WHAT IS THE good of books on “proper English?” If you felt self-conscious about the way you spoke in the late nineteenth century, you might throw yourself on the mercy of Oliver Bell Bunce’s guide, from 1883, to good English. Its title, Don’t, is menacingly negative, but at least it promises some definitive rules. “Don’t say lady when you mean wife,” Bunce counsels. “Don’t fail to exercise tact”; “Don’t speak ungrammatically.” The last two examples are curiously roundabout and non-specific, but Henry Hitchings finds them “pernicious.” Writing like Bunce’s, he says, reinforces the unhelpful belief that “the avoidance of mistakes is more important than the achievement of excellence.”
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