OED news -- two new books about English

[Chris F. Waigl]

On Thu, 2006-09-21 at 12:04 -0700, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
>
> On Sep 21, 2006, at 11:39 AM, Joel Berson asks:
>
> > Didn't *anyone* like "ate, shot, and left"?
>
> define your reference class.  she's sold huge numbers of copies, so
> there's *some* audience for her stuff out there.  not many linguists
> in it, i gather, though.

To clarify, I vaguely liked "ate, shot and left" in the title of David
Crystal's new book. I didn't understand Joel Berson to refer to Lynne
Truss's book.

Chris Waigl
As for *her* book, I admit I don't dislike it as much as many others do.
Some passages about stylistic preference when it comes to the use of
commas were rather interesting for me. It just would never for a second
have occurred to me to consider it as anything else than fair to midling
lighthearted humour. Certainly not an advice book. That so many consider
is as one puts a different spin on it -- unfortunately. Now that
followup book about politeness is just embarrassing.

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