Words: A User's Guide

Words: A User's Guide is an accessible and invaluable reference that is ideal for students, business people and advanced learners of English. The book is structured in groups of words that may be confused because they sound alike, look alike or seem to have similar meanings, and this approach makes it much more intuitive and easy to use than a dictionary._x005F_x000D_ Contrasting over 5000 words (such as habitable and inhabitable, precipitation and rainfall, reigns and reins), Words: a User’s Guide provides examples of usage adapted from large national databases of contemporary English, and illustrates each headword in typical contexts and phrases._x005F_x000D_ This book gives you straightforward answers, and helps with pronunciation, spelling, style and levels of formality. For those working internationally it presents international standards and compares usage in Britain and the USA. Words: A User’s Guide is an excellent resource for anyone who wants to communicate well in written and spoken English.  _x005F_x000D_ "At last! A book about the use of words that clarifies and de-mystifies in an eminently usable way.  I would recommend it to anyone who wants to write well. It is a book to keep."_x005F_x000D_ Sandy Gilkes, Head of the Centre for Academic Practice, University of Northampton_x005F_x000D_ "Rigorous, fresh, intriguing and downright useful, it deserves a place on every properly stocked reference shelf."  _x005F_x000D_ Brian Cathcart, Professor of Journalism, Kingston University _x005F_x000D_ "From the pedantic to the permissive, everyone who’s interested in the English language and the way we speak and write it will want a copy of this practical, entertaining book."_x005F_x000D_ Wynford Hicks_x005F_x000D_ (author of Quite Literally and The Basics of English Usage)