Customer Reviews

Your Own Words: The Bestselling Author of Word Court Explains How to Decipher Decipher the Dictionary, Master the Usage Manual, and Be Your Own Language Expert

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For a serious writer or editor, this is an essential book. I keep it close by my dictionary, thesaurus, Chicago Manual, Garner, and Fowler's (the 2nd edition, of course, not the awful 3rd). Your Own Words is, as another reviewer aptly noted, a meta-reference, the one that allows me to find my way around the others and answer grammar and usage questions for myself. (I never, for instance, would have thought of using Google News as a usage guide.) The many selections from Wallraff's Atlantic Monthly column are a welcome bonus.

As a writer and speaker, I've often hesitated in choosing the right words and phrases, so as not to be misunderstood. And often turned to a favorite dictionary or reference book unquestioningly. What a surprise and shock to learn from Your Own Words how naive I've have been when I should have known more about the books I was using - and trusting. And how things like Google can do a better job of helping than some well-regarded language references and experts.

This is a fascinating, thoughtful, insightful and at times downright amusing look at the way we write, speak - and decide how to do both. As well as deciding which language reference books are worth having and using. Money well spent.

This gem of a book not only provides sound advice on language-related reference books (dictionaries, thesauri, usage and style guides, etc.) but it also answers many usage questions itself. And it's fun to read, being based on the popular Ms. Grammar columns in The Atlantic Monthly and syndicated in newspapers across the country. I got so enthused about language after I read this book that I went out and upgraded my language reference library. Now I'm ready for anything!

As a high school teacher, I've enjoyed Ms. Wallraff's newspaper column - and wondered how she accumulated the resources to answer the language questions posed and with such grace, tact and knowledge. Now I have an inkling, in this book, and it is a long-overdue and welcome companion in my classroom.

What a terrific addition to my reference shelf! Wallraff's book supplies not only the entertaining and helpful answers about language we've all learned to expect after years of reading her Word Court column in the Atlantic, but also information I've never found elsewhere about how to find answers for ourselves when she's not around.

Your Own Words raises the value of all the other style guides, usage manuals, and dictionaries on your shelf by teaching you how to use those references (and many, many others) to best advantage, and she does it with her usual grace and good humor.

One of my favorite things about this volume: Wallraff gives both long and short explanations of her subject matter. Breaking the basics out in a distinct typeface, she gives you a choice of skimming the book for entertainment and some basics, or digging in deep for more information than you ever knew existed. As an editor, I think Wallraff's book is an essential new resource, but it's also a wonderful treat for anyone who loves language and just wants exceptionally readable insights into the craft of writing, editing, and research.

I'm not sure how to characterize this book, as a reference, as a discourse on English and how it is evolving, as a guide to research tools in language and linguistics.

It is really all of them wrapped together, a distillation of what appears to be a dedicated life-long interest in language from a well-known Atlantic Monthly editor. It is in no way pointy-headed, the way so many language guides are. It is open to new ways of doing business in speaking or writing, and Wallraff shows us how to justify our judgements and back them up with quick searches in books or on the Internet.

There is a wit and sense of giving and forgiving, that there might be a right way or several right ways, that the language is changing and we need to uphold some standards and 'get a life' to let other standards evolve.

As an academic and a writer, I find the book insightful, unstuffy and, above all, very helpful. I read it, learned new approaches and feel that I will continue to build on those lessons.

This is a gem of a book. Insightful, thoughtful, witty, fun, and, above all, sensible. But most of all it exudes good plain commonsense about language. I recommend it to anyone lost in the thicket of language usage who is looking for a machete.

This gem of a book is the first I've ever come across to evaluate (and sometimes critically) the reference works writers and speakers rely on, to suggest better ways to use them and to reveal how the newest reference work - the Internet - can be used reliably.

Dale Carnegie as a reference source? I couldn't believe it but I do now. Really a tour de force and an amazing work with a sense of humor and balance.

This is a book that everyone who cares about good language ought to own and read.

It is a deceptively plain-looking book, without chapters jam-packed with fascinating etymology lore or the like. But nowhere else will you find such a concentration of good sense about word usage.

This book teaches the reader how a supremely wise and knowledgeable word expert thinks about proper use of words.

Absolutely priceless -- and unlike anything else I've seen in print -- are the discussions of how to use various reference books and websites to research proper usage of language. These should be required reading for all high school and college students and anyone else planning to use the Internet to research language ... or any other topic!

Ms. Wallraff sets out clearly how one goes about evaluating what one finds in reference books and websites ... and how one must sometimes to take such information with a grain of salt.

She doesn't just give the reader fish (though she does this, too, in fine style), but *teaches* us to fish.

Particularly gratifying to this reader is the author's opinion of dictionaries who feel their only role should be descriptive. Such dictionaries, she points out, are of little use in determining good usage.

She deftly puts the kibosh to the myth, promoted by some dictionaries, that everything written by famous writers must be a model of good usage.

Do not, under any circumstance, not buy this book!

I was familiar with Barbara Wallraff's earlier book - and enjoyed it - but this one is far more helpful. It is a guide to the language guides, a clever overview of what is helpful and what is not in the world of language references. She is never stuffy - something tough to pull off when reviewing reference works - and has a great deal to say about newer sources, book and electronic (much of it free), that I intend to use in the classroom and at home.

I've no idea what book the teacher from Madison, WI was reading or commenting on, in a jumbled-language and ungrammatical manner, I might add, but the criticisms don't hold water. Take a look for yourself. This book helps in a way I've never seen before, to choose the right sources for the right purposes in writing and speaking.