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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Written by Patricia T. O'Conner, an editor at the New York Times Book Review, Woe Is I gives lighthearted, witty instruction on the subject most of us dreaded in school--grammar. Discussion is brief and concise, and much more engaging than the grammar books you may remember. With chapter titles such as "Woe is I: Therapy for Pronoun Anxiety," "Your Truly: The Possessive and the Possessed," "Verbal Abuse: Words on the Endangered List," "Comma Sutra; The Joy of Punctuation," and "Death Sentence: Do Cliches Deserve to Die?," O'Conner proves that even grammar can make for entertaining reading.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
The second edition of O'Connor's delightful guide to good English offers a new chapter on e-mail etiquette that ought to make many people-even grammar snobs-feel a tad guilty: "E-mail," she writes, "is no excuse for lousy English." Let your audience determine your attention to tone and mechanics; use salutations and signatures; resist the urge to indiscriminately forward mail; and leave those emoticons and abbreviations at home, she says. Commonsense stuff-but every once in a while, it's nice to be reminded. The rest of the volume is similar to the first: witty, economical and fun to read, it explains the secrets to grammar in refreshingly jargon-free sentences illustrated by numerous examples ("'I assure you,' said the grieving widow, 'I ensured he was insured to the hilt'"). When is "majority" plural, and when singular? How does saying "Trixie loves spaghetti more than I?" mean something completely different than "Trixie loves spaghetti more than me?" While the volume is certainly handy to someone struggling with grammar basics-there are few style guides so breezy-the "Verbal Abuse" section will appeal to language experts and purists, especially those who decry the use of partner as a verb, or grow with a direct object (as in "grow the business"). As for those who like to use dialogue as a verb, "Don't talk to them," O'Connor says.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Inside This Book
(learn more)
First Sentence:
When a tiny word gives you a big headache, it's probably a pronoun. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
stuffed piranha, good lob Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Verbal Abuse, The Raven, New York, American English New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
When a tiny word gives you a big headache, it's probably a pronoun. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
stuffed piranha, good lob Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Verbal Abuse, The Raven, New York, American English New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?
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76% buy the item featured on this page: Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English, Second Edition $10.08 |
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16% buy Woe is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English, 3rd Edition $10.20 |
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3% buy Words Fail Me: What Everyone Who Writes Should Know about Writing $8.64 |
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2% buy Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation $8.64 |
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