Plain English is an essential tool for effective communication. Information transmitted in letters, documents, reports, contracts, and forms is clearer and more understandable when presented in straightforward terms. The Oxford Guide to Plain English provides authoritative guidance on how towrite plain English using easy-to-follow guidelines which cover straightforward language, sentence length, active and passive verbs, punctuation, grammar, planning, and good organization.This handy guide will be invaluable to writers of all levels. It provides essential guidelines that will allow readers to develop their writing style, grammar, and punctuation. The book also offers help in understanding official jargon and legalese giving the plain English alternatives.This guide gives hundreds of real examples and shows 'before and after' versions of texts of different kinds which will help readers to look critically at their own writing. Helpfully organized into 21 short chapters, each covering a different aspect of writing. Clearly laid out, and easy to use,the Oxford Guide to Plain English is the best guide to writing clear and helpful documents.

This book, written by a team of experts from many countries, provides a comprehensive account of the ways in which translation has brought the major literature of the world into English-speaking culture. Part I discusses theoretical issues and gives an overview of the history of translation into English. Part II, the bulk of the work, arranged by language of origin, offers critical discussions, with bibliographies, of the translation history of specific texts (e.g. the Koran, the Kalevala), authors (e.g. Lucretius, Dostoevsky), genres (e.g. Chinese poetry, twentieth-century Italian prose) and national literatures (e.g. Hungarian, Afrikaans).

The Oxford Guide to English Grammar is a systematic account of grammatical forms and the way they are used in modern standard English. It is designed for learners at intermediate and advanced levels and for teachers, and is equally suitable for quick reference to details or for the more leisured study of grammatical topics. The emphasis is on meaning in the choice of grammatical pattern, and on the use of patterns in texts and in conversations.

Have you ever had doubts about when to hyphenate two words? Confused over whether you should disassociate or dissociate yourself from something? Do you know when to spell doggie as doggy? Is it really a rule that a preposition should never fall at the end of a sentence? Now there is a single convenient source you can turn to with all your questions about how to speak and write more clearly: The Oxford Guide to English Usage, now available in a completely revised New Edition.In The Oxford Guide to English Usage Andrew Delahunty and Edmund Weiner (co-editor of the twenty-volume revised Oxford English Dictionary) provide succinct, practical advice on problems that writers struggle with every day. Designed for daily use, this marvelous handbook is organized according to basic themes (Word Formation, Pronunciation, Vocabulary, Grammar, Punctuation) and written to address the actual needs of a typical writer. Under "Word Formation," for instance, the authors offer helpful guidance on suffixes (drop the final silent e when adding -able), those troublesome hyphens, variations between British and American spelling, and why the prefix in- appears in some words and un- in others. The book's approach is consistently straightforward and practical. On the split infinitive, for example, the authors write that it should generally be avoided, but not to the extent that awkward, contorted sentences are the result. And they have this to say about prepositions: "It is a natural feature of the English language that many sentences and clauses end with a preposition, and has been since the earliest times. The alleged rule that forbids [it] should be disregarded." They also offer help on many other matters of grammar, punctuation, and pronunciation (with a thorough guide to differences in American and British usage). Along the way, the Oxford Guide to English Usage offers numerous examples from renowned writers that demonstrate proper usage--or how rules can be broken to good effect. For instance, after describing when the prefix un- should be used, the book offers this coinage by Anthony Burgess: "Joyce's arithmetic is solid and unnonsensical."In the decade since The Oxford Guide to English Usage first appeared, it has emerged as a well-thumbed favorite of students and writers everywhere. This New Edition has been completely revised to keep abreast of our rapidly changing language, featuring 20% more material, along with the wry, practical advice that has made this book a classic.

The Oxford Guide to World English takes up where its 'mother book', the Oxford Companion to the English Language, left off. Organized by continent, there are chapters on Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Australasia, Oceania, and Antarctica. Tom McArthur covers the world's many varieties of English in an interconnected way and notes the ties that bind varieties and regions that are geographically far apart, as with: West African English and African American English; Scots, Ulster Scots, the Scotch-Irish migrations to Appalachia in the US, and country and western music; and aspects of Australian, New Zealand, South African, and Falklands English as southern-hemisphere varieties. The end result is a book that, while invaluable to the specialist, is accessible and appealing to the non-specialist, and covers a vast spread of 'Englishes' from Brummie, Cockney, Estuary, and RP in the UK to New York and New Orleans speech in the US and such other varieties as Indian English, Maori English, and West African Pidgin. This hugely comprehensive work provides a fascinating and novel survey of English as both a pre-eminent 'standard' world language and a family of vigorously diverse regional varieties.