Garner’s Modern American Usage
Posted by: Rebecca Vnuk
Does correct English usage matter anymore? There’s plenty of evidence that no one cares, but for those of us who do, there’s the third edition of Bryan Garner’s Garner’s Modern American Usage. When Garner’s was first published in 1998 it quickly became a standard guide, and the new edition continues to man the barricades against assaults on good grammar, word choice, and punctuation. If you’re not sure when comprise is correct, or you cringe when you hear impact used as a verb, or you’re bemused by the use of momentarily for in a moment (as in “ Thank you for your patience; the train will be moving momentarily,” which I often hear during my commute), Garner will provide both answers and support. New to this edition is a “Language Change Index” which measures five stages of change, from the emergence of a new form to general acceptance. The use of momentarily for in a moment is now at stage four, meaning “the form becomes virtually universal but is opposed on cogent grounds by a few linguistic stalwarts.” The use of impact as a verb is now at stage 3 (“the form becomes commonplace even among many well-educated people but is still avoided in careful usage”), despite Garner’s admonition to “reserve impact for noun uses and impacted for wisdom teeth.” Also at stage 3 is the misuse of comprise, although Garner provides a simple rule: “The parts compose the whole, the whole comprises the parts.”
