Garner's modern English usage

What Hacker News says

1. cratermoonNov 2023
   I notice section 5: Grammar and Usage is written by Bryan A. Garner. He's the author of the eponymous Garner's Modern English Usage, now in its fifth edition. Highly recommended.
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2. joegahonaJun 2023
   Readable and fun, but extremely useful:

   • Lapsing into a Comma, Bill Walsh (RIP)

   • The 10% Solution, Ken Rand (for editing down wordy text)

   • Sin and Syntax, Constance Hale

   • Woe Is I, Patricia T. O'Conner

   More resource-like and grammar-heavy:

   • Words Into Type, Marjorie E. Skillin (hard-core grammar rules, great section on redundancies)

   • Chicago Manual of Style (in general, the core style of book and magazine writing)

   • Associated Press Stylebook (in general, the core style of newspaper writing)

   • Garner's Modern English Usage, Bryan A. Garner

   • Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage

   • Dictionary of American Idioms, Maxine Tull Makkai

   Not about writing, but hilarious and snobby and awesome -- great airplane reading:

   • The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations, Charles Harrington Elster

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3. thewizlMar 2023
   When I moved to an English speaking country a few years ago, I wanted to get better at writing.

   On a snowy day, I wrote an email to a guy who writes for The New Yorker and whose articles frequently appear on HN.

   In that email, I asked for advice on how to become better at writing.

   I thought he’d never reply but he actually did.

   His reply had a bunch of good advice, and writing a lot was one of them.

   The other recommendations I got were these books:

   * A sense of style - Pinker * Garner's Modern English Usage

   Hope that helps someone else as much as it’s helped me.

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4. joegahonaDec 2022
   I was an editor before getting into tech, and these are the books that still hold up 20 years later:

   Readable and fun, but extremely useful:

   • Lapsing into a Comma, Bill Walsh (RIP)

   • The 10% Solution, Ken Rand (for editing down wordy text)

   • Sin and Syntax, Constance Hale

   • Woe Is I, Patricia T. O'Conner

   More resource-like and grammar-heavy:

   • Words Into Type, Marjorie E. Skillin (hard-core grammar rules, great section on redundancies)

   • Chicago Manual of Style (in general, the core style of book and magazine writing)

   • Associated Press Stylebook (in general, the core style of newspaper writing)

   • Garner's Modern English Usage, Bryan A. Garner

   • Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage

   • Dictionary of American Idioms, Maxine Tull Makkai

   Not about writing, but hilarious and snobby and awesome -- great airplane reading:

   • The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations, Charles Harrington Elster

   Show morethread
5. libraryofbabelOct 2020
   Good writing matters. One of the most undervalued skills in engineering, especially at the Senior+ levels. Being able to write a clear, concise, well-argued design doc will be useful to you long after the hot framework of the moment has become obsolete. And yet, few people take the time to hone the skill.

   Strunk and White is a classic, sure, which this article helps to put in context. But it’s 75 years old, and it has its problems (as the article discusses). I wouldn’t really recommend it anymore. Instead, have a look at:

   Williams and Bizup, Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace

   And, for everything you ever wanted to know about standard American English usage (and how it’s shifting over time!), there is Garner’s Modern English Usage, which sounds dry but is actually fascinating (and inspired this brilliantly controversial review by David Foster Wallace: http://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-2001-0...).

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6. mrobApr 2019
   The latest edition covers non-American English too, so it's now "Garner's Modern English Usage". I first learned of this book from David Foster Wallace's review of the first edition in Harper's Magazine:

   https://www.webcitation.org/6FU8Zx2N0?url=http://instruct.we...

   I agree it is excellent, and Wallace's review is also worth reading.

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