The Complete Plain Words is a style guide for English written by Sir Ernest Gowers and published in 1954. It has never been out of print. It comprises expanded and revised versions of two pamphlets that he wrote at the request of Sir Edward Bridges (then head of the Civil Service); Plain Words, published in 1948 as a two-shilling pamphlet aimed at civil servants and An ABC of Plain Words which was published in 1951.
The Complete Plain Words was revised by Sir Bruce Fraser in 1973, and by Sidney Greenbaum and Janet Whitcut in 1986 (ISBN 0-11-701121-5).
Famous quotes containing the words complete and/or plain:
“What I expect from my male friends is that they are polite and clean. What I expect from my female friends is unconditional love, the ability to finish my sentences for me when I am sobbing, a complete and total willingness to pour their hearts out to me, and the ability to tell me why the meat thermometer isn’t supposed to touch the bone.”
—Anna Quindlen (20th century)
“Cannot a plain man live and think no harm,
But that his simple truth must be abused
With silken, sly, insinuating Jacks?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)