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Summary:

A practical guide to various parts of speech designed to improve communication and writing skills.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction : Embrace grammar as powerful and purposeful
• Part I. Words : Read dictionaries for fun and learning
• Avoid speed bumps caused by misspellings
• Adopt a letter of the alphabet
• Honor the smallest distinctions: even between a and the
• Consult a thesaurus to remind yourself of words you already know
• Take a class on how to cross-dress the parts of speech ; Enjoy, rather than fear, words that sound alike
• Learn seven ways to invent words
• Become your own lexicographer
• Take advantage of the short-word economy of English
• Learn when and how to enrich your prose with foreign words
• Part II. Points : Use the period to determine emphasis and space ; Advocate use of the serial comma ; Use the semicolon as a "swinging gate"
• Embrace the three amigos : colon, dash, and parentheses
• Let your ear help govern the possessive apostrophe
• Take advantage of the versatility of quotation marks
• Use the question mark to generate reader curiosity and narrative energy
• Reclaim the exclamation point
• Master the elliptical art of leaving things out
• Reach into the "upper case" to unleash the power of names
• Vary your use of punctuation to create special effects

• Part III. Standards : Learn to lie or lay, as well as the principles behind the distinction
• Avoid the "trap" of subject-verb disagreement
• Render gender quality with a smooth style
• Place modifiers where they belong
• Help the reader learn what is "essential" and "nonessential"
• Avoid case mistakes and "hypergrammar"
• Be certain about the uncertain subjective and other "moody" subjects
• Identify all sources of ambiguity and confusion
• Show what is literal and what is figurative.
• Part IV. Meaning : Join subjects and verbs, or separate them for effect
• Use active and passive verbs in combination
• and with a purpose
• Befriend the lively verb to be
• Switch tenses, but only for strategic reasons
• Politely ignore the language crotchets of others
• Learn the five forms of well-crafted sentences
• Make sentence fragments work for you and the reader
• Use the complex sentence to connect unequal ideas
• Learn how expert winters break the rules in run-on sentences
• Part V. Purpose: .Master the uses of nonstandard English
• Add a pinch of dialect for flavor
• Tame taboo language to suit your purposes
• Unleash your associative imagination
• Play with sounds, natural and literary
• Master the distinction between denotation and connotation
• Measure the distance between concrete and abstract language
• Harness the power of particularity
• Have fun with initials and acronyms, but avoid "capital" offenses
• Master the grammar of new forms of writing
• Afterword : Live a life of language
• Appendix A. Words I have misspelled
• Appendix B. Words I have confused
• Appendix C. The glamour of grammar quick list.

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Author/Creator:

Clark, Roy Peter , author

Languages:

English

Language Notes:

Item content: English

Main Work:

The glamour of grammar: a guide to the magic and mystery of practical English [by Clark, R.P.]

Subjects:

English language — Grammar

English language

General Notes:

Originally published: 2010.
Includes bibliographical references and index.

Physical Description:

xii, 292 pages ; 21 cm

Call Numbers:

PE1112 .C528 2011

ISBNs:

9780316027908 (pbk.)
0316027901 (pbk.)
9780316027915
031602791X

OCLC Numbers:

751829883