Troublesome Words

Description

A fresh new look for Bill Bryson's indispensable word companion What is the difference between mean and median, blatant and flagrant, flout and flaunt? Is it whodunnit or whodunit? Do you know? Are you sure? With Troublesome Words, journalist and bestselling travel-writer Bill Bryson gives us a clear, concise and entertaining guide to the problems of English usage and spelling that has been an indispensable companion to those who work with the written word for over twenty years. So if you want to discover whether you should care about split infinitives, are cursed with an uncontrollable outbreak of commas or were wondering if that newsreader was right to say 'an historic day', this superb book is the place to find out.

Bill Bryson is the bestselling author of books such as Notes from a Small Island, which in a national poll was voted the book that best represents Britain, and A Short History of Nearly Everything, which won the Royal Society's Aventis Prize as well as the Descartes Prize. His most recent books are At Home: a Short History of Private Life, and One Summer: America 1927. He lives in Norfolk.

'Combines the virtues of a first class work of reference with the pleasure of a good read' The Times