or . (The 1989 edition did not include ''Merriam-'' ...
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Notes


References

* Fowler, Henry; Winchester, Simon (introduction) (2003 reprint). ''A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (Oxford Language Classics Series)''. Oxford Press. . * Nicholson, Margaret (1957). ''A Dictionary of American-English Usage Based on Fowler's Modern English Usage''. Signet, by arrangement with
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...
. {{DEFAULTSORT:Dictionary Of Modern English Usage, A 1926 non-fiction books Style guides for British English