The Broadview Book of Common Errors in English: ESL Edition

Louis Buchanan is a professor of English at Ryerson University in
Toronto.

This attempt to redo a prescriptive usage guide for native speakers
combines often outdated usage rules for native speakers with more common
grammatical guidelines for English as a Second Language (ESL) students.
The preface is full of linguistic misinformation. In it, Boyne states,
“We do not deal with idiomatic or colloquial English to any great
extent.” He seems to think, incorrectly, that idiomatic means informal
or nonstandard.

This edition is supposed to be for ESL students at all levels. It is
highly unlikely that a beginning ESL student will understand (or care
about) such niceties as the difference between “effectual” and
“effective.” Although Boyne acknowledges that the English language
has been changing (as all languages have been) for hundreds of years, he
insists on retaining grammatical rules that died out years ago. For
example, “different from or to (not than)” is listed, even though
many educated Canadians say or write “different than.” Much of the
book employs a right/wrong dichotomy, thereby conveying the false
impression that usage mavens agree on all the rules.

The sections on verbs, nouns, and “other parts of speech” are
reasonably well presented, but there are numerous textbooks and
reference books that already deal with these areas. There are also usage
guides for ESL students that are much better organized and more complete
(e.g., Michael Swan’s Practical English Usage) than this one, which
cannot be recommended.