Customer Reviews

Understanding English Grammar (9th Edition)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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

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.

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.

I got this book for a Linguistics class on English Grammar. It is well-organized, accessible, and the examples aren't completely dry. Plus, there are exercises for practice in each chapter with answers to check yourself in the back. My professor is a little disorganized in her lecture style, but this book tells me everything I need to know in a straightforward manner, so I can go to class and just use her lecture as extra clarification. All in all, I recommend this book for anyone who wants to learn how to diagram sentences or any of the numerous other quirks of English grammar.

It turns out that this handbook makes a huge success of introducing the structural work on English syntax. This compendious guide will never prove to be a disppointment to those who see the value of structuralism.

I have been using this as the text in my grammar class at Stephen F. Austin State University and I find it very helpful. It is a wonderful place to start for anyone wanting to be a better writer. If you can find the workbook that goes along with it I suggest using it. My only complaint is the sequence of the chapeters. I would start with the last section and then work my forward.

I have just suffered through this book for a college grammar course and I was left in a muddle by this text. This book made me believe I understood it all, until I realized the authors did not discuss the exceptions such as the parallel uses of words listed under one category that really could be in two or three categories. Sometimes the authors gave such unclear explanations that I was left with many questions as to when the rule would really apply. And the organization of the book seemed backwards. Some of the end chapters needed to be discussed at the beginning. But what really upset me was the dishonesty. Giving us the line that descriptive grammar was so much better than prescriptive grammar (arbitrary rules), they inferred that language is like arithmetic, that there are rules to describe how language works. Unfortunately language is not so precise. Sometimes 2 plus 2 did not equal four, as their rule stated. There were many ways to interpret words and fit them into their forms and functions, yet this ambiguity was not admitted. Some of grammar will always be prescriptive. After believing I understood grammar, this book painted my knowledge of grammar in a confusing shade of gray.

I was very disappointed. I expected a readable, well-organized explanation of the rules of English grammar and punctuation that would also function as a reference. Instead, I found it to be rather poorly explained, hard to follow, and focused on issues I didn't care about. The book is basically descriptive grammar, which tries (as I understand it) to deduce the rules of the language rather than state them. I just want to know what I should or should not do, or when there's disagreement I want that stated. Complicated terminology was used and then later introduced. The sentence diagramming tended to confuse me rather than help.

You're a lot better off with a good style guide. I recommend the New York Public Library Guide to Style and Usage. You can read it from cover to cover if you have the time, and everything is very clearly and systematically explained.

I own the second edition of this book. Simply put, if you are comfortable with the interpolation of linguistic concepts and transformational-generative grammar with traditional English grammar, then this is definitely the book for you. If, however, you either disdain the relegation of traditional grammatical terminology in favor of the transformational type, or simply feel that the two grammars should be kept separate, then I fear that you will find this book confusing, at best, or downright irritating.

How would one know how much english grammar could be learned as an adult. The author makes it easy
to understand the "accepted english standars of grammar" so all can learn.