English in the Real World

First, let’s be clear about what “usage” means. It isn’t grammar, though the two are related and often treated together in such page-turners as The McGraw-Hill Handbook of English Grammar and Usage and The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation. Grammar is a language’s set of rules for putting words together; usage is how people actually put words together. Remember it this way: usage is how language is used.

So Bryan A. Garner didn’t release a fifth edition of his to explain the difference between coordinate and subordinate clauses—that hasn’t changed since 2016, when the previous edition was published. He’s here to update us on changes in how people speak and write in real life. Six years ago, for instance, using “they” as an alternative to “he” or “she,” Garner wrote, “sets many literate Americans’ teeth on edge.” As his new guide notes, the , , and Associated Press all now allow it.