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

by Benjamin Dreyer

Go a week without writing very rather really quite in fact

and kill that particular darling. And “of course.” That’s right out. And “surely.” And “that said.” And “actually”? Feel free to

Certain prose rules are essentially inarguable—that a sentence’s subject and its verb should agree in number, for instance. Or that in a “not only x but y” construction, the x and the y must be parallel elements. (More on this in Chapter 6: A Little Grammar Is a Dangerous Thing.) Why? I suppose because they’re firmly entrenched, because no one cares to argue with them, and because they aid us in using our words to their preeminent purpose: to communicate clearly with our readers. Let’s call these reasons the Four C’s, shall we? Convention. Consensus. Clarity. Comprehension.

I can't wrap my head around this one, so I'll follow CMOS and MW.

Also simply because, I swear to you, a well-constructed sentence sounds better. Literally sounds better.

One of the best ways to determine whether your prose is well-constructed is to read it aloud. A sentence that can’t be readily voiced is a sen...

A good sentence, I find myself saying frequently, is one that the reader can follow from beginning to end, no matter how long it is, without having to double back in confusion because the writer misused or omitted a key piece of punctuation, chose a vague or mislea...

(If you want to puzzle your reader, that’s you...

As much as I like a good rule, I’m an enthusiastic subscriber to the notion of “rules are meant to be broken”—once you...

ossified.

*4

Over and out.

“should’ve” are perhaps a bit too loosey-goosey outside casual prose, but generally speaking: Contractions are why God invented the apostrophe, so make good use of both.

Some of us were also taught to use U.S. (or that other thing) only as an adjective, as in “U.S. foreign policy,” and to refer to the country nounwise only full-out as the United States. I persist in that distinction, because…because I do.

Only godless savages eschew the series comma.

the novels of a particular author, etc.

34. This is correct: Remind me again why I care what this feckless nonentity (and

her eerie husband) think about anything. This is not correct: Remind me again why I care what this feckless nonentity (and her eerie husband) thinks about anything. An “and” is an “and,” and the use of parentheses (or commas or dashes) to break up a plural subject for whatever reason does not negate the pluralness of the subject. Now, if instead of writing “and,” I’d written “to say nothing of,” “as well as,” or “not to mention,” then I’d have made me a singular subject: Remind me again why I care what this feckless nonentity (to say nothing of her eerie husband) thinks about anything.*31

in 1967.*40 46. In referring to a word or words as, indeed, a word or words, some people go with quotation marks

Perhaps you might offer your hoarse whisperer a cup of tea or a lozenge.

googling. If you absolutely must make a verb out of a trademark—not that I am endorsing this, because it’s the wrong thing to do—I do suggest that you lowercase it.*21

Recast sentences or lowercase when making a verb out of a trademark. Do this sparingly, though.

7. There’s a world of difference between going into the water (an action generally accompanied by flailing and shrieking and other merriment) and going in the water (an action generally accompanied by staring abstractedly into the distance, and, no, you’re not fooling anyone), and it’s a difference to be honored. Into = movement. In = presence. The same applies to, say, “jumping into a lake” (transferring from pier to water) and “jumping in a lake” (in the water already and propelling oneself vertically upward), but the vernacular being what it is, no one will object to the traditional dismissal “Aww go jump in a lake.” 8. There is a world of difference between turning in to a driveway, which is a natural thing to do with one’s car, and turning into a driveway, which is a Merlyn trick.