The Perfect Edit Use The Right Words Sound Smart

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ensure or insure or assure? farther or further? their or there? eminent or imminent? then or than? bring or take? proscribe or prescribe? accept or except? adverse or averse? rational or rationale? penultimate or ultimate? statute or statue? extant or extent? your or you're? advice or advise? principal or principle? stationary or stationery? capitol or capital? moral or morale? parameter or perimeter? respectfully or respectably or respectively? complement or compliment? administer or administrate? affect or effect? apprise or appraise? continual or continuous? envelop or envelope? illicit or elicit? prognosis or diagnosis? libel or slander? intimate or imitate or intimidate? persecute or prosecute? ordinance or ordnance? it's or its? former or latter? biannual or biennial? disinterested or uninterested? discrete or discreet? amount or number? home or hone?

First and foremost, we must recommend one of our favorite authors: Richard Lederer, author of Anguished English and The Miracle of Language, among many others.

Here is a link to his published works and more information about him.

How to Sound Smart, by Norah Vincent and Chad Conway, includes many words of foreign origin, figures of speech, and even historically important references that have found their way into English (or at least highbrow English!). It includes some familiar terms as noblesse oblige and non sequitur, and less frequently encountered gems as antediluvian (“Before the Flood”) and hoi polloi (which actually meant the opposite of what it has come to represent). So in Greek, hoi polloi meant masses of common people.

The Superior Person’s Book of Words, by Peter Bowler, is much of the same. Here we find treasures such as dactylogram (fingerprint) and tatterdemalion (ragamuffin).

Deadly Doses: A Writer's Guide to Poisons, by Serita Deborah Stevens, R.N., B.S.N., is a truly unique book, especially if you're an aspiring mystery or detective writer. This is the book to have if you want to be sure you don't use the wrong poison to kill the butler!

Junk English, by Ken Smith, can almost be considered a reference book, as it primarily advises against how not to speak English. The author rants about cheapened words, abstract adjectives, strung-together nouns, and more.

Finally, here are a few other books that might be appreciated:

Chasing the Sun: Dictionary Makers and the Dictionaries They Made, Jonathon Green

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of The Oxford English Dictionary, Simon Winchester

When Is a Pig a Hog? A Guide to Confoundingly Related English Words, Bernice Randall

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