October 20th, 2009
Product Description
Mixed-up, mangled expressions; foreign-language faux pas; confused and confusing terms; commonly mispronounced words–they’re all explained in this useful guide. The Second Edition of this classic reference is revised & expanded by 25%.
Common Errors in English Usage 2nd Edition
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7 Comments
Common Errors in English Usage – As a former teacher, I was too aware of the common errors. The book is great if you are a speaker or writer who has been away from an English class for many years and is accustomed to listening to people who make mistakes. I guess I expected to learn more about the uncommon errors, so this book was predictable to me. It will definitely improve your English.
Rating: 3 / 5
We heard the author of this book, Paul Brians, being interviewed on The Lionel Show on 1260 AM radio. The book lives up to our expectations. It is an excellent text with easy to find phrases that have been used so often that some believe they are legitimate usages of the English language, but they are not. Highly recommended for English majors, teachers, writers, and just plain folks who enjoy this sort of thing.
Rating: 5 / 5
This book is a must for anyone with a love of language and an appreciation of its correct use. It is authoritative without being pedantic, and gives due respect to the evolution of our language and our means of expression.
Rating: 5 / 5
I read a review of this book and decided it was a book I have been seeking for a long time. If you are a person that wonders about things like whether to use further instead of farther, or lay instead of lie, this is the book for you. Put an end to bungling the English language . . . Common Errors in English is sure to make you seem a lot smarter that you really are.
Rating: 5 / 5
Almost six years after the first edition of this book was released, we finally get this second “revised and expanded” edition. And is it worth it? Of course it is! I already wrote a review for the first edition ( Common Errors in English Usage ), so you can read a review of what I thought about the book.
Quick note: An error is when you do not know that you said/wrote something in the wrong way; a mistake is when you DO know you had a slip, even though you know the correct way to say/write the thing correctly.
There are quite a few additions to this edition. You can calculate how many errors were added because the first edition has 250 pages and this new one has 292. Besides that, this new edition is a bit more “cluttered” (my only complaint to be honest, it felt a bit overwhelming and striking to the eyes) than the old one, it has more entries per page. I’d say the new one has 8 entries per page, whilst the old one has 6, in average. For example, on the last pages you can see the “British vs. US English” section. The old edition has 18 entries, but the new one has 31.
There are also many more drawings illustrating (pun intended) the different errors. Said drawings are no longer only in the middle of the page (as in the previous edition), they’re basically anywhere on a page. Details like these reflect how much effort was put into this new edition. It’s really good, and as with the previous one, quite a laugh! As I hope you already noticed, you have to buy this book!
Edit: This new edition contains over 480 entirely new entries, and over 150 revised ones, along with several new cartoons selected and captioned by Tom Sunner. Some of the revisions expand or clarify the old explanations…. (Taken from the introduction.)
Rating: 5 / 5
Thanks for the great review. We did indeed put a lot of thought into the layout of the new edition. We want to go for a readable look that would come somewhere between the abundance of white space in the first edition and the cramped text of the typical reference book. I hated to see the cartoons shrunk so much, but they made room for many more entries without raising the cost of the book too much.
If you want to larger versions of the cartoons, you can always buy the page-a-day calendar, which also includes literary quotations using material from some of the entries.
http://www.wmjasco.com/calendar2009.html
Thanks to all for the kind comments.
Paul Brians
RE: Your definition of Beyond the Pail which is descibed “the Dublin region formerly controlled by the British”, could I point out that it was not ‘controlled by the British’ but was part of the British Isles – much like Hawaii or New Jersey is part of the USA. If we want to get things right, half right will not do, will it ?
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