Gwynne's Grammar: The Ultimate Introduction to Grammar and the Writing of Good English

ISBN: 1984897969

Condition: New

Product DescriptionAnxious about apostrophes? In a pickle over pronouns and prepositions? Fear not-Mr. Gwynne is here with his wonderfully concise and highly enjoyable handbook. Within these witty, opinionated, and astonishingly useful pages, adults and children alike will find all they need to rediscover the neglected science of writing good English. Mr. Gwynne believes that happiness depends at least partly on good grammar-and Mr. Gwynne is never wrong.ReviewCurious and brilliant. -The Spectator[Gwynne] brings a bewitching zeal-and a defiantly old-fashioned approach-to the study of English grammar and usage. . . . Gwynnes Grammar has its undeniable pleasures. -The Boston GlobeUnflinchingly, unapologetically rear-guard . . . with not the least wisp of dumbing-down. . . . His definitions-terse, logical, precise-are among the best things in the book. -The Wall Street Journal"A sprightly handbook . . . The examples are lively, the advice direct and confident. Some of it, once heard, wont be forgotten. . . . Gwynnes certainty is infectious. -First ThingsWarm and utterly self-assured . . . Refreshingly opinionated . . . [Gwynne] is an unashamed prescriptivist . . . [and his] judgment is unambiguous . . . It doesnt matter how many academic linguists tell us that language changes over time . . . Educated people still want to know whether they should write amuck or amok, between or among. -The Weekly StandardDynamite to modern, child-centered education: a guide to the forgotten rudiments of the English Language. -Daily Telegraph (UK)Witty, engaging and highly educational stuff. -Times Educational Supplement (London)About the AuthorFormerly a successful businessman, N. M. Gwynne has for many years been teaching just about every sort of subject to just about every sort of pupil in just about every sort of circumstance-English, Latin, Greek, French, German, mathematics, history, classical philosophy, natural medicine, the elements of music and How to start up and run your own business-in lecture-halls, large classrooms, small classrooms and homes-to pupils aged from two years old to over seventy-of many different nationalities and in several different countries-and since 2007 face-to-face over the Internet. English grammar has been the basis of many of the subjects he has taught.His teaching methods are very much in accordance with the traditional, common-sense ones, refined over the centuries, that were used almost everywhere until they were abolished worldwide in the 1960s and subsequently. His teaching has been considered sufficiently remarkable-both in its unusualness in todays world and in its genuinely speedy effectiveness-to have featured in newspaper and magazine articles and on television and radio programmes.Excerpt. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.Chapter 3Further EncouragementAgainst the background of the last chapter, I find myself provoked into raising a question of some moment. Have I your attention, dear reader? Here is the question.Is this book that you have in your hands, in a way that really does matter, the single most important book in print in the English language today?At most, I am only partly joking. What I am trying to do is to make a serious point as arrestingly and vividly as I can. I certainly deny that what I have just said is completely absurd. Let us now see if it is at least defensible.As has just been shown, and as was stressed by Libby Purves in the previous chapter, all thinking and communicating of any kind depend on grammar-grammar being simply the correct use of words, and words being the indispensable tools of thought.Indeed to dismiss the need for the accuracy in grammar that only reasonably diligent study and training can give is almost self-contradictory. You need correct grammar even to be able to argue as convincingly as you can against the need to learn grammar.To proceed. If every human activity depends