San Antonio College Library

Presents selections from William Safire's "On Language" column which appears in "The New York Times Magazine," in which he discusses issues of vocabulary, speech, language, usage, and writing, and includes letters from readers.

A collection of writings from the "New York Times" column "On Language" which provide observations on grammar, usage, and etymology.

The English language is a battlefield. Since the age of Shakespeare, arguments over correct usage have been bitter, and have always really been about contesting values--morality, politics, and class. The Language Wars examines the present state of the conflict, its history, and its future. Above all, it uses the past as a way of illuminating the present. Moving chronologically, the book explores the most persistent issues to do with English and unpacks...

Presents a comprehensive guide to creating winning manuscripts that will sell, and provide tips and techniques on language, dialogue, diction and more.

Alphabetical guide to hundreds of simpler and more effective ways of speaking of writing, avoiding the clumsy, pedantic, or verbose phrase or sentence.

Study of the English language and what accounts for its success as the most widely spoken language in the history of humankind.

This business writers' survival manual offers practical advice on writing letters, memos, and reports. Paxson explains what is wrong with cliches; how to turn negative statements into positive ones; the best method of writing nonsexist prose; the need to rely on good, old-fashioned verbs; when to use jargon and abbreviations, and when not to; and how to edit long sentences into short ones. Among the principles he highlights are: treating words and...

This scholarly exploration of meter and rhythm begins with ancient Greece and Rome; moving through Old and Middle English; Chaucer; the ornate and plain styles; Edmund Burke; the great novelists of the nineteenth century such as Austen, Dickens, and Thackeray; the lyrical prose of John Ruskin; and more. It is one of the very few full-length studies of prose rhythm.