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Word Court: Wherein Verbal Virtue Is Rewarded, Crimes Against the Language Are Punished, and Poetic Justice Is Done
By the author of the Atlantic Monthly's highly popular column "Word Court," the most engaging grammar guide of our time, with all the authority of Strunk and White and all the fun of Woe Is I .
The "Judge Judy of Grammar" was born when the Atlantic Monthly's Barbara Wallraff began answering grammar questions on America Online. This vibrant exchange became the magazine's bimonthly "Word Court," and eventually the bestselling hardcover book, Word Court.
In Word Court, Wallraff moves beyond her column to tackle common and uncommon items, establishing rules for such issues as turns of phrase, slang, name usage, punctuation, and newly coined vocabulary. With true wit, she deliberates and decides on the right path for lovers of language, ranging from classic questions-Is "a historical" or "an historical" correct?-to awkward issues-How long does someone have to be dead before we should all stop calling her "the late"? Should you use "like" or "as"-and when?
The result is a warmly humorous, reassuring, and brilliantly perceptive tour of how and why we speak the way we do.
The "Judge Judy of Grammar" was born when the Atlantic Monthly's Barbara Wallraff began answering grammar questions on America Online. This vibrant exchange became the magazine's bimonthly "Word Court," and eventually the bestselling hardcover book, Word Court.
In Word Court, Wallraff moves beyond her column to tackle common and uncommon items, establishing rules for such issues as turns of phrase, slang, name usage, punctuation, and newly coined vocabulary. With true wit, she deliberates and decides on the right path for lovers of language, ranging from classic questions-Is "a historical" or "an historical" correct?-to awkward issues-How long does someone have to be dead before we should all stop calling her "the late"? Should you use "like" or "as"-and when?
The result is a warmly humorous, reassuring, and brilliantly perceptive tour of how and why we speak the way we do.
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
August 5, 2016
Every few years I like to read a few books about words and grammar. I don't mean the usage manuals intended for copy-editors, but books like Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog: The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences. My current batch comprised four books, three very short, one of which was earnest, and this, which was both long and earnest.
Thank goodness it was easy to read! Much of the credit for that, though, goes to the readers of *Atlantic Monthly* for submitting such wonderful letters full of ideas for Wallraff's consideration. As I flip through the book, I estimate that almost half of it is other folks' words. (And no, Barbara, 'folks' is not corny, and is absolutely the preferable word for a server to use at a restaurant, instead of the awful 'guys.')
I do note that Wallraff and her readers are of a certain demographic, and I think it matters. Those who work for and/or read *Atlantic Monthly* are likely to notice different usages, and to care about different problems, than the rest of us. I'm not sure I learned anything from the book, to be honest. Some corrections seemed new to me but I didn't understand them, or won't remember them, and others raised my hackles. But I did insert some bookdarts; let's see where:
Might want to read The New Englishes about recently evolved languages based on the British influence in its former colonies.
A contributor offered, "If this were a logical world, women would straddle a horse and men would ride sidesaddle."
Another contributor notes that plural/singular confusion often arises in sentences such as '"This is one of the men who truly owns and operates our system"--actual quote, and dead wrong. Start with the *of*: "Of the men who truly own and operate our system, this is *one*."... Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying you have to stick with a construction that starts with 'of.' I am simply asking you to try it out....'
Walraff does give me something I've wanted for a long time: "[A] person who persuades you induces you to act, whereas one who convinces you changes your opinion. Thus convince to is incongruous."
It is *not* 'to the manor born' because it is from Shakespeare's *Hamlet*:
_But to my mind, though I am native here
_And to the manner born,--it is a custom
_More honoured in the breach than the observance.
A contributor, a "managerial-level deputy sheriff" pleads that: prisoners who are trusted to have jobs are certainly not to be referred to as 'trustees.' They are trusty prisoners; one is a trusty, and trusty is pluralized to trusties.
I might want to read The Trouble With Being Born.
Well. I confess: I did look into the book several times to guide my writing. So, yes, it's a useful book. And it has lots of entertaining tidbits for 'word-nerds' like me. But there were questions I had that she did not answer, too. So, ok, three stars, no recommendation yeah or nay.
