Review by Choice Review
Clark (The Poynter Institute) offers down-to-earth advice on language, grammar, and writing. In 50 concise, engaging chapters, Clark takes the reader on a tour of words, punctuation, grammar, meaning, and purpose. He combines lucid explanations of grammatical and stylistic points with apt examples from his career as a teacher and journalist. For example, he neatly explains the distinction between "a" and "the" by considering the difference between "Roy Clark" and "the Roy Clark"; he views the semicolon as a "swinging gate" that invites one both to pause and to continue. Although he illuminates such traditionally perplexing topics as the subjunctive mood and nonrestrictive modifiers, the author mostly encourages the reader to embrace the flexibility, creativity, and rhythm of language. This is a rhetorical grammar written by someone who sees language as a tool rather than a weapon and who is not afraid to share his own personal list of misspellings (which includes carcass, dilemma, dumbbell, millennium, and supersede). Clark ends each chapter with a bulleted list of "keepsakes for readers." Those who have found themselves frustrated by overly prescriptive grammar books or overly superficial writing guides will find Clark's book the perfect antidote. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers. E. L. Battistella Southern Oregon University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by New York Times Review
WE English speakers have been terribly insecure about our ability to communicate in our native tongue for at least 200 years, if the number of books aiming to correct errors in our speech and writing released during that time is any measure. Basic grammar books have existed since the 16th century, but it wasn't until the 18th that guides like Robert Baker's "Reflections on the English Language" (1770) and James Elphinston's charmingly titled "Inglish Orthoggraphy, Epittomized" (1790) began specifically addressing common mistakes of usage. It was in the 1800s, though, that anxiety over usage really started to mount, with hundreds of grammars and polemics finding their way to print: 1829 saw "The Vulgarities of Speech Corrected: With Elegant Expressions for Provincial and Vulgar English, Scots, and Irish; for the Use of Those Who are Unacquainted With Grammar"; in 1841 there was "Decline of the English Language: The Cause and Probable Consequences"; and "A Plea for the Queen's English" came out in 1863. For the most part these were pragmatic and steely-eyed affairs, not the kinds of books to employ excess humor or display too-great charity regarding the vicissitudes of usage. In the 20th century the usage-guide field was dominated by Fowler's "Dictionary of Modern English Usage" and Strunk and White's "Elements of Style." Now another book enters the fray: "The Glamour of Grammar," by Roy Peter Clark, which in its tone and content is very much a manual for the 21st century. Clark is a senior scholar at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., and the author or editor of over a dozen books on writing. He has spent several decades instructing journalists, but he's also a grammarian whose Ph.D. dissertation was titled "Chaucer and Medieval Scatology" - so it's perhaps no surprise that this grammar book is a little more earthy, a little more relaxed. It presents a "grammar of purpose, a grammar of effect, a grammar of intent," Clark explains. "It doesn't shout at you, 'No, no, no,' but gives you a little push and says, 'Go, go, go.'" "The Glamour of Grammar" is an incomplete title, as Clark by no means confines himself to grammar. Yes, he holds forth on subject-verb disagreement, "lay" versus "lie," the serial comma, and how to play with sentence structure for maximum effect. But he also speculates on, say, the difference between being "naked" and "nude," and often his advice comes from the standpoint of a rebel: "Learn how expert writers break the rules in run-on sentences," a section begins; "Learn seven ways to invent words"; "Master the uses of nonstandard English." In his chapter "Become your own lexicographer," he recommends that readers visit places like soccer clubs and gay bars to "listen to the specialized language" of their patrons. This is all quite useful, and Clark's nimble explanations will help make the abstruse clear to the obtuse. Also handy are the "keepsakes" at the end of each chapter, in which Clark recapitulates salient points but keeps things colloquial enough to avoid sounding like a textbook. Clark spends a good deal of time exhorting his readers to become more intimate and friendly with their language ("Adopt a favorite letter of the alphabet," he advises, and "Consult a thesaurus to remind yourself of words you already know"). He also has a flair for description: the letter O, he writes, "suggests an alluring or erotic roundness," while two O's together resemble "two fat men fighting for a seat on the bus." Most striking is that unlike many traditional grammar books, Clark's reserves its scolding not for students of writing, but for teachers who harbor unduly restrictive views - "members of the crotchety crowd" who "tend to turn their own preferences about grammar and language into useless and unenforceable rules." Linguistic