Reddit mentions: The best puns & wordplay books

• Writing the Romantic Comedy
  by Billy Mernit
  
  
• Not on Kindle, which is my main gripe. Very useful structure.
  
• Supposedly the ebook is a coming. I'm ready.
  
  
• Writing the Comedy Blockbuster: The Inappropriate Goal
  by Keith Giglio
  
  
• Save the Cat but focused specifically on writing comedies. Really focuses on making sure you derive maximum conflict from your protagonist meeting your premise.
  
  
• Elephant Bucks: An Insider's Guide to Writing for TV Sitcoms
  by Sheldon Bull
  
  
• A decades long professional writer and showrunner tells you how to write a sitcom. You're dumb if you wanna write sitcoms and haven't cracked this open yet.
  
  
• How to Write Funny: Your Serious, Step-By-Step Blueprint For Creating Incredibly, Irresistibly, Successfully Hilarious Writing
  by Scott Dikkers
  
  
• Again, a professional explains how he works. Dikkers was head writer on The Onion for years and years.
  
  
  
• Writing the Pilot
  by William Rabkin
  
• Again, a veteran showrunner explains what he knows.
  
  
• Screenwriting is Rewriting: The Art and Craft of Professional Revision 1st Edition
  by Jack Epps Jr
  
• Fucking gold. I'd read it even before you start a first draft.
  
  
• William Martell Blue Books
  
• Three Hundred Pages on Act Two and how to craft it. Three Hundred and Ten pages on the first ten pages of your screenplay! Three hundred and ninety! Pages! On! Action lines!
  
• Essential if you want to really dig deep on a specific skill of screenwriting.
  
  
  
• Writing for emotional impact : advanced dramatic techniques to attract, engage, and fascinate the reader from beginning to end by Karl Iglesias
  
• A very useful lens to think about screenwriting through. I'd consider this the intro to the kind of specificity that the Blue Books will break down into.
  
  
• Writing Movies for Fun and Profit by Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon
  
• Four quadrant movies are probably the hardest movies to do well. And these guys did them, very well. Plus the book will make you laugh as you read it.
  
  
• Writing the Other by by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward
  
  • Which is a practical guide to writing about experiences that are not your own, with a focus on race, gender, and sexual orientation.
    
• It'll definitely inform my take the next time reddit implodes on who can write what character.
  
  
  ----------
  
  The only non Screenwriter on the list are Scott Dikkers, Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward.
  
  -----
  
  
  I'm Currently going through:
  
  
• Wit's End: What Wit Is, How It Works, and Why We Need It by James Geary
  
  • I am always trying to be smarter and funnier. And funny smart people get hired.
    
    
    
• Wired for Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence by Lisa Cron
  
• The science behind why we enjoy narrative and how that can guide writers to write well.
  
  And want to read:
  
  
• The Hero Succeeds: The Character-Driven Guide to Writing Your TV Pilot by Kam Miller
  
• Working Writer. 500 pages on characters in a pilot. Real world examples. Of course I want to read this.
  
• I think I heard about it from Paperteam, or a blog post on the WGA Foundation page.

Welcome to the cool-kids club.

I agree with much of what has already been said. Try to see them live, if you can't, a great "introductory" course is to watch videos while reading. Youtube, [PBS Great Performances}(http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/), Digital Theatreand even cheap used DVDs on Amazon offer a host of free and low-cost options for viewing them at home. It can also be a great tool to start understanding the difference between reading the lines as written and hearing how they rhythmically change in performance.

You will, to be honest, miss some things without reading annotations, but it's also important to note that Shakespeare is incredibly complex-- I've been studying Shakespeare for about 9 years now seriously, and there are STILL days where I open up a script I've read a million times and go "Wait...that's TOTALLY a play on words!"

If you're really serious about getting into references aspect, I would recommend picking up a Lexicon. It's an amazing resource for learning words and references, organized in about every fashion you can think of. You can get them for pretty cheap-- I think I picked both of mine up for around $5 in the "used" section. They usually come in a two volume set, so make sure you get both!

There are all sorts of great reference books available-- a really rare one (but fantastic) is called "Playing Bit Parts in Shakespeare". I tracked down a copy at a used bookstore for about $60, but it's brilliant. It breaks down all of the plays by the smaller roles and gives an explanation of why they are significant and what purpose they serve in the show.
There's also this one. I am unashamed to say I proudly display this on my bookshelf.