Thank goodness it was easy to read! Much of the credit for that, though, goes to the readers of *Atlantic Monthly* for submitting such wonderful letters full of ideas for Wallraff's consideration. As I flip through the book, I estimate that almost half of it is other folks' words. (And no, Barbara, 'folks' is not corny, and is absolutely the preferable word for a server to use at a restaurant, instead of the awful 'guys.')
I do note that Wallraff and her readers are of a certain demographic, and I think it matters. Those who work for and/or read *Atlantic Monthly* are likely to notice different usages, and to care about different problems, than the rest of us. I'm not sure I learned anything from the book, to be honest. Some corrections seemed new to me but I didn't understand them, or won't remember them, and others raised my hackles. But I did insert some bookdarts; let's see where:
Might want to read The New Englishes about recently evolved languages based on the British influence in its former colonies.
A contributor offered, "If this were a logical world, women would straddle a horse and men would ride sidesaddle."
Another contributor notes that plural/singular confusion often arises in sentences such as '"This is one of the men who truly owns and operates our system"--actual quote, and dead wrong. Start with the *of*: "Of the men who truly own and operate our system, this is *one*."... Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying you have to stick with a construction that starts with 'of.' I am simply asking you to try it out....'
Walraff does give me something I've wanted for a long time: "[A] person who persuades you induces you to act, whereas one who convinces you changes your opinion. Thus convince to is incongruous."
It is *not* 'to the manor born' because it is from Shakespeare's *Hamlet*:
_But to my mind, though I am native here
_And to the manner born,--it is a custom
_More honoured in the breach than the observance.
A contributor, a "managerial-level deputy sheriff" pleads that: prisoners who are trusted to have jobs are certainly not to be referred to as 'trustees.' They are trusty prisoners; one is a trusty, and trusty is pluralized to trusties.
I might want to read The Trouble With Being Born.
Well. I confess: I did look into the book several times to guide my writing. So, yes, it's a useful book. And it has lots of entertaining tidbits for 'word-nerds' like me. But there were questions I had that she did not answer, too. So, ok, three stars, no recommendation yeah or nay.
July 2, 2009
A marvelous antidote to this year's horrible flu. Nothing more enjoyable than being incapacitated in bed with a laugh outloud book about grammar. And reading between the lines of the intro notes asking Barbara to settle 20,30, 50 year old battles about picyune punctuation. I wanted to highly recommend a hilarious section; sorry cannot find it now or was I hallucinating, laughing away at even the questioning of "When there is a problem or a mess, I ask, 'Who is irresponsible for this.' This sense of the word is not in The Shorter Oxford Dictionary."
It seemed so funny with a temperature. Still, even well, the book is excellent.
It seemed so funny with a temperature. Still, even well, the book is excellent.
November 8, 2016
The best of the last few I read! Interesting and useful.
September 2, 2019
fun, Fun and MORE FUN!
This is the kind of grammar/usage book that one can sink his fangs into with pure appetite and eat until bloated. Personally I devoured the whole thing in a setting and a half. Judge Barbara, like TV's Judge Judy, can come down on the foolish and the guilty with the sort of gusto that makes one want to stand up and clap hands. For example on page 135 she lectures one of her misguided correspondents: "I have hundreds of years of tradition and literature behind me... And behind you are...children?" Alternatively, she can dismiss the pretentious or deluded with a smooth satirical word or two, as on page 53 where we find a correspondent unhappy with the meaning of the phrase "French bath." "The phrase...always meant to me covering body odor with perfume...[but] the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang reads, An erotic act consisting of extensive licking of the partner's body. [Paragraph break] I would like my version to become more accepted." Wallraff responds, "I didn't know what to say to that. Finally I wrote back: [Paragraph break] Bonne chance!"
