The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation

Bryan A. Garner

• Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780226188850
• eBook ISBN: 9780226191294
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Teaching Languages
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

The authoritative guide to using the English language effectively, from "the greatest writer on grammar and usage that this country has ever produced" (David Yerkes, Columbia University). The author of The Chicago Manual of Style 's popular "Grammar and Usage" chapter, Bryan A. Garner is renowned for explaining the vagaries of English with absolute precision and utmost clarity. With The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation, he has written the definitive guide for writers who want their prose to be both memorable and correct. Garner describes standard literary English—the forms that mark writers and speakers as educated users of the language. He also offers historical context for understanding the development of these forms. The section on grammar explains how the canonical parts of speech came to be identified, while the section on syntax covers the nuances of sentence patterns as well as both traditional sentence diagramming and transformational grammar. The usage section provides an unprecedented trove of empirical evidence in the form of Google Ngrams, diagrams that illustrate the changing prevalence of specific terms over decades and even centuries of English literature. Garner also treats punctuation and word formation, and concludes the book with an exhaustive glossary of grammatical terms and a bibliography of suggested further reading and references. The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation is a magisterial work, the culmination of Garner's lifelong study of the English language. The result is a landmark resource that will offer clear guidelines to students, writers, and editors alike. "[A manual] for those of us laboring to produce expository prose: nonfiction books, journalistic articles, memorandums, business letters. The conservatism of his advice pushes you to consider audience and occasion, so that you will understand when to follow convention and when you can safely break it."—John E. McIntyre, Baltimore Sun

General Index

Aarts, Bas, 5n21, 327n5, 497

abbreviation, 61, 62, 218–19, 388–89, 401

ABC’s of Languages and Linguistics, The (Hayes), 18n46

ablaut, 73, 401

About Language (W. Roberts & Turgeon, eds.), 494

Abraham Lincoln, The Prairie Years (Sandburg), 6n24, 6n25

Abrams, M. H., 504

absolute construction, 192, 401

abstract noun, 19, 23, 449

Abstract of the First Principles of English Grammar, An (Hutchins), 16n26

accent, 401

acceptability, 401

accidence, 213, 401

Accidence, The (Devis), 16n21

Accidence Will Happen (Kamm), 42n3

accusative case, 30, 413

accusative function, 30

acronym, 62, 218–19, 388, 401

action verb, 483, 484

active voice, 85, 86, 89, 90–92, 97–98, 145, 184, 210–11, 402

additive coordinating conjunction, 147, 421

address, punctuating, 349

adfix, 214, 402

adjectival, 141, 165, 402

adjective, 58–70

—absolute, 66

—adverb, distinguished from, 65, 128

—agreement with noun, 59, 407

—articles functioning as, 61–63

—appositive, 64, 402

—attribute, 404

—attributive, 58, 64, 402

—be-verb as part of, 112

—central, 402

—common, 66, 402

—comparative, 66–67, 402

—compound, 60, 403

—compound modifier, 62–63, 69, 402, 404

—coordinate, 69, 348, 356, 403

—dangling participle, 65

—date functioning as, 10, 63

—defined, 58, 402

—definitive, 403

—degrees, 66–68

—demonstrative, 59, 403

—descriptive, 31, 58, 63, 403

—dis...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Series Page
• Dedication
• Series List
• Epigraphs
• Contents
• Introduction
• I. The Traditional Parts of Speech
• II. Syntax
• III. Word Formation
• IV. Word Usage
• V. Punctuation
• Select Glossary
• Notes
• Sources for Inset Quotations
• Select Bibliography
• Acknowledgments
• Word Index
• General Index
• Pronunciation Guide