The Glamour of Grammar a Guide to Magic and Mystery of English by Roy Peter Clark

The Glamour of Grammar a Guide to Magic and Mystery of English by Roy Peter Clark

Roy Peter Clark makes grammar entertaining.  He brings out the glamour (as in magic) of the english language.  He asks you to immerse yourself in thinking about language.

This is not a dry and pedantic book.  It does not follow a prescriptive pattern with exact descriptions of how you should use language.  Instead, the author attempts to show you a variety of ways to use punctuation and grammar for different outcomes.  He even describes how and when to use taboo words and sentence fragments.  This was surprising and enjoyable.

For Roy Peter Clark grammar is a tool for self expression.  There are many different examples of how periods, colons, apostrophes, points and other punctuation is used.  My favorite example of grammar is the use of the punk rock band, "? and The Mysterians."

If you like language and word play: You will like this book.  There is a lot of lighthearted self referential humor in the writing.  I like how he describes Appendix A ( Words I Have Misspelled), and Appendix B (Words I Have Confused.).

This book gives grammar that zing which is missing from most grammar texts.  I enjoyed the book enough to want to read Roy Peter Clark's other book, Writing Tools.

Daily Thoughts 10/5/2010 (The Glamour of Grammar, The Shadow Market, Acquisitions)

Leander Engström Girl with book

Daily Thoughts 10/5/2010

I read some more of The Glamour of Grammar this morning on the train in to work.  There was a nice pun about the difference between lie, lay, and lei.  The book, The Shadow Market How A Group of Wealthy Nations and Powerful Investors Secretly Dominate the World by Eric J. Weiner just came in for me to read this morning.




I checked the displays to see that they were in order, checked on BWI to see how the on order status was going in, and did a little bit of weeding in the oversize 300s.  I like to work steadily and slowly on projects until they are done.




The notification that my class from ALCTS Fundamentals of Acquisitions came in my email today.  I am registered and ready to start the class.  It should be quite interesting to do.  There are four online sessions and five modules.

A book came in for me to read this afternoon, Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson.

I spent the afternoon getting my orders ready for the order meeting.  A book caught my attention which should be very interesting;  Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris.  It is a collection of animal stories for adults.  This is a trailer about the book.



I finished reading The Glamour of Grammar on the way home.  The book is about being immersed in the language.  It makes grammar enjoyable. This is a hard thing to do.  The book was good enough that it made me want to read Roy Peter Clark's other book Writing Tools.

Have started reading The Shadow Market.  I don't buy into the conspiratorial tone in the book.  I think that people simply aren't paying enough attention.  The book describes the rise of private equity and hedge funds.  It also describes how countries are creating their own trading funds to control global currency.  There are descriptions of how China will have a larger economy than the United States by 2030, BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) have formed a trading partnership, and the G7 trading partnership has now become the G20.  The world is changing.  The details are interesting.  I am not sure that the perspective in the book is that accurate though.

Daily Thoughts 10/4/2010 (The Glamour of Grammar)

Victorian Book on Leather Couch, Quin Liam, "Pictures of Old Books," 2003

Daily Thoughts 10/4/2010

Some of the images at the beginnings of my posts are down.  New York Public Library Digital Gallery is working on it.  I also added some more links to my selected links list.  It is a steady process.

On Linked In, I joined the group, The Blog Zone, A Community of Bloggers.

I read some more of The Glamour of Grammar this evening.  I liked the chapter on the question mark.  He writes a bit about the band ? and the Mysterians.  "?" was the name of the lead singer.  He was a precursor to Prince.  I also am rather fond of the semicolon and do not think it should ever go away like some people. Roy Peter Clark makes grammar entertaining which is quite a feat.