Her Fowler-like humor aside, what's great about Judge Barbara is that while authoritative and incisive and usually right--or at least in agreement with my prejudices--she is sometimes woefully "wrong, Wrong, WRONG!" (to quote one of her letter writers). For example her idea that informal English, as distinguished from standard English, ought to be labeled "house English" since that is the way we speak around the house, is curiously amiss. (Better yet how about "house arrest" for the good Judge for such an uncouth "improvement"?) Or the fact that she doesn't "get" in her discussion of "I could care less" on pages 61-62 that the seemingly illogical phrase is in fact IRONIC. (Sorry for the loud caps, but Amazon.com's editor isn't capable of italics, which is a shame, particularly in the present instance.)
All of this keeps us interested. Wallraff is neither a pedant nor a permissive. She wants to "do what we can to ensure that...[the language] changes as slowly as possible" (p. 10). And she wants to do it with humor, as on page 102 where she notes that the sentence, "Time flies when you're having fun," could be a command! Wonderfully she does not explain this; but for those in a hurry here's a hint: use a stop watch. However she is NOT like the French word police who, due to their irrational fear of creeping "franglais," will go to great lengths to protect their language from neologisms and foreign intrusions. Wallraff, for example, does something her mentors, Fowler, Strunk and White, Bernstein, et al., never could do. She consults the Internet for instances of usage! On page 72 she reports about browsing Web sites to see how people are formulating the term, "Health Care," with or without a hyphen, one word or two?
Now a confession: I'm a semi-careful writer, more interested in being incisive than in being pristinely correct. I don't always make a proper distinction between "shall" and "will," (pp. 249-250) and I habitually say "hopefully" when I mean "I hope" or "it is hoped." (pp. 119-120) and I care not a whit whether my infinitives are split or not (pp. 98-100). I used to confuse "which" and "that" but have recently seen the grammatical light (pp. 112-117). My pet peeves include pretentious and PC jargon such as the overuse of "paradigm" when "construct," "body of knowledge" or simply "idea" is meant; or the "woman as victim" use of "empowering" as, after a feminist fringe group meeting in which men are trashed about, it is heard, "That was so empowering!"
To my ears, however, the singular, most annoying usage faux pas is the ungrammatical "between you and I." I would like to observe as an addendum to a reader's discussion on pages 133-134 that "between you and I" is often misused NOT by educated people but by people who unconsciously feel that "I" is somehow grander than "me," especially when THEY are speaking. They may be more educated than the disadvantaged; some may even have attended Yale; but they are usually poorly read and more interested in appearance than substance.
Wallraff mentions the considerable and controversial distinction made between Webster's Second and Third Internationals, and recalls some very fine word experts and usage mavens en route, but curiously does not mention Dwight MacDonald, who wrote a wonderful critique and comparison of those editions that surely Judge Barbara must have read. Also not mentioned are Bergen and Cornelia Evans, authors of the still-influential A Dictionary of Contemporary American Usage (1957).
To close I should like to recall that while reading Wallraff's discussion of what to call a freshman in this age of PC gender usage, a Neil Simon-like scene came to mind: A darling young thing bounces into her English prof's office and announces her vote: "I'm a freshperson!" To which the professor sagely nods, "Indeed you are."
--Dennis Littrell, author of “Novels and Other Fictions”
This is the kind of grammar/usage book that one can sink his fangs into with pure appetite and eat until bloated. Personally I devoured the whole thing in a setting and a half. Judge Barbara, like TV's Judge Judy, can come down on the foolish and the guilty with the sort of gusto that makes one want to stand up and clap hands. For example on page 135 she lectures one of her misguided correspondents: "I have hundreds of years of tradition and literature behind me... And behind you are...children?" Alternatively, she can dismiss the pretentious or deluded with a smooth satirical word or two, as on page 53 where we find a correspondent unhappy with the meaning of the phrase "French bath." "The phrase...always meant to me covering body odor with perfume...[but] the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang reads, An erotic act consisting of extensive licking of the partner's body. [Paragraph break] I would like my version to become more accepted." Wallraff responds, "I didn't know what to say to that. Finally I wrote back: [Paragraph break] Bonne chance!"
