Customer Reviews

The King's English : A Guide to Modern Usage

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is not in all seriousness a guide to usage. It's more like Amis's personal opinion piece, or list of pet peeves. His criticism cuts both ways, searing both those who take liberties with language, and those who are overly stuffed-shirt about using "whom" or saying "it is I." The closest thing to this among American writers would be William Safire, with a dash of Dave Barry. Amis is deadly funny, with a certain snootiness and condescension that are simultaneously repugnant and heroic.

This book shouldn't REALLY be your usage guide. Used as one, it would leave you feeling befuddled, and perhaps belittled. But it reads a bit like a usage guide, with an alphabetical list of topics for Amis's rants, e.g., "genteelisms," "whom," "get," etc. With insults freely being applied to people who speak in certain ways, however, it is more like a collection of Amis's opinions, to be used in conjunction with a real usage guide (as Amis admits in the introduction).

I am giving this book 5 stars because I am a language pedant, and find this stuff extremely entertaining. I read through it excitedly in one sitting; it's fascinating to me to find out what grammar points irk other language pedants. If you are not a language pedant, however, you may be bored by this book.

With his typical flair for humor (or humour if you are from Amis's side of the pond) and understated cruelty, Amis offers his thoughts on using the English language. His knowledge is vast and presented in a straightforward manner. Best of all, Amis is willing to point out and help you avoid making pronunciation mistakes that will make you sound like a "wanker." It is meant for a speaker of English, not American, but this American did not mind. Good stuff is good stuff.

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Are you disinterested or uninterested? When do you say alternately or should it be alternatively? These are words we hear everyday; but they are often confused and misused, even in the mainstream media. Help is at hand. The famous English author Kingsley Amis's last book The King's English will provide professional writers and those who care about their language, expert guidance in the usage of English.

Amis is best known for his novels such as Lucky Jim and the Old Devils, but he was also a skilled observer and commentator on late 20th Century life and language. Amis died in 1995, with this book being published posthumously, two years later.

In this book, he takes us from the classic formalism of old-school academic scholars with their groundings in Latin and Greek, through to the street-wise pop-media of the contemporary world. He bridges the gap between the rigorous, proscribed rules of the original 1926 classic H.W. Fowler's Modern English Usage and the modern, pragmatic world where English is recognised as the global language. Despite being an Englishman, Amis acknowledged the ascendancy and the practical "correctness" of American English.

Amis in his book is very careful not to be too pedantic with his comments. In his entry on the pronunciation of kilometre, he argues against the common practice of stressing the second syllable and therefore making it sound like a device to measure items grouped in thousands. Amis assures us such a device once existed, but he concludes "not many people know that, or would care if they did."

Amis has fun criticising - and gently mocking - fashionable trends in writing, particularly in the field of newspaper journalism. In his entry on headlines, Amis gives examples of sub-editors stringing together three or more nouns to make a headline, such as, SCHOOL COACH CRASH DRAMA. He also criticises the journalistic trick of overloading descriptions in one sentence, which he calls the "gorged-snake construction."

Political abuse of the language is also put under the Amis spotlight. How often do we hear politicians "refuting", when all they are doing is denying, and not proving the falsity of the allegation, which is what the word really means?

The King's English is not an exhaustive guide to language use, but anybody who makes a living from writing or takes other people's writing seriously will want to keep a copy of this book close by their dictionary. Should we be implying or inferring this? Either way, this book is inspirational, amusing as well as instructive.

