My favorite book on punctuation/grammar is Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation written by Brit Lynne Truss (not to be confused with former PM Liz Truss). Any woman who travels with a marker to change offending signs has won my heart and made me LOL at what most would call a very unfunny topic for a book.
I love your note about spelling, especially because I have one of those exceptionally (oops, adverb) vivid memories of my sixth-grade teacher Mrs. Grossman telling me that I would never be a writer. if I didn't learn how to spell. I loathed both grammar and spelling then, but finding it interesting-if-not-engrossing now. Studying a foreign language helped.
I too love a colon connecting two sentences, when appropriate: Strunk & White's elegant explanation of when to deploy one got me hooked. But I find few editors respect the practice these days.
Finally, my favorite book for real-world grammar tips is "Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English," which finally got my "whiches" and "thats" sorted.
Another anecdote from my teaching days: many of my students would overuse commas. They would put them after every phrase they used in a sentence. A few of my hard-core comma lovers would place them after every word. I suppose they wanted to create a dramatic pause after every word they had written but maybe not. My rule for using commas was simple: when in doubt, do without. Better to have too few commas than way too many of them cluttering up the place. I also agree with you, Anne. The Oxford comma should still be used. It helps to avoid confusion and misreading of sentences. Until I left the classroom kicking and screaming (I am being overly hyperbolic here-I left of my own free will), I continued to insist that my students use the Oxford comma.
Reader Ellie Shore has this comment and a great recommendation: I am a grammar nerd (that’s someone who’s somewhere between someone who looooves grammar and someone who likes it), so thank you for this column. My favorite book on the topic is “Dreyer’s English.” I’m not crazy about the fact that he named the book after himself; after all Strunk and White is actually “Elements of Style,” but the book is great. There are numerous footnotes, which are filled with funny comments. It’s useful and a hoot. You can borrow it from the public library if you want to try it out.
My favorite book on punctuation/grammar is Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation written by Brit Lynne Truss (not to be confused with former PM Liz Truss). Any woman who travels with a marker to change offending signs has won my heart and made me LOL at what most would call a very unfunny topic for a book.
I love your note about spelling, especially because I have one of those exceptionally (oops, adverb) vivid memories of my sixth-grade teacher Mrs. Grossman telling me that I would never be a writer. if I didn't learn how to spell. I loathed both grammar and spelling then, but finding it interesting-if-not-engrossing now. Studying a foreign language helped.
I too love a colon connecting two sentences, when appropriate: Strunk & White's elegant explanation of when to deploy one got me hooked. But I find few editors respect the practice these days.
Finally, my favorite book for real-world grammar tips is "Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English," which finally got my "whiches" and "thats" sorted.
Another anecdote from my teaching days: many of my students would overuse commas. They would put them after every phrase they used in a sentence. A few of my hard-core comma lovers would place them after every word. I suppose they wanted to create a dramatic pause after every word they had written but maybe not. My rule for using commas was simple: when in doubt, do without. Better to have too few commas than way too many of them cluttering up the place. I also agree with you, Anne. The Oxford comma should still be used. It helps to avoid confusion and misreading of sentences. Until I left the classroom kicking and screaming (I am being overly hyperbolic here-I left of my own free will), I continued to insist that my students use the Oxford comma.
Again, fun and practical!
Wonderful stuff!!
Well worded, Anne! I’m going to share this!!!
I love semicolons! I feel smart using them. (Should have used one there but really wanted an exclamation point even more.)
I'm enjoying your articles / stories!
Thanks.
Thank you so much for the brief grammar lesson, Annie.
It's something that I struggle with daily. I didn't learn it in K-12 because I always had my head stuck in a book.
I'll print it out and tape it to my wall.
Reader Ellie Shore has this comment and a great recommendation: I am a grammar nerd (that’s someone who’s somewhere between someone who looooves grammar and someone who likes it), so thank you for this column. My favorite book on the topic is “Dreyer’s English.” I’m not crazy about the fact that he named the book after himself; after all Strunk and White is actually “Elements of Style,” but the book is great. There are numerous footnotes, which are filled with funny comments. It’s useful and a hoot. You can borrow it from the public library if you want to try it out.