The elephants of style : a trunkload of tips on the big issues and gray areas of contemporary American English / by Bill Walsh.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Walsh, Bill (William F.)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English language--United States--Usage--Handbooks, manuals, etc.

English language.

English language--United States--Style--Handbooks, manuals, etc.

English language--United States--Usage--Humor.

English language--United States--Style--Humor.

United States.

Genre:

Humor.

Handbooks and manuals.

Physical Description:

xv, 238 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : McGraw-Hill, [2004]

Summary:

What do writers and editors mean when they talk about style? Sometimes they mean formatting for consistency and clarity. (Is it Texas or Tex. or TX? One space or two after a period?) Sometimes they mean correctness in spelling, grammar, word usage and punctuation. (A historic or an historic? The data is or the data are?) And sometimes they mean style as in stylishness. (Bright and breezy or just-the-facts-ma'am? Is that cute little idea fresh and original or tired and silly?) Inside, you'll find answers that will add polish and sparkle to your writing. In the word-nerd classic Lapsing Into a Comma, Bill Walsh of the Washington Post entertained, educated and enlightened writers, editors, students and language lovers with commonsense guidelines and opinionated commentary on American English in the computer age. In The Elephants of Style, he takes a step back and presents an in-depth look at the basics, including spelling, capitalization, abbreviations, subject-verb agreement, plurals and possessives.

Contents:

Introduction: What We Talk About When We Talk About Style XI

Elephant No. 1 Remember That You're Not Using a Typewriter: Style Begins With Form and Format 1

Also, Remember That You're in the United States

Elephant No. 2 Letters of the Law: Common Missteps in Spelling 9

Elephant No. 3 What's Up?: All About Capitalization 17

Everything's Generic

What's in a nAME?

Elephant No. 4 What to Abbrev.? The Short and Shorter of Truncations, Acronyms and Initialisms 43

Initial Reactions and Second Thoughts (IRAST)

Elephant No. 5 Which One Is Right Again? A Quick Review of Problem Pairs (and Trios and ...) 51

Elephant No. 6 Lies Your English Teacher Told You: The Big Myths of English Usage 61

Elephant No. 7 Some Gray Areas: Proceed With Caution 71

Elephant No. 8 Agreed? Making Sure the Parts of Speech Get Along 81

Elephant No. 9 Cover Your S: Possessives and Plurals 93

Elephant No. 10 A Number of Problems: Counting on 100 Percent Correctness 107

Elephant No. 11 The Adventures of Curly and Stitch: The Comma, the Hyphen, the Headaches 125

Elephant No. 12 Flair! Elan! Panache! A Few Potshots About Style-With-a-Capital-S 135

Colors Are Pretty, but How About Just Giving It to Me in Black and White?

What Is, Is: Can't Argue With That

The Spin Wins: Great Moments in Obfuscation

Madam Chairman and That Friggin' Masseuse: Taking Linguistic Evolution Like a "-man"

Elephant No. 13 Writers, Typists, Thieves and Liars: Plagiarism and Its Kin 157

Elephant No. 14 Writing and Rewriting: A Writer-Turned-Editor Writes About Editing and Being Edited 163

From From to To: Everything's Ranging

Snarky Specificity

Literal and Conservative: George Washington Wasn't Really Our Father.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 225-226) and index.

ISBN:

0071422684

OCLC:

52806039

Online:

Publisher description