Dictionary of Problem Words and Expressions [antikvár]

To the Reader This book is designed to alert you to faulty speech and writing habits you may have acquired and to confirm and strengthen you in good ones. To these ends, Dictionary of Problem Words and Expressions singles out, defines, explains, and illustrates some 1,500 of the most common mistakes in word use made by speakers and writers of our language. Also, it suggests that every speaker and writer can use his language with increasing ease, flexibility, assurance, and accuracy if he will rid himself of outmoded notions about "grammar** and "correctness." The author of a book with these aims owes some explanation of the convictions that led to its writing. Firsty I believe with Thomas Mann that "Speech is civilization itself." Many changes are going on in American society that tend to make the life of each of us more and more impersonal. Computers and other machines now perform work that once was done by people. From birth to death, we are aligned numbers that tiV to transform us into cogs in a machine. Throughout the country, television and radio use the same programs and commercial messages. People tend to dress alike, eat alike, often even think alike. But in one activity, at least, people differ: they rarely speak alike. Millions of other people may share our ideas, but the words we use and the way we say them differ in many ways. The vU