The King's English, or Kingsley's English? Amis was, of course, an academic in his own right, but his approach is purist rather than pedantic and there is a tone of cultured, intelligent exasperation in many of his exposes of contemporary misuse of language. He is often dogmatic, sometimes about trifles, yet there is a great deal of good sense in his overall approach and also a surprising degree of erudition (he was a sound Latinist). Shall or will? To hyphenate or not to hyphenate? And what about changing pronunciations? And should we use French words if we don't speak French? Amis has his own answers to all these, which can be argued with but should be read and chewed over. B.F.