Dreyer's English by Benjamin Dreyer

 
DREYER'S ENGLISH by Benjamin Dreyer is aptly subtitled “An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style from the Copy Chief of Random House.” However, that fails to truly convey the conversational tone which Dreyer adopts as he muses about his long experience and offers numerous suggestions. One is the challenge to go a week without writing these 12 words or phrases: very, rather, really, quite, in fact, just, so, pretty, of course, surely, that said, and actually.  In fact, (oops!), Dreyer notes: “feel free to go the rest of your life without another ‘actually’.”    

Some of his best advice? “One of the best ways to determine if your prose is well-constructed is to read it aloud.” I wish our students would listen! They will find much to inform and improve their writing in chapters titled “60 Assorted Things to Do (and Not to Do) with Punctuation” or “A Little Grammar is a Dangerous Thing” or “The Trimmables” on editing superfluous phrases. Publishers Weekly gave DREYER'S ENGLISH a starred review and Booklist described it as a “remarkably fun book about a dastardly dry subject…”  Enjoy!