Word Crimes

NEA Today, Sep 2005

BOOK FOCUS

Word Crimes

BETWEEN YOU AND I, this book is a little devil, making us giggle at the persistent grammatical errors other people make. (Err, between you and ME-sometimes we make them too.) The author, James Cochrane, a British editor for more than 40 years, reminds us of a certain ninth-grade English teacher who shall remain nameless. He sets us straight on some of our most common mistakes: the difference between imply and infer, the rule on less and fewer, and why to avoid the "clownish" use of "irregardless." But what we like most is the needle he takes to overblown, multi-syllabic, make-me-sound-important "prior to's" and "restructuring's" that fill our administrative memos. Like this, about the rampant use of "incentivise"-"Anyone with an ear for language will want to avoid this hideous recent coinage...."