By GARLAND GREEVER

and

JOSEPH M. BACHELOR




TO

DANA H. FERRIN

WHOM THIS BOOK OWES MORE
THAN A MERE DEDICATION CAN ACKNOWLEDGE




PREFACE

You should know at the outset what this book does _not_ attempt to
do. It does not, save to the extent that its own special purpose requires,
concern itself with the many and intricate problems of grammar, rhetoric,
spelling, punctuation, and the like; or clarify the thousands of
individual difficulties regarding correct usage. All these matters are
important. Concise treatment of them may be found in THE CENTURY HANDBOOK
OF WRITING and THE CENTURY DESK BOOK OF GOOD ENGLISH, both of which
manuals are issued by the present publishers. But this volume confines