Author:Harry Blamires
This book has a simple thesis: to write well you need to think clearly about what you want to say.Blamires brings the reader's common sense into play to illustrate how by thinking through what you want to say and how you say it, you can communicate both effectively and elegantly. There are a lot of contemporary examples from magazines, books, advertising material and the like to illustrate both good and bad English.
The Scots tongue, like most of the world's minority languages, is under pressure and Billy Kay in this excellent and cogent survey draws together the strands of our concern
—— Daily ExpressKay is the best writer on his own language I have read since Burchfield on English; his book should be put in schools, for it is capably seditious
—— The HeraldMoving, delightful, even inspiring
—— Edinburgh ReviewIt is not the kind of dry academic tome so cherished by linguistic nitpickers, but a bright, radical examination of the language which is at the heart of our existence
—— Aberdeen Press and JournalA fresh and invigorating overview of a fascinating subject
—— Stirling ObserverWell written . . . provocative
—— The New York TimesAttuned to pop culture as well as to scholarship, Abley proves a deft social anthropologist
—— The Daily Telegraph