You will also find that every Shakespeare scholar has a STRONG opinion on what versions of texts they prefer. I personally hate the versions Penguin publishes and really prefer the Folger Library editions, but much of it has to do with personal preference.

Good luck, new Shakespeare friend!

Are you asking whether you could learn new language with this method? Its best you follow a language learning system for that.

It worked for me with english because I grew up learning it from childhood and obsessively read nearly hundred or more novels in my teen and young adult phase.

>What did you do/what was your method?

To put it in simple words, its basically taking great writers work, and imitate their content. For example here's
from the book The scarlet pimpernel first paragraph, chapter 3:

>Feeling in every part of England certainly ran very high at this time against the French and their doings. Smugglers and legitimate traders between the French and the English coasts brought snatches of news from over the water, which made every honest Englishman's blood boil, and made him long to have “a good go” at those murderers, who had imprisoned their king and all his family, subjected the queen and the royal children to every species of indignity, and were even now loudly demanding the blood of the whole Bourbon family and of every one of its adherents.

Now rewrite this paragraph to your own liking randomly like this:

>In nearly every part of new york, the feeling of tiredness ran very high against the southerners and their army. Runaway slaves and legitimate human traffickers between the two high parts of texas bought news from over by carts and by doves, which increased the animosity of the northerners towards the slave owners and made the northerners blood boil, and some of them even wished to have "good go" at those war mongers, who had imprisoned even the little black children in dark slave rooms, subjected their parents and the northern soldiers who tried to save them with every known piece of indecency, and were even now demanding the blood of the whole confederate army and every one of its supporters.

Yeah, this doesn't make much sense if you read it too much, but as you can see, I imitated that paragraph with few things added and few things removed. This is how you learn to write effectively. The more you imitate the great writers, the more your own writing will improve.

>How did you use this for English?

The only way you could have mastery over writing is to seriously finish reading books like these and apply its concepts everyday until you get better:



This is a classic book on sentence writing and gives you tons of examples and explanations, although it can get quiet challenging to read it in first try.



This book is quite challenging read and at times very hard to comprehend, but read it one chapter at a time slowly.

Next, this book gives you a basic introduction to the field of rhetoric, which is something that writers in this sub don't usually talk very much, but its one of the biggest things you should focus on if you want to improve your writing to the advanced level from basic and intermediate level.

Finally, this book is the one you should definitely read, and this book is the one that basically inspired my initial comment.

The Oatmeal, an online comic, has tons of hilarious and snarky posts about grammar.

Grammar Girl's quick and dirty tips is fun, but it's more topical than comprehensive. She also has a podcast that might be more interesting than just reading something.

That said, /u/meggawat recommended some great fun books that are easy reads.

I'm also fan of Woe Is I by Patricia O'Conner.

An important thing to keep in mind as you approach this vast and exciting grammar excursion: there is no universal, all-correct grammar. Grammar is socially constructed and often varies from user to user, from style guide to style guide and from one context (writing online to a casual audience) to another (writing a formal cover letter for a job application). Don't get too hung up on your "weak grammar." Words are for using and expression. Sure, grammar can afford some clarity, but even as I make my living off of its "correct" (or consistent) use, I question the prominence we place on "strong" grammar.

TL;DR: Have fun, but don't get too daunted by the details.

A few more come to mind, less literature but more about stylistic and analytic skills you'll require in your advanced years in the Humanities.

People say to read a good style guide like Strunk & White, which is just okay. But I'd highly recommend Pinker's A Sense of Style--he also unpacks some of the problems with Strunk & White's core edicts.

Stanley Fish is just a great person to read in general. From his op-ed stuff in the NY Times to his class How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One. I'd also highly recommend reading the full introduction of the Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism or the introduction to Rifkin & Ryan's Literary Theory: An Anthology. When it comes to the lit theory stuff there are some good torrents with a lot of anthologies and canonical texts lumped together as PDFs. I also find a lot of good stuff with my Scribd membership.

/u/The_Messiah is absolutely correct. I studied sociolinguistics is grad school (now my hearing is rubbish so it's no longer a career option). Many, or even most, people think the dictionary is a book which gives the language a guide to 'correct' words or 'correct' grammar or usage. The thinking seems to be that if it isn't in the dictionary but exists in usage, the word somehow isn't 'correct'. And then when the dictionary updates (see the literally kerfuffle), people get all upset that these 'incorrect' words and usages are being let in - as if the Oxford dictionary dictates what words should and should not exist and how words should and shouldn't be used.

