The king's English
First sentence
Any one who wishes to become a good writer should endeavour, before he allows himself to be tempted by the more showy qualities, to be direct, simple, brief, vigorous, and lucid...
Description
"When it was first published in 1906, The King's English was a radical and contentious work. Through examples from the works of journalists and novelists of the day the Fowler brothers illustrate grammatical slips and infelicities of style and how best these should be avoided. Had Dickens, for example, owned a copy of The King's English he would not have written 'your great ability and trustfulness'; he would have recognized the malapropism and realized that the context demanded trustworthiness." "The book provoked a flurry of debate in The Times and its acceptance of Americanisms caused one London critic to warn that the Fowler brothers' ideas would become 'the corner-stone of a new Tower of Babel which would cast its sinister shadow over the future of humanity'. This book remains a classic reference work on the frequently made blunders of English usage. As such, it is a guide to improved expression and style, of interest as much to the modern reader as it was to readers at the dawn of the twentieth century."--BOOK JACKET.