Amateur and pro golfers alike have long been stymied by the legalistic and opaque wording in the United States Golf Association’s official Rules of Golf. In this guide, an experienced volunteer USGA rules official and an expert on language and usage--both of them avid golfers--have translated the Rules into everyday English to help players understand procedures, assess penalties, and settle disputes as the sport’s governing body intended. This edition includes updates throughout to reflect changes introduced into the USGA’s Rules in 2016.

"The cry for the simplification of the Rules of Golf is a stock-in-trade of the journalist during the winter months. Countless words on the subject have been poured out to an ever-tolerant public, but still the long-sought simplification does not come."—Henry Longhurst, 1937 The hopes of renowned writer and golfer Henry Longhurst—and millions of golfers before and after him—have finally been realized. In The Rules of Golf in Plain English, Bryan A. Garner, American English language and usage expert, and Jeffrey S. Kuhn, volunteer USGA rules official, have translated the knotty Rules with the encouragement and permission of the United States Golf Association. The result is a modern, readable version that offers, for the first time, clear guidance to both amateurs and professionals. Based on a 338-word set of thirteen rules written in 1744, the official Rules have grown, over two and a half centuries, to 40,000 words. Numerous contributors and a complex revision process have rendered these Rules so opaque and stylistically inconsistent that a companion volume—the 600-page Decisions on the Rules of Golf—has been published to help golfers navigate them. Both lawyers and avid golfers, Kuhn and Garner recognized the difficulties that the language of the Rules of Golf created, especially in a sport that expects players to call penalties on themselves. By reworking the Rules line by line, word by word, they have produced an accessible resource that no golfer—from the duffer to the pro—should be without.

"The cry for the simplification of the Rules of Golf is a stock-in-trade of the journalist during the winter months. Countless words on the subject have been poured out to an ever-tolerant public, but still the long-sought simplification does not come."—Henry Longhurst, 1937 The hopes of renowned writer and golfer Henry Longhurst—and millions of golfers before and after him—have finally been realized. In The Rules of Golf in Plain English, Bryan A. Garner, American English language and usage expert, and Jeffrey S. Kuhn, volunteer USGA rules official, have translated the knotty Rules with the encouragement and permission of the United States Golf Association. The result is a modern, readable version that offers, for the first time, clear guidance to both amateurs and professionals. Based on a 338-word set of thirteen rules written in 1744, the official Rules have grown, over two and a half centuries, to 40,000 words. Numerous contributors and a complex revision process have rendered these Rules so opaque and stylistically inconsistent that a companion volume—the 600-page Decisions on the Rules of Golf—has been published to help golfers navigate them. Both lawyers and avid golfers, Kuhn and Garner recognized the difficulties that the language of the Rules of Golf created, especially in a sport that expects players to call penalties on themselves. By reworking the Rules line by line, word by word, they have produced an accessible resource that no golfer—from the duffer to the pro—should be without.

Offers a complete reworking and updating of the Rules of Golf--which, through numerous contributors and revisions since 1744, had become difficult to read and stylistically inconsistent--into a modern, readable version. Original.

With more than a thousand new entries and more than 2,300 word-frequency ratios, the magisterial fourth edition of this book-now renamed Garner's Modern English Usage (GMEU)-reflects usage lexicography at its finest. Garner explains the nuances of grammar and vocabulary with thoroughness, finesse, and wit. He discourages whatever is slovenly, pretentious, or pedantic. GMEU is the liveliest and most compulsively readable reference work for writers of our time. It delights while providing instruction on skillful, persuasive, and vivid writing. Garner liberates English from two extremes: both from the hidebound "purists" who mistakenly believe that split infinitives and sentence-ending prepositions are malfeasances and from the linguistic relativists who believe that whatever people say or write must necessarily be accepted. The judgments here are backed up not just by a lifetime of study but also by an empirical grounding in the largest linguistic corpus ever available. In this fourth edition, Garner has made extensive use of corpus linguistics to include ratios of standard terms as compared against variants in modern print sources. No other resource provides as comprehensive, reliable, and empirical a guide to current English usage. For all concerned with writing and editing, GMEU will prove invaluable as a desk reference. Garner illustrates with actual examples, cited with chapter and verse, all the linguistic blunders that modern writers and speakers are prone to, whether in word choice, syntax, phrasing, punctuation, or pronunciation. No matter how knowledgeable you may already be, you're sure to learn from every single page of this book.

The authority on grammar, usage, and style.