I'm sorry to tell you prescriptivists this, but that's not actually what a dictionary does. 'Correct' usage or existence isn't determined by the dictionary. The existence or usage of a word - ANY WORD - is whether it is used, and how it is used. Language evolves all the time. If we use the word 'twerking' to describe that frightening butt grinding dance that Miley Cyrus did at the VMAs while sticking out her alarmingly large tongue, then that's what the word 'twerking' describes. And you know what's awesome about that? We have ONE WORD that perfectly conjures up the same image in your mind that my long explanation did. See how handy language is? Dictionaries cannot ever determine 'correct' usage. How would that work? Would they get every English speaker in Earth to vote? The impractical nature of that is why a dictionary's job is to describe how words are used, not to dictate.

My advice is to relax and stop looking to the dictionary to tell you what's 'correct' and what isn't. Maybe read this Stephen Pinker article. Language is beautifully complex and the fact that we have the ability to make up new words and add to our personal lexicon is mind-blowingly awesome. If you're curious about why linguists don't think English is 'going to the dogs', I really recommend Language Myths and I promise it's not full of linguistic jargon about isoglosses and whatnot. :)

>And while English, like any other language, is degrading over time

I stopped reading your comment here. Again, you are not a linguist and do not understand the incredibly untrue things that you're saying. Please come to /r/linguistics and make a post with the title, "I believe that English is degrading over time" and explain your reasoning. You will very quickly see that there is an entire field of science that can and has proven those words untrue countless times.

If you would like to do further reading on the topic, I suggest the book Language Myths. From what I hear, it does a very good job of explaining why the myths laypeople believe about language are untrue, and it's written in a manner than a non-linguist can understand.

Curiosity got the better of me and I continued reading your comment.

> but at the same time, there are rules.

Again, incorrect. There are not really rules. There are conventions. These conventions are only one set of hundreds of different sets of conventions around the world for English use, and there is no scientific reason that they are any better or worse than any other.

>That's why we have a dictionary

Also incorrect. Languages change over time. They are not a holy book of correct language. They are a collection of descriptive items whose purpose it is to describe modern language use. When a word loses a definition, it is removed from the dictionary. When a word changes its pronunciation for a large enough number of speakers, it is updated to show the new pronunciation. Ask any lexicographer. They're the ones who make dictionaries, and having taken a lexicography class for my academic linguistics degrees, I'm familiar with the process.

>languages evolve (or devolve)

Devolving occurs in neither language, nor biology. It is a myth and misunderstanding of the science of evolution, both biological and linguistic.

>it is the way the language was meant to function

Language is not meant to function in any particular way. There is infinite variation across the world's languages, as well as simply within English.

>Like I said, I just wasn't really convinced by what you had to say since there's not really a North American dialect anyway.

There are certainly North American dialects. To deny such is ludicrous. North American English is a collection of those related dialects, as they are more related to one another than the Southern American dialects. You are not familiar with dialectology and the terms used to describe American dialects. I would suggest that you not accuse me of falsehoods without knowing your stuff.

>I understand how language works, just probably not as much as someone like you.

So far, if you do, you're doing a very bad job of showing it. Your post is riddled with untruths, which may not be your fault considering you've been taught incorrectly for years by grammarians and English teachers instead of linguists, but I would still appreciate if you didn't teach more people these untruths. Especially on Reddit, where we appreciate linguistic science as a science and English grammarians as authorities on "Standard" English conventions. Big difference there. Please don't miss it.

>However,don't you find it a little funny that you point out that academic circles don't determine conventional usage, then suggest to remedy my ignorance I should go to /r/linguistics where an academic circle can lecture me on how all my "English teachers" were wrong?

The linguistics academics will lecture you on things like linguistic variance and infinitely novel utterances. We understand that there is no right or wrong in language, that it is all arbitrary, and that the only reason English teachers believe that one form of English is any better or worse than any other form is because they've been indoctrinated by years of education that have taught them this. Unfortunately, none of their ideas on the subject are backed up by actual scientific research. It's merely conservative pseudo-logic that says that language should stay the way it was 40 years ago, because somehow it was always better then. Linguists understand that language is neither getting better or worse. It is simply constantly changing. It is a complex, dynamic system.

