"Dreyer's English," by Benjamin Dreyer

I have an ambivalent relationship with “usage” and “style” books about writing and, especially, grammar and vocabulary. I love language, literature, reading, writing, and even grammar, which is, after all, the structure of language. I also think a lot about language and style in the course of my teaching of writing. I am wary of usage guides that are too prescriptive (linguists don’t believe in prescriptivism) but also of guides that treat the whole topic as a sort of inside joke. “Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style” (Random House, 2019), by Random House executive and copy editor Benjamin Dreyer, sounded from reviews like it would be a good balance. I got it from the library (not wanting to commit enough to actually buy it until I had perused it more), and then it stayed on my “to-read” pile until it was almost overdue. Fiction and memoirs were always more immediately attractive at any given time I had for reading. A couple of days ago, spurred by a fast-approaching due date, I thought I would just skim the book and see how I liked it. To my surprise, I became utterly absorbed in the book, and read almost every page. My first reaction was that the book is genuinely useful; it answers the kinds of questions that many readers and writers (including this reader and writer) have. Topics discussed include overused words, misused words, spelling, grammar, and style. The book is also organized in an attractive and useful way. Best of all, the author’s tone is spot on: authoritative, friendly, witty, but a little bit self-deprecating when appropriate. He is teaching us, yet doing so as if we readers are equally intelligent and knowledgeable; we don’t feel condescended to. (Related confession: As I was typing the prior sentence, I suddenly couldn't remember how to spell "knowledgeable" correctly, and had to look it up; this happens to me occasionally despite my years of extensive reading and writing and teaching.) At times Dreyer is prescriptivist, but almost always acknowledges that the language is flexible and changing, and that that is okay. He manages the balancing act of taking his material very seriously and yet not appearing to take it TOO seriously. In fact, the book is sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. There are so many ways that this balance, and especially the latter aspect (not taking it all too seriously), can go wrong, yet Dreyer (mostly) avoids missteps. I also enjoyed his occasional brief stories and examples from his work as an editor. In short, the book is a delight, and readers will definitely learn from it.