Literal Literacy II What Every American Needs to Know Second

This book is a call to logic, to lucidity, to the using of language as a clear and effective means of communication. Incorrect, imprecise and illogical use of language may well have geographical, political, philosophical, and international implications; that is why "literal literacy" is pre-eminently important and must precede the pursuit of any other kind of "literacy" (i.e. "computer" and "cultural").
The contents of this volume -- drawing on ideas cited in its predecessor -- expand the illustrated world of illiteracy by citing examples from realms as disparate as advertising, sportscasting, popular music, publishing, and "higher education", as well as from such colloquial modes of usage as idioms, euphemisms and redundancies. (In addition, it also contains chapters about various other fascinating and amusing contemporary linguistic phenomena.) The author hopes to have proven that, when people talk about "the failure to communicate" in this country, they are talking not about a disinclination to communicate or about a hesitancy to reveal thoughts and feelings but about the actual, concrete inability to phrase what one wishes to communicate.