Color fading on book jacket spine Foxing on book ledge Greenwich House 1983, 211 pages The Dictionary of Do's and Don'ts is an indispensable companion for writers, students, speakers, editors, teachers, and all who care about saying what they mean and meaning what they say. Enjoyable to read and instructive to browse through, it is a sophisticated guide to the conquest of jargon, clumsy locutions, tired words and phrases, and hackneyed cliches. This zesty work on good and bad usage is a needed corrective to the misuse and abuse of language. It includes hundreds of examples of the faddish and the too familiar, and offers wise and often witty counsel on how to use the English language with freshness, vigor, clarity, and confidence. Entries include Back Formations, Barnyard Metaphors, Crackerbarrel Terms, Drone Words, Dumbstruck Expressions, Fossil Phrases, Null Sounds, Toy Words, Tranquilizer Cliches. The book is fully indexed for ready reference. This book is meant to help every user of the English language to achieve a clear, uncluttered style. It carries two complementary appeals, one negative and one positive: do not encumber the natural grace of English with the uninspired expressions that encrust the speech and writing of the lazy and the ignorant; and try to make every sentence a fresh arrangement of words, free of faddish whimsy, mannerisms, inexact or worn-out metaphors, and the overworked locutions known as cliches.