The King's English
by Fowler, H. W.; Fowler, F. G.; Parris, MatthewEdition: 3rd
Format: Paperback
Pub. Date: 2003-04-03
Publisher(s): Oxford University Press
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Summary
In this classic reference book the Fowler brothers illustrate by example all the commonly-made blunders of English usage and guide the reader to improved expression and style. If Dickens had owned a copy of The King's English for example, he would not have written "your great ability and trustfulness;" he would have recognized the malapropism and realized that the context demanded trustworthiness. Written with the good sense and liveliness that is characteristic of the Fowlers, this work has given generations of students, scholars, and professional writers the solutions to problems of grammar and style. In print since its publication in 1906, this book is still an essential guide to written English and an ideal companion to Fowler's Modern English Usage .
Author Biography
Henry Watson Fowler (1858-1933) and Frank (Francis) George Fowler (1870-1918) were translators, lexicographers, and grammarians. Together they compiled the first edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary (published 1911) and the Pocket Oxford Dictionary (published in 1924, after Franks' death). Henry Fowler is also the author of Modern English Usage (planned by the two brothers but executed by Henry alone), and the name Fowler has become synonymous with reliable and accurate reference on all aspects of written English.
Table of Contents
| Introduction | p. xv |
| Vocabulary | p. 1 |
| General Principles | p. 1 |
| Familiar and far-fetched words | p. 4 |
| Concrete and abstract expression | p. 4 |
| Circumlocution | p. 5 |
| Short and long words | p. 6 |
| Saxon and Romance words | p. 6 |
| Requirements of different styles | p. 7 |
| Malaprops | p. 7 |
| Neologisms | p. 18 |
| Americanisms | p. 23 |
| Foreign words | p. 26 |
| Formation | p. 36 |
| Slang | p. 47 |
| Individual | p. 52 |
| Mutual | p. 54 |
| Unique | p. 57 |
| Aggravate | p. 57 |
| Syntax | p. 59 |
| Case | p. 59 |
| Number | p. 64 |
| Comparatives and superlatives | p. 69 |
| Relatives | p. 74 |
| Defining and non-defining relative clauses | p. 74 |
| That and who or which | p. 78 |
| And who, and which | p. 83 |
| Case of the relative | p. 91 |
| Miscellaneous uses of the relative | p. 94 |
| It ... that | p. 102 |
| Participle and gerund | p. 106 |
| Participles | p. 108 |
| The gerund | p. 114 |
| Distinguishing the gerund | p. 114 |
| Omission of the gerund subject | p. 123 |
| Choice between gerund and infinitive | p. 127 |
| Shall and will | p. 132 |
| The pure system | p. 134 |
| The coloured-future system | p. 135 |
| The plain-future system | p. 136 |
| Second-person questions | p. 138 |
| Examples of principal sentences | p. 139 |
| Substantival clauses | p. 143 |
| Conditional clauses | p. 148 |
| Indefinite clauses | p. 149 |
| Examples of subordinate clauses | p. 151 |
| Perfect infinitive | p. 153 |
| Conditionals | p. 154 |
| Doubt that | p. 157 |
| Prepositions | p. 159 |
| Airs and Graces | p. 170 |
| Certain types of humour | p. 170 |
| Elegant variation | p. 174 |
| Inversion | p. 179 |
| Exclamatory | p. 180 |
| Balance | p. 181 |
| In syntactic clauses | p. 186 |
| Negative, and false-emphasis | p. 188 |
| Miscellaneous | p. 190 |
| Archaism | p. 192 |
| Occasional | p. 192 |
| Sustained | p. 196 |
| Metaphor | p. 199 |
| Repetition | p. 207 |
| Miscellaneous | p. 211 |
| Trite phrases | p. 211 |
| Irony | p. 213 |
| Superlatives without the | p. 214 |