Her Fowler-like humor aside, what's great about Judge Barbara is that while authoritative and incisive and usually right--or at least in agreement with my prejudices--she is sometimes woefully "wrong, Wrong, WRONG!" (to quote one of her letter writers). For example her idea that informal English, as distinguished from standard English, ought to be labeled "house English" since that is the way we speak around the house, is curiously amiss. (Better yet how about "house arrest" for the good Judge for such an uncouth "improvement"?) Or the fact that she doesn't "get" in her discussion of "I could care less" on pages 61-62 that the seemingly illogical phrase is in fact IRONIC. (Sorry for the loud caps, but Amazon.com's editor isn't capable of italics, which is a shame, particularly in the present instance.)
All of this keeps us interested. Wallraff is neither a pedant nor a permissive. She wants to "do what we can to ensure that...[the language] changes as slowly as possible" (p. 10). And she wants to do it with humor, as on page 102 where she notes that the sentence, "Time flies when you're having fun," could be a command! Wonderfully she does not explain this; but for those in a hurry here's a hint: use a stop watch. However she is NOT like the French word police who, due to their irrational fear of creeping "franglais," will go to great lengths to protect their language from neologisms and foreign intrusions. Wallraff, for example, does something her mentors, Fowler, Strunk and White, Bernstein, et al., never could do. She consults the Internet for instances of usage! On page 72 she reports about browsing Web sites to see how people are formulating the term, "Health Care," with or without a hyphen, one word or two?
Now a confession: I'm a semi-careful writer, more interested in being incisive than in being pristinely correct. I don't always make a proper distinction between "shall" and "will," (pp. 249-250) and I habitually say "hopefully" when I mean "I hope" or "it is hoped." (pp. 119-120) and I care not a whit whether my infinitives are split or not (pp. 98-100). I used to confuse "which" and "that" but have recently seen the grammatical light (pp. 112-117). My pet peeves include pretentious and PC jargon such as the overuse of "paradigm" when "construct," "body of knowledge" or simply "idea" is meant; or the "woman as victim" use of "empowering" as, after a feminist fringe group meeting in which men are trashed about, it is heard, "That was so empowering!"
To my ears, however, the singular, most annoying usage faux pas is the ungrammatical "between you and I." I would like to observe as an addendum to a reader's discussion on pages 133-134 that "between you and I" is often misused NOT by educated people but by people who unconsciously feel that "I" is somehow grander than "me," especially when THEY are speaking. They may be more educated than the disadvantaged; some may even have attended Yale; but they are usually poorly read and more interested in appearance than substance.
Wallraff mentions the considerable and controversial distinction made between Webster's Second and Third Internationals, and recalls some very fine word experts and usage mavens en route, but curiously does not mention Dwight MacDonald, who wrote a wonderful critique and comparison of those editions that surely Judge Barbara must have read. Also not mentioned are Bergen and Cornelia Evans, authors of the still-influential A Dictionary of Contemporary American Usage (1957).
To close I should like to recall that while reading Wallraff's discussion of what to call a freshman in this age of PC gender usage, a Neil Simon-like scene came to mind: A darling young thing bounces into her English prof's office and announces her vote: "I'm a freshperson!" To which the professor sagely nods, "Indeed you are."
--Dennis Littrell, author of “Novels and Other Fictions”
April 19, 2016
Wallraff has a healthy view concerning the rigors of grammar in opposition to the mutability of language. She is the author of a column in the Atlantic Magazine where people write in with language questions and she answers. The book cites many of the letters and answers in the issues Wallraff opines on.
As mentioned above, Wallraff has a good handle on the issues. Those who write in, however, lived down to my expectations of Atlantic readers: snobbish pseuds who confuse slavish devotion to grammar as a sign of great intelligence.
As mentioned above, Wallraff has a good handle on the issues. Those who write in, however, lived down to my expectations of Atlantic readers: snobbish pseuds who confuse slavish devotion to grammar as a sign of great intelligence.
June 11, 2013
An editor of The Atlantic who also writes the "Word Court" column holds forth on style and grammar. Readable, entertaining, and helpful.
