A World Without “Whom”: The Essential Guide to Language in the BuzzFeed Age by Emmy J. Favilla

As language evolves faster than ever before, what is the future of “correct” writing? When Favilla was tasked with creating a style guide for BuzzFeed, she opted for spelling, grammar, and punctuation guidelines that would reflect not only the site’s lighthearted tone, but also how readers actually use language IRL.

With wry cleverness and an uncanny intuition for the possibilities of internet-age expression, Favilla makes a case for breaking the rules laid out by Strunk and White: A world without “whom,” she argues, is a world with more room for writing that’s clear, timely, pleasurable, and politically aware. Featuring priceless emoji strings, sidebars, quizzes, and style debates among the most lovable word nerds in the digital media world–of which Favilla is queen–A World Without “Whom” is essential for readers and writers of virtually everything: news articles, blog posts, tweets, texts, emails, and whatever comes next . . . so basically everyone. (take from Amazon)

This book is funny and smart. It’s also a bit snarky, which I loved. My husband gave this book to me for Christmas, knowing my penchant for good grammar, as opposed to “online gunk.” I’m beginning to realize that this “online gunk” also has its place.

For example, according to this book, I’m a perfectivist who wants to be a descriptivist. Basically, I write the way I speak. However, the way I speak is pretty antiquated. I loved the little asides on “OK/ok/okay” (for the record, I’ve always used “okay”), as well as the reasoning behind changes in the rules.

As someone who had to have the meaning of “rofl” explained, realizing that there’s more to writing than grammar rules and the oxford comma (gulp!) is both cringe-worthy and interesting. Being that I’m currently working toward eventually going into book editing, this book will be a valuable asset. I loved this book, and I know I’ll come back to it again and again.

I highly recommend this.