Five Hundred Mistakes of Daily Occurrence in Speaking, Pronouncing, and Writing the English Language, Corrected

This book is offered to the public, not to be classed with elaborate or learned works, nor expected, like some of its more pretending companions among the offspring of the press, to run the gauntlet of literary criticism. It was prepared to meet the wants of persons—numbered by multitudes in even the most intelligent and refined communities—who, from deficiency of education or carelessness of manner, are in the habit of misusing many of the most common words of the English language, distorting its grammatical forms, destroying its beauty, and corrupting its purity. The most thorough mode that could be adopted to correct such errors would be to impart to the ignorant a practical knowledge of the principles of language, as embodied in treatises on grammar.

Still, such good work, however desirable its results, has, in the past, been too difficult for the promoters of education to complete and is still too great to give promise of speedy accomplishment. A better practical, bearing immediate fruits, has been adopted in the present volume, which, while it does not aim to produce a radical reform, cannot fail to render excellent service to those who need to improve their usual modes of expression and to be more discriminating in their choice of words. The more frequent and less excusable mistakes that may be noticed in ordinary conversation or correspondence are here taken up, one by one—exposed, explained, and corrected. They consist of abuses of grammar, misapplications of words and phrases, improprieties of metaphor and comparison, misstatements of meaning, and pronunciation faults.