Okay, this is kind of sad, but it bears recording...
Every six months, a voucher arrives in the mail from Reader's Feast, to the value of 10% of the total amount I spent there over the preceding six-month period. I always try to put it towards a luxury - something that I couldn't normally justify buying (or, at any rate, buying new, as opposed to secondhand) but the owning of which would make me happy.
That's not the sad bit.
The sad bit is that this year my luxury was a copy of the latest edition of Fowler's, a guide (well, really the guide) to the correct usage of the English language, arranged alphabetically by word, phrase or fragment (prefix, suffix, etc) in pithy dictionary (though sometimes quite discursive and even, in places, notably opinionated) style. I first became aware of Fowler's during my time on the Review, and particularly while I was editing, when it was frequently used to settle disputes, and it was recalled to my mind the other day by a conversation in the office about why the correct phrase was "two-year sentence" and not "two-years sentence" or "two-years' sentence". Words, expression and language have always been important to me, but I've never been much of a grammarian (being of the cast of thought which much prefers descriptive to prescriptive grammar) or, for the most part, a real stickler for correct usage; still, I am happy to have a copy of Fowler's to hand, and it's the sort of reference book that I could well end up reading - with varying degrees of attention - basically cover to cover.
