Bryan A. Garner

Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: wring.

Bryan A. Garner / By
wring. Part A: Inflection: “wring/wrung/wrung.” The past-tense and past-participial forms of “wring” (= to squeeze or twist) are sometimes erroneously written “rung” — e.g.: “Cathy Turner had to guard the gold medal around her neck closely last night. If she wasn’t careful, someone might have rung [read ‘wrung’] her neck with it.” Mary Kay Cabot, …

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Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: wreak.

Bryan A. Garner / By
wreak. Part A: Inflection “wreak/wreaked/wreaked.” The past tense is not “wrought,” which is the archaic past tense and past participle of “work.” Part B: Pronunciation. “Wreak” is pronounced /reek/ — not /rek/. Part C. “Wreak havoc.” The phrase “wreak havoc” (= to bring about difficulty, confusion, or chaos) is the established American English idiom. (In …

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Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: Miscellaneous Entries.

Bryan A. Garner / By
Miscellaneous Entries. wry makes the comparative “wrier” and the superlative “wriest” in American English, “wryer” and “wryest” in British English. But in both, the kindred adverb is “wryly.” xebec (= a type of three-masted ship once common in the Mediterranean) is the standard spelling. *”Zebec” and *”zebeck” are variants. x-ed; *x’d; *x’ed; *xed. As the …

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Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: wrangle; wangle.

Bryan A. Garner / By
wrangle; wangle. The two are occasionally confounded. “Wrangle” = to argue noisily or angrily. “Wangle” = (1) v.t., to accomplish or obtain in a clever way; (2) v.t., to manage (a thing) despite difficulties; or (3) v.i., to use indirect methods to accomplish some end. E.g.: o “He has aptly demonstrated his advertising acumen by …

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Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: wrack; rack, vb.

Bryan A. Garner, LawProse Lessons / By
wrack; rack, vb. “Wrack” = to destroy utterly; to wreck. “Rack” = to torture or oppress. “Wrack” is also, and primarily, a noun meaning (1) “wreckage”; or (2) “utter destruction.” The set phrases are “to rack one’s brains” and “wrack and ruin.” The root meaning of “brain-racking” refers to stretching, hence to torture by stretching. …

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Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: wouldn’t be surprised.

Bryan A. Garner, LawProse Lessons / By
wouldn’t be surprised. Generally, a negative shouldn’t appear after this phrase. That is, “I wouldn’t be surprised if Ratliff has retired” means that I think Ratliff has retired; “I wouldn’t be surprised if Ratliff hasn’t retired” means, literally, that I suspect Ratliff is still working. But many people use the double-negative form, which is especially …

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Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: would have liked.

Bryan A. Garner / By
would have liked. This phrase should invariably be followed by a present-tense infinitive — hence “would have liked to go,” “would have liked to read,” not *”would have liked to have gone,” *”would have liked to have read.” The erroneous phrasings are very common — e.g.: o “One would have liked to have been [read …

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Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: Miscellaneous Entries.

Bryan A. Garner / By
Miscellaneous Entries. would. Writers often use “would” to condition statements that really ought to be straightforward — e.g.: “I would submit to you [read ‘submit to you’] that very few presentations end with the audience saying, ‘Well, that presenter really beat our brains out. He thrashed us good and proper.’” Ron Hoff, “I Can See …

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Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: worse comes to worst; worst comes to worst.

Bryan A. Garner / By
worse comes to worst; worst comes to worst. The traditional idiom, evidenced in the Oxford English Dictionary consistently from the 16th century, is “worst comes to (the) worst” (= [if] things turn out as badly as possible). But the more modern and more logical idiom, “worse comes to worst” — with its progression from comparative …

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LawProse Lesson #173: “On behalf of” and “in behalf of”

Bryan A. Garner, LawProse Lessons / By
On behalf of and in behalf of. On behalf of stalwart stylists everywhere, I write in behalf of maintaining the traditional distinction between these phrases. Careful writers distinguish between them. To act or speak in behalf of someone is to independently promote that person’s interest, praise, or defense—or to act on one’s own for that …

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Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: worse; worst; *worser.

Bryan A. Garner / By
worse; worst; *worser. Writers seldom have trouble with the adjectives “bad/worse/worst.” But sometimes they yield to temptation with a little harmless wordplay — e.g.: o “He beat his supposed betters, and worsers, clearly if not handily, taking the lead at the top of the homestretch and holding off by a length a rush by the …

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Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: Miscellaneous Entries.

Bryan A. Garner / By
Miscellaneous Entries. worrisome; worrying, adj. In American English, something that provokes worry is “worrisome,” but in British English it’s “worrying” — e.g.: “Most worrying for the Conservatives, the MORI poll shows Labour making more rapid gains among middle class and southern voters — key groups who have been solid Conservative supporters since 1979 and whom …

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Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: World Wide Web.

Bryan A. Garner / By
World Wide Web. As a proper noun, “World Wide Web” is capitalized when written out in full and when shortened to “the Web.” When combined into compound form, though, it is usually lowercase {website}. Because “the Web” is just one protocol (way of exchanging information) on the Internet — separate from mail and news protocols, …

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LawProse Lesson #172: What’s new in the third edition of “The Winning Brief”?

Bryan A. Garner, LawProse Lessons / By
What’s new in the third edition of The Winning Brief?Answer: Hot off the presses, the 775-page third edition contains nine new sections. This new material includes tips on understanding judges’ reading habits, answering opponents’ arguments, writing effective reply briefs, using authorities persuasively, and organizing arguments based on statutes and contracts. The book also contains what …

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