>I guess I should point out that I'm in school to become one of those "English teachers"

Then it is even more important that you understand how languages and language change and variation really work so that you don't continue the ridiculous myths that you've learned growing up. The day that you tell a student of yours that they're saying "wrong" that they've learned from years of speaking with their family or speech community, you've already begun a ludicrous attempt at controlling natural language change. It hasn't worked in the past, it won't work in the future. The only thing you should be trying to do is teach students that there are many different variants of English, and some are more appropriate in certain contexts than others. Teach them that their dialects are perfectly legitimate, both in pronunciation and syntax, but that being able to speak Standard American English is a useful skill that they can use to improve their chances of getting a job. That is as far as you can go with describing what you think of as "right" and "wrong" English.

>I respect the rules of the language.

Again, there are no rules in language.

>And everyone hates circular logic.

I don't think I understand the point. Are you saying that I'm using circular logic?

My offer to come to /r/linguistics still stands. We'll be more than happy to tell you everything we can about how language really works. We have linguists such as myself who specialize in phonetics and phonology. Others whose main field involves morphology, and others who prefer syntax. Many of us are either familiar with or speak multiple languages, so we can draw parallels between varieties of English and non-English languages. We also have some historical linguists who can tell you where various grammatical constructions come from and what languages in English's language family lost those grammatical constructions and are still completely functional "correct" languages. Not to mention all the grammatical functions English has lost over the centuries, plus all the new, innovative ones we've gained, and how English is still working just as it should.

You're INFP, yeah? In addition to creativity, you've got inner values that make you somewhat rebellious and individualistic. Embrace them!

When writing, doubt anything that comes out a little too easily. If it's an idiom, it may be a cliché. If it's a witty turn of phrase, you may have heard it somewhere else before. If it's a word, don't worry; just go with it. Unless you're doing it deliberately, you run the risk of losing your originality.

Think slowly and read and re-read your writing to ensure that it evokes over and again the precise feeling you want it to, or stirs the thoughts you want it to. Whether through wordplay or painting the picturesque, poetry depends on precision in vocabulary, richness in vision, and an eye and an ear for detail.

In matters of technique, to make your words so effective they flutter off the screen and slap you in the face, I recommend brushing up on your rhetoric; there are books that break down the subject a bit easier, and for the past couple months one of the mods at r/OCPoetry has been running a "Poetry Primer" on specific rhetorical devices and poetic forms (et al) using examples from the subreddit.

And whenever you can, practice! Practice makes perfect. Perfect makes poetry. And poetry makes power.

I go through phases. Sometimes I read poetry (nothing in particular, usually a trip to the library looking for collections instead of one single author). Sometimes I read fiction. Sometimes I read non-fiction.

The other part of the equation is to make sure you're reading actively. It doesn't matter how much you read if you don't really understand it. Pay attention to the way the author says things.

An issue I have with just reading nonfiction books on a particular subject (ie. philosophy as you've stated) doesn't really help if the books are dry. You're wanting to learn how to turn a phrase--you don't get that from a lot of non-fiction. The philosophy part might help you look at the world differently or become more aware of things outside your own point of view, but they don't usually help you understand how to write a crafty sentence (or lyric). In other words, it might give you something to write about, but not how to write about it!

Something else that might help is to read books about writing. Not textbooks, but books about grammar and style. I also recommend books written by successful authors on their own writing.

Two books that I have next to me pretty much always are:

https://www.amazon.com/Sin-Syntax-Craft-Wickedly-Effective/dp/0767903099

and

https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Eloquence-Secrets-Perfect-Phrase/dp/042527618X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483465760&sr=8-1&keywords=elements+of+eloquence

Of course, you can also enroll in a creative writing course. Having guidance and feedback is worth more than most people think.

The Elements of Eloquence is neat. It basically a compendium of rhetorical tools you can use to make better sentences.

You might also be interested in free verse poetry, which, if we're being honest, is nothing but very carefully written prose. I'm currently going through this book and enjoying it.

I also want to second Francine Prose's Reading like a Writer, which someone else already mentioned. It's fantastic.

You would probably love this book: Akira Okrent - In the Land of Invented Languages. She's a linguist who goes about trying to learn some of a bunch of different conlangs and the communities that speak them. It's a really interesting read and quite fun.

I've studied a bit of Esperanto and absolutely adore it for its ease of use.

