style guides and dictionaries
Style Guides and Dictionaries
Neither is a dictionary a bad book to read. There is no cant in it, no excess of explanation,
and it is full of suggestion — the raw material of possible poems and histories. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
England and America are two countries separated by a common language.
~George Bernard Shaw
Dictionaries
Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary
is one of the best, and is used by many American publishers, and has an online version of the dictionary, as well as a thesaurus.
Dictionaries are not equally reliable or accurate.
Consult the better ones.
Style Books
A good style book, like the classic Words into Type by Marjorie E. Skillin, provides a list of easily confused words and expressions, and a list of the correct prepositions to go with specific words or phrases. Words into Type has a whole chapter about the usage of words, which includes word problems such as
Wordiness,
Trite expressions,
Appropriate word choice,
Spelling,
and explains when foreign words should or should not be in italics.
Some other excellent style books about word choice include the following:
The Careful Writer by Theodore M. Bernstein
Modern American Usage by Bryan Garner
Modern English Usage by H.W. Fowler
British and American English
Differences in Spelling, Grammar and Style
Countries using British spelling and grammar spell many words differently than do users of American English; their punctuation rules often differ as well.
When writing American English, don’t use any British spellings, punctuation, or grammar; and vice versa if writing British English.
► Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary labels as British those British words it includes.
Several good style books explain differences in British and American spellings; for instance, Amy Einsohn’s Copyeditor's Handbook from University of California Press.
► For correct British spellings, consult the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). However, don't use this for American-English spellings.
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Copyright © 2007 Donna Reeder
