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43 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good Book, Good Grammar, Happy Tummy, July 27, 2003
I'm a fiction writer. And there are four books within reach of my writing desk. The most recent addition has been Martha Kolln's Understanding English Grammar. This bad boy has it all, folks. If you're like me, you get tripped up on lie and lay like the rest of us, and those kinds of words (and the rules underlying them) are at the very heart of what UEG sets out to clarify. I think I first went to Kolln's masterpiece for help with prepositions. I don't know who first introduced prepositions into the English language, man, but I'd like beat him with a wet dish rag! As Kolln says on page 320: "Prepositions are among the most difficult words in the language for foreign speakers to master." I'd take this a step further; I'd say they're the most difficult words for _English_ speakers to master. A couple of examples she lists: Be sure to fill out the form carefully.
Be sure to fill in the form carefully. He wasn't fired.
He didn't get fired. Can _you_ spot the correct usage above? Well, if it gives you pause then Understanding English Grammar may be the book for you. It is a model of grammatical clarity and a wonderful reference book to turn to in times of grammatical doubt:~) Other books I keep close by my writing desk include: "The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms," Richard Lanham's "A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms," and The Holy Bible. If cleanliness is next to Godliness, grammatical perfection is like Zen awareness. You know it's possible to attain, but achieving it is another matter altogether. Kolln's book can help -- with the grammar, that is. Yours,
Stacey
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best I've found!, June 6, 2006
I own the 3rd edition of this book. I don't know if the comments I have will still apply to this edition, but here they are anyway. I looked everywhere for a book that illustrated grammar instruction through diagramming sentences, and this is the only one I've found! If you aren't into that, don't let it discourage you. They are only used as illustrations and to show the similarities and differences between sentence types. This book takes a very logical approach to grammar that I was very thankful for and which was very easy for me to follow, as it added just the right next bit of information as I was ready for it. It was just what I was looking for.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
OK for what it intends to do, July 2, 2011
This is a structural grammar, fairly similar to traditional grammar. Basically, what this book does is set up a classification system for analyzing English sentences. It doesn't discuss how English sentences are generated, doesn't present phrase structure rules, and doesn't include much information on how to actually use the language (the kind of thing that ESL grammar texts include). It does a pretty good, if somewhat superficial and incomplete, job of presenting a classification scheme, which is a bit old fashioned these days. For those who like a traditional approach to grammar, the diagrams will be welcome, though there are some gaps that I would have liked filled (how to diagram a cleft sentence, for instance). There is a wee bit of transformational-influenced grammar, particularly in the discussion of verb phrases, where tree diagrams are used and phrase-structure rules (of a sort) are given: VP = MVP + (COMPLEMENTS); MVP = AUX + MV; AUX = (MODAL) + (HAVE) + (BE); AUX = TENSE + (MODAL) + (HAVE + {-en}) + (BE + {-ing}). But there isn't much of this in the book, which makes it perhaps a bit dated but much more student-friendly than a book that uses more of a transformational-generative approach. I think Klammer et al.'s "Analyzing English Grammar" is similar but more sophisticated (though still not cutting edge), though less student-friendly. The same may be true of Huddleston and Pullum's "A Student's Introduction to English Grammar." (I haven't quite made up my mind about Huddleston and Pullum's text.) One other point about Kolln's book: it isn't constructed very well; the binding is already beginning to crack after just a few months. But the font, the graphics, etc. are just fine.
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