Books about Word usage from Amazon.com

The 100 Words series continues to set the standard for measuring and improving vocabulary, with a new title focusing on words that are best known for getting people into linguistic trouble. 100 Words Almost Everyone Confuses and Misuses is the perfect book for anyone seeking clear and sensible guidance on avoiding the recognized pitfalls of the English language.

Each word on the list is accompanied by a concise and authoritative usage note based on the renowned usage program of the American Heritage® Dictionaries. These notes discuss why a particular usage has been criticized and explain the rules and conventions that determine what's right, what's wrong, and what falls in between. Troublesome pairs such as affect / effect, blatant / flagrant, and disinterested / uninterested are disentangled, as are vexing sound-alikes such as discrete / discreet and principal / principle. Other notes tackle such classic irritants as hopefully, impact, and aggravate, as well as problematic words like peruse and presently.

A great graduation gift or stocking stuffer for anyone who cares about language, 100 Words Almost Everyone Confuses and Misuses is guaranteed to help keep writers and speakers on the up-and-up!.
Price: $2.31 [Notify me when price goes down.]

One of the English language’s most skilled and beloved writers guides us all toward precise, mistake-free usage.

As usual Bill Bryson says it best: “English is a dazzlingly idiosyncratic tongue, full of quirks and irregularities that often seem willfully at odds with logic and common sense. This is a language where ‘cleave’ can mean to cut in half or to hold two halves together; where the simple word ‘set’ has 126 different meanings as a verb, 58 as a noun, and 10 as a participial adjective; where if you can run fast you are moving swiftly, but if you are stuck fast you are not moving at all; [and] where ‘colonel,’ ‘freight,’ ‘once,’ and ‘ache’ are strikingly at odds with their spellings.” As a copy editor for the London Times in the early 1980s, Bill Bryson felt keenly the lack of an easy-to-consult, authoritative guide to avoiding the traps and snares in English, and so he brashly suggested to a publisher that he should write one. Surprisingly, the proposition was accepted, and for “a sum of money carefully gauged not to cause embarrassment or feelings of overworth,” he proceeded to write that book–his first, inaugurating his stellar career.

Now, a decade and a half later, revised, updated, and thoroughly (but not overly) Americanized, it has become Bryson’s Dictionary of Troublesome Words, more than ever an essential guide to the wonderfully disordered thing that is the English language. With some one thousand entries, from “a, an” to “zoom,” that feature real-world examples of questionable usage from an international array of publications, and with a helpful glossary and guide to pronunciation, this precise, prescriptive, and–because it is written by Bill Bryson–often witty book belongs on the desk of every person who cares enough about the language not to maul or misuse or distort it.


From the Hardcover edition..
Price: $7.34 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A wry and engaging look at trite, trendy, grammatically incorrect, inane, outdated, and lazy uses of words, phrases, and expressions

By turns gleefully precise and happily contrarian, this is a highly opinionated guide to better communication. In Literally, the Best Language Book Ever, author Paul Yeager attacks with a linguistic scalpel the illogical expressions and misappropriated meanings that are so commonplace and annoying in everyday conversation. Identifying hundreds of common language miscues, Yeager provides an astute look at the world of words and how we abuse them every day.

For the grammar snobs looking for any port in a storm of subpar syntax, or the self-confessed rubes seeking a helping hand, this witty guide can transform even the least literate into the epitome of eloquence..
Price: $7.34 [Notify me when price goes down.]

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Price: $8.76 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A critically acclaimed guide to English usage. Includes more than 2,300 entries presenting the history, analysis, and recommendations regarding noted usage controversies Entries are illustrated with more than 20,000 quotations from prominent writers..
Price: $13.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Through clever, rhyming text and boldly colorful illustrations, students and language lovers of all ages will enjoy exploring Ruth Heller's world of prepositions "To say that Heller has a way with words is to understate a multifaceted talent."-- Publishers Weekly "Rhyming text...provides many examples of prepositions as well as some rules of usage. Large, colorful drawings illustrate the words imaginatively." -- Booklist.
Price: $3.94 [Notify me when price goes down.]

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In the first part of this useful book, the author shows how to solve common problems of writing. The reader will learn how to recognize common problems of writing. The reader will learn how to recognize words and phrases that should be cut; how to shorten cumbersome sentences; how to arrange the elements of pairs, series, and compound subjects and predicates; how to recognize and rectify mismanaged participles; and how to be on the lookout for the better word. The second part of the book consists of more than 1500 recommendations for cuts, changes, and comparisons that editors make to produce writing that is concise and effective..
Price: $7.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]