William A. Sabin was publisher of business books in the Professional Book Group, a division of McGraw-Hill. The author of many articles about style, usage, and grammar, he was also a frequent and popular speaker at professional and academic conferences in the United States and Canada. He supported the plain language movement. A master of the rules, Bill Sabin was also a strong proponent of flexibility, known for urging good writers to trust their instincts. In 1997 he became a year-round resident of Bristol, Maine, and by any standard a confirmed Maniac. For more on Bill Sabin and the history of The Gregg Reference Manual , see “About the Book and the Author,” on page viii.

About the Name Gregg

John Robert Gregg was the inventor of Gregg shorthand, which was considered a major improvement over other speedwriting systems then in use. He was born in Ireland in 1867, and his ideas on this subject first appeared in 1888 in a short pamphlet published in Liverpool when he was 21. In 1893 he came to Chicago and founded the Gregg Publishing Company. The first edition of Gregg Shorthand was released that same year. Because Gregg shorthand was relatively easy to learn, it soon was taught in schools around the world, and in an age when there were no electronic recording devices, it became an essential skill for reporters, scholars, authors, and even political figures. Mr. Gregg died in 1948 at the age of 81.

When McGraw-Hill acquired the Gregg Publishing Company in 1948, the Gregg name had come to stand for the highest-quality materials designed for academic programs in business education. It is for that reason that The Gregg Reference Manual continues to bear the Gregg name, even though the manual is no longer aimed exclusively at an academic audience. Indeed, The Gregg Reference Manual now serves as the primary reference for professionals in all fields who are looking for authoritative guidance on matters of style, grammar, usage, and formatting.

About the Artist and the Art

Nancy Freeman is a painter and printmaker who lives in Damariscotta, Maine. The collage that appears on the cover of GRM—and is used in part throughout the manual—is one in her memorial series called the Jody series; it is reproduced here with the artist’s permission. Evocative of a musical instrument, the collage seemed to be a particularly fitting choice for an edition designed to pay tribute to an author known for his acute sensitivity to the sound of words, to the art and music of well-crafted language. Then, too, the visual interplay between the flowing colors and the strong black lines that run vertically down the page bring to mind the heart of Bill Sabin’s philosophy, that good writing emerges from achieving a delicate balance between rules and instincts, structure and creativity.