Gwynne's grammar
Subtitle: the ultimate introduction to grammar and the writing of good English : definitions, explanations and illustrations of the parts of speech, and of the other most important technical terms of grammar. Incorporating Strunk's Guide to Style explaining how to write well and the main pitfalls to avoid
By: N.M. Gwynne
Edition: First American edition.
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group; Knopf
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 249
ISBN-13: 9780385352932
Subjects: Rhetoric; Punctuation; Grammar; English language
Other titles: Grammar; Ultimate introduction to grammar and the writing of good English
Description: "Crushing national Debt? Climate Change? No: the greatest danger to our way of life is the decline of grammar. Thus preaches the inimitable Mr Gwynne as he shows us the way out of this sorry state. "Grammar is the science of using words rightly, leading to thinking rightly, leading to deciding rightly, without which-as both common sense and experience show-happiness is impossible. Therefore, happiness depends at least partly on good grammar." So writes Mr. Gwynne in his small but perfectly formed new book of grammar with an attitude. Mr. Gwynne believes passionately that we must regain our knowledge of the workings of our language before it is too late. Schools don't teach it, and as the Internet drives the written word to new lows of informality, we approach a tipping point of expressive dysfunction. Into the breach steps this doughty grammarian. Rejecting popular notions that language is simply a matter of the way people use it, he meticulously spells out what tradition and common sense have, over centuries, dictated to be the right and the wrong. His teaching method is also defiantly old school: no one can follow a rule he hasn't committed to memory. But not all rules are equal. For a country whose only broadly subscribed guide to writing is Strunk and White, Mr. Gwynne performs a radical procedure. He presents its original seed: Strunk's 1918 essay, which E. B. White expanded. But neither form was ever meant as a guide to grammar, and so Mr. Gwynne presents only the kernel of Strunk's useful advice as a companion: a guide to putting words together nicely set within Gwynne's wisdom about putting them together correctly. The result is the last word on the subject anyone should need"--

"Crushing national Debt? Climate Change? No: the greatest danger to our way of life is the decline of grammar. Thus preaches the inimitable Mr Gwynne as he shows us the way out of this sorry state"--
Notes: "Originally published in slightly different form by Ebury Press, ... London, in 2013"--Title-page verso.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Part I.; title: Gwynne's grammar --; title: This is a serious business --; title: A note of encouragement --; title: Further encouragement --; title: Does prescriptiveness really belong to grammar? --; title: Still introductory --; title: Parts of speech --; title: The most important syntax basics --; title: Punctuation --; title: Putting what is being learnt into practice --; title: The grammar of verse-writing -- -- Part II.; title: Strunk on style --; title: Introductory --; title: Elementary rules of usage --; title: Elementary principles of composition --; title: A few matters of form --; title: Words and expressions commonly misused -- -- Part III.; title: Appendices: some useful lists --; title: Inventory of definitions of grammatical terms --; title: The irregular verbs --; title: Special prepositions needed by particular words --; title: The formation of plurals.