Features
- Cover Type: Paperback with 128 pages
- Published by: Houghton Mifflin
- Edition: 1st Edition September 10, 2004
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0618493336
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0618493333
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Book Dimensions:
7.9 x 4.5 x 0.5 inches
- Weighs: 3.2 ounces
Product Description
The 100 Words series continues to set the standard for measuring and improving vocabulary, with a new title focusing on words that are best known for getting people into linguistic trouble. 100 Words Almost Everyone Confuses and Misuses is the perfect book for anyone seeking clear and sensible guidance on avoiding the recognized pitfalls of the English language.
Each word on the list is accompanied by a concise and authoritative usage note based on the renowned usage program of the American Heritage® Dictionaries. These notes discuss why a particular usage has been criticized and explain the rules and conventions that determine what's right, what's wrong, and what falls in between. Troublesome pairs such as affect / effect, blatant / flagrant, and disinterested / uninterested are disentangled, as are vexing sound-alikes such as discrete / discreet and principal / principle. Other notes tackle such classic irritants as hopefully, impact, and aggravate, as well as problematic words like peruse and presently.
A great graduation gift or stocking stuffer for anyone who cares about language, 100 Words Almost Everyone Confuses and Misuses is guaranteed to help keep writers and speakers on the up-and-up!
About The Author
The Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries and of other reference titles published by Houghton Mifflin Company are trained lexicographers with a varied array of interests and expertise. Most of the editors hold graduate degrees and have studied at least one foreign language. Several have degrees in linguistics or in the history of the English language. Others have degrees in science or sometimes other disciplines. All the editors familiarize themselves with the vocabulary in specific subject areas, collect materials on new developments and usage, and work in association with consultants to ensure that the content of our publications is as accurate and as up-to-date as possible.
Reader ReviewsIf you need this book, you will not understand it. If you understand it, you don't need it! Unless you were the one student in thousands whose jaw dropped in rapt fascination when your seventh-grade teacher diagrammed the parts of speech, you will not follow the alleged explanations in this book. The explanations come straight out of that seventh-grade grammar text. Such and such a word is the intransitive past participle of another word. There, that cleared it up, didn't it! There is almost never a simple declarative sentence about how to use a confusing word... here is a lovely example from page 88... "The adjective precipitate and the adverb precipitately were once applied to physical steepness but are now used primarily of rash, headlong actions. Precipitous currently means "steep" in both literal and figuratrive senses: 'the precipitous rapids of the upper river; a precipitous drop in commodity prices.' But precipitous and precipitously are also frequently used to mean "abrupt, hasty," which takes tham into territory what would ordinarily belong to precipitate and precipitately..." Hope that cleared it up for you! This book suffers from "junior high math teacher's syndrome," where if you didn't understand the problem, and found the courage to raise your hand, the teacher just looked at you as if you'd just gotten off the special-ed bus and repeated exactly the same indecipherable explanation using the exact same words, only slightly slower and with more condescension. The writers of this book are dictionary editors, and therefore presume that telling us the part of speech and Greek or Latin derivation will make things clear. They do not. I write for a living, in part. I do not think I found one confusing word clarified by this book in a way I will incorporate in my work.
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