Recent Book: Good English: The Complete Plain Words
| Date | 01 July 1973 |
| Published date | 01 July 1973 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X7304600313 |
| Subject Matter | Recent Book |
RECENT BOOKS
AMERICAN POLICE HISTORY
WILLIAM
J. Bor-e
and
DONALD
O.
SCHULTZ:
AShort History
of
American
Law
Enforcement. $6.75 (cloth); $3.25 (paper).
ALFRED
E.
PARKER:
The
Berkeley Police Story. $9.75. Both published by Charles C.
Thomas,
Springfield, Illinois, U.S.A.
The
lack of a general history of
ground
of post-revolutionary times,
police in
the
United States has often however,
the
outline improves
and
been remarked. Messrs
Bopp
and
the
main
stages by which the hetero-
Schultz must therefore
rank
as pion- geneous police arrangements of
the
eers with this Short History.
Their
United States have travelled to the
enterprise is
much
to be commended present day
are
much
more
con-
though
its execution leaves afair fidently tackled.
This
is unashamedly
amount
to be desired (it would have ashort book, and this must be
helped if
proper
attention
had
been allowed for.
It
is a step in
the
paid to
the
proof-reading). right direction.
The
book
is based on printed Mr.
Alfred
E. Parker, with
the
matter
of various kinds
and
on blessing of Mr. O. W. Wilson
and
historical
material
of
the
most mis- Berkeley's
Chief
of Police, Mr.
cellaneous
nature
supplied to
the
Bruce R. Baker, has written
the
story
authors by 350 police departments, of
the
city's police department. This
large
and
small.
The
authors
dis- is a valuable contribution
both
to
claim
any
title to being historians: the general history of
the
U.S. police
they
have
tackled a job the aca-
and
to the literature of individual
demics
have
avoided:
and
at least police forces. Berkeley, California,
the
main
outlines emerge
from
will always be associated with
the
their
efforts to find
order
in
the
inspiring character of August Voll-
masses of information
before
them. mer, its chief of police
from
1905 to
In this they have of course been 1932, during which time he raised
helped by such serious histories of
the
standard
of police professional-
individual police departments as ism. No man, save
Edgar
J. Hoover,
have been published. who
worked
in a different sphere,
The
preliminary
matter
relating to has done
more
for
the
American
police in
the
Ancient
World
and
in police.
mediaeval
England
is of the usual Mr.
Parker
rightly devotes
the
cursory kind, with glaring omissions most substantial section
of
his
book
and
sweeping generalizations
that
to
the
achievements of Vollmer.
are
long discredited.
The
policing of
Other
sections describe the work of
colonial America is dismissed in a
the
force
and
bring the story
up
to
dozen pages,
eked
out
by weak date, including the troubles of
the
references to English policing dur- 1960s.
ing the period. Once on
the
firmer
QUAESTOR
GOOD ENGLISH
SIR
ERNEST
GOWERS:
The Complete Plain Words. Revised edition by
Sir Bruce Fraser. H.M.S.O. £1.
When
Sir Bruce
Fraser
was pre-
paring his very
thorough
revision he
consulted the heads of
all
major
Government
Departments
and
among
the
material
he received was
this
comment:
"Our
impression is
that
the
worst offenders against the
Queen's English nowadays are acade-
mics, businessmen
and
journalists.
We ourselves
have
no cause
for
com-
placency,
but
we
have
gained some
ground
in
the
battle
for
plain words
285
and we believe
that
much
of the
credit
must
go to Gowers.
What
troubles us now is
not
the
pompous
circumlocution which was once the
mark
of official writing
but
the
threat
of 'expert' writing which character-
istically tends towards abstraction
and jargon.
The
battle
must
be con-
tinued on a different front."
Fraser
follows this up in a lively
and
witty chapter on recent
trends:
"I
suspect
that
one reason
for
ob-
July 1973
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