One hundred years ago, American journalist and satirist Ambrose Bierce published a curmudgeonly book of writing advice called Write It Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults.

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In her new book, Boston Globe language columnist Jan Freeman explains where Bierce got his ideas about language, how his grammatical convictions compared with those of his contemporaries, and what they teach us about English today. The book is Ambrose Bierce's Write It Right: The Celebrated Cynic's Language Peeves Deciphered, Appraised, and Annotated for 21st-Century Readers. Recently, Freeman talked with Grant about Bierce and his cranky advice for speaking and writing well.

You can read much more by Jan Freeman (and we recommend that you do) in the archives of her columns in the Boston Globe.

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