Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words: A Writer's Guide to Getting It Right

By David Crane

One of the English language's most skilled and beloved writers guides us all towards precise, mistake-free usage.

In the middle 1980s Bill Bryson was a copy editor for the London Times with the brash idea that he could fill a hole in the British book market for a concise, accessible, handy guide to proper usage. A complete unknown, he nonetheless sold Penguin Books on the idea, and the result was The Penguin Dictionary of Troublesome Words, which sold decently enough on both sides of the Atlantic.

Now, fifteen years later, Bill Bryson has become, well, Bill Bryson -- and his terrifically useful little book has been revised, updated and Americanized to become Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words. Precise, prescriptive, sometimes (like its author) amusingly prickly, this book belongs on the desk of every person who cares enough about our language not to maul or misuse or distort it. Move over, Strunk and White.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: May 7, 2013
• ISBN: 9780385679961

David Crane

David Crane's first book, ‘Lord Byron’s Jackal’ was published to great acclaim in 1998, and his second, ‘The Kindness of Sisters’ published in 2002, is a groundbreaking work of romantic biography. In 2005 the highly acclaimed 'Scott of the Antarctic' was published, followed by ‘Men of War’, a collection of 19th Century naval biographies, in 2009. His ‘Empires of the Dead’ was shortlisted for the 2013 Samuel Johnson Prize. He lives in north-west Scotland.

Reviews for Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words

[marthajeanne · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Some of this is useful as a reference. Most of it is boring as reading material. It feels like his personal notes on words that bother him, sometimes because he mixes them up, sometimes because others do.Now and again Bryson shows that he doesn't know German. Baron Munchhausen is known to most German-speakers (legend), not 'almost exclusively in medical circles'. Luxembourg is the French form of the name, Luxemburg the German (not anglicized). Both languages are official in the country that calls itself Groussherzogtum Lëtzebuerg in its own language. Little failures like these in research make me question his other statements.This refers to the 2015 edition.

[literateowl_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fabulous book for writing starters or just dipping into word meanings and origins and literary connections.

[theoclarke · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Quirky, informative guide to common errors in written English. I found it a useful and enjoyable read but I have never consulted it as a reference book.

[soylentgreen23 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

There are a lot of books available for those of us worried about making mistakes in our English. Kingsley Amis, I believed, wrote one, and so too Fowler, whose "Modern English Usage" forms the basis for Bryson's guide to some of the more difficult and irksome - or commonly mistaken - aspects of English today.

[oreillynsf_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A great resource for readers and writers, Bryson dissects common and not so common writing mistakes and clearly explains the correct way to address them. Not lost is Bryson's patented sense of humor, either. ;-)

[harrod_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's Bryson-what's not to love.

[petesmyth · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Before finding fame as a travel writer with The Lost Continent and Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson had been a sub-editor at the Times struggling with the nuances of the English language. What is the difference between flouting and flaunting; what exactly does it mean to imply and to infer; can one use the word either in reference to more than two alternatives? Unable to find a single, concise guide to which he could refer to for such ‘troublesome words’, Bryson contacted Penguin and offered to write one himself.Troublesome Words, the 2001 revised and updated edition of Bryson’s original 1984 book (The Penguin Dictionary of Troublesome Words), is an A – Z guide to words and phrases commonly misused in print. Drawing from more than 40 respected works on linguistics, Bryson provides advice and suggestions to everyday grammatical problems and helpfully illustrates them with real-life examples of misuse. He explains that culminate, for example, “does not signify any result or outcome, but rather one marking a high point” and cites an a news clipping from The Times which reads “The company’s financial troubles culminated in the resignation of the chairman last June”. The example highlights Bryson’s lesson. A series of financial gains could culminate in the chairman receiving a bonus but financial troubles do not culminate in a resignation. Helpfully, he not only warns against words that are used incorrectly, but also those which are often used redundantly, such as basically; a word which in most contexts “is basically unnecessary, as here.”Unfortunately, the somewhat narrow breadth of the guide does betray its (and Bryson’s) Fleet Street origins. Almost every example of misuse hails from newspaper pieces and, furthermore, usually from the business pages. So Bryson provides the correct spelling for the name of the household products company, Procter & Gamble but no guide to using, for example, the word breadth, as appears at the top of this paragraph (incorrectly as it happens, the phrase used should be “narrow scope”). As such, one can’t help but feel the dictionary would be improved by a slight shift in emphasis toward the general writer.These are minor gripes though, and Bryson is both a thoughtful and entertaining guide. Without bloating the book he peppers his definitions with etymology, anecdotes and, where appropriate, his trademark dry humour. He tells us, for example, that “the belief that and should not be used to begin a sentence is without foundation. And that’s all there is to it”; and that “barbecue is the only acceptable spelling in serious writing. Any journalist or other formal user of English who believes that the word is spelled barbeque or, worse still, bar-b-q is not ready for unsupervised employment’. As such, Troublesome Words is one of those rare things: a reference work which can be dipped into time and again yet remains a joy when read cover-to-cover.