The Elements of Eloquence is a book about writing style and the elements of rhetoric and written language. I'm not sure how much they apply to other languages (if at all), but it certainly covers English (which you asked about :p )

It's a fun and easy read, whether or not you're a writer, and might be a useful toolbox for someone starting out in the language.
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/042527618X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_RXduDbKF09DTY

If you're interested in this topic, I HIGHLY recommend this book on the topic:

http://www.amazon.com/Land-Invented-Languages-Adventures-Linguistic/dp/0812980891/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1289340641&sr=8-1

"In The Land of Invented Languages" by Arika Okrent

It's a history of invented languages and goes in depth on some of the more interesting examples and more. Nicely written and fun to read.

Thanks, nice article!


I'd like to point out jonase/kibit for brevity concerns. Figuring out the brief form of a long expression is as much a matter of skill than a matter of taste in my opinion. For those of us that are lacking in any of those departments, automation brings a limited answer.


 


Also, since there's a dinoZORRR in the room (Strunk and White), allow me to recommend The Sense of Style by Steven Pinker, the best english style guide I've ever read.

With people I don't know I can be social enough to fill in the blank spaces of a conversation well. With people I've known for a long time or familiar with it's easier to lighten up and let the jokes fly. My office played Punderdome for a year and we had a blast. The three of us are introverts so our inside jokes and roasts were all the better because we'd probably never do that in front of other people.

OK I will just make points to prevent wall of texting.

Grammar =/= rules of language. It is one part of the whole thing. Grammar is also descriptive, and the rules are derives based on empirical study of the usage of native speakers. It can change, and does, naturally over time.

Beowulf was written in old english. It is a substrate precursor of middle and modern English, while an older form of french is a largely lexical contributor. I could have talked about Shakespeare, but I wanted to make more of a point. That language changes over time, even without outside pressures.

English is an evolving language that is completely unrelated to swahili, what you saying is equivalent to the crocoduck argument (http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Crocoduck).

Your definition of a language is pretty colloquial and quite different to the definition given by linguists, who are essentially language scientists.
This might help you http://ielanguages.com/linguist.html

I have read many books on language, sounds like you have read a school textbook on "grammar", maybe take a class in linguistics or read a book on it or something. Most of the "rules" you learn in school are heuristics and are in most cases incorrect descriptions of English syntax.

I would recommend you read this book.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Language-Works-David-Crystal/dp/158333291X

It is by David Crystal. He is considered to be a leading world expert on English Language especially British English and it's evolution over time.

He also wrote this book

http://www.amazon.com/Txtng-The-Gr8-David-Crystal/dp/0199571333

Which argues that text speak does not have a negative impact on literacy. He has also written ~120 other books.

I've been writing on and off for the past 12 years, and I'm not sure I have even one piece worth sharing. I struggle with voice and syntax, like everyone.

You might find this style guide helpful. It's one of the better writer helpers I've come across.

I'd add The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century

I actually prefer it over Elements of Style...and the book's description explains why in a nice summary...

> Rethinking the usage guide for the twenty-first century, Pinker doesn’t carp about the decline of language or recycle pet peeves from the rule books of a century ago. Instead, he applies insights from the sciences of language and mind to the challenge of crafting clear, coherent, and stylish prose.

> In this short, cheerful, and eminently practical book, Pinker shows how writing depends on imagination, empathy, coherence, grammatical know how, and an ability to savor and reverse engineer the good prose of others. He replaces dogma about usage with reason and evidence, allowing writers and editors to apply the guidelines judiciously, rather than robotically, being mindful of what they are designed to accomplish.

--------------
Emphasis mine.

The books Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Guide to Better Writing and Woe Is I helped me learn the parts of speech. They both break things down pretty simply and are easy to follow. Both use lots of examples, which I found helpful!

Here are a few grammar books that are not only helpful but also very readable. Actually, a quick Amazon search brings up a lot of books, but these are the ones I recommend from firsthand experience:

Eats, Shoots and Leaves

Woe is I

Grammar Snobs are Great Big Meanies (<-- probably the most informal of the 3)

Paging Oakes.....we do a game/card night with a bunch of friends of our and all our kids. Little kids run around, adults drinks, it’s fun.....
Anyways they got this game below, basically a cards against humanity type game where you have to make up the best pun using random words. You would have dominated....


https://www.amazon.com/Punderdome-Card-Game-Pun-Lovers/dp/1101905654/ref=asc_df_1101905654/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=265963853955&hvpos=1o2&hvnetw=g&hvrand=12812607233657350643&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9014875&hvtargid=pla-565117638135&psc=1

For the sake of some differentiation on the list:

The Languages of Middle-Earth" for the Scifi leaning people or vaguely interested folks who enjoyed the movies. Tolkien was a language fiend and created some extensive lexicons, syntactic systems, and phonology for every language in his universe.

