Garner's Modern American Usage
by Bryan A. Garner
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The first edition of Garner's Modern American Usage established Bryan Garner as "an American equivalent of Fowler" (Library Journal). With more than 23,500 copies sold, this witty, accessible, and engaging book has become the new classic reference work praised by professional copyeditors as well as the general public looking for clear advice on how to write more effectively. In 1999, Choice magazine named it an Outstanding Academic Book and the American Library Association dubbed it an show more Outstanding Reference Source. With thousands of succinct entries, longer essays on key issues and problematic areas, and up-to-the-minute judgments on everything from trendy words to the debate over personal pronouns, GMAU is approachable yet authoritative. Since the book first appeared in 1998, Bryan Garner has diligently continued tracking how we use our language. The second edition includes hundreds of new entries ranging from Dubya to weaponize (coined in 1984 but used extensively since 9/11) to foot-and-mouth, plethora (a "highfalutin equivalent of too many"), Slang, Standard English, and Dialects. It also updates hundreds of existing entries. Meanwhile, Garner has written a major essay on the great grammar debate between descriptivists and prescriptivists. Painstakingly researched with copious citations from books and newspapers and newsmagazines, this new edition furthers Garner's mission to help everyone become a better writer, and to enjoy it in the process. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
This took me about three years to read because I kept it in the bathroom and read it only when I was getting ready for the day, brushing my teeth, etc. But it was worth the while and wait. I now know a lot more about language and grammar than I did before. A ton more. I bow down before Garner; he is a grammar god, a judicious Jehovah of usage. Read and learn.
Yes I'm reading a usage dictionary cover to cover, a to z. That's what I do. But I might cheat with "which" because I want to know what he thinks of its mutation into a conjunction. Instant-gratification prescriptivists forEVAR.
There are many usage guides out there, but as an all-around general-use guide I find Garner’s most useful. No matter what I’m looking for, 99.9% of the time I find it in Garner’s. I asked a former board member of the Editor’s Association of Canada for a recommendation for a Canadian usage guide and she suggested the Oxford Guide to Canadian English Usage, but I rarely end up using it unless I am looking up something particularly Canadian (I don’t think it makes a difference, but my edition is the first edition rather than the second edition being sold now). Most of the more general usage problems I look up aren’t in the Oxford guide, but are invariably in Garner’s.
This is my go-to reference for nearly every usage question. Garner's style is engaging and entertaining, and his explanations are almost always thorough and easy to understand.
A fantastic reference book that I've now put aside in favor of a more complete version. I consult one or the other of these references weekly if not nearly daily (often just for fun).
An indispensable reference work for writers and other grammar nerds. If you have a question about grammar or style, consult Garner. For even more fun, subscribe to Garner's Usage Tip of the Day from Oxford UP [http://www.us.oup.com/us/subscriptions/subscribe/?view=usa]and/or check out David Foster Wallace's excellent essay (published in Harper's in 2001) about A Dictionary of Modern Usage, this volume's predecessor: [http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/DFW_present_tense.html].
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Author Information
67+ Works 5,164 Members
Bryan A. Garner's work has been recognized as pioneering across a range of fields, including English usage, grammar, jurisprudence, legal advocacy, legislative drafting, contracts, and legal lexicography. He has written more than twenty-five books, many of them award-winning. He is editor In chief of Blacks Law Dictionary, Distinguished Research show more Professor of Law at Southern Methodist University, and president of LawProse Inc. show less
Common Knowledge
- Original title
- A Dictionary of Modern American Usage
- Original publication date
- 1998
- Disambiguation notice
- The first edition of Bryan Garner's book on usage is called A Dictionary of Modern American Usage (1998). The second edition (2003) and third edition (2009) are both called Garner's Modern American Usage and con... (show all)tain significantly different content, thus requiring the books be kept separate. If possible, try to separate the editions: 1st (1998), 2nd (2003), 3rd (2009).
Note that there was an unrelated book called Modern American Usage written by Wilson Follett and others. That book, too, was changed significantly in later editions.
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- Members
- 703
- Popularity
- 40,486
- Reviews
- 6
- Rating
- (4.72)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 3
- ASINs
- 2