Amis on language use can be infuriating. In reading through his usage notes, I found myself swinging from a fist-pumping "YES!" to gleeful snickers to an appalled "Say what?!" The author was the product of a classical education in the 1930s, which he explains as the basis of some of his preferences, but he's also partial to the way Americanisms have crept into British English -- usually. He doesn't like "aren't I" (it should be "am I not," since "amn't I" is hardly pronounceable), and he compares calling children "kids" to calling an Italian a "wop." He thinks foreign words when used by an Englishman should be forced into an Anglicized pronunciation; anyone who tries to pronounce a French word or term as the French do is a "wanker." To me, this is the worst sort of imperial arrogance -- and it's even more puzzling since Amis also inveighs against the British tendency to snootiness overseas. On the other hand, he counsels the reader to avoid dressed-up, generally wrongly-used vogue words like "opine," "orchestrate," "feedback," and "relevant," with which I entirely agree. But just when he's on a roll, he declares that "`Restauranteur' is impossible in French and a pretentious illiteracy in English." Sigh. Well, read the book and enjoy Amis's ability to draw blood with a well-chosen word, but don't feel obliged to agree with all his judgments or to accept his occasional pomposity.

I happen to like Kingsley Amis and his writings. Over the years I have read about six of his books, and from them and what I have read about him I find him knowledgeable, usually entertaining, and often very funny. Best of all, he is an excellent writer. It was clear to me, even before I came across THE KING'S ENGLISH, that Kingsley Amis cared, intensely, about the English language. Published posthumously, this book contains a host of his opinions on English words and usage, arranged alphabetically, and I recommend it to anyone who also cares about communicating clearly and gracefully in the English language.

As the sub-title suggests, the book is most readily categorized as a guide to usage, but the word "guide" needs to be emphasized. THE KING'S ENGLISH is by no means comprehensive or exhaustive. Instead, it is a collection of comments, condemnations, and -- above all -- "guidance for those who may want it." Amis commends both H.W. Fowler and his "Modern English Usage" (one of Amis's entries is essentially a tribute to Fowler), but Amis is a little more relaxed and commonsensical in his views on what is acceptable or tolerable than was Fowler. For American readers and speakers of English, a downside of the book is that it is concerned primarily with British English rather than American, and perhaps as much as a quarter of the book is of little or no interest to an American. But for me that negative is more than off-set by the extraordinarily keen sense (or ear) that Amis has for the nuances of usage and meaning, his passion for his subject, and -- I return to it again -- his writing ability. As a bonus, THE KING'S ENGLISH is laced with Amis's characteristic wit.

In the end, manuals and guides on usage can take one only so far. More important is experience in the language and mindfulness. As Amis writes in the entry for "genteelism" (i.e., a stylish or "posh" word -- "highfalutin" to some of us Americans -- used in place of a more apt everyday word), "The annoying truth is that almost every written word confronts the writer with a choice for which no rule will ever quite serve, and the price of a good style, like that of other desirable things, is eternal vigilance." Thus, "Rule 1 of writing is to get everything right as far as you can * * *."

More so than the more typical or comprehensive book on proper usage, THE KING'S ENGLISH can be read straight through, although for me doing so became a bit of a chore. Still, it was time and effort well-spent, and doing so persuaded me that I (and probably many others who care about words and language) should browse through a decent book on usage every year or so.

I agree with Sir Kingsley that nothing will ever replace FOWLER'S, though many have tried (Merriam Webster is a respected, wholly American enterprise). The beloved M.E.U. remains the standard, to be sure, but Amis's offereing is more an exercise in side-splitting sardonic humor about the common mistakes in English usage than the prosaic utility of its revered predecessor. Some of the funniest examples are the most useful, the most erudite being the most interesting. But I do not agree, as some of its critics maintain, that this is only meant for the people of Britain. Sir Kingsley is a thorough-going defender of "Americanisms." I recommend you obtain this volume for your work desk, but also for your favorite reading place. And be prepared to laugh out loud!

Let us first start with the name of the author of the book in question. "Kingsley Amis", so snotty, so upper-crust and blue blooded...so apropros! Who else would you want to tell you in grand meticulous detail how much you (you meaning the American, you meaning myself as well) butcher the King's English. I adore this book I would give it 5 stars but there are moments when Kingsley (to be said through clenched teeth) meanders a bit and becomes, dare I say it? TOO WORDY. Overall, 4 1/2 stars just for the sheer snottiness of it! Bravo!