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Fowler’s memorable preface
Yesterday was the birthday of Henry Watson Fowler, the man who wrote one of the most famous books on English language, reminded the Writer’s Almanac. I love Fowler’s Modern English Usage. The opening lines are as memorable as anything written by the finest English novelists. Jane Austen and Charles Dickens wrote probably the most famous […]
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Fowler and Burchfield
Only Oxford University Press knows how many copies of Fowler’s Modern English Usage edited by RW Burchfield has been sold. But one thing it is not — the Fowler. Jonathan Yardley in his homage to the other classic stylebook, The Elements of Style by Strunk and White, does not even mention it. He mentions only […]