Kate Wild, one of our contributors, has kindly lent us two copies of her usage guides:
- anon., A Dictionary of Daily Blunders. London: Whittaker & Co (1880)
- anon. Many Mistakes Mended. New York: N. Tibbals & Sons (1886).
The first of this is of particular interest because the author writes in his introduction that his book represents “‘a novel attempt’ to arrange errors alphabetically, in contrast to the way they are dispersed throughout grammars (Anon 1880:6)” (Wild 2010:276). He may well be right in this.
Reference:
Wild, Catherine (2010). Attitudes towards English Usage in the Late Moden Period: the Case of Phrasal Verbs. PhD thesis University of Glasgow.
Bridging the Unbridgeable 