HANDBOOK
OF
GOOD
ENGLISH
HANDBOOK
OF
GOOD
ENGLISH
REVISED AND
UPDATED
s
Edward D. Johnson
B
EactsQnFik
New
York
• Oxford
The
Handbook
of Good
English:
Revised
and
Updated
Copyright
© 1983,
1991
by Edward D. Johnson
All
rights reserved. No
part
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in
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<*
CONTENTS
k>
PREFACE
vii
1
GRAMMAR
1
The Sentence
Case
of Nouns and Pronouns: Subjective,
Objective, and
Possessive
Agreement
Verb
Tenses: Past, Present, and
Future
Verb
Moods: Indicative, Imperative, and
Subjunctive
Verb
Voices: Active and
Passive
Modifiers
2
PUNCTUATION
3
20
32
48
58
63
65
81
Sentence Structure 83
Comma 94
Semicolon
121
Colon 125
Dash 131
Parentheses and Brackets 136
Question Mark 143
Exclamation Point 149
Quotation
Marks 151
Points of
Ellipsis
166
Apostrophe
172
Hyphen 182
Diagonal
216
•
Contents
HOW
TO
STYLE
WRITTEN
ENGLISH:
MISCELLANEOUS
MECHANICS
219
Numbers
Dates
Abbreviations
Generic Terms
Titles
of
Officials and Names of Their Offices
Forms
of
Address
Place-names
Titles
of
Publications and Works
of
Literature,
Works
of
Art, Musical Compositions,
and
Other
Works
Foreign
Words
222
228
229
232
234
238
241
245
256
BEYOND THE
SENTENCE:
DICTION
AND
COMPOSITION
26i_
Occasion
and
Intent
262
Organization
267
Tone
271
Revision
278
GLOSSARY
/
INDEX
293
<^
PREFACE
K>
This
book's first edition was published in
1982.
Only seven
years
later I decided to revise it, but not because I thought it
had so quickly become out of date. It was based on more than
twenty
years
of experience as a book editor and more than half
a
life spent
largely
in well-spoken company and I didn't think
either it or I was substantially dated. I was aware of some new
uses
and misuses of the
language
and wanted to comment on
them,
but my primary
intent
was to
rectify
shortcomings
that
had been exposed by seven years of testing the book against
writing
I
had edited or read for pleasure and speech
I
had heard.
I
wanted to expand my
discussions
of many
details,
modify my
judgments on a few matters, increase the number of
cross-
references,
and
enlarge
the
Glossary/Index—all
of which
I
have
done.
In
the course of the revision, however, I discovered
that
English
and attitudes toward it have changed more than I had
thought, and
that
I have changed too.
For
one thing, the language has made adjustments to com-
plaints
that
it is sexist, and it continues to adjust. I
discuss
this
change
and my accommodations to it under sexism in the
Glossary/Index;
it has affected the diction in this revision
considerably.
In 1982, I think, avoidance of sexist diction
would have weakened my book for many readers, but now,
sexist
diction would weaken it, because
genderless
expressions
that
once were evasive and obtrusive have become straightfor-
ward and unsurprising.
Another
change—perhaps
it is partly an effect of the swift
and broad acceptance of nonsexist alternatives to traditional
diction, which has demonstrated the adaptability of
English—
is
an increasing awareness among those interested in
language
and correct use of it
that
correct
is not
always
easy
to define. In
the
1970s,
several widely read writers on
language
came down
vii
•
Preface
heavily
on
usages
and constructions
that
they considered de-
based,
inane,
despicable—and
these
writers'
readers tended to
accept such condemnations humbly, even
guiltily
As the 1980s
began,
so did an antithesis in popular writing on
language.
The
best-selling
"prescriptivists"
of a few
years
before were rebuked
for
their bad
temper
and often jeered at for their bad schol-
arship.
The "permissivists" insisted
that
English
was what it
was
and would
change
as it would.
Now we are perhaps in a lull in the war between prescrip-
tivists
and
permissivists—or
in a battle of
that
war. The war
has
been
going
on for centuries, and the current battle may
have
been evident in the broad world of letters only in the past
decade
but has been in progress in smaller arenas for some
time, certainly since the publication of
Webster's
Third New
International
Dictionary in 1961 (an event discussed under
usage
in the
Glossary/Index).
But if there is a lull, nevertheless
consciousness
has been raised. The broad writing, speaking,
and
reading public is now not so
easily
cowed.
The first edition of this
book—though
''strict,"
which is to
say
prescriptive—was
considerably more
genial
in tone than
many
similar books of its time, and, unusual for prescriptive
books,
it did its best to explain its prescriptions or admitted
that
there
was
no explanation but convention. However, it took
it for granted
that
any reader consulting it would share its
author's
belief
that
there was such a thing as "good
English"
and
that
it was
worth
learning.
The present edition is as strict as the
first.
It assumes
that
those who use it want to be protected from
criticism—and
there are still plenty of critics. The general culture may have
become more permissive about
language,
but
that
does not
mean there are no more critics; in fact, the
polarizing
effect
of
the prescriptivist-permissivist battle has probably
both
in-
creased
their number and hardened their
opinions.
And—in
my
view—a
great many of their opinions remain
right,
if there is
such
a thing as good
English.
