The Elephants of Style / Edition 1

by Bill Walsh

Overview

Advice on good writing from everybody's favorite editorial curmudgeon

Persnickety, cantankerous, opinionated, entertaining, hilarious, wise...these are a few of the adjectives reviewers used to describe good-writing maven Bill Walsh's previous book, Lapsing Into a Comma. Now, picking up where he left off in Lapsing, Walsh addresses the dozen or so biggest issues that every writer or editor must master. He also offers a trunkload of good advice on the many little things that add up to good writing. Featuring all the elements that made Lapsing such a fun read, including Walsh's trademark acerbic wit and fascinating digressions on language and its discontents, The Elephants of Style provides:

• Tips on how to tame the "elephants of style"--the most important, frequently confused elements of good writing
• More of Walsh's popular "Curmudgeon's Stylebook"--includes entries such as Snarky Specificity, Metaphors, Near and Far, Actually is the New Like, and other uses and misuses of language
• Expert advice for writers and editors on how to work together for best results

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780071422680
Publisher:	McGraw Hill LLC
Publication date:	03/04/2004
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	539,859
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Bill Walsh is the copy chief for national news at the Washington Post and the creator of the popular Web site The Slot: A Spot for Copy Editors (www.theslot.com). He lives in Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	IX
	Introduction: What We Talk About When We Talk About Style	XI
Elephant No. 1	Remember That You're Not Using a Typewriter: Style Begins With Form and Format	1
	Also, Remember That You're in the United States
Elephant No. 2	Letters of the Law: Common Missteps in Spelling	9
Elephant No. 3	What's Up?: All About Capitalization	17
	Everything's Generic
	What's in a nAME?
Elephant No. 4	What to Abbrev.? The Short and Shorter of Truncations, Acronyms and Initialisms	43
	Initial Reactions and Second Thoughts (IRAST)
Elephant No. 5	Which One Is Right Again? A Quick Review of Problem Pairs (and Trios and ...)	51
Elephant No. 6	Lies Your English Teacher Told You: The Big Myths of English Usage	61
Elephant No. 7	Some Gray Areas: Proceed With Caution	71
Elephant No. 8	Agreed? Making Sure the Parts of Speech Get Along	81
Elephant No. 9	Cover Your S: Possessives and Plurals	93
Elephant No. 10	A Number of Problems: Counting on 100 Percent Correctness	107
Elephant No. 11	The Adventures of Curly and Stitch: The Comma, the Hyphen, the Headaches	125
Elephant No. 12	Flair! Elan! Panache! A Few Potshots About Style-With-a-Capital-S	135
	Colors Are Pretty, but How About Just Giving It to Me in Black and White?
	What Is, Is: Can't Argue With That
	The Spin Wins: Great Moments in Obfuscation
	Madam Chairman and That Friggin' Masseuse: Taking Linguistic Evolution Like a "-man"
Elephant No. 13	Writers, Typists, Thieves and Liars: Plagiarism and Its Kin	157
Elephant No. 14	Writing and Rewriting: A Writer-Turned-Editor Writes About Editing and Being Edited	163
	From From to To: Everything's Ranging
	Snarky Specificity
	Literal and Conservative: George Washington Wasn't Really Our Father
	The Curmudgeon's Stylebook (Continued): A Web FAQ	177
	Bibliography	225
	Index	227