Power Language: Getting the Most out of Your Words (The Essential Guide to Better Wrting & Stronger Speaking)

Provides a detailed guide to better writing and speaking, illuminating the principles of concise and effective word usage, sharing memorable examples, and offering tips on selecting words, using rhetoric, gender-sensitive language, and more.

As syndicated columnist of "Our Language" from 1989 to 1994 and current research associate for William Safire's New York Times column "On Language," McQuain is highly qualified to write a book about using words and phrasing in the best way possible to make oneself understood. In a wonderful, witty style that keeps his message from being preachy, he offers entertaining examples from Dr. Seuss to Chaucer and from everyday signage to illustrate his points. His guidelines for using power language in both speaking and writing appear in chapters on logical words, editing, syntax, and coinages. A great addition to any library collection; highly recommended.?Lisa J. Cihlar, Winfield P. L., Ill.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

An acolyte of and assistant to diction dictator William Safire, McQuain emulates his mentor and smites words weary and words worthless--in other words, he euthanatizes the terminologically inexact. Attacking the ilk of human resources and downsize, McQuain's crusade for clarity imperils the obfuscating euphemism or grammar gone gonzo. But like the knights of medieval Christendom, won't his conquests of style prove ephemeral, mirages of success that dissipate in the heat of modernity's syntactic incoherence? To such a trespass of logorrhea as above, McQuain echoes Thoreau's wisdom: "Simplify, simplify." To operationalize that (which McQuain might twice ticket for use of a vague verb and the "suffocating suffix," -ize), the author deploys the tools--direct, concrete meanings--followed by examples of the result: more powerful language. His diction is as muscular as his advice. Not only copy editors should plug in; any who lean on old nags like ya know or on new uselessisms like outsourcing will be able to make themselves perfectly clear. Gilbert Taylor