This edition does, however, take even more pains than the
first
to explain its rules and to
distinguish
logic
from
tradition,
tradition from prejudice, prejudice from common
sense,
com-
mon sense from nonsense. It is more thoughtful and, I hope,
wiser;
it has been through the battle. And as its author, I feel
obliged,
as I did not in
1982,
to explain at some length what I
mean by good
English,
why I feel qualified to expound on its
strictures, and why
I
believe
learning
those strictures is
worth-
while.
viii
Preface
•
Good
English
changes over the course of time, and at any
given
time
there
is some disagreement about
what
it
is,
both
as
a
concept and as an accumulation of
usage
details. I begin my
definition
with
a statement
that
may be self-evident but should
make it clear
that
the advice in this book, though
"strict,"
is
not based on absolute
truths:
Good
English
is
English
that
at
present very rarely sparks the expressed or unexpressed reac-
tion "That's not good
English/'
either from those who really do
know
better
or from those who merely think they do. I say
"very
rarely" rather than "never" because usage arbiters
don't
always
agree, and
also
because critical reactions of two kinds
cannot be
avoided.
On the one hand, the reactions of those who
know almost nothing can be entirely wrongheaded and
must
sometimes be ignored. For example, I have been criticized for
saying
between her and me on the ground
that
between she
and
1
is more
elegant—but
elegant or not, and I say decidedly
not, between she and I is wrong. On the
other
hand, the
reactions of those who know almost everything, the
true,
and
few, serious scholars of
language
and
usage,
can be excessively
rightheaded. For example, careful avoidance of plural pronouns
such as their after
singular
pronouns such as
everyone
is justly
criticized by the truly knowledgeable as a rejection of a natural
usage
that
has been common in the best literature for cen-
turies. But a much larger minority, those who are not scholars
but do in general "know
better,"
reject the
usage,
so I think we
must
reject it too.
To continue my definition, good
English
is a kind of snob-
bery. It is not standard
English
but the
English
of a minority
who are likely to consider themselves superior, and are
also
likely
to be considered superior by others.
English
that
is good
enough in one
context
may not be good enough in another, and
thus
good
English
amounts to
savoir
faire,
a touchstone of the
snob.
All of us
fail
to use it
occasionally,
and some of us
fail
to
use
it frequently. Those who
fail
infrequently look down on
those who
fail
frequently; those who
fail
frequently
either live
in
constant fear of embarrassing themselves or find some way
of
taking pride in their unvarnished expression. Those who
fail
infrequently make further distinctions among themselves; the
famous grammarian
H.
W Fowler observed, "Almost every man
is
potentially
a
purist and a sloven at once to persons looking at
him from a lower and a higher position . . . than his own."
Grammar and
usage
are therefore touchy subjects, like
class
distinctions—they
are
class
distinctions. We
expect
occasional
correction from a parent or teacher, but any friend who cor-
ix
•
Preface
rects us had
better
be a good friend indeed; he or she is im-
plicitly
criticizing our background, our education, our place in
the world, our being. And though many of the strictures of
good
English
promote
clear expression and clear thought,
many
others are merely the prejudices of
language
snobs.
Con-
sequently, those of
"good"
background are frequently in a posi-
tion to criticize a speaker or writer who has not
snared
their
advantages
but may have superior intelligence and superior
overall
command of
English.
Such criticism is unfair and un-
democratic, but
also
far
from
uncommon; it is simply a fact
of
society.
In this book I usually identify strictures
that
are preju-
dices,
and so readers who are not snobs and are immune to
snobbery can choose to ignore
them—but
I think few of us are
entirely unsnobbish or entirely immune to snobbery; I am not.
Longtime
editors like me
are,
however, at least relatively
free
of
language
snobbery. We spend our days and years correcting
the
written
expression of others, some of whom we are forced
to recognize as more intelligent, more highly educated, more
sophisticated
both
socially
and verbally, and more successful
than we are, and unless we are unusually ill-natured we even-
tually
are led to admit to ourselves
that
our skill is a humble
one and
that
those we correct
often
have much more to express
than we do and
often
express it
with
much more flair than we
could.
We
allow superior writers many
liberties.
It
is
likely
that
every
so
often
we
have been slapped down by such writers for
making
ill-considered
changes,
and we have learned from our
humiliations. We have a massive armament of arbitrary pre-
scriptions and niceties, but we bring the big guns to bear
chiefly
on mediocre and bad
writing—which
improves mark-
edly
when so attacked, partly because editorial routines often
expose faulty thought, which can
then
be attended
to
;
our
skills
do have an
important
function in this wordy world.
We find it difficult to explain our weathered, dispassionate,
and sometimes permissive
attitude
to friends who think we
should be
"guardians"
of the
language,
and who may use En-
glish
carefully and well but resist its natural evolutions and
hold passionately to usage prejudices
that
they cannot justify.
We
do
very
often
impose such prejudices on
what
we edit, since
we want to
protect
those we edit from criticism
both
right-
headed and wrongheaded, but we may not share
them.
We
know the rules, we know the prejudices, but the responsibility
we have assumed as professional meddlers, accountable for
what
we do, has made us respectful of the expression of others.
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