Bill Brohaugh is the former editor of Writer’s Digest magazine and the former editorial director of Writer’s Digest Books. He is the author of Unfortunate English and Professional Etiquette for Writers, and is the director of English through the Ages.
I don’t know how else to tell you THIS...
“If you love language and the unvarnished truth, you’ll love Everything You Know About English Is Wrong. You’ll have fun because his lively, comedic, skeptical voice will speak to you from the pages of his word-bethumped book.”
— Richard Ledcrer, author o (Anguished English, Get Thee to a Punnery, and Word Wizard
N ow that you know, it’s time to, well, bite the mother tongue. Bill Brohaugh, former editor of Writer’s Digest, will be your tour guide on this delightful journey through the English language. Tackling words, letters, grammar, and rules, no sacred cow remains untipped as Brohaugh reveals such fascinating and irreverent shockers as:
• If you figuratively climb the walls, you are agitated/frustrated/crazy.
If you literally climb the walls, you are Spider-Man.
• The word “queue” is the poster child of an English spelling rule so dominant we’ll call it a dominatrix rule: “1/ must follow Q! Slave!”
• So much of our vocabulary comes from the classical languages— clearly, Greece, and not Grease, is the word, is the word, is the word.
• Emoticons: Unpleasant punctuational predictions.
This book guarantees you’ll never look at the English language the same way again— if you write, read, or speak it, it just ain’t possible to live without this tell- all guide. (“Ain’t,” incidentally, is not a bad word.)
“Better plotted than a glossary, more riveting than a thesaurus, more filmable than a Harry Potter index—and that’s just Brohaugh’s footsnorts... I mean, feetsnotes...um feetsneets?...good gravy I’m glad I’m just a cartoonist.”
— John Caldwell, one of Mad magazine’s Usual Gang of Idiots
Bill Brohaugh is the former editor of Writer's Digest magazine and the former editorial
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