Grammar for Grown-ups

Oct 2, 2024 8:30 AM

Author:Katherine Fry,Rowena Kirton

A comprehensive but light-hearted guide to grammar for the twenty-first century.

Agitated about apostrophes?

Struggling with spelling?

Dithering over dangling participles?

Stumped by the subjunctive?

Relax. Help is at hand...

For native English speakers who realise that there is more to good English than meets the eye, but don’t know where to start; for parents struggling to explain the finer details to their kids; and for English- language students everywhere . . . this is the only book you need.

Grammar for Grown-Ups guides you through the perils, pitfalls and problematic aspects of the English language, with fun test-yourself sections all the way.

Reviews

This wonderful book guides you through the perils and pitfalls [of good English]

—— Natasha Harding , Sun

Witty, incredibly well informed, well researched and clever

—— Alastair Campbell

'The breathless tour of linguistic oddities from around the globe has its own empirical delight... McWhorter is a kind of linguistic David Attenborough... The fascination is in his detail, the sheer case-by-case weirdness of languages'

—— Guardian

[A] rollicking memoir.

—— Iain Finlayson , Saga

Unusual… Moving… Magnificent.

—— Sam Leith , Guardian

A new fascinating exploration of the words that Americans and Brits both use and how they can have different meanings altogether… Moore is a very engaging writer… an excellent springboard for more research into the history of our magnificent and maddening language.

—— Anglotopia, Book of the Year

The ocean that divides England and America is awash with linguistic wreckage and cultural tumult. But Erin Moore’s study of these infested waters is serene, assured and hugely entertaining. They should hand her book out at border control.

—— Simon Garfield, author of Just My Type

One thing that makes Gowers such an engaging figure is that he isn't prissy, priggish or prim. As far as he is concerned, language is a living thing that is constantly changing - and this is just as it should be

—— Sunday Telegraph

Still the best book on English and how to write it ... Unhappy with versions rewritten by others, Rebecca Gowers, Sir Ernest's great-granddaughter, has produced a new edition ... The result is splendid ... Gowers wrote with wit, humanity and common sense ... [his] central advice should be taped to the screen of anyone sitting down at a computer keyboard

—— Michael Skapinker , Financial Times

The book has been modernized but preserves all its original charm ... There is arguably a greater need for its circulation among the general public [than ever before]

—— Big Issue

The zeal with which Sir Ernest uncovers error is matched only by the wit with which he chastises it

—— Evening Standard

I am glad that attention should be continually drawn to copies of this book ... I am in full sympathy with the doctrine laid down by Sir Ernest Gowers

—— Sir Winston Churchill

A delight, a classic of its kind

—— John o'London's Weekly

Great fun to read

—— Economist

Brilliant

—— New Statesman

A sweetly reasonable and wholly admirable guide

—— The Times

It will delight far wider circles than those to whom it is primarily addressed

—— Observer

Personal and affectionate tribute

—— Sally Morris , Daily Mail

Affectionate, familial tribute to this many-sided man.

—— The Catholic Herald

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