The King's English

by Fowler, H. W.; Fowler, F. G.; Parris, Matthew

• ISBN13: 9780198605072
• ISBN10: 0198605072
• Edition: 3rd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-04-03
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

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
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