BRAND NEW:Bryson's Dictionary For Writers & Editor 3419

What is the difference between cant and jargon, or assume and presume? What is a fandango? What's the new name for Calcutta? How do you spell supersede? Boutros Boutros-Ghali? Is it hippy or hippie?

These questions really matter to Bill Bryson, ever since his days as a rookie subeditor on The Times back in the 1970's; and they matter to anyone who cares about the English language originally published as The Penguin Dictionary for Writers and Editors, Bryson's Dictionary for Writers and Editors has now been completely revised and updated for the twenty-first century by Bill Bryson himself.

Here is a very personal selection of spellings and usages, covering such head-scratchers as capitalization, plurals, abbreviations and foreign names and phrases. Bryson also gives us the difference between British and American usages, and miscellaneous pieces of essential information you never knew you needed, like the names of all the Oxford colleges, or the new name for the Department of Trade and Industry - or the correct spelling of Brobdingnag. An indispensable companion to all those who write, work with the written word, or just enjoy getting things right, it gives rulings that are both authoritative and commonsense, all in Bryson's own inimitably good-humoured way.

About the Author

Bill Bryson's bestselling travel books include The Lost Continent, Netither Here Nor There, Notes from a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods and Down Under. His acclaimed book on the history of science, A Short History of Nearly Everything, was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, and won the Aventis Prize for Science Books and the Descartes Science Communication Prize. He has written on language in Mother Tongue, Made in America and Troublesome Words, and his latest bestsellers are Shakespeare (in the Eminent Lives series) and The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid.