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Style guides and dictionaries The following short items are found here:
New Oxford changes the rules The New Oxford Dictionary of English
is out, and already the pedants are in a snit. In particular, the new book admits that the "rule" about split infinitives (such as "to boldly go") is "not well founded."
In fact, as we point out in our own book, The dictionary also permits the
use of "they" as a generic singular pronoun, as in, "Ask a friend if they can help." New words in Oxford
· "beard": female escort for a gay man who helps him hide his homosexuality · "eye candy": images that are beautiful but not intellectually demanding
· "face time": time spent in personal contact, especially at work · "onside": in agreement · "repmobile": company car, especially a midrange sedan CP spells properly In another step forward for Canadian spelling, Canadian Press has finally decided that color is properly spelled colour. Previously, it had argued that the -our spellings were an affectation that originated with Samuel Johnson, who wanted English words to be more like their French antecedents. (And we can understand this &ldots; last week we talked about the split infinitive myth and its origin in a similar Latin affectation.) Gage adapts -our Government editors have always been frustrated by the fact that Gage, while the dictionary of record for the government, doesn't account for the government preference for colour over color, a ruling laid down by order-in-council by none other than John A. Macdonald himself. Happily, the new Gage reverses this, and the new Citizen is also spelling the -our words correctly. Let's hope this trend finds favour with the Globe. A buyer's guide to Canada's new dictionaries Canadian spelling is different, but most dictionaries miss the nuances, even those claiming to be Canadian. (Not to mention MS Word, but that's a
whole other rant...) But three new Canadian dictionaries are competing for your attention: the Gage Canadian Dictionary, the ITP Nelson Canadian Dictionary of the English Language and
The Canadian Oxford Dictionary. A Globe and Mail review, by Gale Garnett, called the Nelson the Holt Renfrew of Canadian dictionaries, likening Gage to Canadian Tire. The comparison is apt. The Nelson has
about 10 per cent more entries, and includes biographical and encyclopaedia-style entries, especially Canadian ones. It also has more illustrations and some black and white photographs, plus appendices on Canadian folk
sayings, Canadian history and Canadian government. The Gage is less expensive, has simpler definitions and is more cleanly laid out, with larger type and thicker paper. The Gage, with its expurgation of offensive
words, is probably best for home use, with the Nelson more suitable to office use. The Gage is also not adapted from a US dictionary, although adaptation doesn't appear to have diminished the Nelson. The Oxford
entry came much later, but then, its five full-time lexicographers found 2,000 Canadian entries to include among the 130,000 in the book. There is also an extensive, albeit erratic, list of biographical and geographical
entries, so the dictionary is also something of an atlas and encyclopedia. It also includes vulgarities. Simply on the basis of reputation and rigour, we'd recommend Oxford, with Nelson a close second.
For more Canadianism, check out our The new Fowler's Ask any editor for the name of the most
venerated authority on proper use of language, and Henry Fowler's name will almost certainly place high on the list. His name comes up five times in our own new book, Write Better, Right Now and Fowler's Modern English Usage is an undisputed classic. So
when R.W. Burchfield took over the helm for a new edition, he was treading sacred territory. Bravely, he jettisoned much of the stuffiness that has accrued to Fowler's 60-year-old edition. Fussy nitpickers were
outraged to read that it is no longer a grave sin to confuse "mutual" with "common," nor "comprise" with "compose." But language changes, and Fowler's 1926 original, with its
weird objection to words like "coastal," was in danger of becoming utterly out of date. Ironically, reviewers have forgotten that Fowler himself punctured out-of-date grammar "rules," such as the
delusion that infinitives cannot be split (as in to boldly go) or that sentences cannot end with a preposition (such as of, out or with).
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