Word Court: Wherein Verbal Virtue Is Rewarded, Crimes Against the Language Are Punished, and Poetic Justice Is Done - Hardcover

Wallraff, Barbara

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0151003815 ISBN 13: 9780151003815

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2000

Synopsis

The internet guru of grammar moves beyond basic word usage to tackle phrase, slang, name usage, punctuation, and newly coined words, among other trickier aspects of the language.

About this title

Review:

Do you find the errors on a menu before the waiter has a chance to recite the specials? Is "Your call will be answered in the order in which it was received" as grating to you as fingernails on a blackboard? Would you cringe if an advertisement for your child's school promised a "low teacher-to-student ratio"? If so, Barbara Wallraff's Word Court is a book without which you cannot live. For seasoned wordsmiths, books about language can entertain; on occasion they may also enlighten. But rare is the book such as this that can teach an old pro so many new tricks, and in such a delightful manner. If you are a reader of Wallraff's "Word Court" column for The Atlantic Monthly, you will have seen much of what is included here before. If not, caveat reader: though there is an index, this book is arranged in such a way that one may well find oneself reading the proverbial "one more page" long into the night.

"What I know about language", says Wallraff, "derives chiefly from my having edited, line by line and word by word, other people's writing over the past two decades". In Word Court, Wallraff addresses changes in the language, questions of grammar, issues concerning specific words and phrases and a bunch of other linguistic concerns impossible to catergorise. She recommends rewriting in order to avoid problems ("recast, recast"), treading carefully when you don't want controversial word use to obscure your point, and forgiving significant others "for any lapse of grammar committed in a bathrobe, before the coffee is ready". This book is delicious. And I'll bet your first-edition Fowler that Wallraff even introduces a few issues you may never have considered (perhaps the exceptional which, "picnic's grandmother" constructions, or those rare instances in which a sentence's two grammatically independent clauses should not--I repeat not--be separated by a comma). --Jane Steinberg

Review:

"Her approach to language is a beguiling mix of charm and research."-USA Today
"Wallraff picks her way through language thickets with a sure step and a generous attitude."-The Boston Globe
"So here's a rare bird, indeed, a knowledgeable grammarian who can deliver solid language advice with a wink and a smile."-San Francisco Chronicle

About this edition

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0151003815
• ISBN 13: 9780151003815
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368