I couldn’t fall asleep a couple nights ago, so I laid in bed watching YouTube videos.
The algorithms eventually pushed me into this strange interview, in which a man called Bryan A. Garner, a word usage expert and professor of law, interviews David Foster Wallace about the art of writing. Specifically on the use of puff words like “prior to” and “subsequent to.” Internet rabbit holes, man.
Turns out that Wallace’s believed Garner was “a genius” of words and using them. He’d written a lengthy piece about Garner’s work in a 2001 issue of Harpers. Wallace wrote:
The occasion of this article is Oxford University Press’s semi-recent release of Bryan A. Garner’s A Dictionary of Modern American Usage. The fact of the matter is that Garner’s dictionary is extremely good, certainly the most comprehensive usage guide since E. W. Gilman’s Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage, now a decade out of date …
A Dictionary of Modern American Usage has no Editorial Staff or Distinguished Panel. It’s conceived, researched, and written ab ovo usque ad mala by Bryan Garner. This is an interesting guy. He’s both a lawyer and a lexicographer (which seems a bit like being both a narcotics dealer and a DEA agent). His 1987 A Dictionary of Modem Legal Usage is already a minor classic; now, instead of practicing law anymore, he goes around conducting writing seminars for J.D.’s and doing prose-consulting for various judicial bodies. Garner’s also the founder of something called the H. W. Fowler Society, a worldwide group of usage-Trekkies who like to send one another linguistic boners clipped from different periodicals. You get the idea.
Once I started reading I couldn’t stop. The work drew me in with wit and wisdom, actionable advice, and an approach to language that’s relaxed and interesting.
Beyond instructions on words and phrases and how to best use them, Garner also lists his rules for writing. It’s a list I’ll likely relay to some of my upper-division classes. I’ve bolded my favorite parts.
- Purpose
The purpose of a usage dictionary is to help writers, editors, and speakers use the language effectively: to help them sound grammatical but relaxed, refined but natural, correct but unpedantic. - Realism
Recommendations on usage must be genuinely plausible. They must recognize language as it currently stands, encourage reasonable approaches to editorial problems, and avoid refighting battles that were long ago lost. - Linguistic Simplicity
If the same idea can be expressed in a simple way or in a complex way, the simple way is better—and, paradoxically, it will typically lead readers to conclude that the writer is smarter. - Readers’ Reactions
Generally, writing is good if readers find it easy to follow; writing is bad if readers find it hard to follow. - Tightness
Omitting needless words is important. As long as it’s accurate, the briefest way of phrasing an idea is usually best because the brevity enhances speed, clarity, and impact. - Word-Judging
A word or phrase is is somewhat undesirable if it has any one of the following characteristics, and is worse if it has two or more:
(a) it sounds newfangled;
(b) it defies logic;
(c) it threatens to displace an established expression (but hasn’t done so);
(d) it originated in a misunderstanding of a word or its etymology;
(e) it blurs a useful distinction. - Differentiation
If related words—especially those differing only in suffix—begin to take on different senses, it’s wise to encourage the latent distinctions when they’re first emerging and then to follow them once they’re established. - Needless Variants
Having two or more variant forms of a word is undesirable unless each one signals a distinct meaning. - Conservatism
If two constructions are current, and one of them has been widely condemned by authorities whose values are in line with those outlined in #6, the other construction is better. - Actual Usage
In the end the actual usage of educated speakers and writers is the overarching criterion for correctness. But while actual usage can trump the other factors, it isn’t the only consideration.
Best $30 I’ve spent in awhile.
