I had all but forgotten how delightful it can be reading Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage. It gives me the same sort of pleasure as reading at random through Samuel Johnson’s 1755 dictionary. Although I have had a copy of Fowler’s book on my self since the 1970s, I only returned to it recently, while musing on the dog’s breakfast of the town’s recent communications about its boil-water advisory. I was going to write a post about the event, offering whatever sage advice I still had about how to create effective, far-reaching, and immediate notification during an emergency (and how to repair the town’s broken email notices). And, along the way, I was going to offer suggestions about usage, style, and wording based on references from the industry’s leading experts. Instead, I found myself reading random entries in Fowler’s, and the time just passed me by.

I used to refer to Henry Fowler’s book a lot, back in the years when I was an editor, writer, and communications director. It’s one of those books you just pick up to check on one thing, then get lost in it, flitting from entry to entry. I’ve owned a copy almost since I began writing for a living and, as you can see from the photo, still have all four editions in my library. But, since I retired, I’ve not found much reason to open one. That is, until the town’s recent communications efforts over the water emergency, all of which I considered inadequate to the needs of the situation. I went back to my printed resources for inspiration, Fowler’s, as the book is most commonly known, among them. But let me not digress too far.*

Fowler’s had a significant and historical impact when first published in 1926, up there with such books as the Gutenberg Bible, Darwin’s Origin of Species, Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary, and Machiavelli’s The Prince. Given that the Oxford English Dictionary, a Herculean project begun back in 1879, was not fully published until 1928, Fowler (who had also worked on the OED and used his files as reference material), was ahead of his peers in publishing. Since the first edition, it has been revised (from 1965 to 1987 by Sir Ernest Gowers, author of the popular book, The Complete Plain Words), and gone through three subsequent editions and revisions (in 1996 by Robert W. Burchfield and again in 2015 under the editorship of Jeremy Butterfield). Plus, there is a shortened “pocket” version based on the third edition.

While both Burchfield and Butterfield updated their versions to better serve modern usage and to expand the original book’s scope with new and revised entries, they also made it more utilitarian and less whimsical. Theirs are solid reference tomes, but, sadly, bereft of Fowler’s personal, and often contentious opinions. Gowers, in his introduction to his own revision, wrote of its author,

… his faults were as much the part of his idiosyncracies as his virtues; rewrite him and he ceases to be Fowler. I have been chary of making any substantial alterations except for the purpose of bringing him up to date; I have only done so in a few places where his exposition is exceptionally tortuous, and it is clear that his point could be put more simply without any sacrifice of Fowleresque flavour.

Fortunately for later readers, Gowers did not erase that uniqueness in his edition, and thus his is my favourite version, even if somewhat outdated (I have the others to refer to should I sense a need). The subsequent editions expanded the contents and are very respectable if somewhat more fusty guides, but I miss the quirky idiosyncrasies and flashes of personality that are present in the first two. I highly recommend you get a copy and browse through it, reading random entries. Many have references to other entries, and you can follow them down the rabbit hole, too. If nothing more, it will encourage you to think about language and how it affects meaning. It remains in print and can often be found in used-book stores.

Fowler’s, regardless of the edition, is one of those quintessential works that every editor, writer, and communications officer should have on or near their desk — and read periodically. As David Crystal wrote in his introduction to the Oxford reprint of the first edition, “No book had more influence on twentieth-century attitudes to the English language in Britain … Reading every word is an enthralling, if often exhausting experience …”. The first edition, however, has a lengthy section of technical terms (30 pages) that Gowers wisely omitted, and long entries on the pronunciation of foreign terms, also dropped from the second edition. The result is far more readable and not, as Crystal complains, exhausting. **

Fowler was at times eccentric, pedantic, prescriptive and descriptive, argumentative, dismissive, embracing, modern, and conservative in his views. Only Shakespeare and Samuel Johnson put their personal stamp on the language in a way that can be said to be equal to Fowler’s impact, but only Johnson comes close to the wit. I cannot recommend it enough to anyone who loves or works with words. ***

Notes:

* Had it been up to me, I would have had a province-wide Amber Alert sent out immediately, to reach not only local residents, but all those out-of-towners who have vacation and second homes here (and not wait until after 11 p.m., many hours after the watermain break). I would have immediately contacted every grocery store in town to warn them that there would be a run on bottled water and ask them to limit customer purchases until they could restock. I would have personally contacted the BIA and the Chamber of Commerce offices, and sent them the full media release (not the usual, truncated town email) and asked them to immediately share it with their members. I would have immediately posted a warning on the front page of the town’s website and sent out a full email describing the situation and what residents should do (not the inefficient, truncated partial emails the town sends that require readers to click through to the town’s website). The town only sent its truncated email after 6 p.m., and, at least when I tried to get to it, the town’s website could not be reached (It took several minutes to reach). I would have published photos on the town’s social media feed and website so residents could better understand what was happening, and updated the social media content far more often.

