Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words

by Bill Bryson

Blurb

Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words is a book by Bill Bryson, published under several titles since 1984, that catalogues some of the English language's most commonly misused words and phrases in order to demonstrate preferable usage. It helps writers and editors to think about how to make written communication clearer.
It was first published in 1984 with the title The Penguin Dictionary of Troublesome Words in the United Kingdom and with the title The Facts on File Dictionary of Troublesome Words in the United States. It was republished in a revised edition in 1987; and again in the UK in 1997 under the title Troublesome Words. In 2002 it was published as Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words.
As the author himself states, "This book might more accurately, if less convincingly, have been called A Guide to Everything in English Usage That the Author Wasn't Entirely Clear About Until Quite Recently." Bryson describes the English language as a valuable entity, with no two experts agreeing on any point of usage, claiming that those guides that do exist for the common user often expect the reader to be familiar with grammatical terms not encountered since high school.

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