| Cheap originality | p. 215 |
| Punctuation | p. 217 |
| General difficulties | p. 217 |
| General principles | p. 222 |
| The spot plague | p. 223 |
| Over-stopping | p. 228 |
| Under-stopping | p. 231 |
| Grammar and punctuation | p. 232 |
| Substantival clauses | p. 232 |
| Subject, &c., and verb | p. 236 |
| Adjectival clauses | p. 239 |
| Adverbial clauses | p. 241 |
| Parenthesis | p. 244 |
| Misplaced commas | p. 245 |
| Enumeration | p. 246 |
| Comma between independent sentences | p. 250 |
| Semicolon with subordinate members | p. 253 |
| Exclamations and statements | p. 254 |
| Exclamations and questions | p. 255 |
| Internal question and exclamation marks | p. 257 |
| Unaccountable commas | p. 258 |
| The colon | p. 259 |
| Miscellaneous | p. 260 |
| Dashes | p. 262 |
| General abuse | p. 262 |
| Legitimate uses | p. 263 |
| Debatable questions | p. 265 |
| Common misuses | p. 270 |
| Hyphens | p. 271 |
| Quotation marks | p. 276 |
| Excessive use | p. 276 |
| Order with stops | p. 278 |
| Single and double | p. 283 |
| Misplaced | p. 283 |
| Half quotation | p. 284 |
| p. 286 | |
| Euphony, [section] 1-10 | |
| Jingles | p. 286 |
| Alliteration | p. 287 |
| Repeated prepositions | p. 288 |
| Sequence of relatives | p. 288 |
| Sequence of that, &c. | p. 289 |
| Metrical prose | p. 290 |
| Sentence accent | p. 290 |
| Causal as clauses | p. 293 |
| Wens and hypertrophied members | p. 295 |
| Careless repetition | p. 298 |
| Quotation, Etc. [section] 11-19 | |
| Common misquotations | p. 299 |
| Uncommon misquotations of well-known passages | p. 300 |
| Misquotation of less familiar passages | p. 300 |
| Misapplied and misunderstood quotations and phrases | p. 301 |
| Parvum in multo | p. 302 |
| Allusion | p. 302 |
| Incorrect allusion | p. 303 |
| Dovetailed and adapted quotations and phrases | p. 304 |
| Trite quotations | p. 305 |
| Latin abbreviations, &c. | p. 306 |
| Grammar, [section] 20-37 | |
| Unequal yokefellows and defective double harness | p. 307 |
| Common parts | p. 309 |
| The wrong turning | p. 311 |
| Ellipse in subordinate clauses | p. 312 |
| Some illegitimate infinitives | p. 313 |
| 'Split' infinitives | p. 314 |
| Compound passives | p. 315 |
| Confusion with negatives | p. 317 |
| Omission of as | p. 319 |
| Other liberties taken with as | p. 320 |
| Brachylogy | p. 321 |
| Between two stools | p. 322 |
| The impersonal one | p. 323 |
| Between ... or | p. 324 |
| A placed between the adjective and its noun | p. 325 |
| Do as substitute verb | p. 325 |
| Fresh starts | p. 326 |
| Vulgarisms and colloquialisms | p. 326 |
| Meaning, [section] 38-48 | |
| Tautology | p. 327 |
| Redundancies | p. 328 |
| As to whether | p. 329 |
| Superfluous but and though | p. 330 |
| If and when | p. 330 |
| Maltreated idioms | p. 331 |
| Truisms and contradictions in terms | p. 334 |
| Double emphasis | p. 336 |
| 'Split' auxiliaries | p. 337 |
| Overloading | p. 339 |
| Demonstrative, noun, and participle or adjective | p. 340 |
| Ambiguity, [section] 49-52 | |
| False scent | p. 341 |
| Misplacement of words | p. 341 |
| Ambiguous position | p. 342 |
| Ambiguous enumeration | p. 343 |
| Style, [section] 53 to the end | |
| Antics | p. 344 |
| Journalese | p. 346 |
| Somewhat, &c. | p. 347 |
| Clumsy patching | p. 351 |
| Omission of the conjunction that | p. 352 |
| Meaningless while | p. 353 |
| Commercialisms | p. 353 |
| Pet Phrases | p. 354 |
| Also as conjunction; and &c. | p. 355 |
| Anacoluthon | p. 355 |
| Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved. |
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