July 24, 2022
Is learning to communicate more effectively something that’s important to you? If so, this book might be really helpful to you. It isn’t one of those esoteric guides about the history of every word you’ve ever known, and it isn’t some elaborate framework of grammar that is hard to understand. Goal of this book is to help you communicate effectively and clearly, and it has a lot of tips and tricks for navigating the thorny word choices we have today, including that of gender language. As an editor, the author of this book has had to help writers find ways around some of our unusual words and grammar, and she offers help that is practical, something you can use when writing your very next sentence. I especially appreciate her balance between adhering to classical grammar and words structure, and on the other hand, allowing new words to enter the language, so that our language grows and expands as time goes by.
September 16, 2020
It's a bunch of excerpts from pretentious people who can't resist calling you out if you use an incorrect word or the incorrect syntax, arguing with people who ask the general English-speaking public to adjust our language to be less male-centered and more inclusive, arguing with people who refuse to do so because they could care less about other people, arguing with people who are just speaking English and don't care for "proper" grammar.
Is it fun? A little. Would I read it again? No. Did I learn something? Only after reading a bunch of bullshit sent to Wallraff, written by people who will never agree with one another.
I've given up on subjects like if we should use "he" as the default when describing all people- there are traditionalists who will cut off your hands if you use "they," and there's new generations of speakers and writers who demands for inclusion in language and will never let the traditionalists hear the end of it. English will evolve and I don't understand why people are so resistant to it- and this book flaunts the dozens of people who refuse to say things like "fax" or think the combination of "chair" and "person" to "chairperson" as opposed to "chairman" is an affront to the gods. Our words and our writing express who we are, and they will forever be a product of the time we said or wrote them. And while there is no way to avoid that, do yourself a favor and avoid this book.
Is it fun? A little. Would I read it again? No. Did I learn something? Only after reading a bunch of bullshit sent to Wallraff, written by people who will never agree with one another.
I've given up on subjects like if we should use "he" as the default when describing all people- there are traditionalists who will cut off your hands if you use "they," and there's new generations of speakers and writers who demands for inclusion in language and will never let the traditionalists hear the end of it. English will evolve and I don't understand why people are so resistant to it- and this book flaunts the dozens of people who refuse to say things like "fax" or think the combination of "chair" and "person" to "chairperson" as opposed to "chairman" is an affront to the gods. Our words and our writing express who we are, and they will forever be a product of the time we said or wrote them. And while there is no way to avoid that, do yourself a favor and avoid this book.
September 3, 2025
Even though the book was written in 2000, and the examples are dated, the grammar rules are priceless.
December 19, 2016
Word Court is based on a regular column of the same name which appeared in the Atlantic. The first half concerns the author's responses to various questions about grammar and the second half is an alphabetically ordered collection of words and how they are best employed.
I'm not entirely sure who this book would appeal to. It's not a refresher course on uses of the subjunctive, but it's also not really aimed at the fluent. Maybe it would be good for an adept but insecure writer.
I learned quite a bit from the book. For one thing, people get very excited about how words are used. Excited enough to write letters and everything. Secondly, I learned that, in general, how you regard certain modern turns of phrase depends entirely upon the year you graduated high school. People are not good with the idea of a language that changes over time. The author is good at advising tolerance, even as she tries to point out that grammar matters. At least if you want to be clearly understood.
I'm not entirely sure who this book would appeal to. It's not a refresher course on uses of the subjunctive, but it's also not really aimed at the fluent. Maybe it would be good for an adept but insecure writer.
I learned quite a bit from the book. For one thing, people get very excited about how words are used. Excited enough to write letters and everything. Secondly, I learned that, in general, how you regard certain modern turns of phrase depends entirely upon the year you graduated high school. People are not good with the idea of a language that changes over time. The author is good at advising tolerance, even as she tries to point out that grammar matters. At least if you want to be clearly understood.
September 6, 2011
I really rather liked the format of the book, but I was hoping for a bit of a different book. Rather than grouping rules together, it's more of an index where you can look up idyoms, and common mistakes... that being said, I enjoyed the tone, and the writing. One I would consider purchasing as a reference.
March 26, 2008
Believe it or not - this is absolutely entertaining! I loved it!
September 17, 2012
I'm glad there are people in this world to collect and assemble this information so I don't. It is a valuable and even entertaining book but I don't want to read the sequel should one come out!!
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews