Rebel with a Clause
eBook - ePub

Rebel with a Clause

Tales and Tips from a Roving Grammarian

  1. 400 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Rebel with a Clause

Tales and Tips from a Roving Grammarian

About this book

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

"A fresh and democratic take on language by a gifted teacher." —Mary Norris

"[Jovin] never hectors, never finger-points; she enlightens and illuminates. This is lovely work." —Benjamin Dreyer

An unconventional guide to the English language drawn from the cross-country adventures of an itinerant grammarian.

When Ellen Jovin first walked outside her Manhattan apartment building and set up a folding table with a GRAMMAR TABLE sign, it took about thirty seconds to get her first visitor. Everyone had a question for her. Grammar Table was such a hit—attracting the attention of the New York Times, NPR, and CBS Evening News—that Jovin soon took it on the road, traveling across the US to answer questions from writers, lawyers, editors, businesspeople, students, bickering couples, and anyone else who uses words in this world.

In Rebel with a Clause, Jovin tackles what is most on people’s minds, grammatically speaking—from the Oxford comma to the places prepositions can go, the likely lifespan of whom, semicolonphobia, and more.

Punctuated with linguistic debates from tiny towns to our largest cities, this grammar romp will delight anyone wishing to polish their prose or revel in our age-old, universal fascination with language.

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Yes, you can access Rebel with a Clause by Ellen Jovin in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Languages & Linguistics & History of Art. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Dedication
  4. Contents
  5. Grammar Table Road Trips
  6. Introduction: A Table Unfolded
  7. 1. A National Obsession: The Oxford Comma
  8. 2. The Joy of Grammar Vocabulary
  9. 3. “Affect” and “Effect” Are Mean Spelling Trolls
  10. 4. Corrections, Humility, and Etiquette
  11. 5. Adverbial Antics
  12. 6. How Are You?
  13. 7. Bookzuberance
  14. 8. Going Farther and Further
  15. 9. Texting Grammar
  16. 10. Sentimental Speller
  17. 11. Please _____ (Lie, Lay) Down and Read This
  18. 12. The Life, Times, and Punctuation of the Appositive
  19. 13. Weird Plurals: Your Data ____ (Is/Are) Giving Me a Headache
  20. 14. Yes, Ma’am!
  21. 15. Accents Keep Things Fresh
  22. 16. The Great American Spacing War
  23. 17. cAPiTaLizAtiON CHAoS
  24. 18. Contract with Confidence!
  25. 19. The Pleasure of Pronunciation
  26. 20. I Saw ___ (a, an) UFO on Main Street
  27. 21. Compound Sentences
  28. 22. Semicolonphobia!
  29. 23. Labyrinthine Lists
  30. 24. Colonoscopy
  31. 25. Comma Volume
  32. 26. You Can Read This Chapter in Five Minutes or Fewer
  33. 27. Possessed by Apostrophes
  34. 28. Plural Possessive Holiday Extravaganza
  35. 29. Peculiar Pasts
  36. 30. Peripatetic Past Participles
  37. 31. What’s Passed Is Past
  38. 32. Gerund v. Present-Participle Smackdown
  39. 33. Horizontal-Line Lessons—Hyphens and Dashes, A–Z
  40. 34. Good Fun with Bad Words
  41. 35. . . .
  42. 36. Where’s That Preposition At?
  43. 37. Faces and Facets of “They”
  44. 38. The Precarious Case of the Pronoun Case
  45. 39. Whom Ya Gonna Call?
  46. 40. Bewitching Whiches
  47. 41. Punctuation Location Contemplation
  48. 42. Subject-Verb Synchronicity
  49. 43. More Than Then
  50. 44. It’s Time for “Its”!
  51. 45. More Homophonous Happenings: “Your” and “Their”
  52. 46. Had Had, That That, Do Do, Do Be Do!
  53. 47. The Art of Writing with Your Actual Hand
  54. 48. School Days
  55. 49. Grammar Boogie
  56. Acknowledgments
  57. Tabletop Bibliography: What’s on the Grammar Table?
  58. Index
  59. About the Author
  60. Copyright
  61. About the Publisher