Thomas Pyles: Selected Essays on English Usage.

Octavo, blue cloth (hardcover), gilt letters, xiv + 223 pp. Fine (As New) in a Very Good dust jacket with light edgewear. From dust jacket: The twenty-one essays by Thomas Pyles in this collection bear witness to the vitality of the English language and to its integrity in the midst of great variety in use. Published over a 34-year period by this distinguished scholar of English language study and usage, many of these writings are otherwise not readily available. The selections are presented here for the benefit of laymen as well as students of the language in honor of their author, a master of English prose style, who, by his example, has set and continues to set a standard in matter and manner to which all linguistics should aspire. The essays are grouped under five topical headings: the pronunciation of Latin in England and America; currently fashionable forms of expression; unwitting indecorum in the use of taboo words; curiosities in the bestowal of names and titles; and popular versus scholarly views of language usage and change. Although diverse in subject matter, the essays present a consistent view of English usage and of the attitudes that English language set forth with the precision, craft, and style that Thomas Pyles's students and colleagues look forward to in all his work. Linguistics, Language, English, Essay.…