- "What is the good usage of words? What is good English? Who is to be the judge?"
- "Why is one word good and another word cheap?"
- There is no clear answer, as the usage has no fixed boundaries.
- "Language is a fabric that changes from one week to another, adding new strands and dropping old ones.
- The 'Usage Panel" of The American Heritage Dictionary took stand that they were not pedants, so hung up on correctness that they did not want the language to keep refreshing itself with phrases like "hung up". But that did not mean they had accepted every atrocity that comes stumbling in.
- To try to separate usage from jargon is one helpful approach for the good usage. For example, "prioritize" sounds more important than "rank", but it is a jargon. To use "rank" instead of "prioritize" is the good usage.
- Writers need short and vivid words. Good English separates from technical English when writer selects such words.
- "Good usage, to me, consists of good words if they already exist - as they almost always do - to express myself clearly and simply to someone else."
These are my summary notes on 'Usage' from a book "On Writing Well" written by William Zinsser.
