Garner’s Modern American Usage Goes Online

We’ve talked in this space before about Bryan Garner, the Dallas-based English-language lexicographer. His Garner’s American Usage is a well-fingered volume in our office (even if the magazine might, on occasion, lead you to believe otherwise). The resource is published by Oxford University Press, whose newsletter informs us today that GAU is now available online. When I interviewed Garner for WRR awhile back, we talked about this development. If memory serves, I told Garner that I thought dictionaries like this, when presented online, don’t allow for the possibility of random discoveries, which is a shame. If you look up a word online, you either find it or you don’t. If you look up a word in a book, you might find something you didn’t even know you were looking for. Garner’s take: he just wanted as many people as possible to have access to his work.