The Handbook Of Good English

THE

HANDBOOK
OF

GOOD ENGLISH

THE

HANDBOOK
OF

GOOD ENGLISH
REVISED AND UPDATED

s

Edward D. Johnson

B
EactsQnFik
New York • Oxford

The Handbook of Good English: Revised and Updated Copyright © 1983, 1991 by Edward D. Johnson All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, includingphotocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information contact: Facts On File, Inc. 460 Park Avenue South New York NY 10016 USA Facts On File Limited Collins Street Oxford OX4 1XJ United Kingdom

First published as The Washington Square Press Handbook of Good English by Pocket Books, a Simon & Schusterdivision of Gulf & Western Corporation, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10020 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 91-21872 A British CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Facts On File books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk quantities for businesses, associations, institutions or sales promotions. Please call our Special SalesDepartment in New York at 212-683-2244 (dial 800\322-8755 except in NY, AK or HI) or in Oxford at 865/728399. Manufactured by the Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 This book is printed on acid-free paper.



PREFACE 1 GRAMMAR
The Sentence Case of Nouns and Pronouns: Subjective, Objective, and Possessive Agreement Verb Tenses: Past,Present, and Future Verb Moods: Indicative, Imperative, and Subjunctive Verb Voices: Active and Passive Modifiers

vii 1
3 20 32 48 58 63 65 81 83 94 121 125 131 136 143 149 151 166 172 182 216

2

PUNCTUATION
Sentence Structure Comma Semicolon Colon Dash Parentheses and Brackets Question Mark Exclamation Point Quotation Marks Points of Ellipsis Apostrophe Hyphen Diagonal

•

ContentsHOW TO STYLE WRITTEN ENGLISH: MISCELLANEOUS MECHANICS
Numbers Dates Abbreviations Generic Terms Titles of Officials and Names of Their Offices Forms of Address Place-names Titles of Publications and Works of Literature, Works of Art, Musical Compositions, and Other Works Foreign Words

219
222 228 229 232 234 238 241

245 256

BEYOND THE SENTENCE: DICTION AND COMPOSITION 26i_
Occasionand Intent Organization Tone Revision 262 267 271 278 293

GLOSSARY / INDEX



This book's first edition was published in 1982. Only seven years later I decided to revise it, but not because I thought it had so quickly become out of date. It was based on more than twenty years of experience as a book editor and more than half a life spent largely in well-spoken company and I didn't thinkeither it or I was substantially dated. I was aware of some new uses and misuses of the language and wanted to comment on them, but my primary intent was to rectify shortcomings that had been exposed by seven years of testing the book against writing I had edited or read for pleasure and speech I had heard. I wanted to expand my discussions of many details, modify my judgments on a few matters,increase the number of crossreferences, and enlarge the Glossary/Index—all of which I have done. In the course of the revision, however, I discovered that English and attitudes toward it have changed more than I had thought, and that I have changed too. For one thing, the language has made adjustments to complaints that it is sexist, and it continues to adjust. I discuss this change and myaccommodations to it under sexism in the Glossary/Index; it has affected the diction in this revision considerably. In 1982, I think, avoidance of sexist diction would have weakened my book for many readers, but now, sexist diction would weaken it, because genderless expressions that once were evasive and obtrusive have become straightforward and unsurprising. Another change—perhaps it is partly an effect...