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Write It Right

Ambrose Bierce

Book Overview: 

Witty, opinionated alphabetical examples of what Bierce considered poor (American) English and advice on alternatives – entertaining, thought-provoking, occasionally outdated but so interesting to see how style and taste have changed.

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Book Excerpt: 
. . .He committed suicide," say, He killed himself, or, He took his life. For married we do not say "committed matrimony." Unfortunately most of us do say, "got married," which is almost as bad. For lack of a suitable verb we just sometimes say committed this or that, as in the instance of bigamy, for the verb to bigam is a blessing that is still in store for us.

Compare with for Compare to. "He had the immodesty to compare himself with Shakespeare." Nothing necessarily immodest in that. Comparison with may be for observing a difference; comparison to affirms a similarity.

Complected. Anticipatory past participle of the verb "to complect." Let us wait for that.

Conclude for Decide. "I concluded to go to town." Having concluded a course of reasoning (implied) I decided to go to town. A decision is supposed to be made at the conclusion of a course of reasoning, but is not the conclusion. . . Read More

Community Reviews

Solecisms Plus

Ambrose Bierce is a clever writer, so it is not surprising, his book of literary faults is clever too. I would recommend for all College professors who are still trying to get the kids to end sentences with periods.

Great new ways of looking at words: some of which have mostly dropped out of usage, and many which seem to have become standard. Poor Bierce would be in paroxysms of horror. While it may not be your go-to for modern literary language, you may want to take a look—it'll make you think about your words

This book and “Weird” Al’s song “Word Crimes” kept me sane during the copyediting stage of my novel. Poor Bierce, many of the rules he advocates for in this book have gone by the wayside, but it’s interesting to see how the English language continues to develop over time.

In his typical, straight forward, often caustic manner, Bierce lists writing faults & their corrections. An excellent book for anyone that has to string sentences together, whether they're a 'real' writer or just someone who communicates via email.

Writing is often pursued as a vehicle of creative expression for the author, whereas it is more a way of making your thoughts understandable to the reader. We read in the introduction to this gem of a book that good writing is “clear thinking made visible.” In this sense, we should prefer words that

I think William Strunk must have read this book before writing The Elements of Style, because he and Bierce often have a slightly similar humor in their rants about literary faults. And I find their humor amusing.

One example of Bierce's humor goes like this: "Banquet. A good enough word in its place

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