The Basics of English Usage

Should I say "He is taller than I" or "He is taller than me?"

Do you spell it "blond" or "blonde"?

If you?ve ever been stopped in your tracks by questions like these, then this book is for you. A complete pocket guide to the ins and outs of everyday English, The Basics of English Usage will tell you all you need to know about such topics as:

• correct spelling
• good grammar and style
• punctuation and how to use it
• problem words that everyone gets wrong.

Including guides to further reading and online resources, The Basics of English Usage is an indispensable survival guide for anyone wanting to improve their writing and communication.

1 Introduction -- 2 Spelling -- Words people get wrong -- Confusions -- I before e -- Plurals -- Suffixes -- American spelling -- Program/programme -- Spelling of French words -- 2 Grammar and style -- 3 Problem words -- 4 Punctuation -- Accents, accent marks, diacritics -- Apostrophe -- Asterisk, star -- Bold -- Brackets, round, square, angle, brace -- Bullet point, blob -- Capitals, caps, upper case -- Caret -- Colon -- Comma -- Dagger, obelisk -- Dash -- Ditto marks -- Dots, ellipsis, leader dots -- Exclamation mark, screamer, shriek -- Full stop, full point, period -- Hash -- Hyphen -- Italics -- Numbers, fractions, dates -- Paragraph break -- Question mark, query -- Quote marks, quotes, inverted commas -- Semicolon -- Slash, bar, diagonal, oblique, shilling mark, solidus, stroke, virgule -- Underlining -- Further reading.