Deciding on a Dictionary of Modern English Usage?

[Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>]

Craig Cardimon wondered: <<Do you know there are enough Dictionaries  
of Modern English Usage out there to choke a camel?>>

There's a reason for that: word geeks agree about as often as  
economists, politicians, and... um... technical writers /  
communicators / whatever we're disagreeing to call ourselves today.

The problem with usage is that it varies widely, both among cultures  
and among subcultures. The advice you'll get depends on the  
particular subculture the volume editors chose as their standard. An  
ideal reference would break down usage among the main subcultures,  
and provide details on the really obscure usage too, just to feed our  
curiosity. I don't think any such reference exists that is reasonably  
up to date: the language changes faster than dictionaries et alia can  
be updated.

<<Which edition by which author is THE edition most recommended or  
suggested by list members?>>

For U.S. English, I like the current version of the American Heritage  
dictionary; it describes word usage rather than just prescribing from  
upon high. (It does prescribe too, but where the usage is in  
question, it usually at least admits to what it's doing.) For  
American usage, I like Garner's book.

Oddly enough, I don't do enough Canadian editing anymore to know the  
state of the art in usage guides for Canadian English (yet another  
victim of cocacolonization, I suppose). Ditto for British,  
Australian, and other flavors of English, so you'll have to ask for  
separate recommendations for those languages.


----------------------------------------------------
-- Geoff Hart
ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca / geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com
www.geoff-hart.com
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***Now available***  _Effective onscreen editing_
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