> Skip to content
  • Published: 3 August 2015
  • ISBN: 9780099558460
  • Imprint: Windmill Books
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 400
  • RRP: $37.99

Simply English

An A-Z of Avoidable Errors




The author of the best-selling Strictly English wages war on bad English

In his best-selling Strictly English Simon Heffer explained how to write and speak our language well. In Simply English he offers an entertaining and supremely useful A–Z guide to frequent errors, common misunderstandings and stylistic howlers. What is the difference between amend and emend, between imply and infer, and between uninterested and disinterested? When should one put owing to rather than due to? Why should the temptation to write actually, basically or at this moment in time always be strenuously resisted? How does one use an apostrophe correctly, ensure that one understands what alibi really means, and avoid the perils of the double negative?

With articles on everything from punctuation to tabloid English to adverbs and adjectives, Simply English is the essential companion for anyone who cares about the language and wants to use it correctly.

  • Published: 3 August 2015
  • ISBN: 9780099558460
  • Imprint: Windmill Books
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 400
  • RRP: $37.99

About the author

Simon Heffer

Simon Heffer was born in 1960. He read English at Cambridge and took a PhD in modern history at that university. His previous books include: Moral Desperado: A Life of Thomas Carlyle, Like the Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell, Power and Place: The Political Consequences of King Edward VII, Nor Shall My Sword: The Reinvention of England, Vaughan Williams, Strictly English, A Short History of Power, Simply English and High Minds: The Victorians and the Birth of Modern Britain. In a thirty-year career in Fleet Street, he has held senior editorial positions on The Daily Telegraph and The Spectator, and is now a columnist for The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph.

Also by Simon Heffer

See all

Praise for Simply English

It’s a bracing read. Heffer takes no linguistic prisoners. This is a useful, well-constructed and often absorbing book.

Spectator

Simply English is much more readable than a reference book has a right to be ... basically Simply English is rather good.

Observer

Advice that will change for ever the way you use certain words.

New Statesman

Easy to use and terribly hard to put down ... Essential.

The Field

Fascinating ... a trove of riveting facts.

Daily Mail