A veritable "tko of terminology," Better Than Great is the essential guide for describing the extraordinary -- the must-have reference for anyone wishing to rise above tired superlatives. Deft praise encourages others to feel as we do, share our enthusiasms. It rewards deserving objects of admiration. It persuades people to take certain actions. It sells things. Sadly, in this "age of awesome," our words and phrases of acclaim are exhausted, all but impotent. Even so, we find ourselves defaulting to such habitual choices as "good," "great," and "terrific," or stock synonyms that tumble out of a thesaurus--"superb," "marvelous," "outstanding," and the like. The piling on of intensifiers such as "totally" only makes matters worse, while negative modifiers ("incredible," "unreal") render our common parlance nearly tragic. Until now. Not to mince words, wunderkind of word-wonks Arthur Plotnik is proffering a well-knit wellspring of worthy and wondrous words to rescue our worn-down usage. Plotnik is both hella AND hecka up to the task of rescuing the English superlative, offering readers the chance never to be at a loss for words of praise and acclamation!
A funny and useful grammar book! There are many grammar and usage books that give advice on correct English. This isn't one of them. The Elements of Expression targets expressiveness as a goal apart from getting it technically right. Imagine the yawns a sportscaster would induce by announcing, "His bat struck the ball and the ball went into the stands," instead of "He took that ball downtown!" And why say, "I'd prefer it if you didn't volunteer your opinions," if what you really mean is "When I want your advice, I'll beat it out of you" (Chuck Norris, Code of Silence)? Written with uncommon wit and humor, The Elements of Expression offers writers, speakers, and self-improvers a fresh look at how they express (or fail to express) their thoughts and feelings. Plotnik supplies many engaging examples of adventurous language to show the tremendous power of words to describe and enliven human experience. For people who care about language and want to write or speak forcefully, effectively-in a word, expressively-this is the audiobook to turn on!
"[An] entertaining potpourri of thoughts about words...A helpful little compendium for writers and speaking wishing to brush up on their prose."--Publishers Weekly
