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- 192 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
The Basics of English Usage
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About This Book
Should I say "He is taller than I" or "He is taller than me?"
Do you spell it "blond" or "blonde"?
If you've ever been stopped in your tracks by questions like these, then this book is for you. A complete pocket guide to the ins and outs of everyday English, The Basics of English Usage will tell you all you need to know about such topics as:
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- correct spelling
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- good grammar and style
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- punctuation and how to use it
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- problem words that everyone gets wrong.
Including guides to further reading and online resources, The Basics of English Usage is an indispensable survival guide for anyone wanting to improve their writing and communication.
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Yes, you can access The Basics of English Usage by Wynford Hicks in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Languages & Linguistics & Linguistics. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
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1
Spelling
English spelling is easy to make fun of â and not easy to get right. It certainly defies logic. We spell âharassâ with one ârâ and âembarrassâ with two; the noun âdependantâ has an âaâ in the last syllable while the adjective âdependentâ has an âeâ. In British English we spell âlicenceâ and âpracticeâ with a âcâ when theyâre nouns and with an âsâ when theyâre verbs (âshe has a licence to practiseâ; âthey licensed the practiceâ) â though we pronounce them in exactly the same way. In American English, on the other hand, âlicenseâ with an âsâ does for both noun and verb â and so does âpracticeâ with a âcâ. Confused?
The numerals âfourâ and âfourteenâ are followed by âfortyâ â suddenly the âuâ has disappeared although the pronunciation of âfourâ and âforâ by most people is the same. âMantelpieceâ, the shelf covering the fire, shows its Latin origin (mantellum, cloak) more clearly than âmantleâ, the word actually used to mean âcloakâ. âMetalâ in its literal sense of iron or steel differs from âmettleâ meaning âcourageâ, as does âflowerâ, the general term for what plants produce, from âflourâ, the particular âflowerâ derived from wheat. And so on âŠ
Itâs claimed that there are more than 200 ways of spelling the 40-odd distinct sounds in English. For example, Bill Bryson (in Mother Tongue, 1990) says there are 14 ways of conveying the âshâ sound, as in shoe, sugar, passion, ambitious, ocean, champagne; more than a dozen for âoâ, as in go, beau, stow, sew, doe, though, escargot; and another dozen for âaâ, as in hey, stay, make, maid, freight, great. Including proper nouns, the English word with the greatest number of variants is said to be air with 38, as in Aire, Ayr, heir, eâer, ere âŠ
The primary explanation for this rich confusion lies in the history of English. Unlike French, say, or German, English is a mongrel language â an amalgam of Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse, Norman French and Latin, which went on to adopt and absorb words and idioms from all over the world. The Anglo-Saxon of the Germanic invaders of the fifth century AD evolved in various regional dialects and spellings and was strongly influenced by the next wave of invaders, the Vikings, who spoke a related but different language, Old Norse. Then in 1066 came the Norman Conquest.
Suddenly England was a bilingual country (or a trilingual one if you include church Latin). The ruling class of nobles and clerics spoke a northern dialect of French while the peasants talked Anglo-Saxon among themselves. Slowly the two languages came together and when the bilingual period was over, English had absorbed much French vocabulary, spelling and pronunciation. More than a third of the English words in a modern dictionary are said to come from French.
Because of its complex history, English spelling is a mixture of different influences: Roman missionaries writing down Old English for the first time; Norman French scribes with their own ideas (replacing cw by qu to produce queen â which looks like a French word but isnât); and the growth of different dialects in different parts of the country. But the introduction of printing in the fifteenth century had the biggest impact of all. When William Caxton set up his printing house in London in 1476, he started publishing in the East Midlands dialect, used at court, in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge and in London. This brought a degree of standardisation.
Gradually during the next century the idea of standard spelling became popular. There were radical reformers like John Hart, who wrote several books advocating substantial change to achieve consistency, and practical pedagogues like Richard Mulcaster, a headmaster who wrote his own book, the Elementarie (1582), arguing that piecemeal reform was a more prudent course of action â things had gone too far for radical change. Mulcaster created an alphabetical list of over 8,500 words with recommended spellings, based on what he saw people using in their handwritten texts.
Early in the eighteenth century there was a proposal to establish an English academy on the lines of the AcadĂ©mie Française, founded in 1635, to police the language generally and lay down standards for spelling. Although it was supported by the Royal Society, by eminent writers like Dryden, Evelyn and Swift â and even by the government in 1712 â nothing happened. Several dictionaries were published in this period, notably one by Nathaniel Bailey (1721), but it was Samuel Johnsonâs magisterial Dictionary of the English Language (1755) that established a standard English spelling, much of which is in use today.
Johnson is sometimes described as âcreatingâ a standard spelling â but in his preface he explicitly rules this out: âEven in words of which the derivation is apparent, I have been often obliged to sacrifice uniformity to custom.â As Philip Howard noted (in The State of the Language, 1984): âJohnson followed the spelling generally adopted by the printers, establishing it in private use as the standard of literate English writers and spellers.â
Johnsonâs American equivalent, Noah Webster (1758â1843), was also credited with more than he tried to achieve. He didnât set out to change American but to systematise it and establish it as of equal status to English. If sales are any guide, he certainly succeeded: his American Spelling Book (1788) was so popular it had sold 60 million copies by 1890.
The curious thi...
Table of contents
- Cover Page
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Introduction
- 1 Spelling
- 2 Grammar and style
- 3 Problem words
- 4 Punctuation
- Further reading