** There are several essential books that belong in the library of writers, editors, and communications staff, and I judge the competence of people in those professions by the contents of their library. These include a style guide, a usage guide, and a dictionary as the core volumes. And while there is some overlap in style and usage guides, there is sufficient unique content to justify having both. Style guides are generally about presentation and layout, with details on subjects like how to punctuate bulleted lists, how to cite sources, how to write military titles, and the proper abbreviations for states and provinces worldwide. Usage guides are about how words are used, and include such issues as punctuation, grammar, spelling, syntax, idioms, clichés, and split infinitives.

And if the person in question does not have these books, you have to wonder to what source(s) they refer to resolve issues of style and usage. After all, both issues are deep and complex enough to require such fulsome resources. If someone claims to get everything from the internet, from apps, or worse, to use AI to generate content, I would cringe. Those can be valuable and useful tools, but professionals do not rely solely on them.

My choices for these titles would be:

Style: Chicago Manual of Style, now in its 18th edition. This is the most comprehensive and detailed guide, but for American English, although many of its entries are general and applicable to UK and Canadian usage. For Canadians, the Canadian Press (CP) Stylebook (now in the 19th edition) is recommended, especially if the content is going to the media or on social media. It bills itself as “follow[ing] the same standards used by media and communications professionals across the country.” I’ve always found it is better to have both books. There is also an Associated Press (AP) style guide, but it is, of course, American.

Usage: Fowler’s, of course, and the latest (fourth) edition is recommended for its modernity, but the second remains my favourite, perhaps because of nostalgia but also sheer pleasure of the reading therein. There is also a good argument for Garner’s Modern English Usage (fourth edition), which has become an excellent source and guide since its first edition, and Garner has a nice, occasionally whimsical, touch in his writing style. He recognizes Fowler’s influence and often agrees with Fowler in his entries.  From Wikipedia:

In a study that compared Garner’s usage guide to Henry Fowler’s, Robin Straaijer said that the two have many similarities. He pointed out that Garner (who had expressed his admiration for Fowler’s work) had organized his book in a similar format and agreed with Fowler on many usage debates.

Both Oxford and Merriam-Webster offer competent usage guides, but without the wit and personality you can find in both Fowler’s and Garner’s. Every corporation, publication, media, and municipality should have a preferred or official style and usage guide and make them both known to employees and available for their reference as needed. There is no excuse for not having these in a professional working environment.

Dictionary: While Chambers and Collins are good, the best is always the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), in part because they publish a Canadian edition. But both the Concise and Compact editions are excellent. The two-volume Shorter edition, first published in 1993 and last published in 2007, is now, sadly, out of print, as is the full, 20-volume edition, last printed in 1989, with three updated volumes published in 1993 (two) and 1997 (this complete version has long been my heart’s desire to own).

Merriam-Webster’s is also good for American spelling, but make sure it says Merriam, and not just plain Webster’s, like you see in bargain stores or discount book bins, because only Merriam-Webster is the official edition. There are also dictionaries for specific professions or interests, including medical, legal, slang, technology, and political. Always look for the latest edition, preferably dictionaries published after 2000, because of the neologisms and technical terms that have come into play this century.

(I don’t believe the Random House Dictionary shown above is still in print, although the Random House Webster’s Dictionary and Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language are available from that publisher.)

Two of the reasons a printed dictionary is superior to an online service are that, in searching for words, the reader learns to spell the word without having an algorithm or AI bot suggest it, and also that the reader comes across other words on the page that may be useful or at least interesting to learn. There is much to be said for simply picking up a dictionary and reading it as one would any other book. You can never go wrong by learning from it.

Notable additions: When I was a reporter and editor, I used to make it my personal responsibility to read Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style (first published by Strunk in 1918, revised by White in 1959, now in its fourth edition) at least once every year. It’s short enough to read in one day, even in one sitting. While some contest some of their schoolmarmy prescriptive rules, it is an excellent guide for business and government publications and promotes solid, plain language that well suits media releases. Some years ago, when I was a municipal councillor, I met with a newly-hired municipal communications director who didn’t even know what Strunk and White (as it is known) was. I was appalled. It’s like a Christian not knowing what the Bible is.

Dreyer’s English is another good guide that offers an informed, albeit iconoclastic, approach to usage, as is Lynn Truss’ Eats Shoots and Leaves, which mixes humour with advice. Both are highly enjoyable to read, too. I also recommend Ellen Lupton’s Thinking With Type (third edition) and Sarah Hyndman’s Why Fonts Matter. Understanding how type and fonts affect readability and presentation is an essential skill for anyone in publicity, communications, advertising, or publishing. (Here’s an important question for communications/PR personnel in all fields: what is your corporation’s or municipality’s official typeface/font, and why? Yes, it is important… read the books to learn why.)

*** There is always a tug of war between prescriptive and descriptive in usage guides, and authors usually lean towards one or the other when offering advice on a particular topic, sometimes based on past references, other times on the frequency of examples from the real world. Prescriptive grammar “provides rules on how language should be used, focusing on formal correctness and standards.” It is generally conservative, eschewing modern forms and usages. “Descriptive grammar, on the other hand, analyzes how language is actually used in practice, accepting variations and changes over time.” This approach recognizes that language and usage change and generally accepts new forms and styles that appear. Both approaches are important.

Words: 2,206