Choice Review

Which rule to follow? Under which king? These questions are to be answered in this textbook, with good examples and relevant anecdotes. Intended for British schools and their students, this book has as its model Strunk and White's The Elements of Style. In its present format, however, it could never be used as a handbook/reference work. (US students will need help from a British dictionary for the definitions of many British usages.) Topics include ``a little grammar'' (quite unnecessary), options and punctuations of style (one of the better, stronger discussions with striking examples from British and American sources), and prescriptions (including finding flaws within Strunk and White). Its very style, with frequent shifts in point of view (I, we, the reader, you), may be unnerving to some students of language use/style; yet its bibliography has choice sources. Better for libraries (and readers) would be Roy H. Copperud's American Usage and Style: The Consensus (CH, Sep 80) and Edward D. Johnson's The Handbook of Good English (1982). Sheridan Baker's Practical Stylist (1969) and Strunk and White's The Elements of Style (1959) are first purchases, though, for any library.-J.F. O'Neil, Edison Community College