Thread: British English Grammar/Style Guide?

As a humble American, I know my mastery of the language gifted to me by good King George is suspect. To rectify this, I'm looking for a guide the King's English. (or is it the Queen's English, now? See!? This is what I'm talking about.)

Anyway, can any resident of that storied, muddy Isle recommend a well-respected, standard guide to British English as it might be used by writers, students etc.? Something akin to the Chicago Manual of Style or Strunk & White's for American English (though more accurate than the latter, I hope.)?

Many thanks!

Hmm, I don't know if it still exists but you might check out the Harbrace Manual. It is a college workbook and manual.

JimR,

I have found these to be excellent :

'A Dictionary of Modern English Usage' by Henry Watson Fowler.

'The Complete Plain Words' by Sir Ernest Gowers.

Have fun !

regards

Russ

Thanks gentlemen.

It looks like the Harbrace manual is out of print, and I do want something modern.
Russ, Fowler's looks like a fairly well regarded reference. Would you value that over the Oxford Style Manual?
"The Complete Plain Words" is apparently available free online!
The Complete Plain Words by Sir Ernest Gowers
Very nice...thank you!

If you still using an iPad, please take a look at the excellent apps in iTunes.
There are also historical books about English grammar (for less!).

To throw a spanner into the works. I was listening to an linguistics expert who made a fair point that language evolves both in vocabulary and grammar.

As such what can be considered as correct is open to debate and what is considered by most to be correct today may not have been correct a hundred years ago.

Using that model then incorrectness (that ought to be a real word!) can be defined as deviation from what is in general usage rather than what may be defined by the educationally or generically elite (aka aristocracy).

American English and British English are so intertwined that many Americanisms are more common than the original British version. For example the word schedule the British pronunciation is shed-yule while the American is sked-yule but at least half of the people I know in the UK use the American pronunciation.

In other words what ever you write will be acceptable to the majority of us and possibly more so than if you write in a way that is prescribed by an learned pedant.

Originally Posted by eTom

If you still using an iPad, please take a look at the excellent apps in iTunes.
There are also historical books about English grammar (for less!).

Tom, Any specific apps in mind? I'm in Japan, so there are literally hundreds of apps aimed at ESL learners, it's hard to browse through them all.
The historical books about English grammar are interesting, but I'm more interested in modern usage (I do some copyediting work and I need a reference for more than one variety of English.)

Jeltz, yes language evolves, and yes prescriptive grammars can be overly pedantic (thus my distaste for Strunk & White) but that doesn't mean that "anything goes." I'd rather be good, than just acceptable...and indeed, my standards of acceptable are likely to be somewhat pedantic in the eyes of many.

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Please take a look. I think some of the apps from the second link are also available for iPad
By my mind...the first link I'd favorize.

Tom, thank you for the links, I'll check them out.

You're welcome. I hope this links will help.