pambo's Full Review: Patricia O'Conner - Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's G...
Patricia T. O’Conner has taken on a topic many find boring or intimidating and delivered a wonderful, humorous book on grammar that anyone can feel comfortable using.
The former editor at The New York Times put together a breezy though authoritative book with such humorous chapter titles as Comma Sutra (The Joy of Punctuation), the Compleat Dangler (A Fish Out of Water) and the Living Dead (Let Bygone Rules Be Gone).
Throughout the short (227 pages, including the index) paperback book, she reminds us that language changes, while pointing out the damage wrought by the improper use of words.
Here are some of my favorites:
In her Living Dead chapter, she points out that people have been splitting infinitives since the 1300s. It would seem to be time to give up that rule. The ban on ending a sentence with a preposition is made up. Many of the great masterpieces of the English language are loaded with sentences that end in prepositions. Or, as O’Conner says, “This is a rule that modern grammarians have long tried to get us out from under.”
While acknowledging that language evolves (She’s giving up on using “data” as a plural), she insists maintaining other barriers. Thus, “impact” is not a verb, “bring” and “take” are not interchangeable, and quote marks do not add to “emphasis”. In other words, save quote marks for quotes.
Throughout, the book maintains a humor and clever use of language that is easy to overlook because the content of the material is so strong on its own. When writing about cliches, O’Conner writes this:
“Back to the drawing board.” Her suggestion: “Back to Rogets Thesaurus”. “Bite the Bullet”? “Save your teeth”.
This is a very good book that anyone who has to write for a living or for school should own. It should be on everyone’s bookshelf.
Oh, and one other thing. This is my 100th epinion. I hope you enjoy it!
A witty and therefore easy-to-read look at the rules of grammar. This is truly a fun book to read, which is pretty astounding, given its subject.More at Barnes & Noble.com
Subscribe to More Reviews on Patricia O'Conner - Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English Get the RSS Feed: - Add to My Yahoo!: - Add to Google Homepage:
Subscribe to pambo's Reviews: Get the RSS Feed: - Add to My Yahoo!: - Add to Google Homepage:
Muze: Copyright 1995 - 2008 Muze Inc. For personal non-commercial use only. All rights reserved.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2008 Shopping.com, Inc.