Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style

by Benjamin Dreyer

Eats, Shoots & Leaves and certainly not Eats, Shoots, & Leaves which is a bit belt-and-suspenders, don’t you think?

One of my favorite English professors used that phrase once in a while. I still remember it, some 30 years later. He'd say "the belt and suspenders approach to life."

As, for instance and strictly speaking, you might do here, in quoting this piece of text I 100 percent made up out of thin air and didn’t find on, say, Twitter: Their [sic] was no Collusion [sic] and there was no Obstruction [sic].

omgosh, the shade!

they eat courgettes, aubergines, and rocket (and “rocket,” you have to admit, is a spectacular term for a salad green).

I was completely unfamiliar with the term rocket when I first went to Italy. I've adopted it into my personal lexicon now because it is absolutely spectacular.

How often do you stare into the middle distance? Me neither.

All. the. time.

“Try to preserve an author’s style if he is an author and has a style.”

And if not?

3 It’s considered bad copyeditorial form to verbify trademarks, but if you must (and, yes, I know you think you must), I suggest that you lowercase them in so doing. Sorry/not sorry, Xerox Corporation.

These companies should feel honored.

you decline to write “firstly,” “secondly,” and “thirdly” in favor of “first,” “second,” and “third,” not only are you saving letters but you can tell all your friends about this amazing thing called a flat adverb—an adverb that matches in form its sibling adjective, notably doesn’t end in -ly, and is 100 percent correct, which is why we’re allowed to say “Sleep tight,” “Drive safe,” and “Take it easy.” Though not in that order.

I knew nothing of a flat adverb. Doing more research now...

A favored explanation for this confusion is that “hoi polloi” in such cases is being confused with “hoity-toity,” which you may recognize as a synonym for “fancy-shmancy,”*8 but its being explicable doesn’t make it right.

love those synonyms.

preplan Horrid.

Jill! My sister has made fun of this word for years. I am sure she feels vindicated.

rise up If you think I’m going to pick a fight with Lin-Manuel Miranda, who uses the phrase “rise up” repeatedly in Hamilton’s “My Shot,” you have another think coming.

I love this Dreyer guy. The musical theater references throughout the book are amazing.

NORMAL HUMAN BEING: You can only watch a movie ironically so many times before you’re watching it earnestly. COPY EDITOR: You can watch a movie ironically only so many times before you’re watching it earnestly. Does the latter perhaps sound a bit stilted? Perhaps it does, but to be perfectly honest, there’s a certain tautness in slightly stilted prose that I find almost viscerally thrilling.

That last sentence. It is so why I love reading.