| Fowler's Modern English Usage |
| Definition:
Written by Henry Watson Fowler as a follow-up to his The King's English (1906), when this guide to British-English usage was published in 1926, it set the standard for all subsequent books of this type.
Note: The Robert Burchfield edited third edition (1996) — The New Fowler's Modern English Usage — is a complete rewrite based on a very different set of principles. Fowler was an Über-prescriptivist. Burchfield is more of a descriptivist. For this reason, the First and Third editions are two very different books. |
| Example:
(from the second edition): "and/or. The ugly device of writing x and/or y to save the trouble of writing x or y or both of them is common and convenient in some kinds of official, legal, and business documents, but should not be allowed outside them." |