Thank you, Henry Watson Fowler.

A “fowler,” The New Oxford American Dictionary – copyright 2001, seven pounds (in weight, not price) – says, is a person who engages in hunting, shooting or trapping wildfowl.

By contrast, “foudroyant” is an adjective that means “dazzling or stunning,” according to “The New York Times Everyday Reader’s Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, Mispronounced Words,” touted on the back dust cover, in The New York Times’ always understated way, as “This may be the only dictionary you will ever really need.”

(That “really” adds a warm, human touch.)

“Foudroyant” and “fowler” probably should be very close to each other in “The New York Times Everyday Reader’s Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, Mispronounced Words,” but apparently the sages at The New York Times think “foudroyant” is a lot more “Everyday” than “fowler,” so they left out “fowler,” probably because they think most of their readers do not hunt, shoot or trap wildfowl.

Most of the books I buy are from the dusty shelves of used-book stores (not to be confused with used bookstores, just as small-business men should not be confused with small businessmen).

That dictionary from The New York Times? I paid $4.75 used, but it looks new, despite its years-ago publication date.

I just tried to count the language-usage-reference-writing-improvement books I own, and I got up to 87, which is probably about right. (It would be 88 for sure, except I cannot find my small thesaurus, which is much more comprehensive and useful than my large thesaurus.)

In “The Superior Person’s Book of Words” by Peter Bowler ($3, used), I found “emunctory,” an adjective referring to the blowing of the nose. (If you’re wondering how such knowledge will make you superior, contact Peter Bowler.)

For $3.95 used, I picked up “Words and Rules, The Ingredients of Language” by Steven Pinker,” a book, its cover proclaims, that is “A gem,” from a review in The New York Times. (Since when has The New York Times been so pithy?)

The first word in Pinker’s glossary is “ablaut – the process of inflecting a verb by changing its vowel (such as) ‘sing-sang-sung.’”

(If you have read this far, you apparently had nothing better to do today, which is the precise reason I kept writing. The point of the column eludes me. It may be that I’m simply praising word books, or used books, or just having fun with the language. You tell me; you’re the one who’s still reading.)

In “The King’s English: A Guide to Modern Usage” ($6, used), Kingsley Amis, a renowned, prickly British writer, takes aim at our tendency to turn nouns into verbs.

Of several of them – “authored,” “funded,” “targeted,” “critiqued” – he wrote: “Yes, they may be quicker to say (than real verbs), but then cutting your arm off will reduce your weight faster and more irreversibly than any diet or exercise.”

I have John B. Bremner’s “Words on Words” ($5.50, used and falling apart) to thank for clearing up that always vexing distinction between “solecism” and “solipsism.”

“Athenian purists,” Bremner wrote, “looked down on the corrupt dialect spoken by the inhabitants of the Greek colony of Soloi in Cilicia (now part of Turkey) and called their language ‘soloikismos,’ whence the English ‘solecism’ for a grammatical error.”

But “solipsism,” Bremner explained, “is the theory that the self is the only reality or the only thing knowable. By extension, a solipsist is a self-centered person and his (her) thoughts and deeds are solipsistic.”

Even now, Wilson Follett’s “Modern American Usage” ($8.50, used), 45 years after it was published, is considered authoritative.

Follett wrote: “(P)rose that cannot be read aloud with pleasure is probably bad prose. Euphony is not the highest virtue of prose, but one of its rudimentary requirements. The reason is the simple one that persons not tone-deaf, when they read, hear with the inner ear and are quite as much disturbed by clashing sounds as if they were reading aloud or listening.”

Which leads back to Henry Watson Fowler, better known as H.W.

An Englishman born in 1853, he tried journalism, self-published his “Collected Essays” in 1903 (it bombed), left journalism and joined his brother Frank, a tomato farmer, in compiling and publishing dictionaries and works of similar scholarship.

While a soldier in World War I, Frank contracted tuberculosis and died in 1918, but H.W. continued their lives’ work, producing in April 1926, “Modern English Usage.”

H.W.’s touching letter about his late brother graces the page after the title page. I own, not a first edition, but one published in 1959 ($4.75, once the property of a “Miss Kay Huffman,” who signed it twice in exemplary penmanship), and I love both its voice of authority and its attractive fatness.

Other usage books have followed, many of which surround me as I type, but we have the Fowler boys to thank for inspiring so many to pay tribute to and defend the beauty of our language.

Jim Stasiowski, the writing coach for The Dolan Company, welcomes your questions or comments. Call him at (775) 354-2872 or write to 2499 Ivory Ann Drive, Sparks, Nev. 89436.

POSTED 2/17/11