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The Economist Style Guide, (The Economist Series)

Format: PDF 1.14MB
Hardcover: 176 pages
Publisher: Bloomberg Press;
Language: English
ISBN-10: 186197535X
ISBN-13: 978-1861975355

Rare is the style guide that a person--even a word person--would want to read cover to cover. But The Economist Style Guide, designed, as the book says, to promote good writing, is so witty and rigorous as to be irresistible. The book consists of three parts. The first is the Economist's style book, which acts as a position paper of sorts in favor of clear, concise, correct usage. The big no-noes listed in the book's introduction are: "Do not be stuffy.... Do not be hectoring or arrogant.... Do not be too pleased with yourself.... Do not be too chatty.... Do not be too didactic.... [And] do not be sloppy." Before even getting to the letter B, we are reminded that aggravate "means make worse, not irritate or annoy"; that an alibi "is the proven fact of being elsewhere, not a false explanation"; and that anarchy "means the complete absence of law or government. It may be harmonious or chaotic."
Part 2 of the book describes many of the spelling, grammar, and usage differences between British and American English. While many Briticisms are familiar to most Americans and vice versa, there are some words--such as homely, bomb, and table--that take on quite different meanings altogether when they cross the Atlantic. And part 3 offers a handy reference to such information as common business abbreviations, accountancy ratios, the Beaufort Scale, commodity-trade classifications, currencies, laws, measures, and stock-market indices. The U.S. reader should be aware (but not scared off by the fact) that some of the style issues addressed are specifically British. --Jane Steinberg --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

The Economist is renowned for the clarity, style, and precision of its writing. This new, expanded edition of a strong selling guide (over 400,000 sold to date internationally) is based on The Economist's own in-house style manual and gives general advice on writing, points out common errors and clich$es, offers guidance on punctuation, abbreviations, and capital letters, and contains an exhaustive range of reference material--covering everything from accountancy ratios and stock market indices to laws of nature and science.

Links checked on May 5th, 2009 - 10:57PM by WarezUN.com