Holiday Books for the Wordaholic by Rob Kyff on Creators.com

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Holiday Books for the Wordaholic

On, Dasher! On, Comma!

If Santa's exhortations make you think of punctuation, you'll surely want to give — or receive — one of these new books on language this holiday season.

In Jack Lynch's "The Lexicographer's Dilemma" (Walker, $26), you'll meet the heroes, scolds, wags and idealists who have shaped our standards of English grammar and usage. Lynch describes the egotistic eccentrics and crusty curmudgeons who have rapped us on the knuckles — from the 17th-century poet John Dryden, who first nixed the sentence-ending preposition, to the Nixon-era comic George Carlin, who fingered the seven words you can't say on TV.

A hundred years ago, knuckle-rapper Ambrose Bierce cranked out a compendium of usage rules: "Write It Right." Now Jan Freeman, language columnist for the Boston Globe, has published an annotated version of Bierce's bugbears: "Ambrose Bierce's 'Write It Right'" (Walker, $24). You'll savor Freeman's bright and breezy commentary on Bierce's often daffy dicta.

"Airlocked, lushy, piped, seasoned, heinous, fap, snuffy, keyed." These are among the 2,231 synonyms for "inebriated" in Paul Dickson's "Drunk — The Definitive Drinker's Dictionary" (Melville House, $19.95). Dickson dips into delightful details: Shakespeare, for instance, used "fap" in "The Merry Wives of Windsor." So, THAT's why they were so merry!

Another etymological treasure is "From the Horse's Mouth," the latest edition of the Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms (Oxford, $21.95).

You'll learn, for instance, that "pie in the sky" first appeared in, of all places, a 1911 song by the American labor leader Joe Hill. And that "can't hold a candle to" refers to servants who held candles for their superiors.

No one can hold a candle to the new edition of "Garner's Modern American Usage" by the sensible Texan Bryan Garner (Oxford, $45). Authoritative but not stuffy, complete but not arcane, it's a GPS for navigating the highways and back roads of contemporary English, telling us when to turn, when to go straight and, most importantly, when to stop.

And just for fun, you should dash to your bookstore for Mardy Grothe's "Ifferisms — An Anthology of Aphorisms That Begin With the Word 'If'" (Collins Reference, $15.99). From "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" to "If anything can go wrong, it will," you'll enjoy a delightful romp through a world where everything is iffy.

On, Dasher!

Rob Kyff, a teacher and writer in West Hartford, Conn., invites your language sightings. Send your reports of misuse and abuse, as well as examples of good writing, via e-mail to Wordguy@aol.com or by regular mail to Rob Kyff, Creators Syndicate, 5777 W. Century Blvd., Suite 700, Los Angeles, CA 90045. To find out more about Rob Kyff and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.