Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases.

Part reference shelf, part quiet writing companion, this is a book built for anyone who has ever paused mid-sentence hunting for a better way to say a thing.

What it's about

Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases is exactly what its title promises: a vast, organised collection of expressions, striking adjectives, familiar quotations and turns of phrase, arranged so that a writer or public speaker can find the fitting words for an occasion. Compiled by Grenville Kleiser, a well-known author of guides to rhetoric and self-improvement, it groups its material by mood and purpose, offering polished ways to praise, describe, argue and persuade.

Themes

The book belongs to a distinctly early-twentieth-century tradition of self-cultivation, the belief that eloquence could be studied and acquired like any other skill. It treats language as a craft with tools that can be laid out and learned, and it carries an implicit faith that clear, vivid speech opens doors, in business, on the platform and on the page.

Why it still matters

In an age of hurried messages and flattened prose, a compendium of considered phrasing is a curious pleasure and an unexpectedly useful one. It reminds us how much thought earlier generations gave to the texture of everyday expression, and it still serves as a browsing ground for writers, speechmakers and word-lovers looking to freshen a tired sentence or simply to admire the range of the language.

Who it's for

Writers and editors, students of rhetoric, public speakers, crossword-and-word enthusiasts, and anyone who takes a magpie's delight in phrases and wants a handsome old reference to dip into.