How Not to Write: The Essential Misrules of Grammar | 
| Author: William Safire
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy New: $7.89
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Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 87097
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 160
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 4.6 x 0.5
ISBN: 039332723X
Dewey Decimal Number: 428.00207
EAN: 9780393327236
ASIN: 039332723X
Publication Date: July 18, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new item. Over 3.5 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Order with confidence. Code: B20080718222140T
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Book Description
These fifty humorous misrules of grammar will open the eyes of writers of all levels to fine style. How Not to Write is a wickedly witty book about grammar, usage, and style. William Safire, the author of the New York Times Magazine column "On Language," homes in on the "essential misrules of grammar," those mistakes that call attention to the major rules and regulations of writing. He tells you the correct way to write and then tells you when it is all right to break the rules. In this lighthearted guide, he chooses the most common and perplexing concerns of writers new and old. Each mini-chapter starts by stating a misrule like "Don't use Capital letters without good REASON." Safire then follows up with solid and entertaining advice on language, grammar, and life. He covers a vast territory from capitalization, split infinitives (it turns out you can split one if done meaningfully), run-on sentences, and semi-colons to contractions, the double negative, dangling participles, and even onomatopoeia. Originally published under the title Fumblerules
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 Irritating, pedantic, but instructive August 12, 2006
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Relevant cliche: learn the rules, then break them.
If you can spare one to two hours, give this book a try. There are worse ways to spend that time.
I would not recommmend sticking to every "rule", though. I would have given this book two stars had it not been for, the at-times, creative and, at-times, funny ways the author presented his "essential misrules".
Having said the above, I have not come across a better book than William Zinsser's "On Writing Well" in this league.
 Loved it! June 5, 2006
This is a real jewel and I liked it better than Lynn Truss's book on grammar. It was funny, insightful and I learned several important things.
Safire has a masterful command of the English language, is concise and direct, and writes in a style that almost anyone can understand.
The only part that left me confused was when to use "if I was" and "if I were." I'm still not sure exactly what the difference is between those two and must confess that I'm one of those sloppy writers who uses "if I were" indiscriminately!
Great read and very humorous. Highly recommended. Sentence fragments notwithstanding, I found a great deal of important info in this book.
Sigrid Macdonald
Author and Editor
A Fun Way to Learn 'When, Where, Why, How, Who.' January 17, 2006
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
This instruction guide to good writing was entertaining, as meant to be, but not exactly up-to-date on today's styles. Words have changed; styles of writing have changed; people have changed. Grammar has been my 'thing' since high school and I still tend to write in the old-fashioned way using which instead of that, and I notice that older people who are educated do the same thing.
Outdated slang is as foreign to me as Latin, as I have never been into slang, nor have I tried the pedagogical technique. It appears that he had a similar rule book about fifteen years ago, so perhaps this is a bit outdated. He gives the most common mistakes of writers. What about the most common mistakes in grammar when speaking? If people write the way they talk, we really would need an instruction booklet for reference.
Each of the fifty sections used a 'misrule' (sort of a moral of the story for grammar): A Do Not Do This concerning capitals, contractions, prepositions, dangling participles, sentence fragments, double negatives, split infinitives, and onomatopoeia (zap!). My English professor husband used to love to throw that word at me, as he did 'inimitably' Safire didn't mention misspellings. He did go on about colloquialisms, cliches and euphemisms but that's way in the past.
He tells his correct way to write and when it's okay to break his rules. We have a 'grammar expert' who does a short column in the Sunday newspaper who worked as a law clerk. How, I'd like to know, does that make him a grammar guru? He was never an English teacher, and I don't agree with his rule that you can never use enough, or too many, 'thats' -- he's wrong, so I quit looking at his stuff. Only uneducated people use 'that' when they could substitute something clearer like 'who' for people. People are not supposed to be 'thats.' But, that's my pet peeve. He reminds us that it takes a complete thought (noun and verb) to make a sentence; the noun can be omitted when the subject is implied.
A good rule of thumb is to write succinctly and in language which anyone can understand. If you use the big words you might find only in a dictionary, no one will listen, or read your work. I'm sure he has a good column on language in the New York paper, but I have not seen it. I did, however, enjoy playing around with this little book. Grammar can be fun!
Fun romp through the thornier parts of grammar November 27, 2005
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
William Safire, of course, is a master of the English language. In "How Not To Write," Safire attempts in a humorous way to lead the reader through the thornier thickets of grammar. To a large extent he succeeds, demonstrating proper and improper grammar throug humorous example.
A worthwhile addition to the library of anyone who writes. The only problem I see is trying to remember all the rules when you really need them . . . like when you're writing.
Jerry
How to Write More Books. October 8, 2005
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
First-rate little book filled with erudition, wit and deep respect for good writing. The author knows how to make every word and punctuation mark count. Highly recommend to anyone who cares about writing. This book, HOW NOT TO WRITE, is, however, a re-issue of Mr. Safire's 1990 book FUMBLERULES. Both are equally good, because they are the same book. I purchased Fumblerules used here on Amazon for a tiny price. Buy the new one here, too. You'll be glad to have either version.
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