Continuing our 'educational book reviews this week, the horrid GRAMMAR selection! I know I know, you all just screamed! But really grammar is SUCH a huge thing-it can define you in 20 seconds to a potential employer or in-law, and in such a way that you can NOT change that first impression. Having attended primarily Catholic schools, grammar was drilled over and over into my head, and sadly it doesn't seem to be being taught at the same level we learned it years (aka eons) ago. So this little book may be a super reference for your family!
For anyone who has ever been stumped by dangling modifiers and split infinitives, or for those who have no idea what these things even are, My Grammar and I...Or Should That Be Me? offers practical and humorous guidance on how to avoid falling into language pitfalls. Here are all the right tools to help you gain confidence as a speaker and writer, highlighting the most common language errors, such as wrongly used prepositions, misplaced modifiers, and confusing participles.
This refreshing refresher course covers:
• Spelling and Confusables-There are times when the spelling rule "i before e except after c" does not apply
• Parts of Speech-Is it "its" or "it's"? "Whose" or "who's"?
• Sentence Structure-Let us ponder the subject, or object, of "I" and "me"
• Punctuation-So where does a comma go?
• Elements of Style-There is more to grammar than knowing the difference between a subordinate object and a nonrestrictive apostrophe
And, for those grammar know-it-alls, there are entertaining "Smart Aleck" trivia, anecdotes, witticisms, and more. Clever and informative, this is the ideal gift for all English-language sticklers.
About the Authors:
Caroline Taggart has been an editor of non-fiction books for nearly 30 years and has covered nearly every subject from natural history and business to gardening and astronomy. She has written several books and was the editor of Writer's Market UK 2009.She is the writer of several of the I Used to Know/I Wish I Knew series books.
J. A. Wines is a graduate of Oxford University and the author of several books on grammar and trivia.For more information on the book and the Blackboard Books, please visit www.rdtradepublishing.
Review: I have come to ADORE these Reader Digest Blackboard Books (ok, so this one has a green edge, it's still part of the series!)- when you put them all together, it is like getting a proper lower level/high school education! Seriously, if you know everything in these books, you could pass GED and college entrance tests with ease! So I am thrilled every time I am able to review another one!
This topic is such a pet peeve with me, and my best friends, probably because we all had the same level of education on it, and we expect the same level from our peers. Sadly, usually it is not the case. When you realize that more than 1/10th of the words in the English language are not spelled the way they sound,you can understand why English is such a hard language to learn. Sentence structure and proper use of punctuation are seriously lacking in most of the media we have access to today. Check out your local newspaper or favorite magazine. See how many run on sentences (I usually start screaming COMMAS PEOPLE after the second one) and lack of use of hyphens there are.
before your kids get to second grade, I would highly recommend going through this book to re-acquaint yourself with terms and grammar forms. It will help you to help your kids on their homework. DO you remember what a limpet adjective (absolute truth) , superlative (the giraffe is the tallest animal), plural compound nouns (mother-in-laws) or imperative sentence (don't eve think of copying the files) are?
View the excerpt and you will realize just HOW much you need this book! It makes the rules SIMPLE to understand and gives great examples! Each chapter has boxes with "see Me After Class" for extra examples and "Teachers Corner" for more direction as well, to really bring home the lesson and hand. The list of included grammar rules to AVOID, should be posted in every classroom, to reiterate to our kids how to speak properly, as well.
In fact, my ONLY complaint with the book is that there is no index, so if you wanted to look up just one type, you have to go through the whole section to find it. BUT it is the definite home reference and I will be keeping ours handy, along side the dictionary and thesaurus. It is the perfect gift as well!
Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this book, free of charge, from FSB Associates, for review purposes on this blog. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about it.
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