insecurities and peeves, once they take hold, are exasperatingly difficult to shake. Even though the first edition of Fowler's book, released way back in 1926, unequivocally states that the proscriptions against ending sentences with prepositions and splitting infinitives are absurd, we're still arguing about them today, in 2010. Clark wholeheartedly endorses breaking the commandments that make no sense, as long as in the breaking, the writing still holds up. "Prescriptive critics may condemn my recommendation that writers politely ignore the 'crotchets' of purists who insist on . . . rules that have little influence on the making of meaning," he writes; those "who profess that these are violations must face the counterevidence produced in the classic works of some of our most distinguished writers." Although this statement is true, if you were to point out that even Shakespeare was known to split his infinitives ("Thy pity may deserve to pitied be"), end his sentences in prepositions ("I will wear my heart upon my sleeve for daws to peck at") and even on occasion begin them with "but" or "and" ("But love is blind and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that themselves commit"), you'd be more likely to annoy the prescriptivists than you would be to convert them. Yet for all Clark's railing, he's not above sharing some of the complaints and foibles of the "grammazons," as he calls the cantankerous set. He's against the use of "literal" as a "general intensifier," for instance, saying it's a "distraction," something that "makes me doubt the messenger" - even though this usage has been common practice for well over a century. Mark Twain describes Tom Sawyer as "literally rolling in wealth" after Tom persuades the neighborhood children to help whitewash his fence, even though Twain makes no mention of his character's physically rolling in ill-gotten gains. Clark also has odd notions about the Oxford English Dictionary, calling it a schoolmarmish and Victorian work, one with no room for the naughty parts of English - yet the four-letter words have been comprehensively cataloged in the dictionary since the 1970s, and more obscure terms like "testiculose" (defined rather delicately via a citation from an earlier dictionary: "that hath great cods") have been included from the start. And he makes the ill-advised choice of citing the Web site Urban Dictionary, one of the least reliable online sources for things linguistic, in pinpointing the earliest use of a word. (There's a difference between a relaxed approach and one that's positively slack.) Clark's hope is that after reading his book, "you will no longer . . . associate reading, writing and learning the elements of language with drudgery and frustration" - that his tips might encourage "more fluency" in writing, "and more joy." While "The Glamour of Grammar" will not replace Fowler or Strunk and White, nor render obsolete more contemporary and comprehensive guides, like Bryan A. Garner's "Modern American Usage," it is a welcome addition to the bookshelf of anyone who cares about language - and is willing to argue about it. This is a grammar book for the 21st century - a little more earthy, a little more relaxed. Ammon Shea is the author of "Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 15, 2010]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Grammar is a subject that typically induces wincing, wheezing, or worse. Clark, a lifelong whiz at the subject, wants readers to fully appreciate the importance of good grammar and the qualities of superior writing. To that end, he has laid out several entertaining, easy-to-follow rules, governing everything from punctuation to alliteration, that promise to dramatically improve one's writing and develop an appreciation for language. Clark draws on examples ranging from DeLillo to Rowling, a breadth of text that readers will appreciate as much as the author's humorous approach. Who knew that a discussion of grammar could induce laughter? This is an eminently readable, extremely enjoyable guide that readers will find highly useful on their path to development, not just as writers, but as readers. (Aug.) Copyright 2010 Reed Business Information.
Review by Library Journal Review
Journalist and teacher Clark (vice president & senior scholar, Poynter Inst.; Writing Tools) takes readers through a well-paced presentation, defining English grammar as a set of tools, rather than rules. Like Dunton-Downer (see review below), he conveys the magic that is to be found in English, in its ever-active evolution. Yet he stresses that users of English must understand the systems behind the magic in order best to convey magic themselves. As a teacher-and he writes here in a teacher's voice-he is excellent at explaining elusive topics such as the subjunctive and the serial comma, often comparing English to other languages whose different approaches illuminate our own. Each short section of the five main chapters ends with "Keepsake" reminders. The nuts-and-bolts information here is best for adults young and old in search of grammatical aid; yet Clark's erudition may be better appreciated by those who know their grammar. In either case, a rewarding purchase. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