"In the Land of Invented Languages" All on manufactured languages and the weird people who make them. Klingon, Elvish, Esperanto, etc.

William S Burroughs "Electronic Revolution" (a bit occult, though) on the power of language as a transmittable virus

While I couldn't find a pdf of the book, I found a much cheaper (although still quite expensive) listing on Amazon. I don't understand why so many linguistically oriented books are priced this way. Why are you interested in this book, though? Perhaps there's another more reasonably priced option that would be helpful. Have you tried In the Land of Invented Languages? Both seem to cover a similar thrust.

Reminds me of Anguished English, first published in 1989, apparently, with a few sequels/related texts since. Some of the funniest stuff I've read. I highly recommend them.

*Yes, you are right. What do I need to do to improve it?

Here are several links to books that might be helpful:
Link 1
Link 2
Link 3

Aristotle's Poetics is where my literary criticism course started. You might also look at Longinus' On The Sublime and Burke's A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. If you want to get more specific on mechanics of pleasant writing that isn't so philosophically dense, you might look at Strunk & White's Elements of Style, Pinker's Sense of Style and my personal favorite, Stephen King's On Writing (The first half is biographical but the second part is an interesting commentary on the act of writing).

I love when people throw stuff out like this, never considering the vocabulary used may be for the listener, not the speaker. You're not really getting your point across by demonstrating how well you memorized Depraved and Insulting English.

Honestly, Language Myths covers most of this, and a decent amount of the book is available through the Amazon Preview here. At the very least, the myth names in the table of contents- "Myth 1: Languages should not be allowed to vary or change" are visible- and fairly straight forward.

I am sure there must be dictionaries or websites catering to readers of specific much-published authors. Such as Dickens, for example. These lists would only contain words no longer common today, as these are the only words that need explaining.

But there are a lot of books published that call themselves "dictionary" or "concordance", even though they do NOT contain any vocabulary! So beware what you buy!

I only found one book so far that really seems to concern itself with vocabulary (albeit not in an academical but in an entertaining manner): https://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Dickens-Distinctly-Dickensian-Words/dp/0762460776/

My mother got this for me last Christmas

http://www.amazon.com/Going-Hell-Hen-Basket-Malapropisms/dp/1250066271

It's a great book to just pick up and thumb through from time to time!

Thank you for these suggestions! I will certainly look into the book and the compiler you suggested. For a start i went ahead and got this

Woe Is I is a great one. I use it all the time when I'm preparing for class.

You can buy a recreation here. Not the same in terms of antique awesomeness, but better than nothing?

try this one - Woe is I https://www.amazon.com/Woe-Grammarphobes-Better-English-Fourth/dp/0525533052/ref=pd_sbs_14_2/133-7719946-2594542?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0525533052&pd_rd_r=1d9d49eb-52e6-4a5a-bfcc-c1e96a8dd8ba&pd_rd_w=U6nuO&pd_rd_wg=lGg0V&pf_rd_p=43281256-7633-49c8-b909-7ffd7d8cb21e&pf_rd_r=CQ4SVWEY5Q2BC31D2NPC&psc=1&refRID=CQ4SVWEY5Q2BC31D2NPC

​

I haven't read it but it looks like what you're looking for

I picked this one up from The Superior Person's Book of Words many years ago, along with postprandial (after-dinner) and napiform (turnip-shaped).

If you wish to write with sophistication, or with a plainspoken, bulleted style, there are books on that.

If you want something more general purpose, there is this

Ugh. This was funniest when I believed the lie. Way to be, tickld.com! Anyway, if you like the idea, check out Anguished English: An Anthology of Accidental Assualts Upon Our Language by Richard Lederer.

Have you seen this book of famous quotes attributed to you? Or this one about Reasons to Vote for you? How do you respond to such flattering published material?

