Free PDF How to Tell Fate from Destiny: And Other Skillful Word Distinctions, by Charles Harrington Elster
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How to Tell Fate from Destiny: And Other Skillful Word Distinctions, by Charles Harrington Elster
Free PDF How to Tell Fate from Destiny: And Other Skillful Word Distinctions, by Charles Harrington Elster
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Review
Nervous word-choosers, rejoice! In this part-thesaurus, part-hilarious manual of style, Elster breaks down the most common mistakes of the English language. Organized alphabetically, mix-ups range from homonyms to synonyms to incorrectly used turns of phrase, and Elster's explanations are not just extremely useful but riotously fun to read. He uses humor to help commit the rules of the word world to memory, even going so far as including illustrations to make certain distinctions crystal clear. For example, one drawing shows two creatures wielding swords to indicate "fight," while the same two creatures gesticulate wildly in the next drawing to illustrate "altercation." Elster investigates many classic confusions ("forward" vs. "foreword") but also makes an effort to highlight lesser-discussed blunders, like "rack" vs. "wrack" vs. "nerve-racking" vs. "nerve-wracking"; "spay" vs. "neuter"; and, for the really particular linguaphile, "squalid" vs. "sordid." This book is an entertaining and necessary addition to any shelf. It's perfect for writers looking to double-check their instincts but also for the everyday speaker looking to communicate with clarity and confidence. -- Courtney Eathorne (Booklist)Elster's entertaining and instructive resource offers helpful suggestions for distinguishing between words often misused in conversation or writing. Elster points out that even professionals are vulnerable to error, as in this quote from the Guardian: "Tweets are stored on the device so you can keep reading even if you loose [lose] your phone signal." In each of the book's alphabetical entries, he includes two or more words that are confused, accompanied by clear examples and detailed explanations of the distinction between them. For instance, he writes, "to convince" means to "make someone believe something," while "to persuade" means "to make someone take action." The book includes entries both for words commonly used in conversation or writing--such as "amount, number"; "its, it's"--and for those less commonly used-- "capacious, commodious"; "auger, augur." Elster can be cheeky, as when he decries the use of "empathy" as a "trendy substitute" for "sympathy": "Sympathy is what you should feel for someone who displays a flashy word when an ordinary one is called for. Empathy is what you should feel when you've been making the same stupid mistake yourself." This appealing book will help readers over countless lexical stumbling blocks, and encourage clearer and more precise speaking and writing. -- Publishers WeeklyThe author of this charming and useful book has made a career out of literary finesse. In his latest effort to "clarify the mind and general discourse," the "professional distinctioneer" offers witty, wise advice on the right way to deploy some of the English language's trickiest words, from a and an to zero, zeros, zeroes. An example: is Elster really the "author"? Or is he simply the "writer"? (See page 298.) Study Elster's distinctioneering and it will no longer be your fate to be a sloppy writer. Even if you thought it was your destiny. -- Yale Alumni Magazine
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About the Author
CHARLES HARRINGTON ELSTER is a nationally recognized expert on the English language. He is the pronunciation editor of Black's Law Dictionary and a consultant for Garner's Modern English Usage. His articles have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Boston Globe, the Wall Street Journal, and other publications, and he has published twelve books on the English language for a general audience.
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Product details
Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (October 23, 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1328884074
ISBN-13: 978-1328884077
Product Dimensions:
8 x 5.3 x 1.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.6 out of 5 stars
26 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#296,026 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
I got a digital copy of the book from NetGalley, but liked it so much so I had to buy a paper copy for myself. As an English learner, I struggle sometimes with words that sound similar but might mean different things, or with words that both mean similar things but used in different places or ways. The book has those words grouped together, and it explains the difference in meaning and usage. The articles are short and easy to read, and they do get the job done very well. It is fun to read. I just pick it up whenever I have a few minutes and read a page or two. It is fun, and it helps.
"This book is dandy and will come in handy. (When in doubt--check it out.)" Bought one for myself and three for the writers in my family for Christmas.
Really useful for those nuances in language.
