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Description of The Complete Plain Words

'This book is in the main a reconstruction of my two previous books, Plain Words and ABC of Plain Words. Both these, as I explained in the prefaces to them, were written at the invitation of the Treasury as a contribution to what they were doing to improve official English. The first was by way of an introduction to the subject; the second was designed as a work of reference. When my publishers told me last year that the time was ripe for a new edition of Plain Words, I thought it would be well to round off the venture by weaving into the new edition material from the ABC. I could then say all I had to say in one volume, and, by giving it the index which the original edition lacked, could make it serve as a book of reference, and so do away with the need for a separate book with the layout, inevitably unattractive, of a series of unrelated topics arranged alphabetically.

I am not a grammarian, and The Complete Plain Words, like its predecessors, makes no claim to be a grammar of the English Language, though for reasons I have explained in the text I felt bound reluctantly and diffidently, to give one chapter (IX) to some points of grammar and one (X) to punctuation. Apart from these two chapters, this book is wholly concerned with what is described in one of the quotations that head the first chapter as the choice and arrangement of words in such a way as to get an idea as exactly as possible out of one mind into another. Even so I must not be credited with too high an ambition: the scope of the book is circumscribed by its being intended primarily for those who use words as tools of their trade, in administration or business.'

Current usage of vocabulary and style is explained clearly and sections included, cover: jargon, cliches, spelling and punctuation; ground rules of grammar; superfluous words, using words correctly and concisely, overuse or misuse; sexist language, the influence of science and technology, American English and exemplary clarity.

Title Information

ISBN:

9780140511994

Pages:

304 pages

Format:

Paperback

Product Code:

16296

Publisher:

Penguin Books Ltd

Published:

01/01/1970

Edition:

3rd Edition

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About Ernest Gowers

Sir Ernest Gowers was a British civil servant, and author of an influential work on English usage. He studied at Cambridge, and was called to the bar in 1906. After a distinguished career in the civil service, he wrote Plain Words (1948) , ABC of Plain Words (1951) and The Complete Plain Words (1954) in an attempt to maintain standards of clear English, especially in official prose.

Contents of The Complete Plain Words

1. Prologue
2. Digression On Legal English
3. The Elements
4. Correctness
5. Introductory
6. Avoiding the Superfluous Word
7. Choosing the Familiar Word
8. Choosing the Concrete Word
9. The Handling of Words
10. Punctuation
11. Epilogue