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Product Description
Book Description
The best selling guide to English usage, now in paperback.
Product Description
This expanded tenth edition of the bestselling guide to style is based on the Economist's own updated house style manual, and is an invaluable companion for everyone who wants to communicate with the clarity, style and precision for which the Economist is renowned. As the introduction says, 'clarity of writing usually follows clarity of thought.' The Economist Style Guide gives general advice on writing, points out common errors and clichés, offers guidance on consistent use of punctuation, abbreviations and capital letters, and contains an exhaustive range of reference material - covering everything from accountancy ratios and stock market indices to laws of nature and science. Some of the numerous useful rules and common mistakes pointed out in the guide include: ·Which informs, that defines. This is the house that Jack built. But: This house, which Jack built, is now falling down. ·Discreet means circumspect or prudent; discrete means separate or distinct. Remember that "Questions are never indiscreet. Answers sometimes are" (Oscar Wilde). ·Flaunt means display, flout means disdain. If you flout this distinction you will flaunt your ignorance ·Forgo means do without; forego means go before. ·Fortuitous means accidental, not fortunate or well-timed. ·Times Take care.Three times more than X is four times as much as X. ·Full stops Use plenty. They keep sentences short. This helps the reader.
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2 reviews
Look this up in your Funk & Wagnalls
5 Aug 2010
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Eriudite, concise and finely-pointed. The Economist is economical with words-and rich in meaning. If you following their style guide you can improve your writing. Their relentless focus is on maintaing clarity-yet they provide for the extra dimensions of nuance and allusion. Because is why you do something. Since refers to the time passed between the deed and now. The difference between expecting and anticipating is action: if Jack and Jill anticipate their marriage, only Jill may be expecting. This guide puts forth the rules and conventions that create the style that makes the Economist so readable, and it can make your dispatches better read as well.
0 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Panders to imprecise linguistic conventions
29 April 2011
Format:Hardcover
Unfortunately, the Economist Style Guide adopts some conventions that make language less precise, not more so.
For example, it discourages the use of commas in sentences that contain a series of items (a practice that introduces ambiguity into such sentences).
It exhorts
"Do not put a comma before and at the end of a sequence of items unless one of the items includes another and. Thus The doctor suggested an aspirin, half a grapefruit and a cup of broth. But he ordered scrambled eggs, whisky and soda, and a selection from the trolley."
This practice introduces ambiguity as to whether the last two items of a series are actually a grouped item (as is normally indicated by the conjunction "and") or whether they are two independent items in the series. Punctuation is meant to reduce ambiguity; this practice espoused by the Economist serves to increase ambiguity.
In short, this style guide often panders to language laziness and cultural conventions even when those conventions degrade linguistic precision. This lessens its worth as a style guide.
For example, it discourages the use of commas in sentences that contain a series of items (a practice that introduces ambiguity into such sentences).
It exhorts
"Do not put a comma before and at the end of a sequence of items unless one of the items includes another and. Thus The doctor suggested an aspirin, half a grapefruit and a cup of broth. But he ordered scrambled eggs, whisky and soda, and a selection from the trolley."
This practice introduces ambiguity as to whether the last two items of a series are actually a grouped item (as is normally indicated by the conjunction "and") or whether they are two independent items in the series. Punctuation is meant to reduce ambiguity; this practice espoused by the Economist serves to increase ambiguity.
In short, this style guide often panders to language laziness and cultural conventions even when those conventions degrade linguistic precision. This lessens its worth as a style guide.
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