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8 books match the query 'Usage'

cover of How to Write Well: 50 Pointers on Process, Usage, and Style

How to Write Well

50 Pointers on Process, Usage, and Style

Bryan A. Garner

University of Chicago Press, 2027

Stop worshipping Strunk and White. Start writing well, with 50 tips and techniques from language expert Bryan A. Garner. 

For decades, people looking for a concise guide to English-language writing turned to The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White. That slim book has been used by everyone from high school and college students to professionals seeking quick advice on usage, grammar, and form. But The Elements of Style hasn’t been updated in more than a quarter century, and it no longer reflects the way good writers work or what they most need to know, especially in the age of generative AI.

How to Write Well: 50 Pointers on Process, Usage, and Style is the modern, evidence-based alternative. Leading language and writing expert Bryan A. Gamer distills a lifetime of teaching and research into 50 compact pointers for modern writers seeking to produce clear, accurate, and lively prose. You’ll learn how strong writers think, how they turn ideas into blueprints, and how they draft, revise, and tighten with ruthless selectivity. You’ll also encounter lucid guidance on grammar and punctuation that corrects Strunk & White’s famous blunders, including shaky treatment of passive voice and a fixation on trivia over substance. 

How to Write Well presents a start-to-finish method: mindset, habits, process, and the concrete techniques that produce clean, forceful writing. Unlike The Elements of Style, this book doesn’t pretend your draft magically appears on the page. It shows you how to generate ideas, structure them, and build a repeatable process for everything you write—from emails and memos to articles, briefs, and books. And while emphasizing the mind and the voice of the writer, it also offers advice on working intelligently with AI while keeping full editorial control. 

If you’re serious about writing, Garner’s How to Write Well is the indispensable style book you need now.

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cover of International Sign: Linguistic, Usage, and Status Issues

International Sign

Linguistic, Usage, and Status Issues

Rachel Rosenstock

Gallaudet University Press, 2015

International Sign (IS) is widely used among deaf people and interpreters at international events, but what exactly is it, what are its linguistic features, where does its lexicon come from, and how is it used at interpreted events? This groundbreaking collection is the first volume to provide answers to these questions.

       Editors Rachel Rosenstock and Jemina Napier have assembled an international group of renowned linguists and interpreters to examine various aspects of International Sign. Their contributions are divided into three parts: International Sign as a Linguistic System; International Sign in Action—Interpreting, Translation, and Teaching; and International Sign Policy and Language Planning. The chapters cover a range of topics, including the morphosyntactic and discursive structures of interpreted IS, the interplay between conventional linguistic elements and nonconventional gestural elements in IS discourse, how deaf signers who use different signed languages establish communication, Deaf/hearing IS interpreting teams and how they sign depicting verbs, how best to teach foundation-level IS skills, strategies used by IS interpreters when interpreting from IS into English, and explorations of the best ways to prepare interpreters for international events.

       The work of the editors and contributors in this volume makes International Sign the most comprehensive, research-based analysis of a young but growing field in linguistics and interpretation.
 
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cover of Language Use and Language Change in Brunei Darussalam: Mis Sea#100

Language Use and Language Change in Brunei Darussalam

Mis Sea#100

Peter W. Martin

Ohio University Press, 1996

The oil-rich sultanate of Brunei Darussalam is located on the northern coast of Borneo between the two Malaysian states of Sarawak and Sabah. Though the country is small in size and in population, the variety of language use there provides a veritable laboratory for linguists in the fields of Austronesian linguistics, bilingual studies, and sociolinguistic studies, particularly those dealing with language shift.

This useful reference is divided into three sections: one on varieties of the Malay language used in the country, one on other indigenous languages, and one on the role and form of the English used there. Contributors to the collection include Bruneian scholars as well as established experts in the fields of Austronesian linguistics, sociolinguistics studies, and the description of new varieties of English.

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cover of Language from a Cognitive Perspective: Grammar, Usage, and Processing

Language from a Cognitive Perspective

Grammar, Usage, and Processing

Edited by Emily M. Bender and Jennifer E. Arnold

CSLI, 2011

This book is a collection of papers on language processing, usage, and grammar, written to commemorate the career of Thomas Wasow on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday. Wasow has been professor of linguistics and philosophy at Stanford University since 1973, and is affiliated with the Symbolic Systems Program. He has made significant contributions to the study of English syntax, psycholinguistics, and philosophy of linguistics.

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cover of Relevant Linguistics: An Introduction to the Structure and Use of English for Teachers

Relevant Linguistics

An Introduction to the Structure and Use of English for Teachers

Paul W. Justice

CSLI, 2001

As linguistic diversity in schools continues to rise, more educators find themselves studying linguistics in teacher training programs. Unfortunately, the vast majority of introductory linguistics texts do not address their needs; such teachers are likely to find the texts inaccessible and irrelevant. Relevant Linguistics, written with teachers and future teachers in mind, provides a straightforward, accessible introduction to the basics of phonetics, phonology, morphology, and syntax.
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cover of The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation

The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation

Bryan A. Garner

University of Chicago Press, 2016

Few people can write on the English language with the authority of Bryan A. Garner. The author of The Chicago Manual of Style’s popular “Grammar and Usage” chapter, Garner explains the vagaries of English with absolute precision and utmost clarity. With The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation, he has written the definitive guide for writers who want their prose to be both memorable and correct.

Throughout the book Garner describes standard literary English—the forms that mark writers and speakers as educated users of the language. He also offers historical context for understanding the development of these forms. The section on grammar explains how the canonical parts of speech came to be identified, while the section on syntax covers the nuances of sentence patterns as well as both traditional sentence diagramming and transformational grammar. The usage section provides an unprecedented trove of empirical evidence in the form of Google Ngrams, diagrams that illustrate the changing prevalence of specific terms over decades and even centuries of English literature. Garner also treats punctuation and word formation, and concludes the book with an exhaustive glossary of grammatical terms and a bibliography of suggested further reading and references.

The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation is a magisterial work, the culmination of Garner’s lifelong study of the English language. The result is a landmark resource that will offer clear guidelines to students, writers, and editors alike.
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cover of The Writer's Reference Guide to Spanish

The Writer's Reference Guide to Spanish

By David William Foster, Daniel Altamiranda, and Carmen de Urioste

University of Texas Press, 2000

Writers and editors of Spanish have long needed an authoritative guide to written language usage, similar to The MLA Style Manual and The Chicago Manual of Style. And here it is! This reference guide provides comprehensive information on how the Spanish language is copyedited for publication.

The book covers these major areas:

  • Language basics: capitalization, word division, spelling, and punctuation.
  • Language conventions: abbreviations, professional and personal titles, names of organizations, and nationalities.
  • Bibliographic format, particularly how Spanish differs from English.
  • Spanish language forms of classical authors' names.
  • Literary and grammatical terminology.
  • Linguistic terminology.
  • Biblical names and allusions.
  • A dictionary of grammatical doubts, including usage, grammatical constructions of particular words and phrases, verbal irregularities, and gender variations.
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cover of Usage of Idem, Ipse and Words of Related Meaning

Usage of Idem, Ipse and Words of Related Meaning

Clarence L. Meader

University of Michigan Press, 1910

This book presents a detailed analysis of two Latin pronouns, idem and ipse. Consideration is given to synonymously and etymologically related words in Latin and other Indo-European languages.
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