Full Stop saves you time, stress and money in achieving your goal of the perfect communiqué.
First published more than 100 years ago as the Authors’ and Printers’ Dictionary, this little book has become over the years a well-loved guide much-used by wordsmiths worldwide. The blurb on the back cover maintains that this is the Essential A–Z Guide to the written word, dealing with common and not so common problems encountered by even the best writers or editors.
Covering subjects as diverse as the spelling of unusual words, place and proper names, names of institutions, abbreviations, when to use a capital letter and when not, specialist terms and when to italicise, the dictionary is small enough to take an indispensable place on the writer’s desk and was compiled using the expertise of the Oxford Dictionaries department and the advice of experienced publishers. Want to know whether to italicise peau d’ orange? Or peau-de-soie? Just look them up – the answers are there (by the way, both the examples here are correct).
All the information most writers will ever need is contained in easily understandable format, often with American English alternatives also given. The dictionary actually forms part of a three-book editorial reference set, the other two companion volumes being New Hart’s Rules – The Handbook of Style for Writers and Editors, and the New Oxford Spelling Dictionary. I use all three extensively, with perhaps the New Hart’s Rules slightly less than the dictionary under review, but all three are well worth the initial outlay – I can’t recommend them highly enough. We'll review New Hart's Rules and the Spelling Dictionary on this site shortly.
