A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, often referred to simply as Fowler's Modern English Usage, or Fowler, is a style guide to British English usage. Fowler covers in detail many issues of usage, from plurals and literary techniques to distinctions between similar words and the usage of foreign terms. Style guides generally give guidance on language use. ... British English (BrE) is a term used to differentiate the form of the English language used in the United Kingdom from other forms of the English language used elsewhere. ... In the English language, nouns are inflected for grammatical number — that is, singular or plural. ... Works of fiction use certain techniques to tell a story. ...

Henry W. Fowler concentrated on British usage, and set the standard for all usage books to follow. Fowler's first edition of 1926 remained in print for many years, but more recent editions have updated the book. Henry Watson Fowler (10 March 1858 - 26 December 1933) was an English schoolmaster, lexicographer and commentator on usage, notable for both Fowlers Modern English Usage (first published 1926) and his work on the Concise Oxford Dictionary. ... 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Fowler's remark on the split infinitive is well-known: A split infinitive is a grammatical construction in the English language where a word or phrase, usually an adverb or adverbial phrase, occurs between the marker to and the bare infinitive (uninflected) form of the verb. ...

The English-speaking world may be divided into those who neither know nor care what a split infinitive is, those who don't know, but care very much, those who know and approve, those who know and condemn, and those who know and distinguish.

Fowler concludes that split infinitives should not attract as much attention as they do, and says that they are indeed sometimes the best way to express one's meaning. See the split infinitive article for further discussion. A split infinitive is a grammatical construction in the English language where a word or phrase, usually an adverb or adverbial phrase, occurs between the marker to and the bare infinitive (uninflected) form of the verb. ...

Only the first edition of the book was completely Fowler's. The second edition was a very light revision by Sir Ernest Gowers and the third edition was very substantially revised and rewritten by Robert Burchfield. Sir Ernest Gowers (1880 - 1966) was a British civil servant, now best known for work on style guides for the writing of the English language. ... Robert William Burchfield (January 27, 1923 - July 5, 2004) was a scholar, writer, and lexicographer. ...

• First edition, 1926 (reprinted in 2003, see References below)
• 2nd edition, 1965
• 3rd edition, 1996 (The New Fowler's Modern English Usage)

2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (link goes to calendar). ... 1996 (MCMXCVI) is a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ...

See also

• Politics and the English Language (George Orwell)
• Elegant variation
• Logorrhoea
• Pleonasm
• Prescription and description

Politics and the English Language (1946) is one of George Orwells most famous essays. ... Eric Arthur Blair (June 25, 1903–January 21, 1950), better known by the pen name George Orwell, was a British author and journalist. ... Elegant variation is a phrase coined by Henry W. Fowler to refer to the unnecessary use of synonyms. ... Logorrhoea (US logorrhea) (Greek λογορροια, logorrhoia, word-flux) is defined as an excessive flow of words and, when used medically, refers to incoherent talkativeness that occurs in certain kinds of mental illness, such as mania. ... Pleonasm is the use of more words than necessary to express an idea. ... In linguistics, prescription is the laying down or prescribing of normative rules for a language. ...

Related books

• The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White
• The Chicago Manual of Style, the authoritative guide to American English publishing style and markup (very little on usage in the sense of Fowler or Strunk and White). The Chicago Manual of Style (or CMOS) is increasingly considered, all over the English-speaking world, the authoritative guide to formatting and style questions of relevance to publishers of any English language text.
• Plain Words by Sir Ernest Gowers
• "A Dictionary of American-English Usage Based on Fowler's Modern English Usage", by Margaret Nicholson. 50's era Signet paperback, by arrangement with Oxford University Press.

The Elements of Style (the little book – 1918) is an American English writing style guide detailing eight elementary rules of usage, ten elementary principles of composition, a few matters of form and a list of words or expressions described by its prescriptivist authors as being commonly misused. ... William Strunk Jr. ... Elwyn Brooks White (July 11, 1899 – October 1, 1985) was an American essayist, author, and noted prose stylist. ... The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) is a highly regarded style guide for American English, dealing with questions of style, manuscript preparation, and, to a lesser degree, usage. ... American English (AmE) is the dialect of the English language used mostly in the United States of America. ... There is more than one usage of the word markup. ... Plain Words is a style guide for British English written in 1948 by Sir Ernest Gowers, and expanded and reissued in 1954 as The Complete Plain Words (ISBN 0140511997). ... Sir Ernest Gowers (1880 - 1966) was a British civil servant, now best known for work on style guides for the writing of the English language. ...

References

• Fowler, Henry; Winchester, Simon (introduction) (2003 reprint). A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (Oxford Language Classics Series). Oxford Press. ISBN 0198605064.
• Burchfield, R. W. (Editor); Fowler, H. W. (1996). The New Fowler's Modern English Usage. Clarendon Press. ISBN 0198691262.
• Nicholson, Margaret; (1957). "A Dictionary of American-English Usage Based on Fowler's Modern English Usage". Signet, by arrangement with Oxford University Press.