Write It Right

Ambrose Bierce

• 09 juli 2020
• 1230004032700

Samenvatting:

Several hundred of Bierce's pet peeves. Bierce's list includes some distinctions still familiar today. The which-that rule, less vs. fewer, lie and lay – but it also abounds in now-forgotten shibboleths: Ovation, the critics of his time agreed, meant a Roman triumph, not a round of applause. Reliable was an ill-formed coinage, not for the discriminating. Donate was pretentious, jeopardize should be jeopard, demean meant "comport oneself," not "belittle." And Bierce made up a few peeves of his own for good measure. We should say "a coating of paint," he instructed, not "a coat."