I liked this book and if you're a writer this would be a fun desk reference, or even just to flip through and read a few random entries.What it would be useful for is if you are writing something and had a question of yourself that you weren't too sure about - the difference between fate and destiny in other words. Like you think you know, but you're not sure. So this would be a way to have a clarification with more thought and creativity than a standard dictionary entry.As somebody who writes, I run into this now and then. So I like the ability to *think* about these differences of word choices in a this detailed way. Plus, I liked the writing style of the book and it was fun just to read the various observations.The negative about the book is there's no easy way to predict if a question can be answered. There's no table of contents, and while the words are alphabetically listed, you won't know if the book can help until you run into the problem and then check, and then hope the information is there. But if you're a writer, this is never going to be a flat-out unhelpful reference, but you just won't know until you get there.I would recommend it to anybody who enjoys thinking about word choices, or better writing, or maybe a student in creative writing courses who wants to take writing more seriously but isn't sure how. This would be a good inspiration.
I loved this book, but it's not for everyone. Are you the kind of kid who ever read a dictionary? Do you remember grabbing a random book of the encyclopedia and reading a random section? I'm exaggerating a bit as this book is also a nice reference, but the way it is written is to be read cover-to-cover. In fact, I did just that because I was the kind of kid who read the dictionary. The author goes through everything from commonly confused spellings to words that are synonyms that are hard to differentiate. What's the difference between a disaster and a catastrophe? When do you say "who" and when do you say "whom"? The book is actually surprisingly funny - it's self-aware, such as defining "pedantic" as referring to the book you are reading. The book itself is arrange in alphabetical order of the first word in the list, but there is only 1 entry. So disaster is actually under "c" for catastrophe because that is where it is listed, but there is an index of all words in the back where you can look up disaster and see what page it is on. I actually loved this book and think your pedantic friend would love to get this as a gift.
Long before personal computers hit the scene, one of my favorite pastimes as a child was hanging out at the library and reading dictionaries. I was the secret nerd girl folded into a faraway corner. I came out of the closet in my 20s and, in fact, have been a proud nerd and an even prouder bookworm ever since. It comes as no surprise that I’ve spent most of my life as a proofreader, editor and writer. As far as I’m concerned, a grammatical slip is far worse than a Freudian slip or many other slip ups in life. In order to hold my Grammar Nazi status, an updated library of reference resources on grammar and usage fill my arsenal. My latest acquisition is How to Tell Fate from Destiny: And Other Skillful Word Distinctions by Charles Harrington Elster, an accomplished wordsmith and master of the English language.The book’s title is on point. This is a handy and comprehensive reference that differentiates and explains the meaning of confusing words. In fact, before I pored over each page for review purposes, I had an immediate question about the usage of “continuous†and “continual.†I commonly need clarification about those two close-sounding words and mystery solved. Or is it an enigma solved? I looked up “enigma†and “mysteryâ€on the internet since they are not included in Mr. Elster’s book. Of course, it would be impossible to cover every confusing word in his volume, but the author performs an extensive feat. For easy reference, each word entry is alphabetically categorized, and a thorough index is also provided as a quick reference guide.Though I would have liked to see a few more suggestions in terms of how to remember word usages, the book is fun to read. For instance on page 277: “Bombastic suggests pomposity and pretentiousness that masks a lack of substance; the bombastic person speaks in a verbose and self-important way, but says little or nothing of importance.â€Is that word pertinent in today’s world, or what? In fact, when I watch the news, I’ll be able to utter my feelings completely: “Bombastic!â€I can expatiate easily on the book and present some other fun examples, and I will … “I, me†for instance on page 158. The author nearly writes two pages on those two words, and here is my favorite paragraph because it hits home: “As those young people grew older, they developed a phobia about me and began substituting I for it in constructions like for you and I and falling into real error by bending over backward to avoid an imagined one. And this hypercorrection is extremely common among educated people, who apparently think it’s infra dig to use the objective pronoun me. Indeed, it takes some presumed refinement to make this over-educated mistake.â€What can I add? This time, I’ll spare readers from further helpings of alphabet soup and grammarian inspection. As far as I’m concerned, I hope I never grow out of the “hankering for linguistics†stage.
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