Two must-have English-usage books for budding writers, student or professional journalists, and editors are
The Careful Writer: A Modern Guide to English Usage by Theodore Bernstein (Free Press, 512 pages) and
Modern American Usage by Wilson Follett and Erik Wensberg (Hill and Wang, 360 pages). Bernstein’s
The Careful Writer is an engagingly written handbook of alphabetized entries that provide answers to questions of use, meaning, grammar, punctuation, precision, logical structure, and color in American English. On the other hand, Follett’s
Modern American Usage, also with alphabetized entries, is a lively, fun guide to American English that addresses the finer points of use and misuse of words, style, clarity, and grammar issues.
The Careful Writer, first published in 1965, was written by Theodore Menline Bernstein, an assistant managing editor of
The New York Times and professor at the Columbia University School of Journalism for over 25 years. Since its publication, the book has remained popular among professional and amateur writers as a staple reference for increasing the readability and precision of their English. For the usefulness of its instruction, it has been compared favorably to the English-usage books of H.W. Fowler and Strunk and White.
Modern American Usage was a work in progress—two thirds of it had been completed in draft form—when Follett, a literary writer, died in 1963. Completed and edited by Jacques Barzun in collaboration with six other editors, the book was posthumously published in 1966. Hailed by critics as comparable to H.W. Fowler’s classic
Modern English Usage, the book was considered by expert reviewers to have struck the right balance of prescriptivity for the language among American users. Its current edition reflects the revision and updating done on the book by Erik Wensberg in 1979.
