Better English. By G. H. Vallins. (Pan *, Books. 2s.)
MR. VALLINS'S book is a sequel to his Good English: How to Write It, and follows the same plan, with numerous examples of how not to write taken from the most respected Sunday newspapers and intellectual weeklies, and from the works of " well-known writers." There are chapters on structure and idiom, metaphor, economy true and false, spelling, punctuation and (most enter- taining of all) on the turgid and the turbid. The chapter on punctuation, especially, is a timely call to order. Mr. Vallins observes that common to much prose as well as verse being written today is " the use of re- petitive stammer." A purely grammatical approach to contemporary writing such as this is most illuminating, and much can be deduced from it. Usage changes slowly, and Fowler is already a little out of date.
P. H.
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