Punderdome. You're welcome. :P

I recommend David Crystal's 'How Language Works'

https://www.amazon.com/How-Language-Works-Meaning-Languages/dp/158333291X

Oh God! Don't give them Language Files. Start them with Language Myths.

You should read this book, specifically chapter 20, entitled "Everyone Has An Accent Except Me".

xkcd's comic on standards is applicable here: https://xkcd.com/927/

You may be interested in this book, which among other things, describes a Esperanto meeting and the struggles that arise: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Land-Invented-Languages-Arika-Okrent/dp/0812980891

I'm quite sympathetic to the argument that the Rationalist community often behaves in worryingly irrational ways, extending in-group status to Neoreactionaries being a prime example...

But damn, son; go pick up a copy of Pinker's Sense of Style, or Strunk and White's The Elements of Style. Even a quick read through Scott's recent post on nonfiction writing will be of enormous benefit to you.

You vacillate wildly in tone between "snarky Youtube comment" and "dry, academic college essay", your paragraphs are bloated with cliches and banalities like "But if I might be so bold as to suggest" or "But there’s another angle that must be considered" (a quick read of some Orwell might cure you of this) and you resort to unimaginative insults like "vicious little shit" and "banal edgelords". Insults in general are usually a bad idea in an actual published work, but if you're gonna use them at least put a little creativity into them.


I've spent the last couple days in bed with a cold and I've been filling the hours by reading Reddit comments. An excerpt from an upcoming book should not be the worst prose I've seen in that time.

read this

Here’s the article the author keeps referring to

and here’s the book the article is about

There is a new book coming out that reformats the Elements of Style:

The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century by Steven Pinkner

http://www.amazon.com/Language-Myths-Laurie-Bauer/dp/0140260234

This uses little linguistic terminology, so I think it works as "entry level" material.

You're also completely misrepresenting grammar and language. Try looking into the field of linguistics. Here's a couple book suggestions for you. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0140260234 And http://www.amazon.com/The-Unfolding-Language-Evolutionary-Invention/dp/0805080120/ref=la_B001JOASIU_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1342795681&sr=1-2

I also had the same question, I just couldn't resist the temptation to catch you on your example. I want to take this chance to recommend Language Myths. It's accessible, easy to read, introduces the reader to a lot of basic sociolinguistic concepts, and also explains why you shouldn't be a prescriptivist asshole who thinks AAVE speakers are inherently less educated. I'm pretty sure the 'Southerners speak slow because it's hot' example is specifically addressed there.

Regarding the genesis of the gay accent, I also would like to know but I don't personally know of any such studies. Fortunately, questions of linguistics and sexuality have been recognized as important ones, and we'll probably start seeing a lot more material regarding this theme in the coming decades. Unfortunately, as an oppressed population, we may be hard-pressed to discover definite roots, since the older the speaker is, the more homophobic and repressive of a culture they lived in.

Or not. All of its advice is either vacuous or ignorant, and not even the authors follow their own arbitrary, petty, uninformed rules. Instead, read a guide by someone who actually knows what they're talking about.

Seems to be cribbed from a book called "Anguished English" that my middle school teachers read to me ~10 years ago. That book is almost certainly a fake, by the way. "Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100 foot clipper" is just a bit too coincidental, don'tcha think?

http://www.amazon.com/Anguished-English-Anthology-Accidental-Assaults/dp/044020352X

Yes, they're purportedly American essay excerpts, hence the importance of Lincoln's assassination.

>> It works like: "we as philosophers have decided that the term atheism means the belief there is no god". That was a wrong decision because it does not reflect the position that actual real wrold atheists hold.
>
> This is circular reasoning because it presupposes something that you're using the word 'atheist' for.

No it doesn't. The meaning of the word, as is the case for all other words, is determined by the way that people use it. If academics use a different definition for the same word they run the risk of ridicule because their conclusions will not relate to the real world.

> The group follows from the position, not the other way around.

It is the other way around in the real world. Usage in the real world gets to define language, not academics in ivory towers.

>> Just because they have been wrong for a long time

> Nobody was using the word any other way back then.

It has been used that way for a long, long time.

> What makes you think that you can just come up with a new definition and suddenly that's the correct one?

I didn't come up with it, real world usage has come up with it. That is the way language actually works.

How Language Works: How Babies Babble, Words Change Meaning, and Languages Live or Die

Language does not work by academics deciding on a meaning that nobody uses.