Origins of the Specious by Patricia T O'conner
Do you cringe when a talking head pronounces niche as NITCH? Do you get bent out of shape when your teenager begins a sentence with and? Do you think British spellings are more civilised than the American versions? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you're myth-informed. In Origins of the Specious, word mavens Patricia T. O'Conner and Stewart Kellerman reveal why some of grammar's best-known rules aren't--and never were--rules at all. This playfully witty, rigorously researched book sets the record straight about bogus word origins, politically correct fictions, phony fran ais, fake acronyms, and more. Here are some shockers: They was once commonly used for both singular and plural, much the way you is today. And an eighteenth-century female grammarian, of all people, is largely responsible for the all-purpose he. From the Queen's English to street slang, this eye-opening romp will be the toast of grammarphiles and the salvation of grammarphobes. Take our word for it.
Patricia T. O'Conner, a former editor at The New York Times Book Review, has written four books on language and writing-the bestselling Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English; Words Fail Me: What Everyone Who Writes Should Know About Writing; Woe Is I Jr.: The Younger Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English; and You Send Me: Getting It Right When You Write Online. Stewart Kellerman has been an editor at The New York Times and a foreign correspondent for UPI in Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. He co-authored You Send Me with his wife, Patricia T. O'Conner, and he runs their website and blog at grammarphobia.com. They live in rural Connecticut.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781400066605 |
| ISBN 10 | 1400066603 |
| Title | Origins of the Specious |
| Author | Patricia T O'conner |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Microfilm |
| Publisher | Random House USA Inc |
| Year published | 2009-05-26 |
| Number of pages | 266 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |