The Complete Plain Words by Sir Ernest Gowers

The Complete
Plain Words

This is a copy of the book The Complete Plain Words as authored by Sir Ernest Gowers.

The book serves as a style guide and a guide to writing simple, "proper" English. Originally written at the behest of the Treasury, The Complete Plain Words has been in print since its original publication in 1954.

This work is in the public domain as of 2016.

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1: Prologue

Chapter 2: A Digression on Legal English

Chapter 3: The Elements

Chapter 4: Correctness

Chapter 5: Introductory

Chapter 6: Avoiding the Superfluous Word

Chapter 7: Choosing the Familiar Word

Chapter 8: Choosing the Precise Word

Chapter 9: The Handling of Words

Chapter 10: Punctuation

Chapter 11: Epilogue