{"id":6538,"date":"2009-12-03T16:38:03","date_gmt":"2009-12-03T21:38:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/anglicansamizdat.wordpress.com\/?p=6538"},"modified":"2009-12-03T16:38:03","modified_gmt":"2009-12-03T21:38:03","slug":"putting-fowler-back-in-fowlers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/putting-fowler-back-in-fowlers\/","title":{"rendered":"Putting Fowler Back in Fowler&#039;s"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Oh happy day, there is a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hoover.org\/publications\/policyreview\/72770362.html\" target=\"_blank\">new edition<\/a> of Fowler\u2019s <em>A Dictionary of Modern English Usage<\/em> coming out:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>H.W. Fowler and David Crystal, ed. A Dictionary of Modern English Usage. Oxford University Press. 832 Pages. $29.95<\/p>\n<p>Henry Watson Fowler\u2019s Dictionary of Modern English Usage is an unabashedly prescriptivist tome, which is to say that it doesn\u2019t waffle in describing the right way, and the wrong way, to use English words. The archetypal usage manual, commonly called just \u201cFowler\u2019s,\u201d was initially published in 1926. It has undergone two revisions since, the product of the first of which, a book judiciously and lightly edited by Sir Ernest Gowers, was released in 1965. F.W. Bateson, the English literary scholar, reflected the general feeling when he wrote that Gowers was \u201cremarkably successful . . . in retaining Fowler\u2019s ipsissima verba while making the minor corrections and qualifications that time has made necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Similar approbation did not greet the second revision of Fowler\u2019s, published in 1996 and helmed by the late lexicographer and linguist Robert W. Burchfield. John Simon, reviewing that book for the New Criterion, wrote that Burchfield \u2014 who before editing Fowler\u2019s had edited both the Oxford English Dictionary and the Cambridge History of the English Language \u2014 had \u201cmade himself a true citizen of Oxbridge.\u201d \u201cBut an ox bridge,\u201d Simon quipped, \u201ccan be no better that a pons asinorum.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The trouble, simply put, was that Burchfield had expunged Fowler from Fowler\u2019s. Gone were some of the original author\u2019s beloved subheadings (\u201cPairs and Snares\u201d was pared, \u201cUnequal Yokefellows\u201d unyoked) and gone, too, was his jaunty, slightly mischievous, scything-while-grinning tone. Most objectionable was that Burchfield had changed Fowler\u2019s from a prescriptive book to a descriptive one. Usage was no longer to be judged but understood. Entries that had earlier attacked ambiguity, castigated the careless, and lowered the boom on barbarism were suddenly more interested in explaining the origins and development of the English language\u2019s scofflaws than in pointing them out and locking up. The warden had become the prison psychologist.<\/p>\n<p>David Crystal, editor of the rereleased first edition, writes that Fowler \u201cturns out to be far more sophisticated in his analysis of language than most people realize.\u201d What\u2019s more, \u201cSeveral of his entries display a concern for descriptive accuracy which would do any modern linguist proud.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oh happy day, there is a new edition of Fowler\u2019s A Dictionary of Modern English Usage coming out: H.W. Fowler and David Crystal, ed. A Dictionary of Modern English Usage. Oxford University Press. 832 Pages. $29.95 Henry Watson Fowler\u2019s Dictionary &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/putting-fowler-back-in-fowlers\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":8,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[2062],"class_list":["post-6538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6538\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}