From one of America's most beloved and bestselling authors, a wonderfully useful and readable guide to the problems of the English language most commonly encountered by editors and writers.
What is the difference between “immanent” and “imminent”? What is the singular form of graffiti? What is the difference between “acute” and “chronic”? What is the former name of “Moldova”? What is the...

"100 Words Almost Everyone Mixes Up or Mangles presents words that people can't keep straight, no matter how hard they try. It features notorious soundalikes, such as aural/oral, bawl out/ball out, errant/arrant, faze/phase, gibe/jibe, and waive/wave, as well as close calls and near misses like baleful/baneful, effectual/efficacious, mitigate/militate, and suppress/repress. As in the other 100 Words books, each entry has a definition and pronunciation,...

Offers a wellspring of worthy and wondrous words to rescue our worn-down usage.

"Most of us want to choose inclusive, respectful, and empowering language. But language--and how we use it--continually evolves, along with cultural norms. When contradictory opinions muddle our purpose, how do we align our word choices with our beliefs? Who has the final say when people disagree? And why is it so hard to let go of certain words? Afraid of getting something wrong or offending, we too often treat words as dos or don'ts, regardless...

"A linguistic exploration of the speech habits we love to hate-and why our "um"s, "like"s, and "you know"s actually make us better communicators. Do you hate that you say "like" too much? Do you go over your email drafts to remove excess "so"s and "really"s? Do you wish your presentation at work wasn't so full of "um"s and "uh"s? Do you get tripped up by slang, overly familiar greetings, or new pronouns? What if these features of our speech weren't...