English Grammar

[Dr_metz_livs]

Hi does anyone know of an english grammar book which isn't too dry (if that is not a contradiction in terms)?

[Drusilla]

First Aid in English by Angus Maciver. Published by Hodder.

[Piper-AK]

'Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation' by Lynne Truss. It was a number one two years ago.

[jno]

Bill Bryson, before he became famous, wrote a book about difficult words, which is entertaining if you want to know the difference between imply and infer, and so on.

[Kingaroo]

Karen Elizabeth Gordon is no ordinary grammarian, and her works (including The New Well-Tempered Sentence, Torn Wings and Faux Pas, and The Disheveled Dictionary)--are no ordinary books of grammar. A special edition of the 1984 classic, The Deluxe Transitive Vampire is populated by a wickedly decadent cast of gargoyles, mastodons, murderous debutantes, and, yes, vampires (both transitive and otherwise), who cavort and consort in order to illustrate basic principles of grammar. The sentences are intoxicating--"How he loved to dangle his participles, brush his forelock off his forehead with his foreleg, and gaze into the aqueous depths"--but the rules and their explanations are as sound as any you might find in Strunk and White. Outlining the building blocks of the English language, from parts of speech to phrases and clauses, The Deluxe Transitive Vampire goes on to exorcise such grammatical demons as passive voice, fragments, comma splices, and run-on sentences. At last, a handbook of grammar you will actually want to read. (Excerpt from Amazon listing)

[123paul]

No it is not a contradiction in terms; consequnetly you need 'The complete plain words' by Sir Ernest Gowers.

[WoWo]

Eats, Shoots & Leaves is a book about punctuation rather than grammer.

[Piper-AK]

Ah! Daft auld me. Never mind, it's still a good book on how to use English (isn't it?).