The Elements of Style

My favorite book ever. I've been re-reading it over the past few days and recalling how much I love words and using them properly. I was always irritated in High School when people would speak gibberish disguised as English.

Here are some excerpts from Misused Words and Expressions:

Clever - Note that the word means one thing when applied to peaople, another when applied to horses. A clever horse is a good-natured one, not an ingenious one.

Enormity - Use only in the sense of "monstrous wickedness." Misleading, if not wrong, when used to express bigness.

Enthuse - An annoying verb growing out of the noun enthusiasm. Not recommended

She was enthused about her new car X

She was enthusiastic about her new car O

Facility - Why must jails, hospitals, and schools suddenly become "facilities"?

Fix - Colloquial in America for arrange, prepare, mend. The usage is well established. But bear in mind that this verb is from figere: "to make firm," "to place definitely." These are the preferred meanings of the word.

Irregardless - Should be regardless. The error results from failure to see the negative in -less and from a desire to get it in as a prefix, suggested by words such as irregular, irresponsible, and, perhaps especially, irrespective.

-ize - Do not coin verbs by adding this tempting suffix. Many good and useful verbs do end in -ize: summarize, fraternize, harmonize, fertilize. But there is a growing list of abominations: containerize, prioritize, finalize, to name three. Be suspicious of -ize; let your ear and your eye guide you. Never tack -ize onto a noun to create a verb. Usually you will discover that a useful verb alreayd exists. Why say "utilize" when there is the simple, unpretentious word use?

Like - Not to be used for the conjunction as. Like governs nouns and pronouns; before phrases and clauses the equivalent word is as.

Chloe smells good, like a baby should X

Chloe smells good, as a baby should O

The use of like for as has its defenders; they argue that any usage that achieves currency becomes valid automatically. This, they say, is the way the language is formed. It is and it isn't. An expression sometimes merely enjoys a vogue, much as an article of apparel does. Like has long been widely misused by the illiterate; lately it has been taken up by the knowing and the well-informed, who find it catchy, or liberating, and who use it as though they were slumming. If every word or device that achieved currecny were immediately authenticated, simply on the ground of popularity, the language would be as chaotic as a ball game without foul lines. For the student, perhaps the most useful thing to know about like is that most carefully edited publications regard its use before phrases and clauses as simple error.

There...I feel much better