English Grammar: Your Questions Answered

Book excerpt: As featured in 'The Times' (18 Feb 2017). Professor Michael McCarthy, internationally renowned applied linguist, co-author of the 900-page 'Cambridge Grammar of English', author, co-author and editor of more than 50 books and 100 articles on the English language and the teaching of English, winner of an English-Speaking Union prize for one of his dictionaries, answers the awkward questions that regularly bother us all about English grammar. Most of us only vaguely remember what we were taught at school and are put off by long, tedious, dense and pedantic grammar manuals. This book is written in a concise, chatty, humorous and informal style. The A to Z format makes it easy to access and to find what you're looking for. It tells you in simple, plain language the difference between things that look similar (for example, 'alternate' versus 'alternative', 'made of' versus 'made from', 'its' versus 'it's'). It explains how to avoid going wrong with issues such as agreement between subjects and verbs or the choice of pronouns after prepositions. It presents solutions to a host of common, everyday grammatical problems and gives guidance on appropriate usage where more than one way of saying something exists. The entries also include advice on vocabulary, spelling, pronunciation, punctuation and style.Mike McCarthy believes in describing present-day standard English as it really is, not how people think it is or how they think it should be. He has worked for the last 35 years with computerised corpora of everyday written and spoken English texts and is known especially for his work on the differences between the grammar of speaking and the grammar of writing. The example sentences he presents are clear, transparent illustrations of the grammatical conventions, based on his work with corpora and his extensive, detailed field-notes covering decades, gleaned from literature, correspondence, the media and ordinary conversation. He tells you what the traditional rules are as well as what people are writing or saying now, and gives reasons why you might choose one or the other. He is not afraid of change and sees the grammar of English as a living, evolving organism, which he demonstrates with occasional glances at grammars written in the distant and recent past. He loves and respects the many accents, varieties and dialects of English but tells you what the educated standard forms are, so that you can speak and write appropriately in different situations. He shows that speaking is not the same as writing, and that what can often pass unnoticed in speech may stick out like a grammatical sore thumb in formal writing. This book helps you to navigate the maze of grammatical alternatives and to make the right choice for the right occasion. It is a book to browse and enjoy, as well as being a useful reference work to keep on your bookshelf.