Customer Reviews

Write It Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults

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

 

 

This book is a long alphabtical list of literary faults by Ambrose Bierce (an American writer). It is mostly his own 'pet peeves' but this makes it amusing to read as he lists the correct way to say it, and often sounds very angry about the wrong way!! So I would recommend this book if you want to read about the formal 'correct' way to say anything, eg: 'I assumed a disguise' instead of 'I adopted a disguise'. He says you 'only adopt a child, not a disguise' :)

When I was a young man I lived awhile with my stepgrandfather in San Diego, California. I remember he had a slim red volume called 'Write It Right', by Ambrose Bierce. It must have been a first edition, from around 1911, when he was around 21. He had penciled into the flyleaf, "He is at variance with Webster on several points." Gramps prided himself on good grammar and liked working crosswords and the Kingsley Double-Crostics that were published weekly at the back of the 'Saturday Review'. I enjoyed leafing through the Bierce, and noting with interest his preference for treating the noun 'the United States' as a plural. This, it seemed to me, reflected a conservative outlook that preceded, and resisted, federal efforts at promoting a strong sense of national unity. And that is where I place the value of this little volume, as an interesting historical relic of the English language as it was once spoken. Its standards are a lot tighter than our own, and for that reason I recommend it as a guide to the thought patterns of our ancestors living in that now remote time.