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Ambrose Bierce's Write it right : the celebrated cynic's language peeves deciphered, appraised, and annotated for 21st-century readers by Ambrose Bierce & Jan Freeman [Bierce, Ambrose & Freeman, Jan] is a reference work available to read on EtoBox.

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<p><P><b>One of America&#8217;s foremost language experts presents an annotated edition of A mbrose Bierce&#8217;s classic catalog of correct speech. <P></b><P>Ambrose Bierce is best known for <i>The Devil's Dictionary</i>, but the prolific journalist, satirist, and fabulist was also a usage maven. In 1909, he published several hundred of his pet peeves in <i>Write It Right&#58; A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults.</i><P>Bierce's list includes some distinctions still familiar today&#151;the <i>which-that</i> rule, <i>less</i> vs. <i>fewer</i>, <i>lie</i> and <i>lay &#151; </i>but it also abounds in now-forgotten shibboleths&#58; <i>Ovation</i>, the critics of his time agreed, meant a Roman triumph, not a round of applause. <i>Reliable</i> was an ill-formed coinage, not for the discriminating. <i>Donate</i> was pretentious, <i>jeopardize</i> should be <i>jeopard</i>, <i>demean</i> meant "comport oneself," not "belittle." And Bierce made up a few peeves of his own for good measure. We should say "a coating of paint," he instructed, not "a coat." <P>To mark the 100th anniversary of <i>Write It Right</i>, language columnist Jan Freeman has investigated where Bierce's rules and taboos

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Author
Ambrose Bierce & Jan Freeman [Bierce, Ambrose & Freeman, Jan]
Publisher
Walker Books
Published
1909
Language
EN
ISBN
9780802717689
Category
reference
Subjects
Language Learning, Literary Fiction, Reference
Rating
3.77 / 5 (50 ratings)
Updated
2026-03-14

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